Seven golden rules for treading lightly with our food choices

Editor’s note: This is the fifth installment in our week-long guest post series. We conclude with one of our favourite bloggers, Amanda Strong of Mindful Table

BIO: Amanda Strong is a freelance writer and the founder of The Mindful Table, a website and blog that explores local and sustainable food in Canada, particularly in the Montreal region. She has been considering the environmental impact of her food choices for over 20 years.

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When it comes to the environment—one of the many pieces in the sustainability puzzle—agriculture and food consumption is one of the worst offenders in terms of overall damage. A recent UN report identified agriculture as the main source of adverse environmental pressure resulting from human economic activities, surpassing even fossil fuels because of the sheer scope of land and water resources it uses. In other words, the potential damage from agricultural activity is far more broad-reaching than that of petroleum. Stunning, isn’t it?

At risk of overwhelming everyone with statistics, here are a few that I find particularly salient from that UN report:

• 42% of freshwater contamination in the US can be linked to food agriculture (another 40% can be linked to cotton agriculture!)
• 50% of non-CO₂ greenhouse gas emissions and 14% of all greenhouse gas emissions come from food production
• 70% of global freshwater consumption is used for agriculture
• 38% of the world’s land area is used for agriculture (2007)
• Over 50% of the worlds crops are used to feed animals for consumption, not people

Some of the problems in agriculture cited are over-use of agrichemicals; excessive energy use in intensive agriculture operations; proliferation of invasive species problems; over-use of land and water resources, especially in the production of animal products (ie, meat); and the production and transportation of non-seasonal fruits and vegetables, particularly when frozen or transported by air.

Because I don’t want to support food consumption practices that are harmful to the environment, I pay attention to where my food comes from and how it is grown or produced. That means that as much as possible I try to make informed choices. The choices aren’t always clear-cut and my budget sometimes means that I can’t act on the choice I’d like, but increasingly the options are there.

Here are seven rules that I try to follow in order to minimise my overall environmental impact when buying food:

• Choose foods that are grown without the use of agrichemicals. This means choosing foods labelled as organic or talking to the farmer or producer of the food about their practices.
• Choose foods from producers who keep the environment in mind. The only way I’ve found to achieve this one is by talking to farmers and producers or by shopping at places that have a buying policy that takes into account the environmental impact of the products on their shelves, like Fait Ici.
• Eat more whole foods. In other words, avoid processed foods. As a general rule, the more processed a food is, the more environmental resources have been used in its production.
• Eat lower on the food chain. In a nutshell, this translates into eat more veggies and less (or no) animal products. Where it gets tricky is when you start to factor in the processing of many popular vegetarian foods.
• Eat locally and in season. This is currently a hot topic with arguments for both sides of the coin depending on how you slice and spin the data. I believe that if you look at the big picture, eating locally and seasonally comes out as the winner. For more on this debate check out a recent article from the New York Times finding fault with ‘eating local’ and these three editorials from Cooking up a Story , Grist and The Atlantic that challenge the original article.
• Choose products with less packaging or environmentally-friendly packaging. Simply being conscious of the packaging is sometimes enough to guide us to alternative buying decisions, or in some cases, different shops!
• Buy fair-trade. While this doesn’t directly impact on environmental issues, I believe choosing fair trade is important when it comes to products with ingredients that we can’t grow locally, such as cocoa, sugar, coffee, etc.

Food is one of the biggest slices of the personal consumption pie. It’s also one where we increasingly have more choices available to us in Canada. By making informed choices and letting others know about our choices, there is potential for change. We already have evidence that consumer demand is changing how modern agriculture is seen by government. Let’s continue to make mindful buying decisions and keep the pressure for change on.

Tagged as: Amanda Strong, biologique, Cooking, Fait ici, food, Food Rules, general store, GMO's, guest posts, LOCAL, locavore, made here, Mindful Table, montreal, organic, Quebec, Small producers