Personal Project Progress #2

Tonight I would like to talk about orange juice.

First off, I want it made clear that I don't drink coffee. Ever. Well, almost never; this summer, while I was in England, I had maybe half a dozen cups in the span of six weeks or so, which was unfathomable before I got there. But I haven't had a single cup since. Gone cold turkey. No side effects.

No, instead of coffee, I drink OJ every morning. My coffee mugs don't hold coffee; they hold orange juice. So perhaps it's no surprise that one of the things I've done for my personal project about food is to start buying organic OJ. Why organic juice? The absence of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, basically. I don't think we've talked much about farming and land use in V515, but in V643 (Natural Resource Management), we've been reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which is all about how the pesticides we used in the 1950s wreaked such ecological havoc throughout the country. That's bad, so I figure anything that can be done to reduce their use would probably be helpful.

I don't know exactly what I was expecting when I started buying organic OJ. But one thing I've found: it actually tastes better than the stuff I used to buy at Kroger. It's thicker and richer, more of a full taste. I'll bet that if I go back to supermarket juice now, I'd probably find it a bit watered down. So far, so good on this front.

Other things I've done:
--Buying mostly local and/or organic produce. I would say almost all of the produce I've bought in the last few weeks has been either organic and/or purchased at either the farmer's market or Bloomingfoods. Not that I haven't purchased anything from the grocery store, but it's definitely been less than I had been before. In this way, I'm hoping that I'm eating more environmentally-friendly produce and supporting local businesses at the same time.
--Green beans for lunch: In my effort to break my addiction to deli lunch meat, a few days ago, I made some green beans (purchased at the farmer's market) for lunch, accompanied by a cup of organic yogurt. This seemed like a good way to break the monotony of lunch sandwiches. It went okay, I guess.
--Eating less red meat: I can on one hand the number of times I've had ground beef this semester. The one meal I've made with ground beef has been a big pot of chili I made several weeks ago. However, even that meat was locally, grass-fed beef. Not only was it healthier (as advertised), but it also was cheaper than the lean meat at Kroger. Didn't notice much difference in taste. That's not to say that I haven't eaten other meat; I have a couple of recipes that call for kielbasa, and my "I'm way too tired to cook tonight" meal is generally still grilling up a bratwurst and slapping some mustard on it. So I guess I still have some changes to make.

Future steps include:
--More research: Honestly, this is the part I'm falling way behind on. I need to delve into the details on why local and/or organic produce can be better for your health and the environment than mass-produced food. This includes digging into some journal articles and other studies that document the advantages (and disadvantages) to changing what I eat. Unfortunately, what I've read so far is not all pretty. Take this, for instance: a short blog post from the Nature Conservancy about the environmental impacts of organic food. One of the things it states is that organic produce may require more land to grow on a large scale, which, since I'm interested in land use issues, may not necessarily be the best thing. I'm also interested in looking at some of the climate change effects of local produce; some of the things I've seen thus far seem to hint that there's actually more greenhouse gas emissions involved in local food than non-local food due to the efficiency of the delivery methods. But I need to study that more. I also obtained a copy of the book Food, Inc. from the library and need to go through some of that in the next few weeks.
--Discussions with local enthusiasts: I have some plans to talk to local farmers and business owners (such as the chef at Farm) to talk about the costs and benefits of both local and organic food.
--Food experimentation: One of the things I'd like to do is make some more of my own food instead of buying packaged stuff. To that end, I'm thinking about trying my hand at homemade pizza dough and sauce, spaghetti sauce (because I eat a lot of pasta), and possibly salad dressing.
--Beer & soda: I'm thinking of looking more into locally-brewed beer and organic soda. This latter might be most important because, while I hate coffee, I am a bit of a Dr. Pepper addict. I'm wondering if organic colas might be better for me.

That is all.