Eye Opener: CSPI

CSPI
For this eye opener, we had to visit the CSPI website and take a quiz on the weekly amounts of food that we consume. CSPI stands for " Center for Science in the Public Interest." This website is suggesting that everyone has a " greener diet," meaning more fruits and vegetables. They also promote health by reducing sodium in restaurants and putting healthier food into school lunches.

Eating Green Calculator

For this activity: The Eating Green Calculator, you had to put in how many servings of beef, chicken, eggs, milk and cheese that you ate throughout the week. After entering how much I ate each week, it calculates how much effect your diet has on the environment and the animals that you are eating. My results shocked me because I don't even eat that much meat and dairy and just the little amount that I eat per week came up with 4,051 pounds of manure are created by the animals I eat, 0.6 acres of grass are used, 18.7 pounds of fertilizer are used to grow animal feed, and 0.1 pounds of pesticides are used. This is amazing to me because this is just one person and just thinking about all the people in our world that eat. This is an outstanding amount of resources that are used each day! Think about all the restaurants we have around the world that go through so much food products each day. I barely ever eat eggs or pork, so that helps my standings a little bit but I still use up a lot of resources. After taking this calculator, you can then think of how you can replace those animal products with nuts, and fruits or vegetables. I think I could definately eat more fruits and vegetables in my diet. I always thought I was a pretty healthy eater, but I think being more earth friendly about what I eat can really help to improve my diet even more. This second calculator reduced all my scores at least in half. This made me really think about what I can do to improve my diet and be " green" about what I eat.

My Pledge

I took the pledge at the end of the quiz to improve my eating habits. The pledge states: " To protect my health and environment, I will eat a more plant based diet, more fruits, nuts, vegetables, whole grains, beans and fewer fatty meats and dairy products. When I eat animal products, I will empahsize ones that are lower in fat and raised in humane ways that minimize harm to the environment."