Here we are, where are we?

I originally started my consumption journey without any real direction and was fairly open to whatever the natural path would be. It seemed easy to focus on food as it is the most constant single consumable item that we use each day.

Food miles was part of my concern initially as I thought it would be a fairly large contributor to the carbon footprint of food/food products. I'm not sure why I felt that way, it most likely had to do with all of the advertising we see, read, and listen to about shopping local. Once I learned that food miles only makes up 11% of the carbon footprint I was rather disappointed. I thought that buying local and limiting food miles would not only be an easy way to reduce my carbon footprint but a substantial one. Sadly, the reality is that most of the carbon footprint is the result of processing.

The good news for us as a family, is that I have some dietary issues that keep us eating pretty clean and basic. This means that our kitchen doesn't have many processed items and we prepare the large majority of our meals from raw unprocessed ingredients. Do the kids still get chicken fingers sometimes? Yes they do, but we make them at home fresh, they do not come from a box.

Most of what we purchase has been through limited processing and is generally local to Manitoba or at least Canada. We consume a lot of fruits and vegetables, regularly have local chicken and eggs, and rarely have red meat. Of course there are areas to improve on, almond milk, agave syrup, chia seeds, etc. but this is not going to be a major change for us. We will now research and source out more carbon friendly options, plan our purchases better, and put more effort into our gardens.

Ultimately I learned that I knew nothing about food, other than you eat it. I have never been asked to critically think about where it comes from or what the cost truly is to the environment. This will be an ongoing process and will only become more complicated as our children get older and start experiencing birthday parties with all the good greasy processed options that lie outside our four walls.

If you are looking for more information on minimizing your carbon footprint, I have found this to be a useful site.