Sustainable Lifestlye?

06/10/18 - Ecological Footprint Re-Calculation

As it is the end of the quarter, I recalculated my Ecological Footprint. It was a pleasant surprise that I decreased my Footprint and went from 1.3 Earths to 1.1 Earths! While my efforts to decrease this, it should be noted that in my last Footprint calculation I didn't input the 40% renewable energy that I apparently have according to that one student at the beginning of the quarter. So this current one is the more accurate one. The following is a side-by-side comparison of my Footprint from the beginning of the quarter to the end of the quarter.

Former Ecological Footprint Results

New Ecological Footprint

If I had to grade my effort on this journey, it would be a B-. While I did my best to stick to the plan, there were times I completely forgot or just didn't have the capacity to follow through. However, I do feel that I made strides in my goals and have changed my habits for the better - at least compared to previous quarters. Out of all the goals I put down for myself, I feel I did well with Meatless Mondays and Decreasing Food Waste. It became more effortless to not eat meat on Mondays as time went by and I did stop producing so much waste. While Meatless Mondays were hard to adjust to, it was doable.

Goals that were attained but not necessarily the best accomplished would be to Shop Locally and Meal Prepping 3/7 days of the week. It was just not easy to get to the Co-op to get local food, all though I tried at other places. However, I know I could've done more and better but it was just a pain to go out of my way to shop for only a few things, especially when my roommate would rather go to Fred Meyers or Winco with friends who are willing to drive.  Meal prepping was an absolute fail, as I only did so a couple of times and it wasn't a conscious thought of mine to do so. Due to my circumstance with my debit card, I still decreased food waste buy simply not buying food at campus which is what I would typically do. So while I did go hungry, it worked in my favor of reducing my Footprint.

I would like to think that I will continue these practices, although I question if I would considering this is not for school anymore. Although, I feel that I am conscious of my actions more which may affect my decisions in the future and as of now I plan to continue my goals.  I also hate blogging. I'm sorry, but this is not my passion and having a blog isn't something I'm comfortable with. With that said, I doubt I am continuing this. If my mind changes though, I will come back and try. Overall, this has been an interesting quarter and I will do my best to continue my efforts post-graduation.

- HP

06/04/18 - Update on Current Goals

Recently I've been doing well on accomplishing my goals. I haven't been eating meat on Mondays, I've bought locally a couple of times, and only buy what I need. My most recent goal to meal prep hasn't been going well because I've been so busy with school, work, club, and my mentorship program that it's been hard to prep food. However, I did accomplish what the goal was meant to do which was not buy food on campus as often to decrease my waste. For the last two weeks I have not bought any food on campus. However, this is partly due to the fact that I can't - I lost my debit card two weeks ago and am sad.

Because of this situation, I couldn't buy any food on campus or bring food so really I'm just getting in a bad habit of not eating until I get back home. While this is not good, I did get a greater understanding of my eating/spending habits and cravings. I never realized that until now that I would be so willing to spend money when I have such easy access. When I look back at it, once I became independent I started to become less frugal about my spending habits. Therefore, I really need to work on budgeting. While my spending habits have changed recently, I still need to work on my desire to keep buying food when I don't really need to. Guess this is good for my future as a responsible adult :)

- HP

05/21/18 - Trip to the Co-op 2.0

I went to the Co-op today and got more food this time. This time I got more staples such as eggs, milk, butter, and more. Not only that I got to explore more amenities such as the hot food section and cafe. While I wanted to do this before, I found that buying these foods are not as easy as I would like it to be. This is because both my roommate and I also share these costs, and while these items are more healthier and sustainable they are not really big portions. My roommate likes to drink milk a lot and so this really sucks if we can't get a lot of food or drinks that we share at one time. I could get more eggs for cheaper at Fred Meyer or Winco, which is a shame since lately I can't really go shopping as often as I could. Not only that, but usually my account is smaller now a days due to the fact that my workstudy award from financial aid is depleting since I've been working off my hours.

Image of the Meatless Chicken Nuggets I Bought

I did buy some snacks though which I tried and thoroughly enjoy. Some of them include crackers, chips, and pretzels. This makes me realize that while it isn't feasible to get staples like I thought I should, I would have to settle for buying snacks and my own personal food at the Co-op. I also eat more vegetables than my roommate does so I could buy my own vegetables there as well. Meat is something we share though, but seeing as I'm decreasing my meat intake it isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I did get more of that meatless chicken again because I liked it and wanted to try the chicken nuggets again (as seen above). I'm excited to go again, but this time with a greater awareness of what food I should get and shouldn't get. I'm not sure when the next time I'll do that is though because both my Mom and my Dad and Stepmom gave me plenty of food to have. So I'll have to see how much food I'll have by the time I get a chance to go shopping again.

-HP

05/08/18 - Re-evaluation

I realize I don't post often, and that is something I need to work on doing more often. However, I have been working on reducing my ecological footprint by following the goals mentioned in my first post (4/9/18). It has been interesting so far to see how my thought process is like with a project like this. Not only that but I've tried new and exciting things which I am proud of. I'm glad that I am able to benefit from a project like this so much.

My most successful goal so far is my commitment to Meatless Mondays and making sure to not eat any red meat product. I had a rough start earlier because I kept forgetting about my goal, but by the 3rd Monday, I realized I was more aware of my meat intake. Whenever I thought about eating a meal, I kept wondering if I was supposed to eat meat and what the day was. It got me into he habit of being realistic about the amount of meat I intake per day and found that when I acknowledged that realization, I don't crave meat as often.  Not only that I've also found some basic or simple vegetarian meals that I can whip up quickly like omelets that I enjoy. I keep using them each week and simply love them, which is probably why it's been so successful. I'm excited to see what else I can make and to see how this progresses. I do admit that I've substituted a small amount of fish in my meals if I was really craving it. I'm glad that I'm at least more conscious about my food and nutrition.

My second most successful goal would be reduction of waste. This is attached to my Meatless Mondays goal as I don't generate as much waste as I did before. Because I am cannot eat meat, but typical choices are not an option because all of them generally had meat. I had to be creative with what I wanted to order. However, I am more prone in breaking this because I typically spend money on campus anyway. Therefore, I still create waste by buying meals and throwing away the wrappers and covers. However, because I am more active in the kitchen on Mondays, I also don't eat on campus everyday like I typically do. I also am more aware in the kitchen with how much food I'm making and that's awesome, especially since I don't wanna order food at home like pizza or take-out which means even less waste. My friends have also been wanting to eat out less so that luckily worked out well for me. So while I still have a ways to go, I think that I progressed at some rate.

My last goal is the one I struggled with the most was visiting the co-op more due to circumstance. When this project began, I already had a food full of fridge from a recent trip so I didn't have a need to go shopping. When the time came for shopping, my roommate bought us more food and her family gave her some home-cooked meals that we shared which was amazing and kept us fed. I finally did go to the Downtown Bellingham Co-Op, as mentioned in my previous post, I only got a few things because I only had time for a short trip and needed only a few things. Then recently, my mom came up to visit and she brought me groceries from home and so I didn't need to go shopping again. The food lasted for a week at a time, and so there hasn't been too many opportunities to go to the Co-op. It doesn't help that I am unmotivated to go there because it is quite far from home. This would require me to take the bus, which I am not prone to do anyways.

While I did well on some goals, I do acknowledge that I could do so much more. It's been difficult and this makes me think that I should perhaps revisit what goals I need to do this quarter. There are probably ways to reduce my footprint more like actually visiting the Co-op more. I am beginning to run out of food so I am looking forward to accomplishing this goal. Something new I can do is to bring food from home more. Meal prep is always something that I aspire to do, however time is not something I have a lot of. But I think it is something that I wanna pursue more. I know I mentioned it earlier my 4/9/18 post, but I haven't yet pursued it. I'm thinking that instead of only eating off campus for Mondays when I make meals at home, I should think about bringing meals to campus to decrease more waste. So to help reduce my waste more, I think I should cook more and meal prep. Therefore I have a new goal: To meal prep breakfast/lunch three out of the seven days in a week (including Monday). Can be any combination of days to accommodate my schedule, but overall I think this would be a good fit to my set of goals.

-HP

4/23/18 - First Trip to the Co-Op

Last Saturday (4/21/18) was the first time I visited the Downtown Bellingham Co-Op to go grocery shopping. While I've been inside the store for other purposes, this was the first time I went in there to actually go grocery shopping. I was hesitant about shopping here before because it seemed to expensive to me. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the produce wasn't as expensive as I thought it was gonna be. I didn't buy much anyway because of my other goal to decrease food/I didn't really need many household staples that I typically would buy (my roommate went shopping recently). So I really went there to prep for my first intentional "Meatless Monday" and other snacks I knew I wanted. The things I got were,

- 2 garlic cloves
- Pack of organic portabella mushrooms
- A block of smoked mozzarella
- Rosemary and thyme crackers
- 2-piece cheesy non - soy/meat chicken cutlets

In total, this was all less than $20 which wasn't bad compared to my normal shopping spree. The Co-Op was also just very clean and their food was very appealing. I'm pretty excited to see what I can get the next time I decide to go. I was in a rush this time so I couldn't peruse the shelves as much as I wanted to. The next time I go though, I want to try getting my typically house staples rather than snacks/extra food such as eggs, milk, and bread to compare prices.

A Scrambled Egg Dish I Made Using Food from the Co-Op

This shopping trip did help me in terms of trying to not eating meat on Mondays. The first couple of times, I completely forgot about "Meatless Mondays" and last Monday I was too sick to eat anything so it doesn't count. Yesterday (4/23/18) was the first time I actually intentionally ate no meat. It started out pretty well, and I used my mushrooms as well as other vegetables to make an omelet and fruit smoothie in the morning and had my vegetarian chicken cutlets along with other vegetables and rice. for dinner The cheesy cutlets were very delicious and I didn't really think that it wasn't meat, although the main flavor I got was cheese. But it was very light, and I don't feel as stuffed and heavy as I typically would However, I am full and interested in preparing actual meals instead of pre-made stuff. So I think that'll be my next step next week. Hopefully it'll be as good as this weeks meal.

-HP


4/9/18 - Ecological Footprint

I took an ecological footprint test today to figure out how many Earth's would be needed to sustain my current lifestyle for my MTKG 384. While this is not my first test, I was still curious as to how my results differed from the previous times I have taken it. The first time I took the test was when I was a freshman at Western Washington University. The second time was as a sophomore. Although it has been some time, I distinctly remember my results being over two Earths as a freshman and 1.5 as a sophomore. I was prepared to have my results be the same or over the previous results but was pleasantly surprised that it was only 1.3 Earth's - lower than my previous results and the average of 1.7!

Results of Ecological Footprint Quiz

Although I wasn't a terrible score, I know that my lifestyle is not sustainable and that there are ways I can still decrease my ecological footprint. After analyzing the breakdown of my results, I can see the what changed from my freshman/sophomore year to the present as a senior. Because I lived in the dorms as a freshman, my consumption and energy use was extremely high. As a sophomore that decreased but because I lived far from campus it required me to bus everyday which isn't good either. My current living arrangement allows me to avoid using transportation at all this time as I walk to school everyday. However, I know my eating habits aren't the best as I eat meat on a daily basis. Not only that, but I tend to waste food by waiting too long and allowing them spoil. With this in mind, I came up with the following plan for the rest of the academic year to help reduce the demand my lifestyle has on the Earth's biocapacity.

Breakdown of Results

Reduction Plan

"Meatless Mondays" - I know one of the reasons the Food Consumption Category is so high is because I tend to eat meat on a daily basis. I grew up doing this and it's difficult for me to not want to add meat to my meals in a society that often encourages it. However, I have always heard about doing "Meatless Mondays", where you eat no meat every Monday, and my friends doing it. Upon some research, I see that encouraging a plant-based diet can help decrease emissions while increasing my health (http://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/plant-rich-diet). While it would be amazing to become vegetarian/vegan, I know that I would be miserable if I did that right away. So I want to start off by decreasing my meat intake by one day in order to accommodate myself to a plant-based diet that can decrease my carbon footprint and cropland use.

Decrease Food Waste - One issue I find is that I sometimes waste the food I buy. When I get busy or socialize, I tend to eat out more and let the food I buy waste away. Not only is this bad for the environment but I also waste a lot of money by doing this. What I plan to do is to decrease the amount of food I buy to prevent waste. I plan to stop buying things in bulk as it is often too much food for my current lifestyle. Not only that, but to only buy what I need that week as opposed to planning for the month as I often do. While I would like to stop eating out as much, I know that this will be difficult but I will at least be cautious about it and try to maybe meal prep for the times that I don't need to eat out.

Buy Food Locally - I often go to Fred Meyer's or Winco's for my food, because I know it tends to be cheaper and most of my friends would carpool there. I know that this is not local but for so long it has been my priority to buy food cheaply rather than sustainable. I want to change this, and perhaps start exploring the more local options such as the Community Co-op Downtown or even Haggens. While I know this may be a little pricey, I hope that the costs I have by decreasing waste and buying less meat will compensate for that. Besides, I hear that the Co-op has great selections and I've never been. So I want to try buying things from there at least once a month instead of my usual shopping routine.

I know most of my focus is on food, but it is where most of my results is attributed to.Shelter is my next highest consumption level, I find it difficult to do something about housing as I live in an apartment that I will be leaving in a few months after graduation. Or anything about mobility since I don't really have anything else I can do. So at the very least, I want to focus on my habits and try to learn new ones so that after this project is over, I can perhaps take them with me after I leave Western. We'll have to see how this journey will go!

- HP