Vegan for Earth Day

I don't proselytize too much, but on this day, Earth Day, it's a good idea to think about how your diet affects our environment. Among environmentalists, some debates can get pretty heated between those who eat meat and consume animal products and those who don't. "You're not a real environmentalist if you're not a vegetarian" is a typical assertion and though I feel that any reduction in meat and animal product consumption is a good step, I do agree with that statement. It would take many years of riding your bike to work to make up for the environmental damage caused by the meat a typical American consumes in just a month. The damage comes from all the water they consume (including the water used to irrigate the crops of the food they eat), energy used to grow their food, emissions and waste from the farms, energy used from transportation and storage...the list is long. And really, it's kind of silly to feed tons (literally) of food to grow less food. The grains fed to farm animals could feed many more people.

So think about cutting back on your consumption of meat and animal products along with using CFLs and re-usable shopping bags. It's really not that hard. I'm not completely vegan myself, but in honor of Earth Day, I am eating vegan all day. Banana for breakfast, almonds for a snack, a salad of baby romaine with roasted walnut oil and fleur de sel for lunch, grapes for an afternoon snack, and Sesame Ginger Tofu Noodle Salad for dinner. With locally-made FarmSoy tofu! Which, I hope will make me feel less guilty about eating fruit from South America and lettuce from California.