Magic or Just Good Science?

Science in Action: Bioinspiration - Hair Mats

My little sister was actually the first person to show me this video. After the oil spill, the school invited someone to come speak to their class about possible environmentally-friendly cleanup options. She then came back home and was excited to show it to everyone.

I had no idea that there was this grassroots movement that had successes with past oil spills and had began working in the Gulf. The idea of human hair may weird people out a little bit, but the innovation is incredible. Other than the transportation costs, the product relies on human hair, recycled hosiery, and bugs; there are no created products and no byproducts in theory. With all the benefits that it provides and its low environmental cost, it seems to have an extra positive impact.

I found this process so special because it completes the sustainability cycle. The decomposition process through compost is so cool. The idea that this is a complete cycle provides the hope that other product cycles can be made sustainable. Taking waste products, using them for good, and then decomposing it so that there is no waste product left seems like a little bit of magic (or just good science).

New York Times: Offshore Wind Power Line Wins Backing

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/science/earth/12wind.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&sq=google%20energy%20east%20coast&st=cse&scp=1

The article highlights how Google and another financial firm have decided to invest in an offshore wind energy network. The plan calls for an underwater cable to stretch from Northern New Jersey to Virginia, in a slight trench, connected to wind turbines about 15-20 miles offshore. The turbines would be barely visible to anyone onshore, and would produce the power of about five large nuclear power plants. Furthermore, because the turbines would stretch across a wide geographic area, the energy supply from them will not be confined to a small area and will thus be more predictable. Some say portions of it can start to be built by 2013. Being that this is an innovative project, it appears that its success will influence other like-minded projects in the future.

omnivore guilt

When I turned 11 years old, my parents told me that I could have any party that I wanted- I chose to have a dinner of 11 of my best friends where we ate only Ribs, pork ribs, from my favorite rib joint in Philadelphia, where I am from. The Rib Crib does spicy, mild, and chicken wings. The saucy has molasses and I am sure plenty of things I never wanted to know in it. The point being, from a young age I have loved meat.

Two summers ago I decided to develop my cooking skills so that I could prepare and cook my own dinners which contained meat. I tried to cook every organism with a thigh bone. I looked for meat that was from the District, Maryland and Virginia area. Local meat has been a part of my mother's mantra since I was a young girl because of the flavor that freshness brings. She wanted flavor, flavor, flavor, butter, salt, fresh, good-looking produce, and somewhere along the line I osmosis-ed the whole lesson. When I started learning about the environmental impact of food in college, and tried to tell her she had been doing the right thing this whole time, my mom laughed me off. She believed it, but hated the hackneyed lesson of climate change as an impetus to alter her eating style.

This was never a problem until this past summer, whereupon I decided to take meat out of my diet entirely. She did not understand, she didn't believe that meat raising was effecting enough environmental damage to stop eating it every night. Well, it was a battle for about 2 months, but not too serious, and eventually I proved her right by shrugging off the challenge. I do still eat some meat some times. I still definitely eat seafood, and relish it. However, the pervasive environmental guilt I feel about eating meat means that I never buy it for myself unless I purchase something without paying attention once in a blue moon. All of a sudden I'll find myself halfway through a turkey sandwich when I babysit a kid who is himself munching on chicken fingers. If the meat is free, then I'll take it. My purchasing power is what matters- I don't want to be involved in the customer demand feedback loop empowering retailers to buy more meat.

I go to the farmer's market once a week, but I also go to Giant. I consider my decision to bike or use public transport to access my food retailers an environmentally charged decision in that it limits my use of fuel to get my food. My mother worries that I am not getting enough iron so she mails me beans; honestly, I love lentils and will eat as many as she sends me, but I wish she could send me some ribs from the Rib Crib on Germantown Ave. instead.

Environmentally Eating

When I think about food, there are four things that come to my mind. Most importantly is if the food looks good. Second, the food needs to be accessible to me. My options are limited to what I can buy at the grocery stores that are close by, what I can travel to buy, or what is available to me on campus. Third, from the options I have, I try to pick well-rounded and organic options. I am lucky because my family has the means to purchase organic food even though it is more expensive. Fourth, the price of food is still small factor. There is the debate if I should use my meal swipes, or go purchase a meal, or just travel home to eat my already-bought food.

I do try to purchase local, organic food whenever possible. That does help to ensure a more environmental practice of agriculture, but that is not originally why I choose that food. I choose organic, local food because I believe it’s a healthier and more natural way to eat. The environmental benefit is honestly not my main motivation but an added bonus. I find it hard to take action against mass farms and global transport of food because it is so engrained into the agricultural market in the United States. If you want meat, there is commonly only meat produced in massive amounts. The same exists for rice, wheat, and corn. There is such a low supply of small farm meat that it can only supply those that are willing to seek it out and pay extra. In terms of fruit from around the world, my opinion is that it’s already made the journey to the store, it’s healthy, and I should buy it. Environmental concerns are not usually in the forefront of my mind when dealing with food.

With some thought, I decided that a chicken breast from TDR was the least environmentally friendly piece of food I ate in the past few days. I believe that the chicken breast took the most energy to reach my plate and then be cleaned. Starting from the beginning, huge chicken farms and slaughtering plants produce methane and use a lot of energy (most likely coal driven) in the process. The farm and slaughtering plant could also be in different places, so a transportation fossil fuel emission would potentially need to be factored in. After transportation to the Bon Appetit—the catering company in charge of TDR—warehouse, it would have to be refrigerated. The chicken would then be transported to TDR and refrigerated again. Ultimately, the chicken would be cooked on the grill and kept warm, constantly using energy until I take it. Then, the cleaning of the plate also uses energy and water. There seemed to me to be a copious amount of burning of fossil fuels and coal-generated energy use.

Nom Nom Nom....Mac and Cheese

The first thing I think about when I am purchasing food is the price. As a college student, I am not earning a lot of money to blow on expensive organic food. But, I am a smart shopper and when at all possible I try to buy cheap and organic (I know it’s an oxymoron). What I’ve found is Trader Joe’s is a great grocery store for a shopper like me. When I am choosing the food I will eat I tend to think in terms of health as well. I will try to get fruits, vegetables, protein, dairy, and carbs. I think I do a very good job of picking out healthy choices for myself. Honestly, it would drive me insane if I thought about all the environmental degradation involved in grocery stores. Yet, I try not to buy food wrapped in many layers of plastic and cardboard.

The interesting part about consumerism is the consumer drives the market. However, in the United States we forget that we have the power to choose what we want to pay for. For instance, we can chose from 50 different types of yogurt. Therefore, there is competition between these companies and these companies try to make a product that satisfies the demand. So, if we were to start buying more organic food and more environmentally friendly food. We have already seem a small change in the market, but for the majority of people buying organically is still too expensive.

I am just making an assumption, but I would guess the Kraft Mac and Cheese I ate would probably have the most impact. It seems like the unhealthiest out of all the food I’ve eaten because it has a processed cheese packet to go along with the macaroni. When making it you have to boil water and therefore I used gas energy to boil this water. The box is recyclable, so in terms of the environment that isn’t too bad. Yet, the cheese packet wrapping…I’m not exactly sure what it is, but I know that it is definitely not recyclable and probably the worst environmental impact out of all of these products. The food itself created an impact on the environment. The macaroni probably doesn’t have a huge effect, but the factory used energy to make it. The cheese probably is the worst out of the two food products. But, it tastes so good. Anyway, there are chemicals put into the cheese to make it into a powder these chemicals probably have by-products that need to be disposed of somehow. The cheese packet has the worst impact on the environment because it is most likely a toxic form of plastic and thus has an extremely long half-life. So, the packet from the mac and cheese I ate yesterday will most likely be in a dump when my great grand children are alive.

Invisible Energies Behind of Food

1. When I decide what kind of food I buy, I prefer to have organic food and local production food becuase I thought it would be healthier and environmentally good. However, when I buy food at the glocery store, I would not afford to buy those food every time, so I often choose cheaper one. Price is always matter for me. If I afford to buy organic one, I would buy it. However, regarding to buying fruits and vegetables, mostly I buy those at the Farmers Market which near by my resident because at there I can buy food directly from farmers, and I believe this would be environmentally much less energy compared to buying food at the store. Thus, I would like to say I have environmental consideration, but this concerns often comes after the price. My another concern is health. Good balance of food leads healther body and results of good health, so I often concern balance of food, if I feel I do not eat enough vegetables, I try to take in vegetables.
2. As I mentioned in the first quesion, I often go to Farmers Market to buy food, then I usually cook food for my self with fresh food, so I could control and exactly know what I take in to my body. Also, I try to have food with less energy. Yesterday, I ate spinachi & bean salada and apple cider at cafe, I often think that the process of my order needs much cost and energy because it has more process to come to me. This is the way how people gain money, but I feel inefficiency of this system. This week's reading "Something Under the Sun", the author says the lack of human ingenuity is the part of the answer regarding to environmental change. It is important to concern development and technology to better off our life, but utilizing our positive human ingenuity, people might need to concern more about fundamental things such as people's health and food.

Thoughts on Meatballs

When making my food choices at the grocery store, I take into account a number of factors, although I must admit the issue of environmentalism does not at all come across my mind. First and foremost, I chose food depending on what I prefer. To eat something, I have to like it. Usually, the other most critical factors are health and price. I am not overly concerned with health, but I make sure I get food items from some different food groups. The sodium content, cholesterol, and fat content are things that I scan for quickly in the nutritional facts. With respect to price, I try to find the item that goes along best with my taste and health preferences, but one that is the cheapest. As a college student, I really must focus on stretching every dollar, so if I spot a deal with something I wish to purchase, I will go for it.

Of the food I have recently eaten, I would probably say that my meatballs have had the greatest environmental impact. The meat mixture I use is comprised of three different meats, a portion of which comes from Canada, and the other portion, the United States. This means that there were high transportation costs, aside from all the other costs of raising the meat (pork, veal, beef)which one of the readings noted uses more energy than those products distribute. Aside from the meat itself, the meatball also has cheese, seasoning, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, eggs, oil, and some milk. To get all of these products to one place definitely contributed some type of environmental damage through transportation. All these different ingredients require an expenditure of energy to create, especially the animal-related products, and the fact that they are all concentrated into a ball that fits into the palm of my hand shows how one small piece of food can require a great deal of energy, which in turn can harm the environment. Furthermore, I cooked the meatballs using a gas stove, which is not the most friendly fuel for the environment. All the oil that is left over from cooking is simply disposed of, which also raises the environmental cost because energy was used to create it, and it was not used to its fullest extent.