What to eat for the environment

Most of the discussion on this site deals with the subject of what not to eat or drink, rather than what we should be eating. I’ve written it in this way for many reasons. Firstly, because the mainstream American diet has become so destructive that if we all cut back just 25% on our consumption of meat, dairy, corn syrup, and bottled beverages we would probably go from being the nation that causes the most eco-damage to the leader in solving the problem.

Secondly, I did not want to delve too deeply into food comparisons as this invariably brings up the contentious subject of personal nutrition which is beyond the scope of this book. And lastly, I’ve found that as most people begin to make food choices from a more educated and conscious starting point they naturally replace the relinquished foods with alternatives that are healthier for themselves and the planet. Having said that, I understand that making the jump to a true environmentalist’s diet may be easier if some alternatives are introduced. The foods I mention here are the ones that will have both an immediate positive impact on the planet and your health.

Eat real food

It may sound odd, but by simply eating more real food – meaning edibles that take their nutrition directly from the soil and the sun – we are already helping to heal the planet. For simplification purposes, real food may be defined as all fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. Sadly, real food has become quite alien within the Standard American Diet. It has become such a problem that many people who are raised on fast food actually experience withdrawal symptoms such as headaches, shakes, and fevers when they replace real food for the artificial products they are used to. Refined packaged products, that often include man-made supplements and preservatives, are a drain on our natural resources and on our health care system, while real food actually works to counter the effects of chronic disease as well as carbon emissions.

According to the USDA: “Farm and grazing land soils are currently storing: 20 million metric tons of carbon a year…With improved management, farms and rangelands have the potential to store an additional 180 million metric tons annually, for a total of 200 million metric tons a year. This would be 12 to 14 percent of total U.S. emissions of carbon”. This is asking a lot of certain farmers who are struggling just to keep their business operational, but the more that the public demands fresh, wholesome food, grown without the use of synthetic fertilizers or pesticides (aka real food), the easier it will be for all farms to improve their growing methods and crop management.

We all know that trees will absorb carbon from the air, which is why many companies try to offset their carbon footprint by planting more trees in the right places, but the beneficial effects of agricultural crops is not as widely understood. This is why organic fruit is a particularly important crop. Once established, most fruit trees continue to bear fruit year after year, not only feeding us nourishing, hydrating food but continually taking in carbon and releasing oxygen. The longing for the fructose in fruit is written into our genetic code and has been the sugar of choice since humans first walked the earth.

When scientists manufacture sweet treats in a lab they are basically taking our innate craving for sweet fruits and amplifying it by using the flavors that we love but adding more sugar or corn syrup to appeal to our modern palettes. Unfortunately, children who are raised on processed sweets become so accustomed to this heightened sugary taste that fundamental fruits such as apples, pears, and bananas begin to taste bland to them.

Additionally, in many ways real food takes up much less space on already overcrowded planet. It generally takes less space to grow, less space to store, and less space once we are finished with it. For example, consider the difference between eating peaches that may be stored for years in an aluminum can versus peaches that are in their whole state. The canned peaches will not only be lacking in nutrition compared to their freshly picked counterpart, but the can itself (which took energy to create) will either wind up in a landfill or in a recycling center, adding once again to the useless stream of garbage, carbon, and methane that we generate. The bottom line is that by simply making real food the largest percentage of your diet you are doing more for the planet than almost any other lifestyle change.


Hemp – America’s crop of the future


"Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere."
--President George Washington, 1794

"Hemp and tobacco were staple crops for our founding fathers when our country was new. It is baffling to see how far removed from real freedom this country has become since then. Hemp, even for industrial uses, of which there are many, is illegal to grow at all." – Republican Congressman Ron Paul


As I write this a quiet battle is being waged between the allies of industrial hemp, which includes many U.S. farmers, politicians and forward thinking companies, and the retractors of hemp products, which includes the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEAD), politicians, and companies that want to keep hemp off the market for fear of competition. At this point, sixteen states have passed pro-hemp legislation and eight states (Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia) have removed barriers to its production or research. But even with the barriers removed farmers still need a permit from the DEA to grow hemp legally but this permit has not been forthcoming. The DEA has used and abused its power to inhibit farmers from growing hemp in their home states based on an archaic and asinine law that equates industrial hemp with marijuana.

Industrial hemp is the non-psychoactive, low-THC, oilseed and fiber varieties of the Cannabis sativa plant. Due to its negligible amount of THC hemp cannot be used as an hallucinogenic drug. In fact, many claim that since hemp is high in CBD (cannabidiol, a cannabinoid in hemp) it actually suppresses any effects of THC on our brain centers. Presently in the U.S. industrial hemp (which may be thought of as the roots, stalk, and stems of the cannabis plant) is legal to possess, but marijuana (being the flowers, buds, or leaves of the plant) is illegal. And although Americans purchase more industrial hemp products than any other nation in the world it is still against the law for farmers to grow it on American soil. This is at the core of the controversy over hemp, but for anyone who has fully investigated this issue it is really a no-brainer.

Not only is hemp native to our land, it was grown by some of the founding fathers of America, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (who drafted both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution on hemp paper). In the early days of Virginia there were times when it was actually illegal not to grow hemp as it was recognized as such an important community crop during difficult times. By 1850 there were well over 8,000 hemp "plantations" in the U.S. that grew industrial hemp for cloth, canvass and rope. In the 1920’s Henry Ford, father of the automobile who considered agricultural materials to be the fuel of the future, even designed a car that ran on ethanol made from hemp.

The reason that the so many innovative Americans encouraged the cultivation of hemp is due to its versatility and sustainability. It can be easily grown with no pesticides, very little energy output, and small amounts of water. Additionally, it’s no secret that industrial hemp can be utilized for more purposes than almost any other plant. Some of the most common uses for hemp include: food (breads, protein powders, nuts, and cereals), edible oil (one of the most nutritious sources of healthy Omega rich fatty acids), biofuel, clothing, bags, socks & shoes, ropes & netting, paper (cardboard & packaging), bedding, and body care products (shampoo, soaps, and cosmetics).
Considering the versatility of industrial hemp it should come as no surprise that there are many powerful special interest groups that do not want to see it grown and propagated here in the U.S.. Once educated, the American consumer would benefit greatly from affordable, local access to hemp products and the American farmer would be thrilled to add a new trouble-free crop to their collection that is already in high demand.

So if hemp is truly a win-win crop for the grower, the buyer, and the earth why aren’t we taking advantage of this opportunity? Moreover, why is every other industrialized nation allowing their farmers to grow hemp while the U.S., which prides itself on fairness and free market competition, has made it illegal. There are many possible answers to these questions, but if you look deep enough you will find that it all comes down to one word: fear.

From clothing to paper to fuel, the companies that have locked in their customer base are fearful that if hemp were produced right here in the U.S. it would lead to declining interest in their products. The cotton industry, for example, feels that their profits will be directly impacted by more hemp on the market. Not only does cotton require at least double the amount of land in order to grow the same amount of fiber as hemp, but growing conventional cotton requires massive amounts of pesticides. In fact, an unbelievable 50% of the world’s pesticides / herbicides are used for cotton production. Hemp, on the other hand requires little or no pesticides and only moderate amounts of water. The timber industry also fears the legalization of industrial hemp because they realize that hemp can be used as both a building material and a reliable paper source. Back in 1916, the USDA calculated that by the 1940’s all paper would come from hemp so there would be no need to clear cut land just for paper products. Their report noted that hemp produces a new crop every season, while trees took decades to be ready for cutting, and hemp yielded more than four times as much pulp per acre as timber, making it a cheaper and more sustainable source for all grades of paper (see: http://www.hempmuseum.org)

Unfortunately, fear is also present in the minds of the American citizen, who for far too long has been spoon fed horror stories about marijuana and its link to hemp. We have been told that if many acres of American soil were filled with legalized hemp then there would be no way to distinguish it from it’s hallucinogenic sister plant, thereby adding to more drug trafficking and violence right here within our borders. As so often happens, fear is being used to override fact. Industrial hemp plants grow very tall and very close together while marijuana needs space to thrive, so hemp would quickly overtake most of the marijuana in the fields. More importantly, hemp has such miniscule THC levels that if the two were grown side by side the cross pollination would ruin the marijuana’s female bud production, rendering it practically useless.

On April 2nd 2009 the federal bill HR 1866 - The Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009 - was introduced by Representatives Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ron Paul (R-TX). If passed into law this bill would remove restrictions on the cultivation of non-psychoactive industrial hemp. Due to industry pressure and mainstream misunderstanding, it seems unlikely that this bill will pass on its first attempt, but with the attention that it has gathered more Americans now appreciate the magnitude of this issue. There is finally a consensus among all type of Americans who now realize that hemp is not just another crop that we can idly overlook.

By way of the media and internet there is a growing grass roots movement working towards the legalization of industrial hemp. I’m confident that this bill will come up in again Congress, and when it does it’s imperative that we make our voices heard so that our representatives cannot pretend to misunderstand how important this measure is to our economy and our environment. Once hemp is growing legally, as it should have been for the past century, we will then utilize it in more ways than we ever dreamed possible. Meanwhile, it is equally important that we all cast a vote right now by including more hemp food, cosmetics, and clothing in our everyday life. By supporting the purveyors of hemp products we are demonstrating that America is already educated, willing, and eager for this crop of our past to become the crop of our future.