Water For Chocolate

Something else to consider about making ecological choices regarding food consumption: how much water does it take to produce?

Some scientists from the Netherlands wrote a report on the issue that includes this chart:
I know, I know, the print is tiny. I was shocked to discover that the item with by far the highest water footprint is ... chocolate, at 24,000 liters of water per kg.

The comparisons between items might be slightly more meaningful if they were organized by serving size rather than by weight, but still, after chocolate, meats are most of the the biggest consumers of water. In decreasing order:

Beef 15,500 liters/kg
Cheese 5,000 liters/kg
Pork 4,800 liters/kg
Olives 4,400 liters/kg
Chicken 3,900 liters/kg

Coffee, I'm relieved to discover, requires only 140 liters of water per 125 ml cup -- very low in comparison to meat and cheese (but how much per kilo?) but still nearly five times the water footprint of tea, at 30 liters per 125 ml cup.

I feel the need for more information, but I will be considering this information next time I'm contemplating a chocolate bar.

Green Ink

This is Johnny Collado.
Johnny wears his environmental commitments on his sleeve:
... and on the back of his leg:
The tree is an oak, and on his arm he wears bamboo, because of its versatility and environmental sustainability.

Pretty cool, eh?

Russell and the Gigantic Fish

Every once in a while, Whole Foods gets a really big fish.
Russell was also photographing this particular Big Fish. He's here to help with perspective: otherwise, how do you know it's not a really big picture of a little fish?
I guess somebody must buy this stuff. Or do they just put it out, and end up fileting it the next day?

A Moderately Successful Hike

There was rain in the forecast, so we decided to stay low and relatively flat, walking over some old Revolutionary War trails just south of Bear Mountain. We were getting pretty close to Doodletown when The Offspring stepped in a patch of wet leaves hiding a hole between a root and a rock and went down, twisting his foot.

We applied Advil and an ace bandage, Mom shouldered his pack, Dad helped him limp along as we turned around for the walk back out. The trail runs close to the road for a while, so when we reached the point of convergence, Offspring and I cut through the underbrush to the road while The Mate went to get the car and meet us.

The foot is still aching today, but the injury is fairly minor and should heal on its own soon. The Offspring said as soon as it's better, he wants to do the hike again and make it all the way to Doodletown. He discovered some of his own strength in pushing through pain on the way out, and he's learned that an injury doesn't have to ruin an outing.

Other bonuses: Mountain laurel was riotously in bloom in the low-lying areas. I don't recall ever seeing it like that, because by June we're usually up on the ridges, looking for breeze and a view into the distance. It didn't rain, despite the forecast, but because of the forecast, parking was easy and we had the trail to ourselves.

Also: we found, and harvested, some rhubarb growing wild. It turned out to be too tough and bitter* to eat, but the farmers-market rhubarb and strawberries we picked up on the way home made a really tasty pie.

Which, as I was eating it for breakfast this morning, made me think of my grandmother, who was a gentle, loving, kind person, and though not much of a cook made delicious rhubarb pie from a patch of rhubarb growing behind her house in Maine.

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*"Only by the wildest stretch of the imagination can rhubarb be included in this chapter [Fruit]..." -- Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker, Joy of Cooking.

Paint on the Sidewalk

Two Bikes. No, Actually Three

A guy with a Brompton towing a trailer with two kids:While I was living in Cambridge (the English one) a few years ago, I regularly saw people, usually women, with two and sometimes even three kids on a bike, using some combination of front-mounted seats, rear-mounted seats, and trailers pulled along behind.

When I lived in Shanghai, many years ago, it was quite common to see a whole family on the bike at the same time, frequently also with the day's groceries. Dad would be pedaling, Mom sitting on the rear rack carrying a child, and a second child might be sitting on the top tube in front of Dad. Bags of vegetables or or a chicken with its feet tied together would likely be dangling from the handlebars.

The third bike? There I am with my Brompton, reflected in the glass behind that orange cargo bike.

Precycling

The Guardian has an article this week on reducing one's garbage by "precycling" -- making choices about purchases based on the volume of packaging they come with.

Cutting back on packaging, and in particular packaging that can't be recycled -- is partly about different choices at the supermarket -- some manufacturers use more layers than others, and it's usually possible to buy some of the fruits and vegetables without adding any packaging at all. (You don't actually need to put loose apples or oranges into individual plastic bags for the convenience of the check-out clerks, unless maybe you're buying dozens of each at a time.)

But any serious reduction of waste requires lifestyle change: changes in decisions about what to eat and where to shop. Buying ingredients and cooking at home, rather than buying prepared food, limits packaging. It also extends beyond food: purchases of clothing, kitchen gadgets, home decorations and anything else need to be treated as permanent acquisitions.

The reality is that stuff wears out and has to be replaced. But what's needed is a shift from buying with the idea that things will be discarded soon, to buying with the idea that any given item -- a frying pan, a pair of pants, a candle holder -- is likely to last for a long time, and then caring for stuff to maximize its useful life.

Lifestyle change doesn't have to -- and in fact shouldn't -- be sudden and drastic. The only way to make stuff stick? Change one thing at a time, stick with it until it becomes habit, and then move on to another thing.

Me? I'm still working on reducing plastic packaging. Anybody out there know ... can you buy hair conditioner, or dish soap, in bar rather than liquid form?

Update: Some surfing when I should be working led me to a post over at Life Less Plastic about using Dr. Bronner's bar soap to wash dishes, and to the website of Lush, where you can buy bar conditioner. The Offspring's blond locks need conditioner, so we'll be giving that a try soon. And why didn't I think of good old Dr. Bronner? I've used it for everything while backpacking.