Friday, April 12, 2013

TRASHED: Our planet and our bodies



Last night my wonderful boyfriend took me to see the premier of the new documentary TRASHED. As you can guess, the film is about the devastating effects that our daunting production of trash have on the health of the planet, including human health of course.

The film was not fantastic, still, it had a lot of helpful information and important points. To me, environmental films like these are always worth watching, because every time I do, I become more committed to reducing my footprint on this planet.  My boyfriend and I both walked away from the film wanting to make strides in living plastic free. We loved the woman whose family of three only had one bag of rubbish to throw out for a whole year! Yay for (almost) zero waste!

Speaking of zero waste, San Francisco is featured as the reigning hero in this film. The last 20 minutes or so are about SF's leading actions towards its Zero Waste 2020 goal. All the plastic from our trash is going into the environment and leaching into the water or being burned into the air as toxins that are storing up in our bodies and being passed onto our babies.

As for my own journey towards zero waste, I've already made some progress. One thing that I have appreciated about the GAPS diet, is that since I am mostly eating meats and veggies, and not processed foods, my consumption of trash has also decreased. Think of all that packaged food in the grocery stores!!! I am now buying less plastic wrap. I don't even feel good about buying food in "recyclable" containers, since so much of our recycling doesn't actually get recycled. Re-use is definitely better than re-cycle.


My current food garbage:
plastic wrapping of meat
Brita packaging
Coconut flour plastic bag (I could buy bulk but it could have gluten contamination)
ties or rubber bands around veggies (I try to save and reuse)
Plastic from my non-dairy culture starter
Tea bag (need to use loose leaf and buy in bulk)
Coconut/Almond milk containers (need to learn to make homemade nut milks!)

Any ideas on how to minimize those?!!!??! Please comment. 



2 comments:

  1. hey! just found this page. wanted to say, almond milk is super easy to make, and i think it tastes way better than most of what's available at the store and without all the extra preservatives. the recipe i use is basically this one: http://www.rawbayarea.com/raw-resources/recipes/#almondmilk
    take care, kyla

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  2. Thanks Kyla! Did you ever try it without the dates? I'd like to avoid sweetening my food. I'm sure it's the same process, just without the dates/vanilla.

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