Want to know more about the food industry and its environmental impact, but don’t know where to start? There’s a mind-boggling array of literature out there right now that purports to be giving you the straight story about the stuff in your grocery cart–but that literature isn’t all created equal. From diet books to documentaries, from Instagrammers to independent studies, where’s a food industry newbie to start?
Well, literature about the food industry–and really just about food in general–is my genre of choice. It started my sophomore year of high school, when I picked up a copy of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle to read for a class project. But that book totally hooked me. What I learned about the food industry, and about how far removed I was from the food I ate, from those three hundred-some pages ignited a passion inside of me that I didn’t know existed. I had to know more.… Read More »
Happy Tuesday! Long time, no chat. I had a couple of blog posts planned for last week, but this one had to be postponed to deal with more pressing technical blog issues. My absolute least favorite part of blogging, to be quite honest with you. Thankfully, those are (mostly) resolved and I can get back to posting!… 
What do you think of when someone says the word minimalism? A year ago, I thought that minimalism meant wearing a capsule wardrobe made of clothes that weren’t my style, only owning some arbitrary number of possessions, or living in a tiny house with blank white walls, no furniture and three succulents. If you had asked me if I considered myself a minimalist, I would have answered no.
When I was in elementary and middle school, I was hardly ever sick. As a result, I rarely had to stay home from class. However, my sister was the opposite, and I was jealous (yup, I wanted to stay home so badly that I was willing to be sick for it!). So my mom gave me permission to take one “mental health day” per quarter. She’d call in sick for me, and I’d snuggle up on the couch in front of the TV with some cookies and forget about school for the day.
We all know that plastic is bad for the environment and for us. Different kinds of plastic take anywhere from hundreds to thousands of years to break down. Plastic that makes its way into the ocean kills millions of sea animals every year. It contains dozens of harmful chemicals that leach into the ground and our water supplies. And it’s extremely dirty energy-intensive to produce.