Posted on 01/13/2009 5:08:25 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
(Eating plant-based meals conserves natural resources and slows global warming)
Looking for small ways to make a big difference for the environment? Why not start by making yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?
As members of the PB&J Campaign1 (no, I’m not kidding) like to say, “You don’t have to change your whole diet to change the world. Just start with lunch.”
Eating a plant-based lunch (such as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a bean burrito, vegetarian chili, or a hearty salad) instead of an animal-based lunch (such as a hamburger, a tuna or grilled cheese sandwich, fish and chips, or chicken nuggets) will save water, preserve land and slow global warming2.
How Eating a PB&J Sandwich Slows Global Warming
Every time you eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or other plant-based meal instead of one that features red meat, such as a hamburger, you save the equivalent of almost 3.5 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions3. Eating a strictly plant-based meal compared to the average American lunch still saves 2.5 pounds of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. That’s about 40 percent of the carbon you would save by driving a hybrid vehicle4 for the day instead of a standard sedan.
How Eating a PB&J Sandwich Saves Water
Growing plants for food takes a lot less water than raising animals. As a result, every time you substitute a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or some other plant-based meal for an animal-based meal such as a hamburger, you save about 280 gallons of water. Eat three PB&J sandwiches a month instead of animal-based meals and you can save as much water as you would by switching to a low-flow showerhead.
How Eating a PB&J Sandwich Saves Land
Raising animals for food takes a lot of space. For example, animal products require 6 to 17 times as much land as soy to produce the same amount of protein. Eating a plant-based lunch like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich instead of a hamburger, ham sandwich, or another animal-based meal saves anywhere from 12 to 50 square feet of land from deforestation5, overgrazing, and pesticide and fertilizer pollution.
How Eating One PB&J Sandwich Helps the Environment
By eating lower on the food chain—plants instead of animals—you also consume fewer resources. Why? Because, basically, everything you eat comes from plants. You either eat plants directly—in the form of fruits, vegetables and plant products such as peanut butter—or indirectly after animals have converted plants into meat, milk, eggs, butter and cheese.
The problem is that animals are not very efficient as living food factories that convert plants into food for humans. Animals use most of the plants they eat to produce the energy they need to walk around and keep breathing. To stay alive long enough to become part of your lunch or dinner menu, every cow, pig and chicken has to eat much more protein, carbohydrates and other nutrients than it will yield once the ax finally falls. As a result, it takes several pounds of plants to produce one pound of beef, pork, chicken, eggs or milk.
Inevitably, that means it also takes a lot more land, water and fuel to produce one pound of meat, milk or eggs than it does to produce one pound of edible plants. Not only do the animals need food, water and room to roam, but growing the plants to feed the animals that will, in turn, become food for you requires even more land and water as well as fuel for farm machinery and irrigation pumps.
To help provide some context, the PB&J Campaign says the water required to produce the beef in one hamburger could grow enough peanuts for 17 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And the land required to put that same beef patty on your bun could produce enough peanuts for 19 PB&J lunches.
How You and Your Diet Can Make a Difference
Basically, this all comes down to your power as a consumer. Every time you choose a hamburger, omelet or grilled cheese sandwich over a plant-based meal, you’re telling your local restaurants and supermarkets to buy more meat, eggs and dairy products. By choosing more plant-based meals, you’re asking for less meat and a more efficient use of resources. Either way, your unspoken but unmistakable messages are received by your local merchants and conveyed to wholesalers and farmers.
Want to do more? Share this information with your friends, coworkers and family members and urge them to take action. Encourage your school or office cafeteria, and the local restaurants you frequent, to offer more plant-based dishes. Organize a weekly PB&J lunch (or other plant-based meals) at work, home or school and calculate the positive environmental contribution you’ve made.
Blah. Blah. Blah. (Resources at link.)
Who knew that the lowest man on the economic scale was doing the MOST to save the planet?
All of us have had times when we were broke; going to college, first married, newly divorced, the time we lived in a cardboard box under the overpass downtown. *SMIRK*
PB&J Rocks! Another thing co-opted by the Global Warming lunatics. *Rolleyes*
Geez Greenies, with the air temp in Chicago below zero and everyone freezin in the North east, giving out this information on what is drivin Global warming may be “Embraced” by frozen Northerners and used in the Opposite way to try and create Global warmth. . .don’t give this info to people in the middle of Winter ya dummies. Geez, Dumb and dumber these GW Idiots.
Foodie & Mom Ping.
Idiots.
I like:
That better not affect global warming. Nothing stands between a lady and her chocolate! Nothing! Take that, controllers! Huh!
DIANA, DIANA! IMPORTANT NEWS FLASH!
CHOCOLATE CAN SAVE THE PLANET!
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16354380
WHEW!
but what about this:
Peanut Butter Causes Cancer?
November 4th, 2007 by Paul Johnson
Bodybuilders are suggested to eat a high amount of good fats in their diet for hormonal and joint health, and for a good source of calories. Peanut butter is a very common source of fat for most bodybuilders in their diet. Most eat natural peanut butter because it doesn’t contain hydrogenated fats. Peanut butter is considered a good source of fat because it is low in saturated fat and high in monosaturated. The truth is, peanut butter is really not that healthy long term.
Why peanut butter can cause cancer:
Unfortunately a mold commonly winds up growing on peanut butter. This fungus Aspergillus flavus releases a cancer causing metabolic product (mycotoxin) called aflatoxin B1, which is a officially recognized carcinogen (cancer causing compound). Workers around peanuts even have to wear protection because of the health hazard. It is common knowledge that farmers and animals around peanuts have increased liver cancer.
How much of this fungus and to what degree it converts to the mcycotoxin aflatoxin seems to depend on where the peanuts are grown and how they are stored and for how long. Peanuts have less of this problem if they are farmed in dry climates, as the fungus seems to thrive in humidity. Other foods have this fungus growing on it such as walnuts and grains, but peanut butter and corn seem to be the worst afflicted foods. The risk of peanut butter giving liver cancer is a bit exaggerated by some. But most bodybuilders consume it everday, often in high amounts, which could be a problem.
“Eating plant-based meals conserves natural resources and slows global warming”
But eating plant-based meals invariably puts more methane in the air... causing more global warming.
Good to know, LOL!
Let’s see...right now on my desk I have a piece of ‘Mint Crispy’ from See’s and two (mini) ‘Hershey’s Special Dark.’
Don’t mess with my chocolate, Hippies! :)
Diana, now I’m mad. They want to take away my candles. I told you this was coming, and you all thought that I was nuts! Huh!
“This means that burning just 5 cm of a typical 2 cm diameter candle will produce more CO2 than running the 100 watt light bulb for an hour. If the light that was turned off is fluorescent, then even less candle can be burned if there’s to be a net reduction in CO2.”
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001987.html
I blame President Carter for most of the ills we’re reaping today.
D@mn Peanut Farmer. *SPIT* ;)
Oh, yummy! We need a breath of Spring up here these days. -20 below come Thursday. Brrrr!
LOL. Yeah, and the “Billy Beer,” too!
Is that still around? And is Billy?
See, Diana. It says on the label, “pure and natural.”
So how can that be harmful to the environment?
I use it in my ‘diet cookies’:
One Minute Oats, some all purpose flour Five to one oatmeal over flour), Huge helping of smooth or crunchy peanut butter for the ‘wet ingredient (one tablespoon per cup of dry ingredients), lots of raisins, dash of salt, and either dark brown sugar or Honey, make a really thick dough and spoon out and mash down and bake like making regular oatmeal raisin cookies. Oven should be 350 for longer than classic oatmeal raisins since the fat in the peanut butter must be ‘dehydrated’ for a crisp cookie. If you wanna make them soft (soft batch), mix up a fourth of the oatmeal with raisins and water, and microwave for two minutes, then use to mix batter and drop on cookie sheets and mash down. Reduce peanut butter by half.
Necessary knowledge for the.....
.....PETA version of Trivial Pursuit!
A popular game at Commie Coed College Parties.
Desire and intelligence not expected in an ex-racing Greyhound. But to open a door and a jar? They said she deserved what she ate.
My son has a cat who loves peanut butter.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.