Hello, fellow eco-warriors! 🌿It's time for Mid Green Family to spill the beans on what we've learned this year, which habits are sticking, and how we're hustling toward our 2023 goal. 🌟 You might recall we kicked off with a mission to cut our household carbon footprint by a whopping 2.5 tonnes of CO2e. For the nitty-gritty details, you can hop over to our Targets page.
Our ultimate, audacious goal? To hit net-zero by 2030—set long before we had a clue about the roadmap. We also knew we needed to make these changes sustainable for us, meaning we'd keep up the good stuff even when life starts life-ing. We won't be packing up for a farm life anytime soon (though Instagram sometimes makes it look tempting with all those chickens, aprons, and underground fridges).
As a working mum with two school-bound kiddos, we're all about easy-to-adopt habits that won't break the bank or leave me prepping until midnight.
But first, a quick reminder: Adding our voices, our time and our resources to advocate, educate or act for change (collective action👯) can be one of the most immensely impactful ways to fight the climate crisis. There are many ways to do this, and it is better together - whatever your together looks like. For me, it is still a massive AND, in that collective and individual actions still matter. Especially in high-income nations like Australia, where the combined impact of our individual choices are baked into our National climate plans, including the National Waste Policy Action Plan. Our individual actions also help us flex our "trade-off" muscles, where we weigh decisions, actions, and consequences—essential not just at home but in our work and activism too. Every step on this journey counts!
Recap time: Food swaps and composting
"Food production is responsible for up to 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions and 70% of freshwater use. Land conversion for food production is the single most important driver of biodiversity loss." here
With such big impacts on the environment and biodiversity from the full supply chain of food, it's a great change for individuals and families to look at.
This year, our goal was to trim our overall food footprint by 0.5t of CO2e, starting from a baseline of 6t CO2e for the three of us. We had a plan to hit a few key targets:
1. Reduce our red meat intake.
2. Dial down our chocolate consumption and make more snacks from scratch.
3. Shrink our dairy consumption.
4. Wage war on food waste.
But looking at our last three months of food spending (the basis for most carbon calculators), our baseline has crept up, making me think it should have started higher, maybe even at 8t? It also made me realise I need to revisit my coffee habits. My beloved long mac topped up with oat milk costs me a small fortune, around $40-$45 a week! Gah!
Most calculators aren't very reliable in this space as they count the dollars spent, not the actual food consumed. If I splurge on a $10 gourmet sourdough at the local market versus a $4.40 loaf of Wonder White at the supermarket, the calculator thinks my carbon footprint is higher, not lower. Even though the locally baked bread has less impact in terms of additional ingredients (avoiding many of the sugars and preservatives of store-bought bread), transport, and packaging. With rising living costs, these dollars-based calculators aren't super helpful.
To keep it simple, I usually turn to sources that compare the environmental impacts of different types of food. Then I use that info to make better trade-off decisions.
I've previously shared some insights from 'Our World in Data' on carbon footprints, which got me thinking about the amount of red meat, chocolate, and dairy in our diet. (My coffee habit was off-limits, of course!)➡️
Red meat
While the data varies by location, even here in Aus, our beef's carbon footprint is largely upwards of 60kg CO2e per tonne of meat. So, we said goodbye to beef, starting with some swaps to other meats (mainly pork) and adding in more lentils, pumpkin seeds, and leafy greens to keep our iron levels up. We've stuck to it all year, and now it's second nature for me to decline when beef is on offer (which surprisingly happens quite a lot at functions and on menus). I stay disciplined because I know where the "just a little bit" slope leads (check out the chocolate 😳 story below).
The kids have had beef burgers maybe three or four times this year, while I've opted for impossible or beyond beef, or a full vegan alternative. We're also big fans of haloumi burgers, which gives us a tasty vegetarian option. Mr. 9 even requested haloumi burgers with avo and spinach in his lunchbox! Imagine my surprise—a 9-year-old asking for spinach! It goes to show that with patience, consistent role modeling, and exposure, kids can change their diets. We talk a lot about why we've changed our diet, so the kids see it as an informed choice. It's great to see them empowered to read ingredient labels and get involved in cooking.
We also cut out lamb and have had it maybe four or five times this year. I think I miss lamb more than beef—it's such a treat when done well (especially Greek dishes).
The key to keeping up with these new habits (recipes without beef or lamb) is to put them on repeat. I'm sure most of you are the same—once you have a certain "repertoire" of recipes on rotation, you tend to stick to them. You might add a new recipe on the weekends, but weekday meals often follow a familiar routine.
Reducing red meat intake: what works for us:
Swap beef classics for pork mince and lentils (like in spaghetti bolognese) or legumes (for chili con carne).
Make saying 'no' to red meat a habit.
Keep your new recipes on repeat to get familiar with making them (and the household eating them).
Snack foods: reduce chocolate consumption, avoid palm oil, make lunch box snacks from scratch.
Sigh. This is our biggest struggle in terms of changing habits. Over summer, we basked in the glory of healthy habits, with fresh fruits for treats and homemade snacks in the lunchbox. But as the year progressed into winter, good snacking habits took a back seat. I can blame it on our busier winter household (counterintuitive, I know), with both kids in winter sports that take up my Saturday chore time, leaving me standing on the sidelines in the rain instead of meal planning and snack prepping.
But one thing I can't give up? Chocolate. We mainly eat Darrell Lea, which is a better brand, but my pantry is also stocked with oat bars, protein bars, and other lunchbox snacks.
Reducing problematic snacks intake: what works for us:
Avoid chocolate with palm oil.
Be prepared. After meal prep, I often struggle to find time for snack prep, so it's definitely an area for improvement next year.
Dairy intake
I wouldn't dream of putting regular cow's milk in my coffee—oat or black is so much better and feels better on my body too. We haven't really cut out much more dairy from our diet yet, but that's a goal for next year, I think.
Occasionally, we substitute nutritional yeast for parmesan in recipes, which works well, especially for things like salad dressings and surprisingly, risotto. I'm also turning to coconut yogurt more than cow's milk yogurt, but I'm not entirely convinced that coconuts aren't also problematic for the environment. However, a breakfast jar with coconut yogurt, berries, pumpkin seeds, and chia seeds tastes like a dessert and is just plain delicious.
Reducing dairy intake: what works for us:
Oat milk in coffee.
Nutritional yeast in place of parmesan cheese.
Embracing the dessert vibes of coconut yogurt.
Some room for improvement on cheese and butter intake.
Reducing food waste
This habit is still going strong, largely thanks to meal planning. I find this is the absolute key—designing different dinner and lunch combos that use the same hero ingredients. For example, making pumpkin risotto and pumpkin soup in the same week. Making san choy bow, then using the leftover mince, adding noodles and broccoli for a stir-fry, and adding the lettuce to salads for work.
I regularly roast a tin of chickpeas in the oven on a Sunday afternoon with oil and spices, then add them to salads for additional protein.
I'm getting things chopped or prepped and frozen if I think we won't use them up. And the compost is still thriving. I can't imagine not composting now that we've started. Despite ongoing bug battles and the added complexity of caring for my worms, I actually enjoy it more than I thought I would, coming from a non-gardener!
Reducing food waste: what works for us:
Meal planning.
Leveraging the same hero ingredient across multiple meals.
Prepping and freezing things we might not use up.
Composting—we love it!
Working goals list for next year
Keeping up with our current good habits is crucial. Here's what's on our working list of goals and targets for next year:
A greater reduction in dairy intake, and we'll need to look into calcium consumption.
Tackling better (less environmentally impactful) snacking habits again, hopefully with more input from the kids to help with lunchbox prep.
Coffee reduction? Let's not get too hasty, but it's something to think about.
Phew! That's our food goals this year in a nutshell. How's your eco-journey going? Share your stories, tips, and challenges with us! 🌱🌏 #EcoLife #SustainabilityGoals #YearInReview
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