It can be hard to live a greener life when it seems like environmentalism has its own special code. As the green movement picks up speed, newer words enter our cultural lexicon, referring to food, fuel, and just about everything else. As soon as we get comfortable using phrases like “organic,” “carbon footprint,” and “global warming,” newer words crop up. What exactly does “post-consumer waste” mean, and how is it different from trash? With all the new green keywords out there, even going to the grocery store can feel like a foreign experience.
Organic doesn’t just mean twice as expensive. “Certified organic” is an actual USDA designation for chemical- and hormone-free food and it’s difficult to attain. Where food produced on massive factory farms has usually been treated with multiple chemicals, organic produce has not been genetically modified or treated with most pesticides. For organic meat, the rules are even stricter—no antibiotics or hormones, the animals must eat an all-natural diet free of animal-byproducts, and must be treated and slaughtered humanely. Before food can be labeled as organic, the producer is rigorously inspected to ensure that it adheres to the USDA’s standards.
All-Natural, on the other hand, is a deceptive phrase without much meaning. It denotes no special USDA designation for how the product is manufactured, nor does it assure anything in the way of nutritional value. In fact, it’s just something that a manufacturer puts on a box to appeal to health-conscious consumers. Would you consider high-fructose corn syrup to be natural? Technically, it does come from corn. MSG occurs naturally, too (in tiny doses). Few people would consider either to be natural or healthy, yet they can both be found in many products labeled “all-natural.” The label has nothing to do with the quality or the provenance of the food, and everything to do with marketing.
Sustainability is a big problem for many of the resources that we consume. Resources are said to be sustainable when we use less than we produce or if they are something we can produce more of. After years of overfishing our oceans, sustainably-farmed seafood is a big concern. When we overfish certain populations, like bluefin tuna or wild salmon, the young fish can’t reproduce fast enough to make up for what we take, and over time, that can lead to scarcity or extinction. Sustainable and renewable are often used interchangeably when it comes to energy. Solar power is a sustainable or renewable power source since we don’t deplete anything by using it; oil is not. Sustainability is sometimes used to describe cities that employ environmentally friendly practices, crops, or livestock that are raised using few or no renewable resources, or lifestyles that try to minimize resource consumption.
Locavores are people who only eat food that’s grown near their home, thereby eliminating the fuel usage and waste associated with transporting foods over long distances. Much of our food’s carbon footprint comes from transportation, and locavores attempt to mitigate those effects by eating closer to home. Locavores are sometimes part of the Slow Food movement, which seeks to protect and promote local and home-grown food as well as regional culinary traditions.
Freegans take sustainability to a completely new level. Because they refuse to participate in consumerism, they therefore only eat vegetarian food products that they reclaim from waste sources. Although they have a reputation as simply dumpster-divers, freegans repurpose fresh food that would otherwise go to waste. The strictest freegans don’t buy anything, choosing instead to just live off of what they can salvage. They even furnish their homes with items they find for free. Freeganism is a way of living off the grid, reducing the demand for consumer products, and eliminating needless waste.
Fair-Trade products come from farms and companies where workers are treated humanely and paid fairly, in an effort to combat exploitative labor practices and promote local artisans and farmers. Fair-trade products are usually exported from developing countries, where they help people to become more self-sustaining by helping them gain access to international trade. Popular certified fair-trade products include coffee, chocolate, flowers, honey, arts and crafts, bananas, and tea.
