At Darya’s Daily, we’ve been learning about ways our diet impacts the earth. The news about dairy wasn’t that great. We’ve learned that meat and dairy provide only 18% of our calories and 37% of our protein, yet use up 83% of our farmland. Since livestock production is the single largest contributor of emissions around the globe (more than planes, trains and cars combined), removing it from our food system could allow the planet to regenerate. We know that a vegan diet can help the earth.
But, we are growing into change. Darya’s challenge to our family has been to find achievable steps that we can make, every day, and to make them! So, today’s eco-challenge is to reduce the carbon footprint of the daily you consume.
First, reduce waste! A lot of milk is packaged in cartons – which are made of paper with a plastic (polyethylene) coating. The ones that are shelf-stable also have a layer of aluminum. We checked one of our favorite sites: earth911 to see if they are recyclable and they are! Still, we challenge you to use milk cartons because glass is super easy to recycle. Let us know in the comments if you think that is better for the earth than cartons!
The medium challenge is to go light on the butter. That’s hard for us because we love butter! But it turns out that butter ranks third on NRDC’s chart of 10 common climate-damaging foods. It takes 21 pounds of milk to make one pound of butter!
Our hard challenge is to buy milk that was produced locally and organically in order to reduce the carbon footprint. It takes a lot of energy to raise a cow, and at least we can do that locally. We consider this challenge hard because organic milk can be double the cost of regular milk, and times are hard right now!
We would love your input on healthy ways to raise kids without dairy. How have you encouraged your family to eat more plants and fewer animal products.
Please let us know below so we can share your ideas with the Darya’s Daily community!
We saved our left over meat and mixed it in with kibble for our dog – bypassing the processing and packaging of canned dog food!
We called our vet today to see if we can get guidance on the exact ingredients that should be in homemade dog food and will post that when we find it. If you know, please add it to the comments!
My name is Darya, I’ll be posting these tasks with my original drawings twice each week! Join our movement by participating, and then tag us in a post or story with @daryasdaily or by using the hashtag #daryasdaily. Together we can make a healthier world!
Here are my suggestions on some achievable ways to save paper and trees!
Set your printer into double print and always make sure write on the back of paper before recycling it.
Cancel your subscriptions to junk mail. That will reduce your headache on sorting it, and also save energy. Websites like Catalog Choice and Opt Out Prescreen are great resources for this!
And finally, plant a tree. This is a very simple action and anyone can do it at any time. This action will have a huge impact in the long run. 10 year after planting the tree, the young tree is most likely to absorb 48 pounds of CO2 in the air we breathe per year. We have approximately 7.7 billions people in the whole world (2019 data). We have 40 billions tons of excess CO2 right now. We need 16 billion extra acres of forest to absorb those CO2. So if we all contribute, we need around 219 or more trees per person to plant until they fully grow in their lifetime. One tree will help. Check on your local community how you can help.
That’s all for now until Wednesday. Good luck and we believe in you!
There is a limited amount of water so we need to conserve it. Only 1 percent of water is fresh water, so we should not waste it!
For example, you can use bath or shower water to water your garden. However make sure it has less soap on it. Water around the base of your plant only.
Saving energy is really important and its something everyone can do – starting with their own home.
Do it for a day and repeat. That way you save energy. It takes a little bit of effort but anyone can do it when committed. Make this a habit.
An energy audit helps you understand how you are spending energy at home. Just knowing can help you reduce your use. That way you know what action to take in reducing your energy bill.
