Think GREEN

I saw a documentary today on the campaign to persuade more people to eat 'evironmentaly friendly' food. Countries in Europe has been long occupied with living a more evironmentaly responsible life. Everything from saving water and electricity, seperation of garbage and now FOOD.

A university in Belgium has started a study about how food can affect the health of our environment. They have made research and printed datas that were rather shocking. It seems that the whole food business in Germany releases almost the same amount of CO2 as the use of cars. We would think that agriculture is an evironmental safe exercise, but not really. Actually the food industry contributes a large amount to these numbers. Example, the plantation of potatoes is totally evironmental friendly meaning a balanced realease of O2 and CO2. The methods involved in processing the potatoes into products like french fries, mashed potatoes or the very loved hash browns however are not environmental friendly at all since the industry uses high amount of energy and releases a high carbon dioxide in their production. 

Not only CO2 were a concern but also other greenhouse gasses like Methane that are naturally released from cows. One milking cow can release up to 235 liter Methane per day. We know that too much of these gasses will trap heat in the atmosphere and mess up the climate, which are happening slowly and surely now and then. Other than that, there's also the issue of food waste. The more food waste, the more energy we need to discard them. So planning when to cook, how much to cook and so forth is very crucial to prevent food wastage.

I realize that this is a very complex issue. I myself had the problem adjusting to the what I call 'uptight' behaviour of the very environmental friendly germans. To seperate the garbage was easy, but to switch off lights everytime you leave a room, use less water when washing dishes and so forth was rather 'uptight'. After a while you get use to it and begin to do it as your responsibility as a human being, not because you will be fined if you don't do so. Now I understand what the whole concept of being Khalifah Allah is all about.

I gave a lot of thought about us being human and nature being nature. Co-existing isn't really working. The cleverer survives and the weak and the stupid gets eaten. We human are merely parasites aren't we? A german lecturer once said, the nature will survive when there are no humans left, until then its the tug of war (tarik tali). There's around 6,6 Billion humans on earth and the crowd is getting bigger. We'd have to take responsibility.

That university in Belgium has started its first positive step with introducing a 'Vegetarian day' every week to support the eating of vegetables, which is not only good for you, but also environmentaly friendly. Well it is a good idea to involve more vegetables in our diet, since we dont eat enough of it anyway. As I said, a very complex issue. We do what we can do. Most of the time, we do what we want to do, which doesnt really help.

As muslim, there's this term 'wasatiah' which I really love. It means, mediocore. To life with just enough, not too much and not too little. It doesnt matter what. So I guess, I will introduce more veggies in our meals instead of meat. I will not buy excessive processed food but more fresh ones. I will not cook excessively and will not waste food. I use my own shopping bag for 6 years now and I am proud of it. I will try to use less water when washing dishes and turn off the lights when I dont need them. I will not eat excessively and I will always plan my meals ahead to prevent any food waste.

Let's do our best to save the world!

Did my article tickels your Green sense? Leave a comment to let me know what you think.