Eye Opener: CSPI

After visiting the Eating Green Calculator I have calculated what my environmental burden is, based on the amount of animal products I eat in one year. According to the calculator, I am currently using 0.8 acres of grain and grass needed for animal feed, 44.9 pounds of fertilizer used to grow animal feed, 0.4 pounds of pesticides used to grow animal feed, and there is 5,692 pounds of manure created by the animals I eat. After recalculating my "Eating Green Calculator" I cut the amount of yogurt, cheese, and eggs that I eat a week in half, this lowered my impact to 0.6 acres of grain and grass needed for animal feed, 37.7 pounds of fertilizer used to grow animal feed, 0.3 pounds of pesticides used to grow animal feed, and there was 4,864 pounds of manure created by the animals I eat. This is pretty hard for me to put into perspective how bad this really is, and if changing my diet would really make that much of a difference.

I will not be taking the pledge provided by the Eating Green Calculator website. I won't be taking the pledge because I have been working pretty hard on keeping with a healthy, well-balanced diet. I think my numbers probably change every week on the amount of everything that I eat, this was just my rough estimate. Something that I will do is try to eat more locally grown foods, which will benefit the environment by reducing shipping pollution.