Day 17: 68% of Statistics are Not Real

Sometimes it's difficult to make changes and accommodations in our lives for results that may not directly impact us. When we talk about doing things for the future, it's so easy to just eff it because we're not going to be around in the future anyway. I have a pretty good feeling that my life span is going to be short. Have you seen my driving?

 

I'm a true Asian woman.

When I was in 5th grade, I remember we were asked to fundraise for a playground that was going to be built after we would no longer be students there. Why would I contribute my money, which couldn't have totaled over $5, for something I would never benefit from? No, I didn't have bad parents who didn't teach me anything about being nice. I was 10.

Thankfully, for all of our sakes, I have grown since then. It took a while but I have a feeling I'm a little different from when I was 10. Just a little, though.

I'm by no means developing into Mother Teresa or anything like that. I don't think I have the bone structure to really pull off a nun's habit.

I'd like to think I could be totally selfless and not conform to what mainstream society and media shoves in our faces every day. Like I mentioned before, I am a woman. I love shopping. Not as a social thing, I like to shop alone. I'm sometimes embarrassed about how much money I can really spend on clothes, jewelry, food and those $10 DVDs at Target.

This past year I have been more diligent about becoming more aware of how much I actually consume, not just what I eat, but all the things that I buy. I have to stop myself and ask if this is really something I need and will use for more than 3 months. Does the product have a ridiculous amount of packaging that'll just end up as more landfill? Is this a store / company / brand I want to support?

It's Saturday, so while you're folding laundry or taking a break from TBS movie marathons, watch this very informative video by Annie Leonard called The Story of Stuff.




I'm sure some of you didn't watch it. But here are some astonishing statistics about our level of consumption and waste production as Americans:

• Americans consist of 5% of the world's population, but we consume 30% of the world's resources and create 30% of the world's waste
• 99% of the products you buy now will not be used 6 months from now
• Americans watch TV and shop 3-4 times more than Europeans
• Americans produce 4.5 pounds of garbage each day
• 70 garbage cans of waste is actually produced for every one garbage can you fill at your home

Kathy Freston also talks about how wasteful the animal product industry is: 

• Animal agriculture causes almost 40% more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks and planes in the world combined. 
• 760 million tons of grain are fed to chicken, pigs and cattle each year while there are 850 million people in the world who are starving
• The amount of feed it takes to create one 8-ounce steak could fill 40-50 bowls with cooked grains

If every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetables and grains, for example, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off the U.S. roads. - Environmental Defense Fund

I know this is all very depressing. Especially because it's a beautiful weekend and nothing sounds better than firing up the grill in your new pair of jeggings with a diet strawberry limeade from Sonic in your hands. 

But hark! There is hope.

Annie Leonard mentions this quote by Victor LeBeau:

Our enormously productive economy...demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption.... We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.

Yes, a more conscience way of living and consuming will help slow down the rate at which our planet is falling apart and hopefully will help raise up those oppressed by the manner in which we blindly perpetuate this vicious cycle. But the 10 year old Kathy is still asking how does this affect her.

There is just something that is so sad about the notion that our spiritual satisfaction and ego satisfaction is decided upon by the things we buy.

I am totally guilty of this. I love shopping because I love the way I feel in new clothes. Why can't I love myself in the good pair of designer jeans I bought a few years ago? 

Because they're not skinny jeans...

Day 4: I eat because I care.

What a beautiful day it was today! Sorry, I'm an inconsiderate blogger and didn't take a photo to place here but just imagine a Saturday with the perfect temperature and the clearest skies. Not only that, but I managed to end up having dinner at a restaurant that had items on the menu I could order without being one of those annoying customers who has to spell out to the server what exactly they want or don't want in their food. (See video for example.)



I didn't want to embarrass my friend and whip out my camera to take pictures of my food, but I had a lovely vegetarian tamale and avocado and mango salad. Afterwards, I went to a bar and even the bartender was attentive to my plastic cup of water, giving me plenty of refills. I tipped him for not giving me grief for not having real drinks at his bar.

In all honesty, a few years back I could've cared less about where my food came from or what I was eating. As long as it was delicious, I'll take it. To this day, my favorite food is the chili cheese hot dog from Bud's Broiler. It's basically the antithesis of this cleanse. Sure my balsamic marinated tofu is good, but there's just something about meats of unknown origin on a white burger bun with a sprinkle of sweaty cheese that makes my mouth water.

I guess after living in California, all those alfalfa sprouts that came on my turkey avocado sandwich got to my head. Of course, there's also Al Gore and that Invconvenient Truth he invented, like the Internet. Now I've turned into this environmentally aware concerned citizen of the earth.

Beyond just caring for what I am putting into my own body, we are now learning more and more about where our food comes from and who, besides the cute barista, is actually making it possible for me to have my grande nonfat latte. Instead of blindly eating and consuming, we need to open our eyes before we open our mouths.

"A part of the cleanse process is about considering the whole picture: how the food serves our body, how it affects the environment, and the process by whch it gets to our plate. It means that we scrutinize the methods of production from beginning to end, making sure that what we eat is not only good for us, but also good for everyone involved."

-kathy freston

I know that some people think that it's futile for one person to change their eating and living habits for the sake of the entire world. I admit that the small steps I take to be "green" probably doesn't register in the grand scheme of things. But at least I care. 

I beg you to watch this short video from the Miniature Earth Project.

I have done nothing to be one of the 25 people who have clothes, a bed, a safe home, and the luxury to choose what I want and don't want to eat. I agree with Shane Claiborne when he wrote, "I'm convinced that God did not mess up and make too many people and not enough stuff. Poverty was created not by God but by you and me, because we have not learned to love our neighbors as ourselves."

For someone who has a blog and is constantly updating my Facebook and Twitter with mundane and asinine details of my life, it's obvious how self-absorbed I can be. So if I can be intentional about being kind to my body and provide for my own needs, how can I not make an effort to do the same for others?