Big Red Eats Green

Big Red Eats Green is a unique campus fair that brings together local restaurants and community organizations working toward sustainability in order to educate students and to spread awareness of opportunities to get involved in the campus and community. 

I enjoyed chatting with a number of representatives from various community organizations such as the Bloomington Community Orchard, Hoosier Hills Food Bank, Sprouts and many others. The students present seemed happy and interested in gathering information from the organizations. I was a little confused as a visitor as to what qualified each of the represented restaurants to be there. Was the criteria just that they were local, or were the participants limited to those that used sustainable practices as well? I looked for signage but came up dry. 

The most interesting part of the fair for me was a conversation I had with a member of an organization that focuses on increasing the amount of locally grown food available through RPS and in the campus food halls. He mentioned that though IU claims that ~30% of its food procurement is locally sourced, the majority of these 'locally sourced' items are not actually food product, but cardboard packaging. My 'facts' are not really facts, and just came from casual conversation with an organization member but I would be curious to know what the true facts are. He had worked within the system for years trying to convince IU to modify its food contracting so he seemed pretty reliable.

He also mentioned that the number one item sold on campus is bottled water. A little alarming when all of campus is thoroughly inundated with drinking fountains. Imagine how many of those purchased bottles end up in the trash rather than the recycling, or as we discussed in class, part of the 1,500 lbs of litter picked up every day on the IU campus.

Sustainable Brewing..a little too hectic for the first go

I was super excited to start my first home brew. I  gleefully skipped across the street to Butler Winery- the go-to brewing supply shop in Bloomington and bombarded the lovely and knowledgeable staff with billions of questions.  I left with the basic brewing equipment and supplies needed to make a witbier (a German style wheat beer). I assembled all the materials on my table and started reading the instructions.

The more I read the more unsure I became. I realized quickly that it would be a time consuming process and didn't have time to start the brew immediately.  The same pattern continued to emerge throughout the rest of the weekend. Finally I got a surge of energy Monday night and went for it!

This turned out to be a terrible decision. I had only calculated the times given in the instruction book and hadn't considered how long the boiling and cooling processes between steps for 2.5 gallons of liquid would take.

Finished around 2am and fell into bed exhausted, but excited that the brewing process was under way. By morning the water in the air lock was bubbling as CO2 released and fermentation was under way!

For an extra aspect of my sustainable brewing project (other than saving bottles, transport, packaging costs etc) I had planned on baking with the spent grains left over from the brewing process. Unfortunately, I was slammed this week and never got around to it and had to thrown the grain out. Maybe complete sustainable brewing was a little too hectic for my first attempt at mastering a new skill.

Goal for the next batch: Start early, plan accordingly, and prepare to bake the spent grains immediately (and to save energy by baking multiple items at the same time.)

Cultivating Food-Secure Communities

Food Insecurity

 

Food security (or insecurity), is far from a new phenomenon. No period in human history has met the standards of the 1996 FAO food security definition “when all people, at all times, have physical, social and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” Though history does not show it, the FAO definition is not as idealistic as it may seem. In fact, based upon global food production statistics there is enough food to supply each of the earth's 7 billion patrons to the critical FAO standard 1. The previously unaccomplished ideal is technically attainable. 

When this data is presented in conjunction with global, or even US maps of food insecurity it is difficult to believe this conclusion.  Economic and social injustice are critical contributors to the issue of food security, as food products tend to accumulate into wasted surplus in some regions while others starve. This hurdle to food security is one of the most serious and yet easily traceable problems in sustainability today.

So where is the extra food?

Statistics show that 20-50% of food products we purchase end up in the trash. The chart below breaks down some of the harsh realities of food waste in the US, including that as a country more than 34 million tons of food waste are generated each year, about 650 lbs/person.

 

The issues of food waste and food insecurity are inextricably linked and will likely continue to have a heavy influence on each other.  As communities move toward optimizing food security through self-sufficiency and sovereignty through an emphasis on locally grow or self-grown produce, food waste will likely decrease. As individuals put sweat, blood, and tears into growing their own food or watching it grow in a community space,  the 20-25% of groceries thrown out would likely decrease.When I started gardening I developed a huge appreciation for fresh produce and all of the effort that it takes both the earth and myself to grow.

The 100- Mile Diet. Is it feasible?
 Studies published in Food Miles 2008, determined that most fresh produce in the US usually travels 1,500 miles from where it was grown to where it will be consumed. For many of the other products we are reliant on, the distances are even further. During my last visit to Kroger, I paid attention to where my purchases were coming from and the result was shocking. The grapes I purchase are from Chile, avocados from Mexico, nectarines from California, coffee from Colombia, and chocolate made from coco beans harvested from tropical areas far from Indiana. And that was only a minor shopping trip since I grow most of my own produce.

Consuming only food products that are produced from locally grown (or raised) ingredients is apparently extremely limiting. Strengthening food systems is not just about starting more local gardens and switching to buying local produce like tomatoes, beans, corn, and peppers, but changing diets in a significant way. 

The following data is an excerpt from a large scale study called “Food, Fuel, and Freeways,” which recorded average distances from farms to grocery stores and local farmers markets in Chicago.

Terminal Market vs. Ferry Plaza Farmers Market

Apples: 1,555 miles vs. 105 miles

Tomatoes: 1,369 miles vs. 117 miles

Grapes: 2,143 miles vs. 151 miles

Beans: 766 miles vs. 101 miles

Peaches: 1,674 miles vs. 184 miles

Winter Squash: 781 miles vs. 98 miles

Greens: 889 miles vs. 99 miles

Lettuce: 2,055 miles vs. 102 miles

The most bizarre part is that I buy my grapes from Chile, yet I work at a local vineyard. Granted, I work with wine grapes rather than table grapes, but the idea that my produce has to travel over 2,000 miles when the vineyard is only 15 miles away is absurd and speaks vastly about the importance of established habits.

Food for thought

This got me thinking about the consumer perspective discussed in Fostering  Sustainable  Behavior:  Community  Based  Social  Media. If you are trying to convince people to buy local to foster food security, where would you put the cut-off for ‘local’ foods?  What would be a better step for encouraging positive community behavior, purchasing food products made entirely from local ingredients or just locally assembled ingredients? Would it be harder to encourage someone to eat less red meat or give up tropical treats like chocolate and coffee? Is either possible without sacrificing our own personal “dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”?

1. World Food Programme. http://www.wfp.org/hunger/faqs

Sustainability Project Initiation

Zero-waste beer through home brewing 

Background: I recently moved into a new apartment and for the first time in my life have no easy access to recycling. In order to be a good and responsible citizen on the earth, I decided to only drive to the recycling center once a month (to save gas etc). During this time, my roommate and I accumulated about 45 glass beer bottles which are now residing under our sink. I usually recycle every two weeks and never fully realized how much glass I use each month (as a college student, the vast majority being beer bottles). Visually the result was eye-opening and a little disturbing. I crunched the math and found that my roommate and I will likely dispose of ~540 bottles during our 1 year lease. Yikes! Considering most beer bottling companies only utilize 12.5% recycled glass 1 it accounts for a lot of waste. When multiplied over an entire college campus the numbers are astounding.

Home brewing would help to conserve resources and energy by reducing the number of bottles/cans produced, transportation costs of moving ingredients, materials, and products around the country, as well as packaging, labeling, and numerous other aspects which will be described in further detail in future blog posts.

 New Belgium Brewing Co. 37.6% of calculated carbon footprint due to glass bottling
.http://www.newbelgium.com/sustainability/stories/14-02-28/A-Snapshot-of-our-Footprint.aspx

To minimize my own contribution to this aspect of college culture, I propose to attempt to brew my own beer, and bottle it using the beer bottles I currently have under my sink. I would like to reduce my carbon footprint by removing myself as entirely as possible from the current brew company infrastructure and to also put my creativity to the test to find ways of re-using any by products of the brewing process.

Goals:
 • Minimize glass and aluminum waste discarded as a result of home beer consumption.
 • Minimize total transportation costs by buying all ingredients and brewing materials locally (I live directly across the street from Butler Winery and can even walk brewing equipment to my house).
 • Achieve zero waste in the brewing process through composting or baking with spent grains and
 using the water required to brew for my garden.

 Additional goals:
 • Beer brewing start up using previously used equipment
 • Sharing the products of my experiment to encourage others to participate in similar actions

Impact/Statistics: Statistics show that the average college student drinks 7.44 alcoholic beverages per week 2. Even if we attribute only half of that to beer (bottled or canned) that accounts for 15,475,200 beer containers/year on the IU Bloomington campus alone. *Any opinions/statistics on if this is a high or low estimate? Extended over all college campuses in the U.S. the numbers become absurd. The U.S. Department of Education "Fast Facts Enrollment3" documented an enrollment of 13 million full-time college students in 2011. That would be equivalent to 2,514,720,000 beer containers/year for college student alone (assuming half of all alcohol consumption was beer). Even if every bottle and can was recycled (highly doubtful) it still requires additional energy and resources to make new bottles.

Home brewing could decrease these numbers substantially while also cutting down on additional import and transportation costs of purchasing mass produced beer, packaging, manufacture, while allowing you to make the best beer for your palate!

Metrics:

• Recording total glass and aluminum accumulation over the next few months.
• Tracking additional wastes that result from by-products to the brewing process, such as water and spent wheat. 

1 New Belgium Brewing Co.http://www.newbelgium.com/sustainability/stories/14-02-28/A-Snapshot-of-our-Footprint.aspx.

2 Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Studies-http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3394678/
3 NCES (2014). U.S. Department of Education  "Fast Facts Enrollment"