From the desk of our tipmeister Melanie Roberts

Food Tip #1

When you're trying to live in a way that has the least impact on the environment, the food that you eat can make a huge difference.
The type of foods we eat all have different impacts on the environment - but the main rule to keep in mind is:

Meat is much more damaging to the environment than vegetables.

A good example of the difference between meat and vegies is:
* To produce 500g of potatoes it takes only 1500 litres of water.
* To produce 500g of steak it takes 5000 litres of water!

Growing meat requires much more water and has many other effects, such as methane emissions and excess nutrients from all the the do-do they do. I don't want to bore anyone, but excess nutrients flow into groundwater and streams, rivers etc. This causes excessive weed growth and algaes such as blue-green algae which is BAD NEWS.

BETTER ALTERNATIVES

Kangaroo
If you do want to eat meat - which most of us do at some point, myself included - eat KANGAROO MEAT.

Kangaroos are perfectly designed for our climate

NO WATER IS USED TO GROW THEM

...and no chemicals are added to make them grow bigger. On the health side, it has much less fat than other red meats.

You can buy kangaroo meat in your local supermarket. If you can't, ask them to get it in.* It is available in premium and regular steaks, sausages and mince. The sausages and mince work out to be not much more expensive than regular sausages/mince - with heaps less fat content.

Organic
My second tip - if you want to eat meat - make it special and buy organic meat - no chemical nasties for your insides and the outside.

I have to admit that I don't slavishly follow these rules - so if you can't go without altogether, don't beat yourself up - just remember, every day that you go without beef/pork/chicken, you are saving over 5000 litres of water.

And that is something to be proud of!

Any tips or hints you have, or would like to know more about, send us a line here.

* Here's a little something to make it easier to ask for what you want...
At the bottom of this page, there is a letter asking your local supermarket to stock kangaroo meat.
Click on it, print it off, sign it and put it in your handbag.
Next time you are doing the shopping, just pop it in the comments box - job done!