How to reduce your foodprint for your 2022 New Year’s resolution
Many of us use this time of year to reflect on what we want to do differently in the year ahead. One resolution that could really help the planet? Reducing your foodprint.
We should be able to trust that the food we buy in the grocery store is safe, and grown in ways that won’t threaten our health.
You want to lead a healthy life, and help your family do the same, and you trust that the food in the grocery store is safe, and grown in ways that won’t threaten our health or safety. But that’s not always the case, and the evidence connecting toxic pesticides to serious health risks, like cancer, continues to grow. It’s also clear that the early warning system for contaminated food, and our food recall system, need a serious overhaul. We can and should expect better.
Many of us use this time of year to reflect on what we want to do differently in the year ahead. One resolution that could really help the planet? Reducing your foodprint.
Stop The Overuse Of Antibiotics
We know we can get factory farms to change their practices if America's largest restaurant chains commit to serving meat that has been raised without the routine use of medically important antibiotics.
Last week, scientists predicted that this year’s hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico will be the 3rd largest since monitoring began 32 years ago. The “dead zone” will cover about 8,185 square miles — an area roughly the size of New Jersey.
At McDonald’s annual shareholder meeting today shareholders voted on a proposal to eliminate the routine use of medically important antibiotics from the company’s entire meat supply chain. Of those that voted, nearly 30% were in favor of the resolution.
Last week, we were in New York City, where the United Nations General Assembly spent an entire day discussing antibiotic resistance, “the biggest threat to modern medicine.” Experts estimate that more than 700,000 people worldwide die from antibiotic-resistant infections each year, including 23,000 in the United States—a number that could grow to 10 million globally by 2050.
Over eighty organizations and hundreds of consumers launched a call for KFC to switch to selling chicken raised without routine antibiotics.
Recently, I sat down with Chef Hosea Rosenberg, owner of BlackBelly restaurant in Boulder, CO, to find out why antibiotic-free meat was as good for business as it is for public health.
Consumer Watchdog, PIRG