New Year's Resolutions: Better Your Health and the Planet's
by Danielle Masterson

Every winter we welcome in the New Year to the tune of resolutions big and small. This year I'm going to lose the extra weight...This year I'm going to eat better...This year...will be different.

But what if improving your health could improve the health of the environment? With motivation staring you in the face everywhere a flower grows and a bird sings, how could you falter?

Ecological Footprint
The decisions that you make in the coming year that affect your health will also affect the health of the planet. Every choice we make causes a ripple that emanates through the people, the places and the ecosystems linked to the products we consume. This "ecological footprint" is the amount of land and water it takes to produce our daily needs and to absorb our wastes. One of the easiest resolutions you can make this winter to help reduce your eco-footprint is to change your eating habits. Below is a little food for thought.

Oil on Your Plate
Though it doesn't sound appetizing, the foods you consume, whether greens, meat or dairy, require fossil fuels to produce. Every step of food production incurs an energy cost, from chemical fertilizers and animal feed to transportation and manufacture. According to the October 2005 The Ecologist, it takes 400 gallons of oil to feed the average American each year, nearly a third of which is used to produce chemical fertilizers. Meat requires the greatest amount of energy resources, and our yearly consumption of meat is growing. The International Food Policy Research Institute estimates that by 2020 people in industrialized countries will consume nearly 90 kg of meat a year, equivalent to a side of beef, 50 chickens and one pig. Now consider this: Producing one calorie of beef takes 33 percent more fossil fuel energy than producing one calorie of potatoes. Comparing energy inputs of meat and potatoes may seem like comparing apples and oranges. However, depending on how crops are grown, they too require varying energy inputs. According to a 22-year farming trial study by Cornell University published in the July 2005 Bioscience, conventionally grown crops required approximately 30 percent more fossil fuels than their organically grown brethren, as well more water‹two reasons, in addition to the lack of pesticides, to put organic produce at the top of your grocery list.

Land and Water
We've all got our vices, and yours may be a dripping hamburger. But look beyond your local fast-food joint, and you'll see that beef is being sourced increasingly from Latin American countries like Brazil. According to the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Brazil's cattle industry is largely driven by exports, 80 percent of which came from the Amazon. In 1995 Brazil exported less than $500 million of beef. According to the USDA, Brazil exported $1.5 billion by 2003, three times as much. Unfortunately, in order to make room for large scale cattle operations, rain forests are being cut back at an alarming rate. According CIFOR, an area twice the size of Portugal was lost between 1990 and 2000, mostly to pasture.

Not only that, according to the Worldwatch Institute, eight ounces of beef requires 25,000 liters of water to produce. This doesn't mean you have to give up on meat, but when you do eat steak or hamburger, go for organically-raised beef from the United States.