Regardless of a person’s personal connection to nature, or a person’s belief of the purpose of nature, plants and animals are essential to our survival. They are a part of a delicate balance that provides us with the environment we live in today. While this is true, it is also important to keep in mind the ferocity of nature. The natural environment is not kind; there are predators and prey. It is not unnatural for humans to hunt either, we are a predator. But like anything else, we can over populate an area, and cause the destruction of other critters. This is not how we should hunt. As beings that are the dominant of several environments, we need to be aware of the impact we have on these environments. Animals have just as much right to live as we have to hunt them. It is simply the responsibility we have to limit our consumption of natural resources to only what we need, and to help protect the environment as we know it today.

After being in college for some time, many students have probably heard it thousands of times in countless different ways – eating meat grown from the industrialized systems we use today is not an environmentally friendly decision. This issue is a common one to be debated in papers, like those written by Dale Jamieson or Peter Singer, and often ends in the ‘solution’ that one should live a vegetarian life style in order to live sustainably. Despite this, I cannot imagine myself ever giving up meat to live a vegetarian lifestyle, yet I still want to have at the very least, an environmentally aware diet. But is it even possible to do this without changing one’s diet too drastically and in particular as an indebted college student who has to fend for themselves in the food department? I think yes.

The meat industry has seen its fair share of rough times. From the start of it all, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was infamous in exposing the truth of what was happening behind the closed doors of the meat packing industry. This exposure lead to drastic changes, turning meat packing into a reputable process. Since then, we have drifted back into becoming compliant in not knowing the process for production of our meat. While the industry today is without doubt much better than it was during the time of The Jungle it still has its flaws. Growing livestock is a natural process that has been altered to conform to the fast paced world we live in. The process, as described in the documentary ‘Food Inc.’, has been taken from needing 4 or 5 years to grow and condensed to only need 14 short months. While this modernization has its advantages, like readily available meat, it also has many downfalls. Livestock is stuffed with hormones, antibiotics, and improper but easily sourced food, causing physical issues for the animals. The animals are packed into small spaces to increase efficiency, creating poor living conditions and animals caked in their own waste. This system is not ideal and quite far from natural.

So what options are available for more sustainable and environmentally friendly meat? Walking through the supermarket can leave anyone overwhelmed with the assaulting brightly colored claims of labels declaring the product to be “hormone free”, “antibiotic free”, and  “organic”. What some of these labels really represent is often a mystery. So what do they mean, and which ones are best?

The label of “no added hormones” is a common one to find plastered across the packages of pork and chicken. When I went in search of good meats, I not only found these labels on the foods themselves, but on posters attached to areas around the chicken and pork being sold. According to ‘the meat to eat’, an article explaining the differences in meat, it is illegal to feed both chickens and pigs any hormones, making this label entirely pointless and solely for advertising purposes. Another label one may find in the supermarket meat section is “organic”. To obtain this label for meat, the product, producer, and farm must be certified by the USDA that it meets the legal requirements.  This requires livestock to be fed only organic, animal byproduct free feed, no antibiotics or hormones and access to pasture. The “grass-fed” label means exactly what you think, livestock is fed grasses throughout its life – the food source that their stomachs were naturally made to digest. “Pasture raised” is slightly similar; livestock is fed grass, however they obtain the grasses from the pastures where they are free to roam about.

While all of these labels are better than the traditional industrialized processes for raising livestock, they still have their flaws. Purchasing meats with these labels will help to reduce the overall impact your diet has, but you still need to factor in the embedded cost. These costs come from transportation of feed for livestock and the livestock itself, the disposal of the waste from the livestock, among many others resulting from raising an animal from birth, to slaughter, to the store to be sold. A solution that can help to limit some of these embedded costs is through the purchase of local products.

Local products can have multiple labels, like some of those  mentioned above, but have the added benefit of limited transportation costs on the environment. While local meats are not always easy to find, they really can be an environmentally conscious option. When paired with the pasture raised label, meat can have a significantly smaller impact on the environment. Schnucks grocery store offers several options of meat with various labels, but perhaps the most environmentally friendly option is the grass fed beef sourced from Rain Crow Ranch in Doniphan, MO. Sold in 1lb packs, this 90% lean 10% fat beef runs at $6.79 per pound, a mere $1.21 more per pound then the comparable Schnucks brand ground beef ($5.58/lb). The Rain Crow Ranch beef is from cows that are raised on grass, allowing for better overall health for the animal and the beef is from a ‘local’ area. This is different than the Schnucks beef, which has a larger impact on the environment from transportation costs.

Now you may be thinking, how on earth can Missouri be considered a local source? Well, even though Doniphan, MO is located 338 miles from Champaign, it is technically within the US Congress’s definition of ‘local’. In 2008, congress decided local foods would be limited to foods sourced from a location “less than 400 miles from its origin, or within the state in which it is produced”. Applying this here in Illinois, where the number of farms are huge, the radius of 400 miles seems excessive and indeed is a bit larger than what I was expecting to find. When the scope of the entire country is taken into account, there are places that are located more than 400 miles from a farm. It is these places where the US Congress’s definition of local foods makes more sense.

The idea of eating locally can not only be applied to meats, but also to produce. By eating locally sourced produce, you can help to reduce your diet’s overall impact on the environment. If the extra $1.21 for the Rain Crow Ranch beef is too much for your budget to handle, perhaps using locally grown veggies is the way to go. Local vegetables are not only fresher, but also help reduce emissions from transport of the produce. Many of the produce available in stores often comes from warmer climates like Mexico or California which is quite a distance to transport. While purchasing the non-local produce may be necessary during the off seasons, local produced vegetables and fruits are widely available during mid-summer to late fall (and sometimes even early winter!).

Now if you’re anything like me, running to specialty grocery stores is too much work. I have even been known to wait till I only had plain rice left to eat before I go to get more food – college culinary habits at their finest. The good news is that there is hope for us. Every Thursday, the Sustainable Student Farm (SSF) runs a farm stand on the quad. At this stand, anyone can purchase fresh produce grown and picked by student volunteers. So why not swing by on your way home from class to pick up something fresh for your dinner that night, it will certainly be better than plain pasta or boring old ramen.

For other locations where one can find environmentally friendly foods to purchase from grocery stores, eat at restaurants, or for sale at farmers markets, the “eat well guide” offers an extensive list. This online database provides a space for you to enter the zip code where you live and select a mile radius, then pulls up a list of all the vendors, farmers and restaurants in that area with environmentally friendly products.

References

Food Inc. Dir. Robert Kenner. Magnolia Pictures. 2009, Film.

Martinez, Steve, et al. Local Food Systems: Concepts, Impacts, and Issues, ERR 97, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, May 2010.

n.p. Eat Well Guide. Grace Communication Foundation. 2014. Web. 30 September 2014.

“The Meat to Eat”. Food Program. Grace Communications Foundation. 2014. Web. 30 September 2014.

I’ve was never one to worry much about what I was eating, as long as it tasted good to me. Growing up I was a ridiculously picky eater. I spent many evenings sitting at the dinner table alone, well after dinner because my stubborn self refused to eat my veggies. I refused to eat a lot of things; milk, eggs, fish, you name it and I likely wouldn’t eat it. I was one heck of a headache for my poor mother. Some point along the way, she gave up on fighting me, and eventually I learned to be less picky on my own. I still don’t like drinking milk or eating eggs but I am more willing to try things and have learned the importance of eating my veggies.

Recently, I have become increasingly more aware of the food I eat. I think this in large part due to living in an apartment and having to get food on my own. The first time I was presented with needing to purchase and cook for myself was actually when I studied abroad junior year in Cork, Ireland and I loved it. I lived only a block away from the grocery store, and just in town there was the most delicious English market bustling with people. The market offered a large selection of fresh fruits and veggies, freshly butchered cuts of meat, and you could even find a few café – like stands sprinkled about that offered fresh coffee or gourmet sandwiches.  I loved the freedom I had to choose my meals, and the extra time I had to cook myself some food.

Coming back to the United States, my schedule picked up again leaving me entrapped in busy days. The little spare time I did have, I used for running, biking, or simply taking a break from the constant stress. The increased demand for time meant I had less time for things like cooking. My meals became whatever I could make fastest – often microwave dinners.

When I do have time to cook, it is often burgers and tacos that I make. They are simple to make and tend to last long enough to not go bad before I can eat them. From studying environmental issues, I have certainly read my fair share of “meet is bad” arguments, but being as picky as I am, I just can’t bring myself to give up meat. Ground beef, chicken breasts, and pork chops are all integral parts of my diet, and not things I am wanting to give up. I understand the arguments the pro-vegetarianism people are making, and I understand the detrimental impact the meat market has on the environment; but I also recognize that I have the luxury to eat meat every day if I wanted to. So with all this in mind, I am planning on spending time to determine ways in which I can become more environmentally conscious carnivore – without giving up my steak.

If you’ve been around for a while, one look around campus and you may notice the increase in plants that look, well, a bit wilder than the sculpted shrubs and flower beds you may expect. These plants are in fact there on purpose, and plants native to what Illinois used to be covered in, prairie. In Champaign County alone, prairie once covered almost 95% of the land and now there is only one total acre of the habitat remaining.

While one may expect these towering plants to easily grow and spread on the land they once dominated, this is not the case. These plants require extensive maintenance to flourish- constant care, planting then replanting, and weeding. Currently Dr. John Marlin and Professor Ken Robertson are spearheading an attempt to reestablish a patch of natural prairie, and in Dr. Marlin’s case, have helped to launch the project from the start. This area (located just east of the president’s house on Florida Avenue) called the “Florida Orchard Planting” has been in progress for several years, and seems to be coming along quite nicely. The plants seem to have really dug into the plot, stretching above most people’s heads in some spots, sprinkled with purple, yellow and white flowers. While this area is too small to ever be an “ecological prairie”, it is certainly a small haven for some. As Dr. Marlin put it, “it provides food sources for insects and birds that are not common here”. And for those of us who don’t know any better, it sure looks darn pretty.

So for those who are like myself and picture any random field with tall grass as a prairie, I assure you it’s not quite that simple. In the broad way of thinking, prairies are a separate ecosystem in their own right, providing a unique habitat for bugs, birds and a vast array of mammals. A prairie provides a home for the furry little foxes but also the massive bison or even elk. The plants in a prairie are by no means the delicate flowers, these plants are hearty and tall, with growth points underground allowing them to survive being sliced, diced and burned to the ground, only to return in full strength the next season. Stalks of these plants stretch high and tall causing other competing weeds to die from lack of sunlight.

So what really is a native Prairie plant? Well here is my basic guide to three of the plants I found in the Florida Orchard Prairie Planting.

Tall Goldenrod

Goldenrod is a common prairie plant that comes in many different forms. This dusty yellow plant is a huge attraction for insects as it relies on their work to be pollenated. Due to its dusty yellow flowers, most people expect this plant to be a cause of allergies but this guy is innocent. It’s up to poor timing that causes that misconception, goldenrod flowers at the same time as ragweed, the true culprit of allergies from hell.

Flowering spurge

These guys are bushier than they are tall. Tons of tiny little leaves and small white flowers add up to make a cloud like affect. Looking at the plant, it almost gives you a sort of galaxy feel, with the little white flowers dotted about giving the effect of stars.

Cardinal Flower

This guy is a tricky one to spot, initiating a “where’s waldo” type of challenge. This Plant has bright red flowers, a color that is according to Dr. Marlin, quite uncommon in a prairie. Not only is it the only one of its kind (as far as I saw), but this plant is shorter than most other prairie plants, making the search even more challenging. Good Luck!

References 

“Prairie Ecosystems Prairie Plants Field Guide”. Museum Link Illinois. Illinois state Museum, 2000. Web. September 2014.

Robertson, Ken. Personal Interview. September 2014.

Marlin, John. Personal Interview. September 2014.

Which Biome does a Prairie fall into?
Desert
Tundra
Grasslands
Subtropical Rainforest
Where are Prairies located within the US?
West Coast
East coast
Central US
Illinois Only
What is the Animal used to be found in Prairies, but no longer is?
Deer
Bison
Elk
Badger
Which of the following is NOT a main prairie type found in Illinois?
Black Soil Prairie
Dolomite Prairie
Hill Prairie
Sand Prairie
Shrub Prairie
Boulder Prairie
Gravel Prairie
How many Prairie plants are believed to be extinct?
86%
1
About half
10