At the Table – our new weekly column….

Welcome to our new weekly column on sustainability, hosted by me, Diane Hatz. Every week, I’ll take a news story, topic or section on our Sustainable Table website and attempt to explain, discuss, or raise some questions for us to think about. We encourage comments and would love ideas on subjects to write about. (And if you have a suggestion on what to name this column, please let me know!)

I thought it would be good to start off with a general discussion on the topic of sustainability. The word confuses many people and doesn’t hold much meaning for them, and rightly so. Sustainability isn’t so much a standard or a single, concrete thing; it’s more a way of life or a philosophy.

People who are trying to live sustainably or be sustainable are trying to put back into the earth what they take out. Some are even trying to leave the world a better place than it was when they arrived. It’s about being kinder and more compassionate toward yourself, toward others, and toward the environment in which we live. It’s a movement that’s sweeping across the globe – every time you switch off an appliance you don’t need, you’re taking a step toward sustainability – whether you realize it or not.

So, off the top of my head, here are ways you can be more sustainable:

- Buy food from a farmers market. Food doesn’t travel as far, so we save on fossil fuels, which helps decrease the impact of global warming.
- Bring your own shopping bag to the market – why use plastic when you can make a statement with canvas?
- Not using a light? Turn it off. (Yes, Mom was right….)
- When brushing your teeth, don’t turn on the water until you’re ready to rinse. A lot of water gets wasted if the tap runs while you’re actually brushing.
- Don’t stand with the refrigerator door open, just thinking. (Again, Mom was right….) Decide first what you want, before you open the door. Or look, but shut the door to think about what sustainable treat you’d like to munch on.

Here at Sustainable Table we focus on sustainable food and agriculture, with more of an emphasis on animal protein, so this column will focus on those issues. Sustainable agriculture involves food production methods that are healthy, do not harm the environment, respect workers, are humane to animals, provide fair wages to farmers, and support farming communities.

Sustainable farming looks to put back into the earth what is taken out. Crops are rotated so that the soil can stay healthy and alive – that might sound odd, but soil is full of living organisms. (Read our soil page if you’d like to learn more – it’s really quite interesting….) The manure from the animals on the farm is used to fertilize the crops, and the land can safely handle any manure spread onto it. (On factory farms, millions of gallons of manure and urine mixed with water are often over-sprayed onto fields, causing runoff into streams and groundwater.)

If you’d like to read more, visit our “What is Sustainable Agriculture?” page.

We here at Sustainable Table celebrate the sustainable food movement. Each week, I’ll hopefully bring you closer to the people, events and news that are creating a worldwide phenomenon. People really are waking up to where their food comes from – and we hope you’ll join us on this journey.

If you’d like more information about Sustainable Table and how we think, you can read an interview I did for the Fresh Food, Fresh Blog last year. You can learn the most, though, by reading through the Sustainable Table website at www.sustainabletable.org. If you’re unsure where to start, I’d suggest the Introduction to Sustainability section. From there, you can move on to the Issues pages, but if you get tired of all that reading, watch The Meatrix at www.themeatrix1.com or the other Meatrix movies at www.themeatrix.com.

If all that reading and watching makes you hungry, visit our Sustainable Kitchen section for mouth-watering recipes. As the weeks go by, I’ll try to take you through the site – perhaps we’ll take one Issue page at a time – and perhaps all the sections – so you can understand all the fantastic information we’ve put up there for you. (That should keep us busy for over a year…).

Next week we’ll touch on the hot topic these days – organic vs sustainable. What is the big deal anyway?…