Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Resolutions—like wishes—only you have to work to make them come true!

But...but, I don't have a bike. Or a car!!! Then what are my resolutions?!It’s January 20th and I still haven’t come up with any New Year’s resolutions. Pathetic, I know. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve had any resolutions in about four or five years. I think my last one was in 2004 in my senior year of high school, right after I got early acceptance into NYU. It was something along the lines of “Don’t flunk out of college.”

While I could probably think of a million resolutions I don’t care about or ever intend to keep (dieting? Umm, yeah. Right. Saving money for [insert something special here]? Yes…with my nonexistent income. You get the picture.), I’ll spare you and share something that floated into my email inbox a few weeks ago. I receive daily email newsletters from Ideal Bite, a website that dispenses easily digested tips on how to slowly green your lifestyle through small steps. Ideal Bite calls its tips, “bite-sized ideas for light green living.”

During IB’s “Resolution Week,” the emails focused on eco-friendly New Year’s resolutions, and one resolution was something even I can add to my “list”—eating a vegetarian meal at least once a week. According to IB, “Livestock accounts for 18% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions and 8% of water use - and a meatless diet is 50% more effective at cutting CO2 than switching from a standard car to a hybrid.”

So, even though I’ve never been able to cut meat out of my diet completely—although I was a chicken-etarian for several years—eating a vegetarian meal once or twice a week is a simple compromise. Not only does it save me some money on groceries, I can feel a tad bit better about my carbon footprint. I’ve already started incorporating the meals into my weekly lineup. This week I have several meat-free meals planned. Don’t tell Jon, though. He really loves meat, especially the red kind.

4 comments:

Liz said...

Are those Jon's resolutions?

Blair said...

haha...no. He didn't make any that I know of. :)

rae.ozanne said...

Blair, my boyfriend is a veg, and I make 'meatless mains' all the time. To be honest, I usually make soups or stews. One of my favorites calls for eggplant, zucchini, chick peas, tomatoes, and some other yummy veggies. Let me know if you're interested!

Anonymous said...

speaking of killer tofu, I told Shaun about my shirt and he started singing the song! Which ended up with me singing the song all night until I fell asleep..yeah...chew on that vegetarian tidbit.