You might have already heard about Zero Waste which is the ecological movement becoming more and more popular today. As the name of this approach suggests, people who are using it in their daily lives are trying to minimise the garbage and waste they are producing. This can be applied to absolutely everything starting from reducing purchasing items in the non-recyclable or biodegradable packages up, saving electricity and water up to a resign from travelling abroad.
Some of the concepts might sound pretty harsh which makes many people not be particularly interested in applying the concepts of Zero Waste into their lives. Yet, a crucial thing is just becoming more conscious about your choices finding a right balance which will actually make you feel good about taking care of our planet. It turns out, that some of the ideas of Zero Waste can actually improve the quality of your life and one of the most obvious parts of it is your diet.
Zero Waste will help you to stop purchasing junk food
As you might know, one of the basic steps taken by every zero waster is resigning from purchasing food in packages which cannot be recycled or are not biodegradable. Certainly, the greatest part of the products available on the market are packaged exactly in such materials. If you check the possibilities of recycling for various materials, you will see that many packages cannot be recycled. The most difficult materials for recycling are composites which consist of several layers of different materials. For example, the Tetra Pak packages which have layers of metal, paper and plastic.
On top of that, even if you think that there is nothing wrong with buying food in recyclable plastic packages on a regular basis, you should be aware of the fact not all of the garbage is being recycled even if it potentially can be recycled. The recycling industry is not thus developed in the majority of countries to be able to cope with the amount of waste produced by modern people. That is why, I better approach will be minimising the amount of non-biodegradable packages.
Here comes a great advantage of introducing this rule into your life. If you come to this point seriously, you will be able to minimise not only the amount of waste but also the amount of junk food. Whether these are packages coming from fast food, bottles from soft drinks or metal foil used for packaging cookies, chips and chocolates, you will be able to clean not only planet of this rubbish but also your body. Needless to say, this is the time when a healthy diet becomes significant not only for a single person but also for the entire world.
Purchasing food from local manufacturers will give you more health benefits
This point is not thus obvious to many people, however, it is very true.
Certainly, everyone loves exotic fruits and vegetables. Our markets get more and more products which are absolutely not typical for our climatic zone. This is a great way to taste various plant-based foods coming from the most distant parts of our world.
In case of some of the imported products, we do not even regard them as exotic any more. For the majority of us, bananas or oranges are absolutely normal products included into a daily diet.
From the point of view of the Zero waste movement, the problem of purchasing exotic fruits and vegetables is understandable. People need a lot of resources to bring these unusual food products to distant countries which includes not only transportation but also storage. In addition to it, companies are spending their resources on modifying various species making them more suitable for long-distance trips or less vulnerable for growing in unusual environments. Resigning from purchasing such goods can reduce this problem significantly.
Yet, what is good about depriving yourself from consuming exotic plants?
Undeniably, many exotic foods are filled with vitamins and other nutrients especially if they are coming from warm countries. Despite the fact, you should understand that the exotic products available in the supermarkets you are going to for groceries, have a way worse quality than the original ones which can be purchased in those exotic countries and which are not earmarked for export.
That is the greatest problem about such amazing foods. Usually, they are collected when they are not even edible yet and they have to develop their gastronomic quality while being no longer on the tree or a bush.
The transportation itself requires a lot of preservation techniques which are reducing the quality of such products. In addition to it, some fruits are even made more beautiful by various techniques so that they will appear more attractive and delicious to people.
Certainly, there is no guarantee that your local farmers are producing ecologically clean plants. Still, they at least do not have to transport their harvest from the most distant parts of the world.