After reading this post, don’t forget to enter our contest – you could win a new dishwasher. Plus, do you have your own story to tell? Send it to greenchallenge@canadianliving.com (no more than 300 words, please), and you could win one of 30 daily prizes.
For me, eating locally and with the seasons comes fairly easily – fruits and vegetables that are local and in season taste so much better than the imports that I’m willing to wait it out. The challenge comes when I consider giving up those imports that never come into season in this northern climate: tropical fruits are the big one for me. A life without mangoes, pineapple, bananas and kiwifruit seems a sad one indeed. But if you had to ask most Canadians what imported crop they’d be least likely to give up, it would have to be one of the world’s favourite caffeinated treats: tea, coffee or chocolate.
So how can you make your consumption of these goods easier on the environment to balance out all those food miles? Here are some suggestions.
1. Go organic whenever you can. Remember that your personal health isn’t the only reason to choose organically grown produce; the health of the land where it’s grown and the workers who cultivate it is important as well. And, sadly, tea, coffee and cocoa beans are often grown in parts of the world with far less stringent standards of pesticide use than we have here in Canada.
2. Choose minimal packaging. If you can buy tea, coffee or chocolate in bulk, do so. Bring your own bag to the store and fill it there, then bring it back the next time. You can transfer it to a jar at home.
3. Use eco-friendly coffee filters. Maybe for you this means unbleached, maybe it means reusable, or perhaps you can make coffee in a stovetop percolator that doesn’t use a filter.
4. Choose loose tea over tea bags. The laziness factor definitely kicks in here (I’m guilty, I admit it), but if you can avoid tea bags you’re saving a lot of waste, both at the production end (less resources needed when packaging the tea) and at your end. I like to make my loose tea in a Bodum – I’m not a big fan of tea leaves floating in my mug. And if you do use a tea bag, compost it.
5. Bring your own mug. Are you a takeout addict? Listen to that guilt you feel every time you throw a paper coffee cup in the garbage. Use your own mug at work and when you’re on the go, and if your drink’s not to go, ask the coffee shop if they have ceramic mugs you can drink it in.
6. Choose quality over quantity. Less is more when it comes to good-quality tea, coffee or chocolate. Buy the good stuff and you’ll find yourself satisfied with less.
What did I miss? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Today’s code word: coffee
Read more:
• 19 eco-friendly gift ideas
• Knit a coffee cup sleeve
Funny, I was just discussing loose tea with my mom a few days ago though I hadn’t considered the environmental implications. What’s nice about loose tea is that you can make your own recipes. For instance, if you wanted a hint of earl grey or mint in your green tea, you could do that.
Does anyone remember reading ‘Tis, Frank McCourt’s follow-up to Angela’s Ashes, when his mother came over from Ireland and was horrified at teabags, and the ugliness of them floating in her tea. They are kind of horrible looking when you think about it.
Comment by Helen — March 31, 2008 @ 12:25 pm
Just a note- not all teabags are compostable. Some of the fancier ones are nylon, and some , even though they look like paper, are plastic. Though how you tell your compostable ones from the polyester ones, I’m not sure- unless you fish them out of the compost bin when they do not change. What I do know is this: that apparently, since the tea companies almost never specify what the bags are made of, it’s perfectly possible that they are sometimes paper, and sometimes not.
If you need another reason for not using teabags, then remember that they were invented to use up not the best quality tea leaves, but the “dust” which is the leftovers.
I have experimented with using non-bleaached coffee filters, such as the #2 cone filters. You put in loose tea and fold it over to make a bag. I found it finicky- sometimes it didn’t brew well, and sometimes it just fell apart and I got a bitty mess. Much more useful is one of those little tea balls, if you want to brew in your mug.
Fair-trade, shade grown coffee and organic fair-trade tea are fairly widely available on-line from Canadian suppliers. And if course there are alternatives to them both, if you are feeling adventurous. Every summer, when travelling on the Ontario highways,I see a weed with beautiful blue flowers growing along the shoulders. This is chicory, the roots of which can actually be dried, roasted, ground and used instead of coffee. I have never been brave enough to try- just the idea of being tapped for picking flowers on the 401 puts me off. Nevertheless, the plant is out there, and is widely used in Europe for making coffee substitutes.
Comment by Caroline — March 31, 2008 @ 1:21 pm
Caroline, that’s a very good point. I also should have pointed out that you can buy tea in teabags that are more eco-friendly. One of my favourite brands in Choice Organic Teas - the most recent box of English Breakfast that I have from them says that their (unbleached) bags are made “without glue or heat-sealed polyfilaments” and instead of staples, the string is knotted to the bag.
Comment by Kat — April 1, 2008 @ 12:27 pm
Great blog Kat,
Caroline, I love your picking chicory by the 401 idea - it would be a great submission to win tickets for an The Brewers Plate eating local contest I’m running at The Foodie-file. Here is the link if you or any other green supporters care to try and win!
http://www.canadianliving.com/blogs/2008-03-28/the-foodie-file-win-two-free-tickets-to-brewers-plate/#more-764
Comment by Christine Picheca — April 1, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
Perhaps you would like to hear an itty bitty “tea” joke before I say how much I agree with your idea Kat. It’s about three husbands who are making tea for their wives.
The British husband asks “Would you like a cuppa tea, Honey?”
The American husband asks “Would you like a cup of tea, Sugar?”
The Canadian husband asks “Would you like a cup of tea, bag?”
Anyway, I agree; if you want to leave the smallest possible carbon footprint it is best to buy your tea or coffee in bulk, not pre-packaged, especially not prepackaged in serving sized portions. It is also best to make you own coffee and take it to work with you rather than drive through one of the local Tim’s or Starbuck’s.
One last point which has no bearing on whether or not your coffee or tea is green, but everything to do with how easily you can sleep at night - the farmers and pickers who work for the world’s biggest coffee manufacturers are forced to work as virtual slaves - they toil in terrible conditions for a pittance while we pay $5 for a cup of coffee that costs less than $1 to produce. Until the distribution of wealth from a pound of coffee is distributed fairly, I will not be buying any at all unless it is from a strongly trusted fair trade source.
And though I find it more difficult to find locally produced sugar from sugar beets, I prefer also to purchase locally produced sugar. I hate to think of myself as supporting companies that sanction owning virtual slaves. Do you know that one of the biggest sugar producers forces its workers in Haiti to strip down and give all their possessions to them then makes them wear clothes that they must purchase with script from the company store. Shameful! Utterly and disgustingly shameful!
Comment by Wendy — April 3, 2008 @ 5:04 pm
Christine, I wouldn’t be able to make the dinner, or even give away the tickets, unfoirtunately. However, if you likethe idea, feel free to throw it around a bit.
Chicory is an interesting plant. Not only does its cultivars produce endive, radiccio, witloof and similar salad greens, but it is being investigated as a commercial Canadian source of inulin (a major “pre-biotic” ingredient in the new yoghurts and high-fibre white breads.) But I can find nothing about its use in Canada as a coffee substitute. I mean , you can buy it as a coffee substitute, and mixed in with coffee, but nobody in Canada seems to be actually growing it for the root. To me that’s dumb, because it flourishes so very well as a roadside weed, in the most difficult of Ontario conditions. What gives? Well, in some states in the US they are afraid with wild stuff will contaminate the commercially grown vegetable. And I can’t seem to find the seeds sold to grow the root, either. Maybe I should try growing radiccio and letting it run is life-course, then dry and roast THAT root!
Either that, or start drinking dried roasted barley. Now, where can I get Canadian barley,I wonder?
Comment by Caroline — April 5, 2008 @ 2:05 pm