One Plate Club

I have always considered myself a fairly environmentally conscious person. I don’t eat red meat, I recycle as much as possible, I try not to take long showers and probably 98% of the time I am carpooling with other people. And yet according to my ecological footprint we would need 4.4 planet earths to live the way that I do…that is terrifying.

I started thinking about the things I do during the day and what was something little that I could change. The Ted Talk paper towel idea was pretty interesting. I know that when I wash my hands I use more than one in order to limit the amount of germs. I prefer not to touch the faucet or the door handles. However, I feel like there is something more that I can do. At dinner tonight, I realized how many plates that I use for all of my food. You would think that I eat a lot, but in reality I don’t. I am allergic to so many different types of food and since I am also a picky eater it is difficult for me to find things to eat. Also I am a very slow eater and sometimes don’t have time to finish everything that I got. Usually, I get different plates for each food that I try. Today I had a bowl for soup (which is reasonable), a plate for my tuna sandwich and a plate for my roasted potatoes. As per usual I did not finish the food on each plate, and unfortunately I end up wasting a lot of it. I thought about maybe speeding up the time that I eat, but I don’t think that that would help. Then it dawned on me, you know how there is something parents use called the clean plate club? I want to see if I can become a part of the one-plate club.

Of course in the dining halls you have to get a new plate for each trip because of germs, which is okay. But I am going to try to have each meal fit on one plate. So like the examples of tonight, I should have the tuna sandwich and potatoes on one-plate. I hope that this will reduce the amount of food that I take and that I waste. Also, though it will be a small amount I will essentially be reducing the amount of water that is used to wash the plates since I won’t use as much. I hope that I can keep this up and that I start noticing a change in how I eat food.