Food Choices

I thought about my commitment to Four Years.Go for a week or two. I want to pick something i would actually stick too. I have decided to give up meat for the next four years. I do not eat THAT much meat anyway but after watching a few docos and reading up on the environmental impacts of food lots, i decided I didn't want to support an industry with so many negative effects.

It has been harder than i thought it would be. I suddenly realised at lunch yesterday I may have eaten my last cheese burger. I have a weird love of cheeseburgers. And I live with my mum. She loves a steak. She doesn't pressure me to eat meat, there are plenty of vegetarians in my family, but i know she enjoys meat. It is hard to keep saying I won't eat that when she want to make something with meat for dinner.

In order to celebrate my vegetarianism I made some banana bread (like you need a reason). My mum's banana bread is the best. Here is the recipe.

3 or 4 ripe bananas

1/3 cup melted butter

1 cup sugar(can reduce to 3/4cup)

1 egg beaten

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups of plain flour

No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350 deg. with a wooden spoon, mix the butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from the pan and slice to serve.

I have also decided to walk more. In the last week I haven't even been in a car. Normally i would drive the short 10 min walk to the supermarket. I have been getting out and enjoying the sunshine. Now that i have broken the habit of driving everywhere, it doesn't really even occur to me to take the car for short distances.

I know these two things won't change the world alone. I wanted to pick something i could stick to during the next four years. And if i find it really easy I can always add more things. To find more information or to make a commitment to changing the world go to Four Years.Go

FOUR YEARS. GO.

About a week ago I stumbled across this website for change. It is an opportunity to connect with others and make a difference. To start creating the world we want instead of settling for the world we have. If you want something better, if you can imagine something MORE then check out FOUR YEARS. GO. Make a commitment and start making the changes you want to see in others.

"In the next four years, we can raise global consciousness to influence governments and free markets. We can reverse the trends of deforestation. We can safely capture CO2. We can pay a fair wage. We can rethink the way we use energy and the way we treat our global neighbors. In the next four years, we can stop waiting for someone else to fix it. We can start taking responsibility. We can change ourselves, change the world, and have fun doing it.

It all starts with a simple act. A single step. A personal declaration to start making small choices. A small action taken daily by millions around the world, resonating into a chorus of earth moving thunder." - FOUR YEARS. GO.

FOUR YEARS. GO. A Campaign to Change the Course of History. from FOUR YEARS. GO. on Vimeo.

World Food Day: United Against Hunger

Go Here To Sign

How much water did you use today?

It is a hard question for most of us to answer. I had no idea. 20 litres? 40 litres? Is that too much? Too little? I guessed about 50 litres.

Water is something that those of us lucky enough to be living in the developed world think little about. Why would we? We can go to the tap and immediately have access to drinking quality hot or cold running water.

I looked it up and on average Australians use approximately 277 litres of water a day (Melbourne water 2007). I did a tally:

6 toilet flushes – 56 litres (9 litres per flush)

8 hand washes/ teeth brushing – 140 litres (15 litres per minute)

26 minute shower – 364 litres (14 litres per minute)

3 cups of tea – 2 litres

drinking water – 1 litre

cooking – 4 litres

Total 564 litres

564 litres and I didn’t even do any laundry or wash any dishes.

Can you imagine having to carry that much water to your home every day. For millions of women and children this is a reality. According to the UN’s Human Development Report The weight of water that women in Africa and Asia carry on their heads is commonly 20kg.

Obviously women wouldn’t carry 564 litres to their homes every day. Water in these communities is a valuable commodity. They save every precious drop for reuse and cut down water wastage. No 26 minute showers! The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council states the average person in the developing world uses only 10 litres of water every day for ALL their drinking, washing and cooking.

What would you be willing to do to save the time and effort to carry all this water? Maybe brush your teeth at the community water point. That would save less than a litre. Maybe have a shower standing at the community tap? Maybe give up showering almost completely?

An alarming statistic from WaterAid Nepal shows only 37% wash hands with water and only 12% soap. It is alarming because around the world one child dies every 20 seconds from diarrhoea caused by unclean water and poor sanitation. Up to 47% of these cases could be solved with clean water and soap (WaterAid International).

I am actually truly embarrassed by the amount of water I wasted today. I am even more embarrassed to admit I probably wasted this much water everyday last year. I guess the point of Blog Action Day is to get us all thinking about these things and what we can do. I am not sure yet what I can do to help others with their water problems but at least now I am aware. And tomorrow I will try to stick to cut down to 4 minute showers as recommended by target 155. What are you going to do?

Check out the Speak Up For Change Blog for more posts on water from bloggers around the world.

Blog Action Day

I know it is a little bit late notice but I think this is a really great idea on an issue that does not get enough press. On October 15 we should all post about water and help to highlight the struggle some people just to access clean water. I started thinking about my post. I hope you all join in.

Blog Action Day 2010: Water from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

For more information try here at speak up for change.

small steps

pic from mini hipster

Pic from the small steps website

I recently stopped watching the news because it was too depressing. I spend a lot of time researching NGOs and nonprofit organisations (i study grad diploma in international development, like project management for aid work) and i think its why i've got a new positive outlook. I get to see some people at their best, normal people who saw a need and decided they could do something about it.

I am really interested by small non profits which are out there achieving things. I think everyone has the skills to make a difference in someone's life and people underestimate their own abilities. Occasionally i am going to post about some of the organisations i hear about. I am not going to get all preachy or guilt anyone into donating. I guess this is just my way of say i appreciate what they are doing.

So my first of these posts is on Small Steps. Now if you follow the link the website is rubbish and i wish they would hire me to work on their social media campaign cos it stinks but what they are doing is amazing.

Small Steps supports children living on rubbish dumps around the world and raises awareness of the unacceptable hardships faced by them through film. They are working to put shoes on the feet of children living on dump sites and 100% of donations goes to children on rubbish dumps.

It sounds like a small thing but i have seen some of these dumps where people are spending their lives and i wouldn't want to venture in there with a hazmat suit let alone without shoes. These kids spend their days sorting through piles of burning garbage with no protection.

And if you have time this is worth a watch. Around the world in 80 dumps...

Around the World in 80 Dumps: Small Steps Project from Amy Hanson on Vimeo.