One (or the other) every day

There are two daily habits that I would like to get into. One is riding my bike to and from the train station on my way to work. This involves 9 miles of riding between morning and evening and isn't too difficult, except for the last segment in the evening (about 1.5 miles) which is uphill and always against the wind (sometimes a very strong one). The other is bringing a lunch to work rather than eating at the cafeteria. The cafeteria is fairly healthy since I usually have a salad with only balsamic vinegar as dressing, but still. Bringing food from home would be better since I would have more control over it. If I choose to, I can bring in some (hopefully in the future all or mostly) local and organic food. This is what I would like to be eating. Who knows how far the veggies in the salad bar have traveled in pollution spewing trucks and/or airplanes. Either of these changes would also save me money since the cafeteria food is expensive and the alternative to riding my bike is a trip on the local subway system (BART), and they don't have monthly passes.

Since these are new (at least for this year) and require some extra time, I'm going to do one or the other each work day depending on which is more convenient or desirable that day. For tomorrow, packing a lunch is the obvious choice since I have meetings from 11AM-2:30PM with no lunch break. Tonight I cooked some lentils and spices. Since I couldn't find a matching Tupperware top and bottom, I'm going to transport it in a old pickle jar. We have more used glass jars than we can possibly use as canisters, so why not? My co-workers will probably think I'm weird, sort of like their reaction upon learning that I don't own a car.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Food waste, food miles

We had a celebration at work today with free lunch. I packed up a small fraction of the extra food for afternoon snack and lunch or snack tomorrow. Most of the extra food got thrown away. What a waste.

For those concerned about food miles and how much fuel usage and carbon emissions goes into the food you eat, consider this. The most energy efficient food you'll ever eat is what's already in the building and will otherwise be thrown away.