Eye Opener 2: CSPI--Score Your Diet

For the second eye opener, I chose to do the "Score Your Diet" activity.  I thought that this was a really great tool to use.  It was a pretty good calculator of your impact on your health, the environment, and animal welfare through your diet.  

I scored the highest on the following three categories:

• fruits (score: 44)
• vegetables (score: 44)
• grains (score: 17)

The reason why I scored so high on these is because I eat plenty of fruits, veggies and grains making it really beneficial to my health.  There is a relatively low impact on the environment from eating these three food products, especially if I am choosing to eat locally grown, or organic.   There was also no effect on animal welfare by eating high amounts of these three products. Therefore, my overall score was still very high.  

I scored the lowest on the following three categories:

• cheese (score: -55)
• Egg Yolks (score: -12)
• Candy, pastries, ice cream (score: -6)

These three products were low for various reasons.  Every diet analysis I do tells me to stop eating so much cheese. SERIOUSLY, I can't help it...it's just so good!!  I don't eat meat, and I don't drink milk, eat yogurt, or fish...I have to eat cheese.  At any rate, according to the website, it is a little bit bad for animal welfare, its worse for the environment, and it is the worst for my health.  Oops. I guess it is time to work on the cheese addiction.  The egg yolks was low because eggs are the only poultry I eat. I eat about 3 hard-boiled eggs each week and I always have an omelette or some scrambled eggs thrown in my diet.  This was the worst for animal welfare, not so much on the environment or my health.  I think that  I will continue to eat the same amount of eggs because let's be honest-- I need to get my protein somehow, and obviously I don't eat meat, or enough beans to do so.  The candy, pastries and ice cream category is only a problem with the third clause: ICE CREAM!  Literally, if a man buys me ice cream he has my heart.  I don't need diamonds or flowers...just a big ol' bucket of bunny tracks and I am totally satisfied!!

What will I change?

After all things are taken into consideration, I have decided to change three things.  

• Of all the vegetables, fruits, and grains I eat, I will make an effort to buy more locally grown and organic.  This will be less detrimental to the environment.   I will also try to buy fresh, and not frozen as often, this will help enhance my health.
• I will TRY to eat less cheese, and even if i don't succeed at it, I will try to be more aware.  Maybe I could try and eat low-fat cheese to better my own health??
• I will work on not eating as much ice cream as I currently do.  It is important to both my health, the environment, and animal welfare.  I would say that this will be the hardest change to make.  Although I won't remove it from my diet completely, I need to start caring more about the environment while eating it, and less about my emotional satisfaction!! =)

Summary

This tool was very useful, and it was a great starting point for analyzing the effects of your diet on yourself, the environment and on animals.  I have had the opportunity to learn how I am helping, and how I am hurting myself, the environment and animals through my eating habits.  I really enjoyed how everything was given an numeric value, and it was so simple to calculate.  Although there are much more sophisticated instruments that can be used, this tool was helpful, quick and enlightening. Here is a picture of my results: