EARTH DAY EVERYDAY?

April 22^nd is Earth Day, a day designed to appreciate our most beautiful planet. At least I must assume it is the most beautiful, as I have yet to visit any others. So tomorrow many will try to be a little more earth friendly, a little more aware. I’m glad we have a day like this, but I also wish that I was better at being earth friendly everyday. I find it difficult to keep in the forefront of my busy mind the many ways that I a can leave less of a negative impact on this lovely place we live.

One effort that I have decided to take on this year is walking anywhere I need to go that is within three miles. My hope is that I can do this at least until winter, when hopefully Mother Nature will not dump another bunch of twenty inch snowstorms on us. I live within a mile of a grocery store, and the walk there is not bad at all. I also found that I buy less crap when I know I have to carry it all back. The closest MOM’s Organic Market is about four miles away, and although I have not ventured there on foot yet, I’m sure it’s a bearable trek as well.

It is certainly nice to know that I am damaging the environment less by using my car less, and I feel accomplished after walking to these local establishments, but I have found that the biggest benefit has come from knowing that when I eat, it is something I have worked for. The food is much more enjoyable, and I’m in better shape too. I think that one of the contributing factors to obese America is that few people do any work for their food anymore.

Humans used to hunt and gather, expending most of their energy to acquire more food and thus more energy to continue the cycle. Eventually this turned into various methods of farming, which still required a significant expenditure of energy. Even after many people abandoned farming people still spent a considerable portion of their day cooking and preparing food before consuming it. But now we are at the point that if it requires more than five minutes of sitting in our car in the drive thru, we had to work too hard for our food.

So what if everyone gave up paying for a gym membership each month, got off the treadmill, elliptical, and various other exercise gadgets, and instead simply walked to the grocery store, farmers market, or restaurant for their next meal?