Hey Guys,
As you have all probably heard, a tsunami in Japan after an 8.9 magnitude earth-quake off coast. Although the word tsunami originated from Japan since the country has been known to be tsunami bound, this is not the first time the news has reported of a tsunami devastating a country. Other countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, to name a few, have recently been hit by tsunamis as well.
One question we should all be asking ourselves is why there seems to be a sudden surge of natural disasters lately. There is no one answer because the world is a global organic being where one change in the chain flow of things could result with devastating consequences.
I.e. mass clearing the rainforest to grow crops. The rainforests are the worlds lungs, if we keep destroying them then the temperature will rise since the rainforests breath in the CO2 emissions.
This example leads me to the tired old argument we've all heard before: global warming. It annoys me when people tell me that global warming doesn't exist, that it's all a hoax to get money our of our pockets. But the truth is, it's very real.
Back to the rainforest example. If the rainforests are being cleared, the temperature will rise, which will cause the polar ice caps to melt. This has already led to a 12 percent sea level rise. The polar ice caps have been here for ages, since the last ice age. Just think about how old that is. Now that it's melting, and is predicted to be completely gone in the next few years, this is causing serious changes in the environment.
The polar ice caps reflects back the suns harmful UV rays. If the polar ice caps were to disappear, there will be nothing to reflect the UV rays and it will end up heating the ocean instead. If the oceans start to warm, the methane residing under the ice will rise up. Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than C02, and will cause the temperatures to rise faster.
This sounds all sounds extremely devastating, and I know I've blogged about it before but I wanted to re-blog it to remind you all again! There are things you can do in your everyday lives to help slow down this process, and I'm afraid that you guys won't like the solution.
Cut down your meat intake!
I will rant again: right now we're producing enough food to feed the entire worlds population. So why are there still starving kids in Africa? That's because most of the food produced go to feed livestock. This means, that when they clear off the rainforest to build crops, the crops goes to feed pigs, chickens, and cows. Not only does sound absolutely ridiculous, but the livestock consuming the grain can't even enjoy it. They are trapped in inhumane conditions, and most of them have never seen sunlight. They are abused, frightened and trapped. Also, cows produce a lot of methane, which as you already know, will heat up the environment faster than C02.
Knowing this, I've already cut down my meat intake, as hard as it is. I've been eating less meat for the past few months, but since lent started I have stopped eating meat altogether even though there's a lot of temptations.
The other day when I came home, the first thing Aaron said to me was "There's a lot of chicken in the fridge!"
I looked in the fridge and he wasn't joking, we had bbq wings, an entire whole roasted chicken, and drumsticks.
I close the fridge door and Matthew is there eating a drumstick, taunting me by saying, "Chicken is goood!!"
I overcame the temptation by yelling at the two of them and making instant noodles. (Instant noodles never fails to be by my side.)
So far, my meat free diet is going well. I haven't been starving, like I predicted I would be, and I've actually been getting more than enough protein. (Natalie was telling me how her friend suddenly went vegetarian and fainted because she didn't have protein at all. After hearing this, I freaked out and bought a can of beans. BEANS ARE EXPENSIVE. Will stick to tofu from now on.)
This experience is also teaching me to experiment with food. Here are some recipes that are as random as my posts here on this blog:
Kimchi Fried Rice
I love kimchi, and I always have a tub of it at home. I'm sure there are other ways to make kimchi fried rice, but this is my own version of it. All you need is:
Onions
Oil
Rice (I used brown rice)
Kimchi
Eggs
Salt/pepper
Mix it all in a pan and voila! Awesomeness.
Black Bean Tofu
This one took me ten minutes to prepare to cook. All you need is:
Black Bean paste (probably a staple in every asian household)
Tofu
Onion/Garlic (depends on how you like it)
Oil
I fried the tofu up a bit with the oil first, then added the onion in. Afterwards I just added the black bean paste. Just make sure you don't add too much black bean paste or else it will end up extremely salty.
Enoki Mushrooms
I saw these at T&T and it said 'organically grown in Canada.' Plus, it was on sale, buy two for the price of one, so I snagged two.
Two ways to cook this:
The first way I did this was very simple:
Onion
Enoki Mushrooms
Salt
Pepper
Dump them all in the pan and mix it. We've all done this before.
The second way I did this was better:
Eggs
Enoki Mushroom
Salt
Pepper
Parmesan Cheese
Onion
Oil
First, scramble the eggs with the parmesan cheese, along with salt and pepper. Heat up the oil then fry the onions. Add in the enoki mushrooms until it shrivels up a bit, before dumping the egg on top. The parmesan cheese made it smell awesome. Keep mixing until it's cooked.
And voila, three completely random, easy, meat-free recipes.
The only thing I have to cut back on this diet though is my consumption of tea (I probably drink 4 cups of green tea a day T.T) and coffee since it apparently hinders your body from absorbing the zinc in your foods.
Even if you guys don't decide to become vegetarians, I would seriously recomend cutting down on your meat intake. It really isn't that hard to do :)
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