ABQ Stew

It can be difficult to eat sustainably. What I mean by “sustainable eating” is based on the Planetary Health Diet, dietary guidelines based on research done by scientists to determine which diet is ecologically healthiest while also being nutritionally adequate. To make everyday eating more sustainable, the food system should be constructed so that eating sustainably no longer takes much effort or requires special expensive grocery stores but instead is the default for consumers. Not everyone has access to sustainable groceries. It can be difficult to replace nutrients from animal products with plant-based foods. According to the Planetary Health Diet, this isn’t non-negotiable. PHD does include small amounts of animal products. Of course, not everyone can eat the same way. Diets vary based on nutritional needs, health conditions, and personal preference.

At this point, you might be asking yourself: why is this important? Well, it affects how we live. Later I’ll be discussing shifting the entire food system. Diet is one of the most impactful changes an individual can make to reduce their ecological footprint. Climate change is a severe threat to humanity, so making the default food choices for consumers sustainable is crucial.

I’ve had my own struggles eating sustainably. I don’t have time to cook, so getting enough mostly plant-based food is a huge challenge that takes a lot of time and energy. There are other barriers people face when trying to eat sustainably. It’s difficult to tell which products are sustainable, especially with greenwashing. Another barrier to everyday sustainable eating is that the price or health of foods outweighs sustainability. The price of sustainable foods is often higher. Lastly, even if a food is obviously more sustainable, people are often uncertain about just how effective or how much more sustainable that food is. This could lead to other factors outweighing perceived sustainability.

The first method by which a sustainable food system can be accomplished is changing the supply chain. No-till farming and crop rotation are two methods of sustainable farming. No-till farming is farming without tilling soil, which degrades the soil and makes it less nutritious. Crop rotation is when farmers switch which crops they grow in a certain field over time. Growing the same crop can deplete nutrients from the soil. Regenerative agriculture techniques such as these can improve soil health and ensure that crops can be grown for a long time.

There are ways to make grocery shopping more sustainable. Emissions from transportation to grocery stores can be reduced by implementing e-groceries or improving walkability. On the consumer side, once there’s a critical mass of demand for sustainable products, companies will stock them. Lastly, grocery stores can “nudge” shoppers to make more sustainable choices. Sustainable products can be displayed at the front of the store, there can be posters reminding shoppers of sustainability, or shoppers can be given discounts for sustainable products or practices. I went to a Smith’s that displayed brown bananas with a recipe for banana bread, and another Smith’s has “green bag points” for customers who don’t use single-use bags. One method that’s been piloted in the UK is eco-labeling, where brands can choose to have a label on their products with a grade for how eco-friendly that product is based on a few factors. This strategy may be more effective if it is required of all foods, like nutrition labels.

The last way the food system can become more sustainable is through taxes and/or incentives. The simplest way to do this is to put a monetary value on ecosystem degradation and add that to the cost of products depending on how harmful they are. However, the effect of this would be to force low-income people into lifestyles that are seen as inaccessible today. Another way this could be done is by taxing environmentally harmful luxuries like cruises and flights and providing incentives for purchasing sustainable products. For example, there could be a combination of required eco-labeling and tax write-offs for money spent on products with high ratings. The food system is not sustainable as it is, and it is nearly impossible to live sustainably within it. However, with enough action at all levels of society, it can be changed for the benefit of the environment and all of us.

-Posted by Cameron

When you’re a child you get lectured by your parents for not finishing your dinner. They reference children in Africa that starve while you waste the pile of peas on your plate. While this is relevant to the food waste epidemic, it’s nothing compared to the food waste that is created in America yearly. Americans throw out 400 pounds of food per person annually or 1,250 calories per day per person. In total America wastes slightly less than half of all the total amount of food. There are more than 42 million Americans that suffer from food scarcity, but the U. S. does not eat 40% of its food.

To prevent more harm to the environment and ensure world hunger subsides, there needs to be a prevention of food waste. There are several different ways to reduce your food waste while providing food and nourishment not only for other people, but also for the planet. One of the best ways to reduce food waste is by composting. Composting can be easy and efficient for your home. The process of composting is recycling organic matter, such as leaves and food scraps, into a valuable fertilizer that can enrich soil and plants. All you have to do is take the food you do not consume (banana peels, egg shells, leftovers) and add it to a container which can be placed in your backyard. If you live in a place where you don’t have access to a backyard there are several discreet composting options for apartments and homes. Not only does composting reduce food waste but it also conserves water, cuts methane emissions from landfills, and improves soil health. 

Sadly all across the nation composting is not properly utilized. In New Mexico several stores donate certain food waste, but the rest is thrown away. Less than 10% of grocery stores compost, this is either because of lack of accountability or they don’t have access to compost services. This is very troubling because 40% of food waste comes from restaurants and grocery stores in America. The image of a slightly bruised apple may come to mind. Why don’t you see a bruised apple or slightly brown bananas in grocery stores? Most likely it is because this item is already in the trash since it does not represent the image that the store is trying to live up to. Food is food, and it shouldn’t be wasted because it’s not absolutely pristine in the eyes of the customer or business.

Composting is not the only way to reduce food waste. Some of the most simple ways to reduce food waste is to create a meal plan, stock your pantry with shelf stable foods that can be utilized for years, store food appropriately, and eat before you shop to prevent overbuying. These are all easy to implement in your life but one of the best All of these can be efficient ways to reduce food waste and global emissions. For several decades America has been at the front of the world for harmful practices to the Environment and overall food waste. The detriment that we have created has been largely ignored or explained away as a way for progress to be made with agriculture. Progress does not always have to mean waste and it’s time people that cared about this issue took initiative to stop these practices.

If you’re interested in having a compost system in your home, one of the best things to do is DIY it. All you’ll need is a large container/trash can (hopefully you can repurpose one that you had lying around), a power drill, and a power drill bit to go with your power drill. What you’ll need to do is rinse out your container, drill holes in the container approximately three inches apart (this should be both length and width), and then clean out the container again to  ensure no plastic particles are inside. Then start collecting your composting and adding it to the bin so it slowly starts to decompose.

With an effort from businesses and individuals, food waste can be a thing of the past. Taking accountability and trying new methods like composting, or just donating to people who need it more are ways to help the Earth. Don’t forget, just because the banana is a little ugly doesn’t mean it’s not delicious.

-Posted by Kayla

Agroecosystems, ecosystems that have been modified by human beings for agricultural purposes, have become a topic of study as we focus on shifting agricultural practices towards sustainability. When you picture an agroecosystem what do you see? You might think of rolling fields of grain or a small backyard garden, but would you think of the Santa Fe National Forest or the California grasslands? I would argue that the Earth itself is an agroecosystem.

Human beings currently manage an approximate 97% of land to some extent. Much of that land is used agriculturally, even if only to a small extent. The Forest Service manages and protects our national forests, these protections allow wild edible plants to grow, and in turn allows people to forage for them. Our national forests are also grazing pastures for the cattle that roam them. Agroecosystems exist on a continuum from agroecosystems with minimal human interference to industrialized monoculture farms. Would our national forests not fall on the minimal human interference side of the continuum?

In California government agencies are scrambling to save the grasslands. These biomes are necessary for the health of all California ecosystems, and they are rapidly disappearing. Historically, these grasslands were maintained by Native Californians who contributed to their health through management of the land and the species that lived on it. When Native Californians began to be pushed out of the picture the health of the grasslands began to decay. These grasslands relied on management, much of it in the form of harvesting food, to survive. Without such interference from people these grasslands are rapidly disappearing. When this management is added back into the picture the grasslands begin to recover.

This is all part of the bigger picture that human life is not separate from the ecosystem as a whole. In recent centuries human beings have begun to separate ourselves from the ecosystem, both physically by building cities and mentally by changing our view of our place in the ecosystem. This viewpoint has greatly contributed to climate change and many argue that it’s necessary for us to change our view of ourselves in connection to our ecosystem to truly make progress in reversing climate change. We are animals and we have evolved within the ecosystem. We are as necessary to a healthy ecosystem as wolves are to Yellowstone, to remove ourselves is to remove a key part of a balanced ecosystem. While our interference in the ecosystem has become far greater than other species, our interference is still no different from the interference of a bird keeping a stock of seeds for winter.

When a squirrel buries an acorn there’s a chance that squirrel will never dig it up again. Squirrels only retrieve about 95% of their buried acorns, not to mention the possibility that the squirrel never makes it through winter, and in these situations it’s possible for that acorn to sprout and grow into an oak tree. This oak tree will produce food for the future squirrels of the world and those squirrels will bury those acorns allowing the cycle to repeat. This keeps the forest and the squirrels alive. Is an oak forest the agroecosystem of squirrels? 

When we define our production of food within an ecosystem as separate from “the ecosystem” we separate ourselves from the ecosystem as a whole. At the end of the day, our actions growing food are no different in nature than the actions of a squirrel stockpiling acorns. Our actions may have greater influence due to the destructive nature of modern industrial farming yet it remains the same principle. Our influence on the ecosystem’s production of food is everywhere and so ingrained in the structure of the world that entire biomes rely on our influence to survive. It will be impossible to approach agriculture in a sustainable way while our influence on the ecosystem through agriculture is still viewed as separate from the broader ecosystem. The Earth itself is an agroecosystem.

-Posted by Alex

Plant-Based Milk’s Rise to Popularity

Over the past decade, plant-based milk seems to be getting more and more popular. I remember when oat milk raised in popularity a couple of years ago, there was a shortage at Starbucks. It was close to impossible to find oat milk anywhere. There were other plant-based milk options at the time, but oat milk was the one that stuck out.

People have made the switch from dairy milk to plant-based milk for many reasons: taste, sustainability, and health reasons. Almond milk is by far the most popular milk alternative. Plant-based milk’s popularity was at an all-time high in 2020 sales in the US. The total sales for that year were between $2.5 billion and $3 billion. Almond milk sales had the highest amount of $1.54 billion, but oat milk had the biggest increase in sales. Oat milk sales went up by 37% with a total of $512 million. Other plant-based milk had an 18% increase in sales making $91 million. Overall, dairy milk made more than its plant-based competition making $40.5 billion in the US.

Cow’s Milk Impact on the Environment

Compared to plant-based milk, dairy milk has a significantly larger impact on the environment. To create one liter of milk, 8.95 square miles of land are used. Making one liter of cow milk creates 3.15 kilograms of greenhouse gas. None of the alternative kinds of milk reach half of dairy milk’s emissions. The amount of freshwater used to make one liter of milk is 628.2 liters.

Plant-Based Milk’s Impact on the Environment

None of the plant-based kinds of milk’s land usage per liter comes close to dairy milk’s. None of them are over a square mile. Oat milk has the highest land usage of 0.76 miles², soy milk uses 0.66 miles², almond milk uses 0.5 miles², and rice milk uses the least amount with only 0.34 miles². All of the alternative kinds of milk have very similar greenhouse emissions. Rice milk produces 1.18 kg per liter, soy milk produces, 0.98 kg, oat milk produces 0.9 kilograms, and almond milk produces 0.7 kilograms.

There is a big difference in freshwater usage per liter with certain types of milk alternatives. Almond milk uses the most by a long shot, but rice milk is the closest with about 100 liters less. The total amount of freshwater almond milk uses is 371.46 liters and rice milk follows with 269.81 liters. Oat and soy milk don’t come close to the other kinds of milk with their water usage. Oat milk only requires 48.24 liters and soy milk requires 27.8 liters.

Health Comparisons  

The main health reason people consume plant-based milk instead of cow milk is because of lactose. Other than having no lactose, plant-based milk provides several other health benefits. Cow milk has more fat compared to most milk alternatives. On average, plant-based milk has 25-63% less fat. The majority of the types of plant-based milk have less sugar in it, except for oat milk. 

On the other hand, there are some health benefits to drinking dairy milk instead of a milk alternative. Dairy milk has more protein, potassium, and calcium compared to plant-based milk. One cup of cow milk contains 25% of recommended calcium intake and 10% of recommended potassium. It is also better for kids and toddlers because it has more vitamin D, protein, and calcium to help kids’ growth and development.

Comparing Cost

Typically when you order coffee somewhere, you have to pay extra for plant-based milk. At Starbucks, they charge 70¢ to add any of the milk alternative options they have there to your drink. In the UK, Starbucks there are removing the extra fee for milk alternatives. Soy milk is the cheapest type of plant-based milk. On average soy milk cost $1-3 per half gallon. The reason it is the most affordable non-dairy milk is that it has been in the market for it and its newness has worn off. Oat milk, on the other hand, costs more to buy because it’s a newer product and its popularity is at its prime. Dairy milk on average cost about $4.36 per gallon.

My Recommendation

There are many factors you need to consider when you are choosing which milk to buy: cost, impact on the environment, and health benefits. If you are wanting milk that has the lowest impact on the environment, I would go with either oat or soy milk since they have low land and water usage, and greenhouse gas emissions. The only negative part about buying oat milk is that it is one of the more expensive kinds of milk. If you are looking for cheap milk with a low impact on the environment, soy milk is your best option.

–Posted by Hope

As a child I personally hated bees,especially when they were buzzing around the raspa truck. As a reasonably educated adult I love bees and everything they can provide. Whether that be beeswax, honey, or royal jelly. However, today we will be focusing on an important job all bees and fellow wild friends provide, Pollination! Pollination is essential to our everyday lives from the food that you eat to the soap in your bathroom, yet we hardly give credit where credit is due.

Before we dive in on their importance let’s first define and understand what a pollinator is. According to the National Park Service a pollinator is anything that helps carry pollen from the male part of the flower to the female part of the same or another flower. In other words, a pollinator assists in the reproduction of flowers and plants. The state of New Mexico is home to a variety of pollinators. They range from monarch butterflies to bats. There’s a variety of native pollinators. These pollinators take different shifts during the day for maximum efficiency. During the day you may see bees or other winged creatures buzzing and flying around flowers and other native plants. During the night our other nocturnal friends take their shifts.

As reported by U.S. Department of Agriculture about 35% of the world’s food crops depend on pollinators to reproduce. Therefore, by statistics at least one section of your meal got to your mouth with the help of pollinators. Additionally in the USDA added that pollinators add approximately $18 billion in revenue to crop production every year (Keel, 2022). The infographic above, provided by Xerces society, provides a visual aid for all the assistance pollinators give both economically and aesthetically.

Sadly, the two dear pollinators mentioned above, bees and bats, are slowly fading away. They have extreme difficulty surviving in today’s human activities and modern world and need our help to keep from going farther into endangerment. Both bees and bats habitats are declining due to urbanization, this results in a lack of food with more competition. Caves that were once homes to colonies of bats are being closed for safety hazards to humans. If bees alone were to go extinct our food supply would greatly decline. It is our job as a society to aid in not only the population of bees but all pollinators; without their role in our lives the stability of human populations would hang in the balance.

There are many options to help our pollinating friends. As stated previously bats are having trouble finding shelter. A great way you can make a difference is by either buying or making a bat box to set up in your backyard. Setting up a bat box would not only give them shelter but would also provide a feeding ground. Bats are great tenants for your yard as they assist in pest control. If you’re looking to purchase a bat box a great company to look at would be BatBNB. They ship right to your door and have additional information about what a bat box can provide for our nocturnal friends.

A good DIY option is to create bee water drinking stations in your backyard. Often times bees drown from desperately trying to drink water or dehydrate from lack of water. One method I use in my own yard in filling a shallow bowl with water then placing marbles just above to water’s surface inside. An effective, cheap alternative to marbles is rocks, however, if the rocks are not thin you will need to fill the water a bit higher as pictured here. It gives the bees a safe place to land and replenish while they’re hard at work pollinating.

Additionally, you can plant native species that attract pollinators and are also adapted to New Mexico’s unique environment. These plants are best suited for small areas with dry soil. These plants not only attract native bees and butterflies; they also attract nectar seeking wildlife such as hummingbirds. The plants that Xerces society recommends for the Albuquerque and Santa Fe Region include Chocolate flowers, horsetail milkweed, gayfeather, desert willow, crispleaf buckwheat and many more. You can find the full list on the Xerces Society Website.

In the city of Albuquerque, you can get your own yard certified through ABQ Backyard Refuge to make your own space a “wild habitat in an urban place. They provide helpful plant lists, getting started guides, and many other resources to ensure your yard is not only pollinator friendly but New Mexico adapted.

-Posted by Ava

One of the most notable events in U.S history, the Dust Bowl, has common contributing factors to modern day farming practices. The Dust Bowl caused violent dust storms and high wind gusts that plagued the Midwest and Southwestern United States. People in the affected areas endured these storms for six long years, from 1930-1936. The big question about the strange event is; how did this happen? To answer the question, we must go back to World War 1.

During World War 1, the demand and price for wheat and other valuable crops such as corn skyrocketed. This demand for such large amounts of produce came from the need to feed an army and civilians throughout Europe. Production and cultivation of these vital crops led to farmers growing their operations to meet the demand. This boom in price and production that lasted throughout the 1920s into early 1930, finally crashed along with the stock market during the Great Depression.

One key factor that contributed to the fall in price of crops during the Depression, was that now the once abundant farmlands were left barren. Dry land farming, a process that relied on pre-existing moisture and nutrients in the soil, was one of the largest contributors to the Dust Bowl. With the farmland being overworked, there was not enough moisture or nutrients left in the soil for newly planted crops to survive. Overgrazing also destroyed anchoring plants and root systems. With nothing to keep the soil in place, and very dry sand-like soil condition, the soil began to erode and blow away with the wind. This was especially devastating in the Great Plains area due to the flat nature of the area and most of the prairie grass being stripped away. The result of these conditions led to large dust storms forming by wind picking up loose soil and creating large, fast moving dust clouds. The dust storms and soil that was impossible to farm on led to mass migrations to escape the storms and inhabitable conditions.

Over-farming was a very large contributor to the Dust Bowl, but it begs the question; what could have been done to prevent the damage?

The answer to this question is one that is not very hard to find, but is somewhat difficult to implement; soil health. Having healthy soil is the crucial foundation to ensure that we have healthy crops to harvest, and to ensure that another Dust Bowl incident does not happen again. Healthy soil is defined as soil that is rich with elements such as carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, organic matter being present in the soil, having the right amount of water, and it being physically strengthened by plant growth. Without these key ingredients, soil erosion could revert back to conditions similar to the Dust Bowl. The U.S has lost an estimated 57.6 billion metric tons of soil since the late 19th century. It is estimated that prairie lands lose about 1.9 millimeters of top soil every year.

After the Dust Bowl period ended, new farming practices were put into place to protect and promote soil health. These practices have been effective in slowing down the rate of soil erosion. To solve these problems and enforce regulations, the National Natural Resource Conservation Service, or NRCS, was created under the Department of Agriculture in 1933, later renamed the Soil Conservation Service or, SCS, in 1935 as direct response to the Dust Bowl. The main goal of the NRCS and SCS is to protect soil health and prevent conditions from ever being similar to cause another Dust Bowl. One organization here in  New Mexico, the NM Healthy Soil Working Group, is in the fight against soil erosion.  They have many resources to help people learn about healthy soil practices and conservation methods to consider when planting crops.

There are practices that both help the problem of soil erosion, but also have the chance to increase its rate and make the problem worse. Some of these practices include crop rotation in fields, no-till farming, and crop covering. These methods have been very effective at reducing erosion. No-till farming for example has been able to reduce the amount of soil lost to just 0.1 tons per acre a year. This is a large saving compared to losing 5.2 tons per acre a year in a conventional till operation. The process works by not digging into the Earth when planting (here is a video of a no-till operation). It helps keep the vegetation and root systems intact, strengthening the soil. This process also includes covering farmland that is not in use to protect it from erosion by wind. Crop rotation is another viable option by switching out which crops are planted in the same fields so that the nutrients can be utilized for specific crops. With these methods in place, we still cannot stop erosion, but we will be able to slow its effects.

We have come a long way since the Dust Bowl. We have learned about the importance of soil health and just how crucial it is to our own health, and the health of our Earth. We will always have the threat of a Dust Bowl like incident looming over us, and a few of the practices are still in place. Even though we have changed our ways, we will always have the parallels to the conditions of the past.

–Posted by John

Forest farming is the cultivation of high-value crops under the protection of a managed tree canopy (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2023). Forest farming is an agroforestry practice. Agroforestry is the intentional integration of trees and shrubs into crop and animal farming systems to create environmental, economic, and social benefits (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2023). Some of the crops that can be grown in forest farms are moss, fruit, nuts, herbs, and any plant or fungus that needs shade can grow in a forest farming system (Davis, 2007).

There are forest farms all over the world. There are some local forest farms in the United States of America, such as New Leaf Tree Syrups Farm, located in New York and Vermont. New Leaf Tree Syrup mission is to produce the greatest diversity of single-source, organic and eco-kosher certified saps and syrups (New Leaf Tree Syrups, 2023). This incredible farm has a vision  to protect and utilize woodlands for the greatest diversity of plants, animals, and sustainably harvested products as possible. Not to mention that New Leaf Tree Syrups is the leading brand used by food manufacturers in beverages and packages goods (New Leaf Tree Syrups, 2023).  

Another example of a forest farm is the Generations of Ginseng farm, also known as “Four Prongs”, owned by Blake Dillman. There are two locations, one farm is in Bluefield, Virginia, and the other farm is in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. They have been actively growing ginseng for 7 years and have each year progressed in different areas and began growing my herbs and crops (Rural Action, 2022). What is unique about this farm is it started when a good friend of Blakes named Jim Hamilton, who is the Watauga County Agricultural Extension Agent, found ginseng on his way to Blake’s property in Blowing Rock, North Carolina.

One international forest farming example I found is located in the Philippines. One Philippine food forest example is the Vaikuntha Forest Farm which is located in the Sierra Madre mountains in Tanya, which is one of the last remaining rainforests of the Philippines (Philippine Food Forest, 2022). Vaikuntha Food Farm grows a variety of herbs, fruits, and veggies, which are all organically certified. There is a handful of Philippine Food Forest farms that exist in the Philippines which are making a climate difference in so many ways that can help guide us to a life sustaining future.

Forest farming can be both sustainable and non-sustainable. Forest farming can help conserve the species that live within forests and ensure the continuum of biodiversity (Yeo, 2023). Forest farms can also help humans address food insecurity and nutrition. Forest farming increases food security by preserving trees on agricultural land and encouraging natural regeneration by planting more trees and other forest plants (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2021). Agriculture has a significant impact on the environment in many ways. First, it requires a lot of fresh water to keep farm production thriving and efficient. Also, farming is a crucial driver of climate change, producing around one third of global greenhouse gases (Ritchie & Roser, 2022). Forest farming also involved intense labor time to reap the yields of product. Forest farming takes planning and adequate knowledge to develop an efficient forest farm system.

Overall, forest farming has diversified forest management and enhanced agricultural practices. More and more forest farms and food forests are being developed to address our Earth’s climate crisis and food insecurity. Through forest farming, we can fight food insecurity and nutrition, protect our environment, and decrease species loss.

-Posted by Addison

Imagine you live in Albuquerque, New Mexico; you are a hard worker who works a 40-hour workweek, you have children in college, and you just want to get away from the hustle and bustle for a break. You sit down and decide to get away for a three-day weekend up in Santa Fe, New Mexico. At night you go through different hotels checking the room rates and availability, and you want somewhere that is affordable but nice, and has decent food. These are all of the qualities that we look for when we search for a hotel: cleanliness, a peaceful sleeping environment, affordability, and comfort.

But does everyone always think about looking for a sustainable hotel as a quality when choosing a hotel? As an honest guess on my part, I say No! A sustainable hotel can have practices such as trying to reduce water usage by washing guest bedding and towels less, reducing electricity demand by using energy saving light bulbs and included appliances available to guests. But another important factor is how does a hotel implement sustainable food practices. This is the aspect that I will be researching and providing facts about which hotels do this, what methods they use, and can other hotels transition to these methods, and finally should these methods become the norm in the hospitality industry.

Did you know that hotels produce 290,000 tons of waste per year including close to 80,000 tons of food waste (nine percent of total food waste from this sector). (Modern Restaurant Management). As shown in this chart below Potato products, and Fruit and vegetables account for a combined 35% of total food waste while each other category account for less or the same. (Note: There is a degree of Unavoidable food waste). That is a significant amount of food that is being wasted each year which is in need of change. The hotel sector has become even more aware of addressing food waste, and are also becoming more aware of investing in more ethical food brands, while also buying local and in – season ingredients which is increasingly becoming more of a hit with customers, and one of the hotels that encompasses some of these practices is located around 61 miles away from our home city of Albuquerque.

La Fonda Hotel, located right in the heart of Santa Fe, New Mexico has been around for quite a while. The hotel has been visited by a few famous people and has great amenities that hold a special place in the hearts of both tourists and those who are familiar with the area. The hotel also upholds the idea of sustainability, and was named a sustainability champion by the Historic Hotels of America. I traveled to La Fonda hotel to speak with the Manager of the hotel Rik Blyth who provided me with a few facts about their general practices of sustainability, and more specifically their specific practices of sustainability involving the food aspect of their hotel and food waste.

I also very briefly spoke with the Executive Chef Lane Warner about some of the hotel’s practices. A few examples from what I learned from them are they are trying to reduce paper consumption by substituting those products for washable cloth napkins, and tablecloths. They are also using recycled takeout containers for their food operations moving away from plastic containers. The Manager and cook also mentioned that they are continuing to try to purchase food locally at farmers markets, and other businesses that sell fresh organic foods that doesn’t have to travel as far, and helps the local economy. They would like to continue to invest in this more.

Warner also mentioned that they switched to straws that have a corn starch base, and were biodegradable which I wish I would have asked more about. They finally mentioned that the hotel also recycles 1,200-1,600 lbs of coffee pods per year which is great and has benefits. The end result of my visit was great, and I would definitely stay here just knowing what they are working so hard to do to help the environment with the steps that they are taking. I believe that if more hotels embody practices like these the general public will be incentivized to stay there; and more people when they want to get away and search for a hotel will ask “Does this hotel believe in and provide sustainable practices?” If it does then I think it will make people happy, and the hotel will get their business in return for a safe relaxing, fun, and green stay!

-Posted by Jaden