1. Eat less meat
I've been thinking about this more mainly because of the environmental effects of raising livestock. Raising cattle typically requires lots of grain to feed them, and growing all that grain requires lots of water - I heard someone say recently that the amount of water required to produce one beef patty is the amount of water a human will drink in 4.5 years. Not to mention that cattle and other livestock produce a lot of greenhouse gases, which is also bad for the environment. I saw a really neat infographic about it awhile ago, but I can no longer find it. Here's another one:
I'm perfectly happy to eat GMOs so I don't care about that part of it, but it does reflect the carbon footprint that different types of meat have.
Now I don't think I really have the motivation to become fully vegetarian, but I do want to strive for a few things:
1) make vegetarian sandwiches instead of with cold cuts, and pick a good vegetarian option at restaurants instead of a meat option
2) when I do eat meat, choose to eat fish or pork more than beef or mutton
3) opt for game when possible, or wild fish
And then it would probably be a good idea to eat more of things like nuts and peanut butter to get more protein. Of course, even if I stop eating beef entirely, I do consume lots of dairy: cheese, cream, milk, yogurt. I eat LOTS of cheese. And dairy is also produced by cows. But dairy cows are usually different from beef cows, and a cow used for milk can make it for a long time, as opposed to a beef cow being butchered once and producing a finite quantity of meat.
2. Drink less sugar
By now, everyone knows that sugar is bad for you. Places like Whole Foods prides itself on not carrying food that contains high fructose corn syrup, but what the public doesn't seem to realize is that sucrose (sugar, table sugar, cane sugar, natural raw cane sugar, or whatever they want to call it) is pretty much just as bad for you. So if you go to drink a Mexican coke, don't fool yourself into thinking its any better health-wise.
So here's how I want to accomplish this one:
1) Stop drinking soda (by itself at least, i'll probably still allow myself cocktails with soda in them, or the occasional indie root beer)
2) Drink less cranberry juice - I drink a LOT of cranberry juice. It has lots of vitamins, but also lots of sugar. I'll try to drink water instead, or flavor the water if I crave the sweetness too much with an alternative.
3) Cut back on Starbucks - I've started going to Starbucks almost every morning. This is totally unnecessary, and should also help my wallet.
3. Pack lunches for work
This is pretty simple - I go out to lunch almost every day, and probably end up spending a lot of extra money because of it. This mainly happens because I'm lazy and never feel like packing lunch. Or, I make a small sandwich to bring to work, but get hungry again after eating it. I'm going to try to force myself to bring a full lunch almost every day and hopefully this will help me save money.
4. Create (and finish!) a solo choreography
I've been taking belly dance classes on and off for 3-4 years, but I still have never finished creating my own choreography. I'm not particularly creative naturally, and trying to make choreographies is something that I have struggled with when I've tried. But it is something that I want to accomplish and I feel is my next step in my development as a dancer. After all, ideally dance is a form of self-expression.
Those are the big ones - I have high hopes for 2015 and am hoping this summer to have a chance to travel to the Mediterranean and the middle east! That would be my first time outside of North America or Europe! Happy New Year.
