Make more meals from scratch
We all know that we should make more meals from scratch (rather than buying processed or take-out food) for health and financial reasons. But there are environmental reasons to make meals at home as well:
1) You can verify the origins of your ingredients. If you get take-out, you don’t know if it was grown locally or overseas, if it’s GMO, if it’s organic, or in the case of meat if it was raised ethically, and in the case of seafood if it was sourced sustainably. If you buy ingredients yourself, you can look for certified organic labels, GMO-free labels, fair trade labels, organic meat labels, and OceanWise labels. You can also talk to farmers at farmers markets about their food.
2) Processed food is often full of preservatives and artificial flavours. These extra ingredients all take resources to produce and create extra waste that can be eliminated when making food at home. ⠀
3) You can save the energy, waste and emissions that come from the meal manufacturing, refrigeration/freezing, and the extra packaging/containers required to store the convenience meals.