There are some actions that we all do on a daily basis, but we never wonder about the impact that they could have. One of the activities is having breakfast. Numerous people have breakfast, and according to nutritionists, this is the most important meal of the day.
The use of having breakfast ranges from reducing obesity to fending off diabetes and avoiding getting heart diseases. According to statistics, those children who have breakfast on a regular basis have by 15% less lead in their blood than the others.
Although having breakfast is healthy for the individuals, it might not be as healthy for the planet. Let’s take bacon for example. It is an important part of the British breakfast, and over 80% of it comes from abroad.
The world’s biggest pig products exporter is Denmark. About 9% of the farms have more than 4000 animals and the world’s largest slaughterhouse, Danepak that belongs to the company Danish Crown which dispatches about 78,000 pigs every week.
The pig products are not the only ones that have problems. It has been found that about 68% of those 29 million eggs that are consumed by the British customers on a daily basis are produced by battery hens.
Crops also have their hazards. There is a form of agriculture that relies on heavy use of pesticides, known as monocropping, which offers the majority of the crops, including barley, wheat and oats. Not only the pesticide use is the problem of monocropping, but it also has a huge carbon footprint. According to studies, a packet of cornflakes that might be found in the supermarkets could have a carbon footprint of 94g.
The way to have green breakfast is to start having organic food. The organic eggs, meat and cereal produce less carbon. It might be a good idea to opt for outdoor bred, free range eggs and bacon.
In case you choose to have meat that has been produced in the country, you might ensure that you won’t find that the source of the meat is a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO). Organic bread and cereals are also important and they aren’t as expensive as you might think.
Also you could make your own bread for toast, to reduce the carbon footprint and the costs too. Another good idea for having green breakfast is to make your own jam. All you need is foraged fruits, and you could grow these in your own garden and pick them yourself. This way you could be sure that there have been no pesticides used on the fruits that you eat.
Sometimes people have to make some financial sacrifice in order to have a healthy life, and this way they also have an indirect effect on the planet. We are all struggling to have healthy lives, but it all starts with eating healthy food, and not trying to reduce the costs by making compromises between the price and the quality. Before you buy something, check where the product in question came from.
