~ Wastefulness ~

You may have noticed a slight transition in the content on my blog… perhaps you haven't. Either way I wanted to call attention to it. You see, its named Sky Yoga Wellness, so as I learn more about concepts that I believe fall into the realm of wellness and my yoga practice, I will share those ideas and concepts here with you.

My goal is that as you read and follow along, you take something away from this. This is a platform that I want to utilize in order to educate others, especially as I encounter my roadblocks along the way. Perhaps you can learn from me!

Many of these topics may seem way off base when related to yoga but that's the beauty of yoga. Yoga can relate to anything as it is the practice of self-realization; knowing who you are in the body, the mind and the spirit.

My connection with myself, which is obtained through my yoga practice, translates to how I treat myself and the world around me. I believe in the premise that who you are on the mat translates to who you are in the world. So I am constantly asking who am I and does my behaviour reflect who I want to be? Its a constant learning curve. As I learn, I want to adapt, to be the best version of myself that I can be.

This week my awareness of food miles, the life cycle of food and various products, and wasting was enhanced so much so that I found it hard to ignore. Once you realize how wasteful we are as species its hard to not cringe and turn away from it.

If you have seen the television show; How I Met Your Mother; there is an episode where odd nuisances that each character has was revealed and it was this glass shattering illusion for all the characters who were made to realize this about their friends. I feel the same here, the glass has been shattered and there is no going backwards… Anyways, I digress…

Back to the topic. The lovely perk of learning is that you can not unlearn the information, unless it falls out of your head… Hopefully this will stick a little better than that. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted across the world per year.

In dollar amount that is over 680 billion dollars in developed countries and 310 billion in developing countries…. Now perhaps the quantity of money doesn't hit home for you so let me phrase it differently. Let's look at basic fractions, that equates to one third of the food being produced going to waste or being lost during processing/transport…. Think of a giant pie, literally 33.3% of it gets thrown out and ends up in the landfill….

Yet people in this world are starving to death… Different topic so I won't go down that rabbit hole but felt it was important to state.

What the absolute F*CK! Does this get under your skin and make you as uncomfortable as it makes me?

I have learned that 70% of the garbage filling landfills is recyclable. Did you know it takes over 500 years for a plastic water bottle to fully decompose and break down? 18 billion pounds of plastic makes its way into the ocean, killing over 100,000 (documented) marine creatures, polluting the ocean and the air quality.

Additionally, landfills are the biggest contributor to soil pollution. Remember soil? I spoke about it in great detail in the last two posts.It is the foundation of all living matter, without healthy soil, our species among all the others will not survive in a healthy context.

Lately, I have changed my shopping patterns in order to be more conscious about lessening food waste and enhancing food quality. I am buying smaller amounts of groceries. The downfall is that I have to hit up the produce section a little more often but increases the nutrient quality of my food and reduces the amount I throw out due to spoilage.

For example, after Halloween, I did not want to waste the Jack o Lantern that my partner and I carved. So I went to google to find some creative methods to re-purpose this squash. It resulted in baking the pumpkin and making a puree. This pumpkin has made quite a few meals ranging from pumpkin squash soup last week, plant based cinnamon pumpkin pancakes for breakfast, pumpkin chana masala for dinner as well as a pumpkin curry. I intend on making pumpkin bread this week with the rest of the puree.

Additionally, I am minimizing my use of plastic purchasing, I bring my own containers to refilleries. There are a few in Vancouver, one in Port Moody, one in Langley and one in Chilliwack that I know off the top of my head. These refilleries are beginning to pop up everywhere. This allows you to reuse your own glass containers, reduce your one use plastic waste.

I know these are small basic steps, but incorporating them allows me to sleep better at night. This empowers me by again putting my money where my morals are. I want my children and grandchildren to be able to enjoy this planet, I want to be contributing in a positive way to this environment and society.

Lets reduce our waste as whole, lets be better as a species, as it does not serve anyone to be wasteful.