Katie Matten

I started on my CBL today, I interviewed a woman who worked in a sweat shop in Nepal as a child laborer. Her story was intense, amazing and eye opening. It was energetically draining to hear her story. I realized that from the moment I first heard her story, at a woman's empowerment event in September that I have not bought a single garment of fast fashion. I am pledging to make sustainable choices around clothing moving forward.
This has been an interesting eco challenge. I kind of wish that I had better moderated my choices to make more lasting differences but I still learned a lot. My biggest challenge was around food choices. I started off committing to two vegetarian meals a day and now I'm close to entirely vegetarian. Feels great!

I've really been enjoying finding meat substitutes for my favorite dishes. Tofu in yellow curry, vegan sausage with my biscuits and gravy, the Impossible Burger at my local pub. My partner is doing the challenge too and we've made some changes to our routines, veggie tacos with black beans instead of ground turkey, veggie pizza instead of pepperoni. We are using more of our food too and throwing less away. When we would buy meat, we'd often only use half of the pack and toss the rest when it became spoiled. Decomposing meat is a big producer of methane gas and very bad on the environment. Now we are not contributing to that at all. Also trying to compost or put all uneaten food down the disposal instead of letting it go to the landfill for the same reasons. Returning cans and bottles, using reusable cups, mugs and tumblers. Just last night, I saw the bartender reaching for a straw and stopped her. Why would my whiskey ginger really need a straw? What are the little changes we can continue to make in our lives?

I wish it were more socially acceptable to bring your own food containers to restaurants for to go food. I can bring my reusable cup to Starbucks when I buy Iced Tea but I can't bring a ceramic bowl to Chipotle if I want a burrito bowl. It makes me feel guilty about buying food to go. I get home and there are all these styrofoam or plastic clamshells that can't be recycled. Or if you get sauce on the side, it comes in this tiny plastic cup with a lid. I've been trying to anticipate these things as much as possible, brought my own bag to take my to go food in. Asked for them not to put plastic utensils or napkins in with my order. Ordered the food "for here" and then transferred it to my own container. It's challenging but still interesting to notice all the small ways that our trash adds up!

Wow, I started watching an amazing documentary called True West on Netflix. It talks a lot about Native History and how "The West" was won.

Eating vegetarian makes me feel so satisfied and the roasted red pepper and mushroom pizza was delicious, who needs pepperoni!

I wish I could choose more actions! I didn't know I was limiting to 5. Some of the actions I choose I don't do everyday. I may have to switch them up.

I'm impressed by eco-challenges website and ease of use. I am starting choosing these challenges at night so I will have to start fresh tomorrow to earn some points.