Sustainable Food with No Impact Man

Sustainable food in the extreme: No Impact Man is an experiment held by writer Colin Beavin where for a year, he aimed to reduce his consumption and contribution to the consumer market by removing creature comforts in phases over a period of one year.

Mr. Beavin, roping in his wife and two year-old daughter, reduced their consumption to the extreme, proving several distinct differences between their "before" lives and "after" lives. Before the year-long experiment, Mrs. Beavin (Michelle) was diagnosed with pre-diabetes bloodwork, hyper thyroid and other food / consumption issues.

After the experiment, her blood levels had evened out, and her thyroid was more stable. How did they do it? Well you'd have to watch the movie or read the book to get specifics, but I can give you a summary.

One of their goals was to reduce post-consumer waste and eat a local diet; I believe they were following the 100 mile diet which encourages the only food to be consumed that travels no further than 100 miles. By shopping their farmer's market every week, and by bringing their own re-usable cloth bags, they were able to eliminate produce packaging and plastic bags.

Also by eating seasonally, they were forced to learn how to prepare the same items in a number of different ways to ensure a variety of food pleasures. When they cut electricity, they ate by candle light things like squash and cabbage. As for keeping things cold, well... that was a different kind of challenge.

Colin volunteered to help with a community garden at Union Square in New York City; they learned to connect on a physical level where their food comes from, how long it actually takes to grow, nutrient contents, soil and water conservation - a myriad of things in which people simply don't think about when they walk into a brightly lit supermarket and choose from a variety of produce that is only available seasonally in other parts of the world.

They abandoned coffee (I think there might have been a slip or two, but who's counting), imported fruits and bottled drinks.

The central question to the project: "Is it possible to have a good life without wasting so much?" While the parameters of the experiment were extreme, the answer is still emphatically, "yes." When the project was over, they took stock in the eliminations they made; decided to keep riding their bikes to the Farmer's Market, but still treating themselves occasionally to creature comforts (like electricity!).

The movie had a lot to do with consumerism in general, but it was interesting to see how much focus was placed on acquisition of food. When you really think about it, food is our central daily necessity and so many of us take it for granted by having it so readily available. I would have liked to see a stronger emphasis on foraging.

Michelle's transformation was probably the most stunning point of the entire film. A self-proclaimed coffee guzzling shopaholic who is addicted to reality television, in the end, chose to continue many of their experiments' lessons.

One thing he noted, that I think was especially important was about individual action, which I believe is important to reiterate: "One of the things that I worry about when people say 'Individual action is not important,' is that the thing about individual action is that it causes people to be engaged."If there ever was a poster child quote for sustainability, this might be it. Being engaged with your lifestyle requires paying attention, working for it and reaping the benefits of its fullness. I would add to this that individual action is the root source to truly sustainable food.

Photo credit Macmillan Books.