Peanut Free Sweet Chicken Satay (Sate Ayam Manis)

Jajanan Solo (Solo 'snack' foods)

I blame my sweet tooth on the wonderful Solonese food that I grew up on. Solo is located in Central Java with a magnificent regal culture. It's so obsessed with royals that they decide to upkeep four kingdoms in the area the size of Adelaide, each with its own batik print and imperial outfits. (Kate Middleton eat your heart out). And of course, the amazing, sometimes verging on ridiculously unhealthy obsession with eating (sweets containing half a kilo of sugar AND condensed milk, tripe soup, fried intestine crackers, anyone?).

Sustainable Eating

Who knew that food has a pretty bad environmental impact! (From www.weact.ethz.ch)

Last week, with a group of friends I signed up to do this one month of living, eating, and travelling sustainably. Admittedly, it's pretty embarrassing that I've only started this now, considering now that every day I write, research and learn about the economics of renewable energy, reducing carbon emissions, and putting the brakes on excessive consumption. It's probably time to walk the talk a bit :) 


It's pretty common knowledge biggest energy-intensive/carbon-emitter culprits are the electricity generation and transport sectors. But since demand of products/services in these sectors is derived from the final output, it turns out that the food industry has been pretty naughty contributing to 31% of total anthropogenic (a fancy word for human-driven) emissions. If you think of how much energy is used to convert that happy little cow in the paddock to into the chunk of steak in your gob, it all adds up: the farming, land use, transporting, cooling, lots and lots of wrapping and packaging, more cooling at the supermarket, and finally cooking.