Sweden Diet

Sania

Written by Sania

19 Oct 2016

[Disclaimer: This is not a post on how to do Sweden diet.]

A few lectures ago, I had a water week. It was all about water and (this is the important part) how our consumption affects the climate change. As you can see in my short bio, indeed I am studying sustainable development hence my interest in consumption and climate change is as-it-supposed-to-be. During that week, the class was asked to calculate personal water footprint based on our residence country. Curious, I did two calculation for both lifestyles that I have when I live in Sweden as well as Indonesia. The result shows that I am more sustainable during my stay here in Sweden because I use less than half of my water footprint back in Indonesia. LESS THAN HALF. Is it because my diet in Sweden is different compare to my diet in Indonesia? How come during my two months living in Sweden I am already contributing less water footprint?? What kind of sorcery is this?! Why does my course affecting my life so much??!

After being astonished for a few silly hours, I started to become a scientist as expected from my study here – analyze!

Sania water footprint total

Based on the data above, food has the biggest gap so let’s talk more about that. How was my daily eating habit in Indonesia? Here, I GIF you the answer:

my eating habit in Indonesia
-pictures shown are not mine and making this GIF include lots of cursing due to starvation-

Rice, poultry, meat, seafood, noodles, fried (good) stuff, eggs…basically spicy fried/grilled meal accompanied with sweet ice tea as usual. I did a lot of takeaways or eating out back then because I was too lazy to cook and many street food vendors available from the morning until after midnight. Most of them did food delivery to your house, something I rarely find here. Now, let’s see my diet in Sweden:

eating habit in swedia
-pictures shown are not mine and making this DOES NOT include any cursing-

Overnight oat, leftover meal, banana, kanelbullar, pasta, salad, sandwich…the usual college student meal which consist of batch cooking during Sunday. Falafel is the only street food I can find, and it is (quite) a luxury. In essence, cooking my own meals is the answer for hungry stomach since there is few street food vendors available and restaurant is unrealistic for student’s wallet. I am not a good cook, so I avoid cooking meat and poultry because it takes more effort to prepare them.

The usual grocery shopping I do revolves around pasta, mushroom, fruit, salad and the dressing. Thus, I am consuming less meat and more fruit instead.  When I yearn for Indonesian food (which usually needs lots of spices), I asked my friend to cook with the available spices I have. It made me regret a little for not bringing the spicy stuff here, sigh. What I want to say is that without my intention, I am doing more sustainability in life due to my laziness in cooking meat or routinely doing laundry, washing the dishes and showering. Tell my mom that I am saving the earth! I believe that you are also interested in your individual water footprint, calculate them with this easy method.

On a second thought, don’t tell my mom about my shower habit.

Sania

Written by Sania

19 Oct 2016