“The birds will eat it.”

When I was little girl, I was told never to litter.  Whenever we had something unwanted in the car, we either put it in the garbage bag or if it was food, sometimes we would throw it out the window.  My mom would say “the birds will eat it” if it was something like a cracker or apple.  Gum was garbage, because birds/animals wouldn’t eat it and of course anything else that was inedible was garbage.  So, my thoughts are that if the wildlife can’t eat it, it shouldn’t be thrown out the car window.

Considering this, and the fact that I consider myself environmentally concerned, it bothers me a lot when I see people throwing trash out the car window.  Usually it is the occasional jerk that doesn’t care and throws a candy wrapper out or a receipt.  But there is one thing I see almost daily and that is people throwing cigarettes out the car window.  They flick them out (almost always lit) as if it’s not littering.  Do birds eat cigarettes?  Do they not count as litter?

Raising Vegetarian Kids

Image via Wikipedia

NPR: Raising Vegetarian Kids

This was a nice article that showed that it is definitely possible, with some work, to raise vegetarian children.  I do not feed my daughter any meat, however, due to contradicting opinions with her father and other family members, I do not put up too much of a fight if she has meat at his house or someone’s house occasionally.  I’d prefer she didn’t, but she’s getting old enough that she can make her own decisions.  And I think that is the most important thing when raising a child period.  When they are old enough to decide something, let them!

 If my daughter decides she doesn’t want to be a vegetarian, then that is her decision (although, honestly, I would be very disappointed).  I will never buy or serve her meat, but if she decides to eat it at someone else’s house, then that is up to her, she is almost 5 years old and can make small decisions like that.  My main concern is that she is eating as healthy as possible.  I make sure she takes vitamins every day and eats as much healthy food that any kid can handle.

Check out this NPR article…

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129137062&sc=emaf