What's for supper?

Even before Covid I’ve relied on take-out for a good percentage of my meals.  I don’t enjoy cooking – I find it challenging and sometimes frustrating. I dislike grocery shopping. Meal planning is tough. Add in chronic illness and periods of diet restrictions, and meal planning/grocery shopping/cooking is a set of chores that I find too overwhelming to manage. But as an environmentalist I’ve wrestled with the amount of waste produced by takeout. Plastic or Styrofoam containers inside a plastic bag, plastic utensils wrapped in plastic, and so many tiny condiment packets.  I’ve done my best to try and ignore the guilt that comes with this (which makes me feel guiltier for trying to ignore it), and take small actions to do what I can: I select the “no utensil” option when ordering from Uber (although more often than not they are still included), I donate utensils (un-used) to local homeless and women's shelters, and re-use the plastic food containers or recycle them. Despite my concern and guilt, I continue to order, order, order. 

I’ve been learning more about microplastics in the past few months, and one of the biggest surprises has been just how extensive plastic pollution is. Since the start of plastic production in the 20^th century (around World War II) humans have created 8.3 billon tons of plastic (McKenna, 2017). And only 9% of this is recycled! According to McKenna’s article, 12% is incinerated in addition to what's recycled, which means approximately 79% of plastic ends up in landfills or in oceans. Plastic breaks down into smaller particles called microplastics. Aside from the environmental concern, such as wildlife like birds eating plastic, there are human health concerns. Humans can ingest microplastics from various sources such drinking water from plastic bottles or consuming food stored in plastic wrap. A study found plastic particles in human stool samples (NPR, 2018) and recent research has shown the detection of microplastics in human placenta (Ragusa et al, 2021)! This is shocking and concerning. 

The plastic problem is bad.  I can’t ignore my guilt and reliance on take out any longer. I recognize the need to make changes in all areas of my life to reduce my plastic use.  And my first focus is in the kitchen. The biggest help I have found is a meal planning subscription service call Work Week Lunch. This is a low-cost service that has simplified cooking for me. I receive a weekly meal plan (with options to customize for diet preferences and restrictions) and shopping list, and the meal plan is customizable. The meals aren’t too complicated, although for someone learning how to cook, there are some weeks where it takes me half a day to make a few meals. I’ve saved plastic containers from takeout and I’ve been using these for my meal preps but would like to upgrade to glass containers. I’m also learning how to make the most of ingredients to reduce food waste, and with that, also reducing the need to buy the same ingredient multiple times (for example, I only needed two tablespoons of tomato paste for a recent recipe but had to buy a 15 ounce can. Instead of tossing, I froze the paste in tablespoon-sized blobs that I can now use for future meals). I’m also getting the hang of cooking items I’d otherwise purchase in individual wrapping - mainly, granola bars. And let me tell you, the "better than store bought" granola bar recipe from Work Week Lunch is AMAZING, and is indeed, better than store bought. 

This is a change that I’m fortunate to be able to make. And although I’d encourage everyone to do what they can to reduce plastics use (and I am a big believer that small actions count), I realize not everyone may be in the situation to spend 4 hours on a Sunday meal prepping. Many people rely on the convenience that plastic offers and I feel there is also responsibility on manufacturers to create less environmentally destructive products. This won’t be an overnight change, but we needs it to happen. 

What's for supper tonight? Home-made Pad Thai :)

Sources:

McKenna, John “Picture this: all of the plastic we have produced weights the same as 25,000 Empire State Buildings,” https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/07/picture-this-all-the-plastic-we-have-produced-weighs-the-same-as-25-000-empire-state-buildings/

NPR, 2018, “Microplastics are turning up everywhere, even in human excrement”: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/10/22/659568662/microplastics-are-turning-up-everywhere-even-in-human-excrement

Ragusa et al, 2021. Plasticenta: First evidence of microplastics in human placenta. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412020322297?via%3Dihub

 

Journey

 As I reflect on this week's #SundaySciWri prompt of "journey," my recent mental health journey comes to mind. What started as way to cope with increasing anxiety turned into a journey of growing my self-confidence as a scientist. 

I started seeing a therapist when I was 18 and in college, and was struggling with anxiety and schoolwork. I was diagnosed with ADD, and used CBT to help manage both anxiety and anger. I saw this therapist for about a year before ceasing regular appointments, although I continued to go back to this therapist several times after graduation - usually to deal with the fallout of a relationship.

In 2016 I experienced a random event that triggered overwhelming death anxiety. It was so intense that I was often scared to fall asleep at night, convinced that either someone would break into my apartment and murder me, or I would die in sleep. I'd force myself to stay awake until I could no longer take it. I worried about potential car accidents. I worried about medication interactions. I was convinced that my next flight would crash, and considering canceling trips out of fear. Inspired by the song "The 59 Sound," I had a playlist of my favorite songs to listen to during takeoff. If the plane were to go down in a fiery crash, at least I would leave this world hearing my favorite song one last time. 

I recognized the need find a new therapist, but kept putting it off and continued to have occasional calls with my therapist in NC. She didn't accept my insurance, but it was worth paying out of pocket to continue to have phone appointments with her. She understood me, and I felt comfortable with her. And quite frankly, the idea of having to divulge my past in detail to a new therapist was overwhelming and frightening. My daily anxiety continued to play a major role in my life and continued to increase into 2020. I saw one therapist in Tampa for a few sessions, but it wasn't a good fit. I continued to rely on my NC therapist, who finally (and understandably) had to set a boundary and could no longer "see" me as she wasn't licensed in Florida. It was finally time to find a new therapist. 

As the pandemic was in full swing, I opted for virtual therapy. I put minimal effort into my research as it was too overwhelming, and decided I just needed to go for it and sign up for a service, otherwise I would continue to overthink it and never make a decision. In April I started weekly virtual therapy, and thankfully had a better connection with this therapist compared to the person I previously saw in Tampa. I was starting a journey for a life where my anxiety could be managed, and I would no longer spend my afternoons stopping work early, drinking White Claws at 3 pm, and ultimately laying on the floor and crying for extended periods of time. 

I've always used the term 'anxiety' in a broad sense - "I have anxiety." Anxiety is common and affects many people. So what does it mean when I say "I have anxiety?" During therapy, I've learned how specific anxiety can be, how many different areas of my life it touches, and how many things can trigger it. During one session, I was asked to journal about the feeling of anxiety. The first image that popped into my head was a large spiny, twisting plant growing tall and wrapping around me. Occasionally allowing me to breath, but always keeping me captured in its thorny grasp. 

Although I've learned many things about myself during this journey, one of the biggest discoveries was the connection between anxiety and my lack of confidence at work. There are so many directions I could go in with this, such as sexism in the workplace. Imposter syndrome. Second guessing everything. Spending 30 fucking minutes re-writing a four sentence email for fear of how my tone is coming cross, debating if my word choice could be interpreted as saying more than what I meant. Additionally, I had an unrelenting supervisor early in my career, who was unsupportive at best and verbally abusive at worst. My anxiety sky-rocketed. Several years into my consulting career (and around the same time that I was dealing with this supervisor), I decided to make a lateral move into ecological risk assessment. Although I had some ecotox classes from my undergrad, I was lacking the experience and training as the established risk assessors in the company.  As I started to transition into working on risk assessment projects, I constantly felt like "the new kid" within our practice. Even with growing experience, this feeling has never faded. I feared that I would always be viewed as and treated as the new person in the group, and would never be good enough. These thoughts fed into my anxiety. Although I did complete grad school, it was not a traditional toxicology MS program. I primarily learned eco risk skills through on the job experience and have spent many hours on my own learning about risk assessment. Instead of focusing on this accomplishment, I focused on my lack of a toxicology degree and lack of lab experience, and therefore came to the conclusion that I am not as smart as my colleagues and will never be a respected risk assessor.  I aligned myself with a few senior staff who praised me and validated me - which I had been desperately seeking. In hindsight, I realized I was limiting myself by only working with just these few people. I relied on them to answer  project-specific technical questions, defaulting to their expertise, rather than challenging myself to develop a solution and therefore fulfilling my misguided prophecy to always be viewed as junior support. By relying on others to validate myself, I limited my career growth and ability to be confident in myself. And this, of course, would feed into my anxiety. It was a never-ending circle. 

During the course of therapy, I re-aligned myself with new senior staff and expanded my workload. This has led to new opportunities, including being identified as a "subject matter expert" for a new pore water project, and being the lead eco risk assessor for another project, both of which are career firsts for me. I'm working on self-validation  instead of relying on positive feedback from others. I still struggle, but I'm more aware when I'm having doubts and am better at 'reality testing' this self-doubt. I journal more, including a goal to list out one accomplishment each day. It's a struggle, but I'm seeing improvement. I don't expect results overnight, and recognize that this journey is exactly that - a journey.