Romaine salad with blue cheese

Do you know about your personal carbon footprint and the concept of carbon offsets? A carbon footprint is the amount of carbon dioxide you cause to be emitted by your daily activities. Offsets are what you can do to make up for all that carbon. 

There are those who may choose to pay a tax to atone for their carbon-emitting behaviors. For example, if you fly via private jet, you pay an organization to plant more trees in the rain forest, which will theoretically absorb the carbon dioxide produced by the combustion of the jet fuel. 

Some of us drive huge gas-guzzling vehicles and eat double-cheese burgers. The cost of the burgers is falsely cheap due to corn subsidies (production of corn uses large amounts of fossil fuels, growing corn is subsidized by the government's farm bill, corn feeds cows which turn into burgers, corn makes high fructose corn syrup used in ketchup for the burger, corn is used in the making of buns, etc). 

Others are totally vegetarian and live "off the grid," using no commercially produced electricity, running their homes with solar power, and riding bicycles. Most of us are somewhere in between. 

Each of us can make a choice every day that can make our carbon footprint smaller. We can use a compact fluorescent light bulb, not rev our cars, and buy organically grown local fruits and vegetables. 

Let's make this delicious dressing and use it with some romaines of the day from your local farmers' market. You'll enjoy this one.