Cups from Corn

I was talking to my friend Heidi from Green Go Food the other day, and she muttered something about how you think you're doing the right thing using compostable cups, and then you find out that people in third world countries don't have enough to eat because we're using our corn to produce products other than food.

I share her anguish. It often seems like every good choice can lead to another bad choice. On the other hand, we're all relatively new to the green thing, which has only gained widespread traction during the past forty years, and hit us with real urgency very recently.

I don't know whether we're going to destroy the planet or learn to live on it sensibly, but I do know that we're not going to find ideal solutions without exploring quite a few alternatives.

The choices weigh especially heavily on us businesspeople, who make decisions about feeding hundreds or even thousands of people each week, rather than just our own families. I think it's most important to just do the best we can and keep improving over time, rather than feeling stifled by the enormity and complexity of it all.