Robin Greenfield

As a Wisconsin boy, I was living sort of the dream, surfing at the beach.

And what happened is I simply started to watch documentaries and read books.

You know, The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and Food, Inc.

and The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard and documentaries like The Zeitgeist.

And I just started to realize that my whole life was to a large degree a lie.

I was living this grand hypocrisy.

What we call the American dream is actually the world's nightmare for billions of people and millions of species of plants and animals.

So now it was time to unlearn so much to relearn and take control of my life so that I could be living in a much more harmonious way with all the life we share this home with.

It was starting with small things.

I looked in my garbage can and I saw all the ways that I was creating trash.

The disposable paper towels, for example, no need to buy those, just reusable washcloths or, you know, cotton rags.

I looked at all of the food that was wrapped in plastic packaging and stopped going to Walmart and started to go to the local farmer's market.

There was a food co-op called People's Food Co-op, and I started to bring my own reusable containers to the bulk section and fill up my grains, nuts, seeds, oils, spices, all of that.

Started to ride my bike more, drive the car less.

Started to compost all the food scraps and everything that I could.

Started to grow a little bit of food, forage a little bit of food.

Got rid of all the toxic chemicals I was putting on my body and the febreze I was spraying on everything.

And...

So yeah, just step by step, what I had done is I made a list of over 100 changes that I wanted to make.

And I hung that up in my kitchen, which was right by the front door.