Make Your Family Keen for Green

If you're the only environmentalist in your household, can you live in an eco-friendly way without sending the rest of your family into an anti-green revolution?

Yes, though it takes compromise sometimes. After all, a home with four teenage boys used to hamburgers and pepperoni pizza won't easily convert to tofu-based vegetarianism. And the family shopaholic isn't likely to quickly embrace the habits of "reduce, reuse, recycle."

Still, there are relatively painless – even welcome – ways to slip a little more green into your family's daily habits. Here are a few suggestions:

Focus on the Savings

For example, by choosing the most basic of cleaning products – like vinegar, baking soda, salt, lemon juice, borax, rubbing alcohol and pure, unscented soaps – you can persuade the budget-minded person in your home of the dollars-and-cents benefits of going green. Or by turning your teenage fashion queen onto the local designer resale shop, you might teach her how recycling lets her use her cash for maximum purchasing power.

Make Healthy Green Foods a Daily, Optional Choice

If you're the only vegetarian in your household, for instance, always include at least one vegetarian item – for yourself – that can serve as a main dish at dinnertime. In this way, you might get even the family carnivore to ask to try a bite of, say, your black-bean veggie burger ... and he or she might like it enough to suggest an all bean-burger meal occasionally. Even fussy eaters might be surprised by how appealing and appetizing-looking your organic, homegrown and vegan dishes are, and eventually give one of them a try.

Inspire by Surprise

What's the best argument against a hard and flavorless industrially farmed tomato? A juicy, sweet tomato fresh from the home garden or local farmers' market. One bite of the real thing – without you saying anything ahead of time – might be all you need to win over the reluctant eco-eater in your family. The same can go for home-baked wheat bread; home-squeezed juices; grass-fed beef steaks; and even organic wines and beers.

Avoid Being Preachy

Few things turn off a non-environmentalist faster than self-righteous Greeniacs who constantly rattle off the ways in which his lifestyle is bad for the planet. Instead, lead by quiet example in your own daily habits and wait for others to see the benefits first-hand. For example, your decision to bike to work instead of driving might win more support once others in your family see how fit, trim and energetic you've become... and see how the household now has extra cash for other things that once went to buying gas.

A family.

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