OK, so it’s the right thing to do. But shifting your life to greener, more sustainable habits can sometimes feel like a full-time job: there’s so much to think about, so much to change. And with the all-too-often overwhelming holiday season approaching, who wants one more thing to worry about?
By rethinking your style of celebrating one step at a time – food, décor, gifts, parties – you can break the challenge of green living during the holidays into smaller, more manageable pieces, and choose the strategies that work best for you. It’s also important to remember that you don’t have to go 100 percent green all at once: every little action you take helps toward conserving resources, reducing waste and ensuring a healthy future for our planet. And that’s a gift everyone should appreciate.
- Start with locally produced foods. In warmer regions, you can find farmers’ markets open year-round (search for markets near you using the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service’s online database at http://www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/map.htm or LocalHarvest’s guide at http://www.localharvest.org/farmers-markets/). In chillier climes, check out food co-operatives first (you can locate the ones in your area by using Co-op America’s National Green Pages at http://www.coopamerica.org/pubs/greenpages/).
- Celebrate with a seasonal feast. Chances are, your great-grandparents didn’t prepare holiday meals based on fruits and vegetables shipped from thousands of miles away; by choosing foods that are in season, you make your menu more authentic and traditional. You can find links to tell you what’s produce is in season in your area at Field to Plate (http://www.fieldtoplate.com/guide.php).
- If you eat meat and dairy, make your choices humane and sustainable. Eatwild.com (http://www.eatwild.com/products/index.html) lets you search more than 800 listings of pasture-based farmers in the U.S. and Canada. It also lists markets, stores, restaurants and buying clubs that offer grass-fed meats. You can find a similar database, with additional links to online shopping resources, at the Eat Well Guide (http://www.eatwellguide.org/index.cfm).
- Go slow. Many of our modern foods are highly standardized; for example, almost all the turkeys sold in the U.S. today are a breed called Large White, which reaches maturity in only two months, a boon to the industrialized poultry industry. Slow Food USA is working to preserve more traditional, diverse sub-breeds of turkeys that it claims produce firmer, richer, more flavorful meat. You can find its state-by-state guide to heritage breed turkeys at http://www.slowfoodusa.org/ark/turkeys.html.
(Go to Part 2: Green holiday gift ideas)
