Tip 8: Green Eating

Eco eating anyone? In the name of eating healthy and being a bit more environmentally conscious, I've dug up some interesting tips on how to grub down a little greener. Best part is, you can certainly save a few dollars by adjusting your grocery shopping habits.

Here are some green eating tips to get you started:

• Shop weekly and plan you meals ahead of time. This helps eliminate food waste that comes with shopping in bulk, and will also help you plan and cook weekly meals with fresher ingredients versus boxed foods.
• Eat organic: You're helping eliminate chemical pesticides, reducing the impact on local land and water and eliminating overly processed foods from your diet. Win, win and more win.
• Reduce your consumption of boxed foods. Excess packaging is never good for the environment, considering landfills are already teeming with plastics and other waste, and not all packaging materials you find at the store are recyclable.
• Shop at the local farmers market, where you're cutting down on packaging, the negative climate impact of transporting said goods and also supporting local farming.
• Reducing meat consumption lowers the impact on the local ecosystem, namely the water and grain it requires to produce meat for the market. If you are a meat eater, try to focus on organic meats that aren't loaded with antibiotics and hormones, all of which are harmful to both the body and the land the animals are raised on.
• Cook just enough to consume, reuse and eat leftovers.
• Focus on the core, essential ingredients such as green veggies, eggs, grains, etc. to mix and match and create healthy, fresh meals.
• Eliminate wasteful cooking habits—use only as much water as needed and focus on dishes that can cook simultaneously with fewer ingredients to help reduce energy consumption.

There are a plenty of additional green and healthy eating tips out there. Our energy conservation section is loaded with green tips. For addition green eating nuggets, I would suggest also checking out Tree Hugger, Whole Foods and one of my personal faves, Noshtopia.

Comments

[Tami]

Cutting back on meat is one of the simplest things we can do to reduce our carbon footprint. It’s also great for your health. Did you know that meat consumption has been linked to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and certain types of cancer? These illnesses are four of the largest killers in the United States and they're all preventable.

You don't have to become a full vegetarian to help the planet and your health; even a small change in what you eat makes a huge impact. If every American skipped just one chicken meal a week, for example, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than a half-million cars off U.S. roads.

I work on a non-profit health campaign called Meatless Monday, which encourages Americans to forgo meat once a week to improve their health and reduce their carbon footprint. Skipping meat one day a week reduces your saturated fat intake by 15%, which is an easy way to decrease your risk of illness. Having a Meatless Monday is a simple step that anyone can take. For tips, recipes and more information about the campaign you can visit our website, www.MeatlessMonday.com