How To Eat Sustainably

The most recent issue of Whole Living (formerly Body + Soul) magazine had a section on sustainable eating. Since we are doing a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) this year, I am more in tune with the idea of sustainability and I am making a more conscious effort to eat locally whenever possible. I really liked some of the ideas in the article, and wanted to pass them along to you guys. Enjoy!

• Use the whole vegetable. The stems of cauliflower or broccoli, the inner leaves of celery, the fronds of fennel, the greens of beets, even the stems of herbs: all edible, all tasty.

• Be a farmers’ market regular.

• Google your milk. Until the USDA revised the standards last year, 30 to 40 percent of the milk sold in the U.S. that was labeled organic was actually from factory farm-raised cows. Regulations are tighter now, but not all organic milks are created equal. Check your brand at www.sustainable.org, and opt for antibiotic- and rBGH-free (no artificial bovine growth hormones).

• Buy local bread. Shop at your neighborhood bakery or farmers’ market. You’ll eliminate a plastic package and a fuel-burning journey, and the bread’s likelier to be made with fewer ingredients.

• Read PLU codes. If the number on the produce sticker at the supermarket starts with 9, then the item is organic.

• Be a smarter carnivore. Skip the additives by buying only absolutely antibiotic- and hormone-free meat. Choose domestic meat. You can imagine how eating lamb from New Zealand might affect your carbon footprint. Eat it seasonally. There’s a reason we have turkey at Thanksgiving – the birds mature in the fall. Look for lamb in spring and goose around Christmas.

• Pour on the honey. A huge amount of water is required to produce regular table sugar. Honey, on the other hand, is a perfectly renewable resource that requires little more than healthy bees and healthy plants and flowers from which to pollinate. Try adapting your favorite recipe to use honey instead of dry sugar.

*All of the above were taken from the August 2010 issue of Whole Living magazine.