Eat Green

In This ArticleView AllIn This Article1. Eat More Plant-Based Meals2. Reap the Health Benefits of Green Produce3. Get Into Gardening4. Use Up Food Before It Goes Bad5. Compost Food Scraps6. Embrace Reusable Containers7. Prioritize Sustainable Sources of Meat & Seafood

In This ArticleView All

View All

In This Article

1. Eat More Plant-Based Meals

2. Reap the Health Benefits of Green Produce

3. Get Into Gardening

4. Use Up Food Before It Goes Bad

5. Compost Food Scraps

6. Embrace Reusable Containers

7. Prioritize Sustainable Sources of Meat & Seafood

When my husband and I first started dating in 2003, we often dreamt of being homesteaders so we could live the most sustainable life possible. Let’s grow all of our own food, we said. We’ll have chickens for eggs and dairy goats to make cheese! We’ll can and freeze the produce we grow, and make our own beer and cider from our own hops and apples.

Fast-forward 20 years later (oh wow, has it really been that long!?!) and that dream isfarfrom realized. Before we bought a house, we started gardening in containers—things like peppers and tomatoes aresurprisingly easy to grow! Now that we’re homeowners, we have a massive garden that we do our best to keep up with. But life has gotten busy. Our 10-year-old daughter has gotten really into fall and spring sports, which means we spend more time on sports fields than tending to garden beds. And in the summer, we are often away from homecampingat some of Vermont’s glorious state parks. Not to mention we both work full-time jobs. Now I tell my husband we can homestead when we retire.

Photographer: Jen Causey, Food Stylist: Margret Monroe Dickey, Prop Stylist: Christine Keely

Get the recipe:Caprese Salad with Basil & Tarragon Chimichurri

But, you know what? That’s OK! We’ve realized that there are lots of simple, sustainable steps that we can take that we hope add up in order to help limit our impact on the planet. I’ll share seven here and hope that no matter what your values are or what access to resources you have, you can find inspiration in one or more of these areas to help you eat green.

Get the recipe:Thai Green Curry-Inspired Vegetable Soup

Marinated & Grilled Zucchini PlanksStir-Fried Clams with Snow PeasKale & Shaved Brussels Sprouts Salad with Avocado Caesar DressingSuper Green Pasta

Marinated & Grilled Zucchini Planks

Stir-Fried Clams with Snow Peas

Kale & Shaved Brussels Sprouts Salad with Avocado Caesar Dressing

Super Green Pasta

Green Goddess Farro BowlRoasted Savoy Cabbage with Pistachios & LemonCaramelized Broccolini & White BeansCucumber & Celery Salad

Green Goddess Farro Bowl

Roasted Savoy Cabbage with Pistachios & Lemon

Caramelized Broccolini & White Beans

Cucumber & Celery Salad

When our garden is in full swing (and not just full of weeds), we get a lot of food from it. And that means lots of green things—from crisplettucesand dark leafy greens (we can’t seem to grow enoughkale) to the first crunchy snap ofsnap peasand a plethora of fresh herbs I adore blending into theseGreen Goddess Farro Bowls. As the season progresses,zucchiniwill make its way into sweet and savory dishes—and always to the grill forMarinated & Grilled Zucchini Planks, our family’s favorite way to eat it. Our daughter has been makingcucumber saladson repeat, so she’ll be out harvesting cukes when the time comes (thisCucumber & Celery Saladis oh-so crunchy and refreshing!). And once fall rolls around, we’ll trim the alien-looking stalks ofBrussels sproutsto roast, smash or shred to include in Kale & Brussels Sprouts with Avocado Caesar Dressing.

Read More:How to Start a Vegetable Garden

If you want to grow your own food but don’t have the space, time or interest for a big garden, think small! If you have a sunny spot on a deck or in your yard, tomatoes are easy to grow in containers and often taste so much better than what you can get at the store. Salad greens are a big source of food waste but do well in containers—you can even grow them in a sunny spot indoors. Or trya pot of herbsyou cook with often—basil, cilantro and mint are a few good ones to start with.

One major benefit from growing at least some of our own produce is that it helps us cut back on some of the food waste in our kitchen in the summertime. I can go out and harvest exactly what we want to eat on any given day. But I still get the bulk of our food at the grocery store. And even though I am a hard-core meal planner, lifehappensand I simply don’t make every meal that I plan to make each week, which inevitably means some food ends up in our compost.

To help combat food waste, I have a few dishes in my back pocket that are really flexible. Soups are a gimme—if you keep stock or even bouillon on hand, you can make soup out of just about anything. (If you’re more of a recipe person, try thisClean-Out-the-Fridge Soup, which was developed with reducing food waste in mind.)Frittatasandquicheare also good vehicles for leftovers. In fact, I made one the morning I wrote this, with leftover egg whites and roasted asparagus. I even dolloped some leftover pesto on top.

Even the smallest amounts of leftovers have a second life at my house. My favorite trick for using these up is to add them to the lunch salads I bring to the office. Here’s what I do: When I clean up after dinner, I put any leftover roasted or steamed veggies and a bit of protein in a container along with the rest of the salad ingredients. Not only do I avoid that food waste, it changes up my salad routine so I don’t get into a rut.

Read More:26 Ways to Waste Less in the Kitchen

Annie Otzen / Getty Images

Read More:3 Impressive Benefits of Composting

While I have noticed a sizable reduction in our trash accumulation since we started composting, we do fill a pretty sizable recycling tote each week. While I can’t quit plastic clamshells that protect fragile ingredients like berries and mangoes, I use my growing collection ofreusable cloth and mesh produce bagsfor most of my fruit and vegetable haul. (If I forget them, I cram as many things as I can in each plastic bag so I don’t use as many.) While plastic bags can’t go in your curbside recycling, some stores— particularly grocery stores (though I’ve also seen a receptacle at my local Best Buy)—collect plastic bags for recycling. (Find a drop-off location near you.) And, finally, if I’m shopping somewhere with bulk bins, I bringsealable containersor mason jars to fill. (Be sure to grab the weight of your empty container and mark it for the cashier to subtract from the total weight at checkout.)

Read More:8 Simple Ways to Cut Back on Plastic in Your Food and at Home

When I do buy meat, I prioritize buyinglocal grass-fed meat. Yes, it’s more expensive, but that helps encourage us to eat less of it. Grass-fed meat raised onregenerative farmscan help build healthy soil on those farms, which can prevent soil erosion and even trap carbon in the ground.

And knowing that ouroceans are warming at an alarming rateand many species are being overfished, we also do our best to prioritize buyingsustainable seafood. If you run into me in the seafood department, you’ll often find me scrolling on my phone to see what the Monterey Bay Aquarium’sSeafood Watchrecommends as the best options to make recipes likeFish Taco Bowls with Green Cabbage Slaw.

While my husband and I may be years away from realizing our homesteading dreams, gardening still brings us joy—even if we’re not preserving everything for winter. And taking steps to cut back on our kitchen waste and eat less meat helps lighten our impact on the environment. We hope the little things will add up and make a difference, plus inspire others around us to eat green too.

Get the recipe:Fish Taco Bowls with Green Cabbage Slaw

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