Learn how one can cut back your environmental footprint with more healthy kitchen habits with these high 7 Environmentally Friendly Kitchen Tips from Dietitians, masking points like sustainable meals selections, trimming meals waste, and consuming extra complete, plant-based meals.
What you place in your plate and the way you put together it, could make a huge effect in your environmental footprint. The meals you buy, your journey to and from markets, how a lot meals you waste, and the way you put together meals all think about to our planetary degradation, together with water and land use, greenhouse gasoline emissions produced, and air pollution getting into the setting. That’s why I’m so excited to share these seven straightforward ideas for greening your kitchen from a few of my favourite dietitians. Remember, your private consuming fashion is likely one of the strongest issues you are able to do, as a person, to lighten your footprint on Mother Earth. So do your finest to reduce down on meals waste, eat principally vegetation, and eat extra complete meals and you can also make a giant distinction. Let’s get greener collectively!
7 Environmentally Friendly Kitchen Tips from Dietitians
1. Use Your Vegetable Scraps
Cut meals waste by saving your entire scraps from greens that don’t go into the recipe. They may be put to good use in a while, corresponding to in home-made vegetable broths, smoothies, or soups. “Anytime you are chopping vegetables, keep the peels of carrots, ends of onions, etc. and store in the freezer. Once you have a good amount you can make a homemade broth,” says Julie Harrington, RD.
2. Use the Whole Vegetable
Don’t be afraid to make use of your complete vegetable, from root to stem, in lots of recipes, corresponding to soups, stews, salads, and side-dishes. “Beet greens, carrot greens, kale stems – they can all be sautéed into a delicious stir-fry or pureed into a peppery dressing!” says Whitney English, RDN.
3. Plan Your Meals
Before you head to the grocery store, take stock of your meals inventory and check out to verify to make use of up perishables first. “Plan your meals for the week based on what you already have in your kitchen. This helps reduce food waste and ensures you have healthy meals on the table for the week!” says culinary diet skilled Jessica Levinson, MS, RDN, CDN. “Prep food so it’s easily accessible and ready to eat. That majorly reduces food waste for me. I also keep foods that are on their way out (or close to it) right in the front of my fridge so I’m reminded of them,” says Rebecca Clyde MS, RDN, CD, Nourish Nutrition.
4. Become Friends with Your Freezer
Keep a watch on leftovers in your fridge and freeze them in the event you gained’t be capable of use them earlier than they go unhealthy—these leftovers will turn out to be useful on busy nights. Don’t neglect to stock your freezer to keep away from meals waste too. “Many leftovers sit in the fridge too long and must be thrown away. If you know that you may not eat your leftovers such as soup, chili, bread, beans, and even cookies before they go bad, find a freezer bag or container, freeze time, and save those leftovers for another meal,” says Sarah Pflugradt, MS, RDN, LDN.
5. Eliminate Single Use Kitchen Items
Avoid waste from different objects within the kitchen, corresponding to from paper towels and napkins. “Invest in cloth or microfiber napkins and towels. These reusable, long lasting clothes may have a startup investment cost, but you’ll never have to worry about scrambling to refill the paper towel holder or killing trees when you’re cleaning up a spill,” says Nikki Nies, RDN, We Dish Nutrition. “Use bee’s wrap instead of plastic wrap – it’s washable, reusable, and compostable!” says Gillean Barkyoumb, MS, RD, Millennial Nutrition.
6. Shop in Bulk
You can cut back extremely processed meals consumption, plastics, and even buying {dollars} by avoiding packaging in meals. “Help reduce packaging waste and eliminate over processing, therefore keeping our planet and our bodies healthy. Extra credit if you bring your own reusable container and subtract the weight from the total amount. You can find almost any product you need in bulk: coffee, tea, spices, baking ingredients, beans, nuts, pasta, grains, and even beer and wine,” says Erin Hendrickson, RDN, blogger at Minimalist RD.
7. Choose More Whole Plant Foods
Putting extra minimally processed plant meals, and fewer animal meals in your buying cart is a strong motion to battle local weather change. “Eating a more plant-based diet, with lower amounts of animal foods and a focus primarily on whole plant foods—beans, lentils, whole grains, vegetables, fruits—has the lowest environmental footprint compared to other diet patterns,” Sharon Palmer, MSFS, RDN.
Images: Sharon Palmer, MSFS, RDN
For different blogs on sustainable consuming, try the next:
6 Ways to Cut Your Food Waste
4 Ways to Eat for the Environment
Grow Your Own Food Toolkit
Cooking Tips for Environmental Sustainability