Healthy Planet. Healthy You.

If I wasn't a nutritionist, I'd probably been an environmentalist of some kind. I have a borderline obsessive tendency to think about my impact on the Earth (and my family's impact on the Earth, lucky them!) all the time. When my oldest absentmindedly grabbed a paper towel to dry her hands on recently, I pretty much yelled from across the kitchen, "What are you doing?! I raised you better than that!" as if she had just kicked a puppy.

I know it can get pretty annoying for them, though to be fair, they all try pretty hard. We all do. But it's not easy. You actually do have to think about it all the time to be conscious, otherwise our daily, unconscious routines and habits continue to wreak havoc on our home planet.

And this is the only one we get. (Just not so sure about the whole Mars thing.)

Earth Day is in April, therefore I decided to devote the whole month of my social media posts to food-centric ways we can protect the Earth with our eating and cooking habits.

ICYMI, I thought I'd recap them here.

But first, why is a nutritionist talking about saving the planet on her nutrition-focused blog? Well, I feel my job is to help people live long, healthy, happy lives. If the Earth continues to burn, none of that is possible. We won't be happy. We certainly won't be healthy. And our lives probably won't be very long. Air pollution, toxic chemicals in our food, soil degradation, plastic in our oceans....all of these things affect our personal health. We can't exercise the issues away. We all have to be active participants in protecting our planet, because if she burns up, nothing else matters. All of the worries, all of the causes, all of the planning and protesting and strife....it's all for nothing if we don't have a safe place to live and breath and flourish.

I'm always looking for ways to make improvements around house, but since I'm a mom and wife and foodie and nutritionist, most of my time is spent in the kitchen. So here are my ideas for improving our carbon footprint in the kitchen on Earth Day and every single day of the year.

1. Baking Mats: I realized I was using an inordinate amount of parchment paper because we pretty much roast vegetables at least once every day. Even though I use the compostable kind, it still felt very wasteful. Net Zero Company has a silicone baking mat that can withstand 425 degrees, the magic number for roasting vegetables.

2. Composting: I thought this would be harder than it is. Buy a small bin for inside (~$20-$50 depending on how cute you want it to be). Buy a big bin for outside ($80-$150 depending on how big you want it to be). Put all plant-based food waste in the little one (and egg shells too!). When it fills up, take it outside and dump it in the big one. Add an equal amount of "dry matter" to the "wet matter" you just dumped in.

   1. Wet matter: banana peels, apple cores, kale stems, coffee filters and grounds, teabags, eggs shells, cabbage cores, wilted/spoiled fruits and vegetables, orange peels, and on and on. Once you start, you'll be shocked at how much you were throwing away.

   2. Dry matter: shredded paper, dry leaves, hay, mulch - I keep. a bale of hay next to my outdoor compost bin.

3. Buying local: Be intentional about this. Shop the Farmer's Market. Sign up for produce delivery. Join a co-op. Visit the fish market. You'll infuse your local economy, the food will taste better, and you'll drastically reduce your carbon footprint in the process. Win. Win. Win.

4. Planting stuff: Plants help sequester the carbon dioxide in the air. Carbon dioxide makes up 80% of the greenhouse gases that are burning up our ozone layer. Plus, plants are pretty. Bonus if you plant ones that you can also eat. A few herb pots. A raised bed garden. Anything you have room for and will eat. This also reduces our carbon footprint and saves money in the process.

5. Going Reusable: Straws, ziplock bags, saran wrap....there are now reusable varieties of so many single use items. I love my beeswax paper from beeswrap.com. We use it in place of foil and saran wrap to cover food, wrap cheese blocks, and preserve cut avocados. And we've tried several reusable ziplocs, but (re)Zip baggies seem to hold up the best.

I tell my clients to integrate health changes slowly, otherwise they become an overwhelming burden rather than a manageable lifestyle improvement. The same goes for becoming more Earth conscious around your home. It doesn't have to happen overnight or on a large scale from day one. You (and anyone you live with) may not appreciate trying to form so many new habits at once.

Just try. Be intentional. Be mindful. Let's all work together everyday to protect our home and our personal health.

**(Composting or reducing single use items would be my first suggestions to try since sadly, land is not a renewable resource and we will eventually run out of space for landfills).**