Goals for More Sustainable Eating

Many people (myself included) set goals or "resolutions" every New Year's Eve. While I think that can be a good thing, because it allows you to look at the coming year with hope and fresh perspective, I am also a fan of setting goals throughout the year. This is especially important when you are aware that something in your life could use change or improvement.

This blog has made me think a lot about what I eat and how I live my life. While consuming the most ethical/ healthy foods has been a priority of mine for several years, I am fully aware that I get lazy and complacent at times, or that I try to convince myself that certain things aren't so bad for me or the environment because they are convenient or inexpensive or taste good. But I know that in the long run, the choices I make do make a difference for me and the world around me. So I really need to re-evaluate and focus.

Because of that, I have set the following goals for more sustainable eating. I plan to start my action plan tomorrow (for some reason I feel that turning a new leaf always goes well on a Sunday)and I will occasionally post about my progress.

1. I will cook most meals at home. (And by most, I mean we will only have 2-3 meals- breakfast lunch or dinner- out or ordered in a week.) As I've mentioned before, it's easy for me to get overwhelmed at the prospect of cooking because of my schedule. This is very dangerous though because the more you eat out, the less you are aware of what you are actually consuming. Not only are we more likely to make unhealthy meal choices while dining out, but the likelihood of finding restaurants with your ethical standards is usually very rare.

in order to help me do this, I will:

2. do weekly meal planning. Though I'm generally pretty good about designing dinners, I've realized that I need to plan breakfasts and lunches too outside of buying Amy's frozen pastas (as good as tasty as they are) or counting on leftovers. For me, this meal planning has to include packing lunch the night before, cooking in bulk on the weekends, pre-cutting veggies etc. Anything to make the task at hand seem less daunting when its actually time to do it.

this is crazy, but I'm also going to:

3. have Drew cook once a week. Drew is an amazing guy, but cooking is NOT one of his strengths. Because of it, we have adopted specific roles: I am the cook and he is the dishwasher. This usually works out fine, but I think being assigned the same role 100% of the time can get tedious for anyone. I think even if Drew is doing something simple like making pasta or tacos once a week and I take over the dishes that night, we will both feel a slight sense of relief.

4. stop buying what we don't need or learn to use what I do buy. I've noticed that I will buy loaves of bread that get moldy before they get eaten or bunches of kale that get slimy before I can cook them. Even though we compost vegetable scraps, this is still a huge waste- both of resources as well as money! Someone at work said last week that they almost never buy bread and only do so when there is a specific need that week for it. Because I have always considered bread and other things such "staples", I've never really thought about it before- but yes, unless we have sandwiches planned for lunch, I wont buy bread! And when I have purchased veggies that go bad quickly (before the week is up), I will commit to using them early in the week. Novel idea!

5. we will become as self-sustainable as possible. This includes my garden (which I'm REALLY hopeful about this year), our potential chicken flock, and making more things from scratch. I am really interested in learning how to can, dry and pickle. I also have plans for designing a root cellar this summer!

6. For those things that we HAVE to buy (meat, milk, flour etc) I have always tried to buy as local and sustainable as possible. My optimal products are local, organic and humanely raised. Sometimes small farmers can not afford the organic certification and in those cases, I prefer local and "just outside of" organic- meaning they take the steps necessary to protect the environment and their consumers. In order to do this, as well as to truly support our local farmers and merchants alike, my goal is to avoid most chain supermarkets such as King Soopers or Whole Foods. I know there will be times when it is physically impossible to find something I need otherwise, and I will use them in those specific circumstances. But I really believe that it is easy to be seduced by prices, selection etc. at chains and compromise your ideals.

7. I will post on my blog at least 3 times a week! Lately it's generally been twice a week, and usually limited to the weekends. Again, this is because of my schedule. But I've found that I enjoy doing this and it keeps me on track so I think I have a better chance at sticking to everything if I'm writing about it!