What is a Sustainable Healthy Diet?
Everyone is talking about how they are making their “diet more sustainable” but then they never really explain what that means. Are they just buying more fruits and veggies? Are they not eating out at all? Are they all of a sudden going vegan or vegetarian? Do they compost everything? Are they eating the apple core!?
I mean maybe. My 16 month old doesn’t know that it’s weird to eat an apple core. My husband’s grandmother loved gnawing on her chicken bones all the way through to the marrow. But nope, that’s not what we’re talking about here.
We’re talking about buying foods that are better for you and better for the planet.
Why Does It Matter to Me?
Well, you know when you buy that impulse buy of Pirate Booty for your kids, it’s not actually healthy. It’s not actually doing anything for their little bodies..or yours. Because you know you sneak a handful...or two. Your kids inevitably come back ten minutes later saying they’re still hungry.
Plus when you throw away that fourth snack bag you realize you’re creating a whole bunch of trash. Slowly the whole crazy cycle is opening up to you as you become more aware of your family’s impact on the planet.
There is a way to put healthy things in your home and in your body that become a habit that you barely think about and actually positively impact your environment!
As with everything we do here at Honeydew Goods, we only want to promote habits, ideas and products that are good for the planet, doesn’t compromise the things you love (mostly), and are feasible to do at least 50% of the time.
So everything we’re suggesting here fits within that framework and should immediately relieve you of any guilt you feel could come from trying to implement these steps.
Definitions
First off, let’s get on the same page about what we’re actually talking about.
Diet: As you probably already know from many years of a food obsessed culture, “diet” doesn’t mean that you are restricting yourself from some food group for a certain amount of time. It means your daily intake of food. What you eat every day is your diet.
Healthy: Well. This isn’t one of those one size fits all things. There are foods that are innately healthy and foods that are pretty crappy for your body and there are foods that are just filler foods that don’t really contribute anything to your well being. SO healthy foods are generally “whole foods” which means things that don’t have to be broken down in order to eat. Think anything from apples, peppers, eggplants and potatoes to the proteins you eat like eggs, fish and chicken. Sure there is a level of butcher work that goes into some of those foods but in general they don’t need to be ground or processed in order to be cooked and eaten. Then there are foods that include more your complex carbs like wheat and oats and quinoa that require a bit of a process in order to be able to eat them. Those are generally all the good ones. Then you have processed, long shelf-life foods, like Minute-Rice, chips, cereal, pancake and cake mixes, little Debbies and sodas. You get the idea.
*If you haven’t read Melissa Hartwig’s Whole30 Food Freedom Forever you need to go get it right now. This is a great place to start!*
Sustainable: In this context we’re talking about buying foods there generally organic or naturally derived. Producers that are cultivating in this way are taking into consideration their fossil fuel impact, their transportation costs, the way in which they are growing their food and getting it from farm to grocery shelf/table in the most cost effective and earth-friendly way possible. But this can also go a different direction for you too which is for your LIFE.
THEREFORE:
A sustainable healthy diet means something that you can maintain easily! Which is what we are all about here at Honeydew Goods. It’s incredibly important to make healthy choices for obvious reason, but it also has be something that you can make practically mindlessly so you aren’t obsessing over the correct choices for your health when you’re super hangry because you forgot to pack some snacks on that road trip your taking with the kids.
This also means that you educate yourself on the healthy things you and your family actually LIKE and make sure that you have those readily available pretty much all the time. You don’t need to have cucumbers at the ready all the time, if you hate cucumbers! They’ll just go bad and you’ll throw them away....whiiiiiich is the opposite of sustainable. See what we’re getting at here?
That LBD
Think of it this way. You’ve always wanted that gorgeous Little Black Dress that we’re told is perfect for all occasions and makes you stand out from a crowd of ordinary dresses. But then you go to Nordstrom and try all the black dresses on and realize that they are all made for runway models. You can’t buy an A-line little black dress that will be flattering if you’re a DD bra size. You can’t get a straight hip hugging black dress if you have the birthing hips of a hippo. You have a different body type! You need to shop for YOUR body type. SO you hunt down one of the associates and they measure you and use their trained and practiced eye to guide you to a flattering dress that makes you feel and look like the million dollars that you are actually worth.
What I’m getting at is your family’s sustainable healthy diet may look completely different then your neighbor’s, or your sister’s or your best friend’s. You process food differently, your budget works differently, your kids like different snacks, your spouse holds a different opinion. So you need to take some steps to find out what works for YOU and yours and not go based off some #instafamily that you idolize.
(Get down from the soap box, Alyssa)
So how do you begin this new life where you’re eating healthy on the regular, you’re making sure that the food you have available to you is environmentally sustainable but also easy for your lifestyle and you do it on auto-pilot?
PLANNING!
Obviously. I mean if there was a way that we could enter into the Matrix or absorb it by osmosis that would be awesome. But until that time, you’ll need to plan.
This month I’m going to go deep into how we plan for groceries in our home in a sustainable fashion using our 50% rule. (If its something you know you can do at least 50% of the time, then you’re amazing!) In fact, we’ve done it for so long now that we’re fairly sustainable in our grocery shopping and know where we want to improve but are just not able to right now for one reason or another.
SO why plan?
Well, a good plan is truly what busy families survive on when it comes to food because your kids are eating you out of house and home. While you’re tempted to get all the granola bar boxes and bags of Pirate Booty at Costco, you also know that you need to provide your people with snacks that will truly fill them for longer....which won’t happen without whole foods like fruits, vegetables and healthy proteins. Don’t be deceived by those chocolate chip granola bars that are organic...y’all. There is organic sugar. It’s still sugar. It still processes in your body as.......sugar. Yup.
And remember, we’re talking about something your family can actually do for about 50% of the time. Full disclosure, there’s a bag of Cheezit’s and Pretzel rods in my pantry right now. It keeps the minions happy and that makes me happy. I just make sure to limit how many they get of each and if they ask for more food then they have choose a fruit or veggie. That simple.
I digress.
This month we’ll go through a series of exercises on how to maintain a sustainable healthy diet so that you can really wrap your head around the process for your family that makes it actually stick. I’m INTENTIONALLY rolling it out week by week because I want you to actually begin to take time to dig into what we are talking about for that week before moving on to the next. Just like everything else in life, when you take in so much information that your practically drinking from a fire hydrant, you’re gonna loose some of the information.
So we’re taking neat and orderly sips.
Here’s what we’re going to be talking about
- Meal Planning: Meal preps will help you keep on a solid budget and even save you money
- Shopping the Perimeter: Getting to know your grocery store and farmers market
- Shopping Preparation: Taking along what you need to shop, and buying only what you need
- Outsourcing Your Planning: There are great companies that will do everything from giving you a step by step guide to what you need to buy and how to cook it, to sending you all the ingredients per meal and all you have to do is assemble and serve.
For now I have an assignment for you. It might make your brain hurt a little but it’ll be worth it!
- Inventory time: I want you to inventory everything you have in your fridge and pantry right now and determine how long you’ve had it, how often you buy it and how often you throw it. (Check out these fantastic Inventory Charts we made!)
- Follow the Money: I want you to look at your bank statement and tally up all your food purchase for the last two months. This’ll give you a good look at what you normally spend. Even on holiday months, you still have a routine of things you purchase.
- Keep A Journal: Notice how often you throw things away and how often you impulse buy something to eat because you don’t have a healthy alternative on hand. Keep a daily or weekly journal.
This should be motivation enough to really dig in and get your kitchen and your habits in order and you didn’t need a New Years Resolution to do it!
Our end goal is that you’ll be saving money, your family will be eating healthier (and stay fuller longer) and you’ll be making a positive impact on your local and global environment. It really is as simple as it sounds!
Promise!
* Check out our Affiliate Marketing Disclosure over here.*
