grocery-shopping

Sustainable Lifestyle: Green Grocery Shopping

Tracey Martin is a Sustainable Lifestyle Leader and author and has been a certified Transformational Life Coach as well as health, life and wellness advisor for more than 25 years. Traceyā€™s mission is simple, to protect our natural resources, planet, and our most precious resource: humankind. She is sharing her knowledge with us in this weekly column and this week Tracey shares with us how to green up your grocery shopping experience.

If you are looking to make more sustainable/”green” choices and changes in your day-to-day life, food is one of the easiest places to begin to reduce waste. The food that we put into our bodies makes the biggest impact in our lives so ā€œgreening upā€ your grocery shopping is the best place to start when beginning to live in a more sustainable manner. With a bit of planning and preparation, these rituals will quickly become a part of your daily life.

If you are like my family, you frequent the grocery store multiple times a week. Our family goes almost daily. Health and wellness is a priority in our household, so making daily visits for just a few items is something that creates nutritious and enjoyable meals. Going to the grocery store is like going on a field trip! So much to learn about.

Here are some of my tips for a green, fun and healthy shopping experience:

1. Start with a list. Buy only want you need. Create a weekly meal calendar. Structured meal prep is a must. This will save time and prevent you from over purchasing. No one wants to throw away food that was not used and has gone bad. Be a thoughtful cook in your own kitchen.

2. Bring your own shopping bags! Please Please Please. This is so easy. Keep them in your car. Most of them can be washed so they stay clean. Create a habit that after each trip, you walk them out to your car and throw them in. If you have to run in to the store and the bags aren’t in your car, use paper. Refuse plastic. You may also get a discount for bringing in your own bags!

Eating a healthy range of foods will no doubt include lots of fresh produce. Every time you buy lettuce, apples or lemons, you probably grab a plastic produce bag. STOP! www.earthwisebags.com has an amazing array of sizes of washable reusable produce bags. This is a super inexpensive and such a great idea! Remember to wash all your fruits and vegetables once you get them home.

Fast Fact: Plastic was invented in 1907. It takes about 450 years to biodegrade and in some cases up to 1000years. So basically every piece of plastic ever made is still somewhere on the earth! Yikes.Ā If you want to watch a great documentary on how plastic effects on our planet, check out ā€œPlastic Oceansā€ on Netflix.

3. Shop in the bulk food section and save on packaging. You can purchase beans, nuts, seeds, pasta, oats and so much more. Bring a 3×5 card with you and write down the bin numbers along with the name of the item. This way you will not need to use the tags and plastic bags. Bring the reusable bags that we mentioned above to the bulk food section. Once the bag is filled with your item, put your card with the bin number inside the reusable bags. This is super easy for the cashier to weigh and ring up.

4. Keep your pantry organized! You can purchase glass jars from Michaels/Costco/Target/Amazon, etc. Empty your bulk food bags of nuts, seeds and oats into these jars and watch your pantry transform into a thing of beauty. This will also make your future grocery store trips much easier as you have visual cues for what you need and the containers to put them in. Voila, you have just eliminated a bunch of plastic!

5. If you do purchase canned or packaged foods, please look for packaging that is recyclable. When purchasing anything in a can, make sure that it has a BPA free lining to ensure you are making the best choices for your health and the planet.

Sustainably Yours,
Tracey xo

If you have comments or questions you would like to see addressed in this column, please send them to info@fabulousarizona.com.

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For a private one on one with Tracey text 602.568.4124.

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