Thanksgiving is just a week away. And while the holidays often seem chock full of consumerism and wastefulness, Turkey Day is one holiday with plenty of easy and accessible ways to Go Green. I know it sounds crazy – the gluttony, the consumption (oh my the consumption!); but the traditional Thanksgiving meal is in itself a culinary cacophony of seasonal delights: from sweet potatoes and yams, to mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie.
And then, once we’ve indulged and over-indulged in the bounties of the season, there’s the blessed leftovers. When it comes to Thanksgiving dinner, the leftovers are one of my favorite parts. Turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce and a side of leftover stuffing is a pleasure my taste-buds look forward to long after the third Thursday of November hits. And when I learned eating leftovers was good for the planet, suddenly that turkey sandwich tasted even better.
Planet Green explains that “Leftovers are a great way to save food, reduce your carbon footprint, save money, and save time.”
Yes, you read that right—eating leftovers are a great way to reduce your carbon footprint! And according to the New York Times best selling “The Green Book,”
“If you could reduce the amount of food wasted in your household by just twenty-five grams per day (about the weight of a slice of bread), you’d save twenty pounds of food annually – roughly enough to make sixteen meals. If all U.S. households reduced their food waste by this amount, the savings would be enough to provide three meals pre day for a while year to each of the 1.35 million children in the United States who are homeless.”
If you know the leftover portion will be as easy as (indulging in pumpkin) pie, I challenge you to check out these three sites for some more great ideas on how to Green your Thanksgiving and find a few options to implement at this year’s Day of Thanks:
- For 8 Easy Green Thanksgiving Tips check out Earth911.com
- “Earth First” has 10 Tips for a Green Thanksgiving
- Treehugger.com has a plethora of ideas for going green on Turkey Day
photo via Jimi Filipovski
Great post! thanks! I love the left-overs too, and I can’t wait to finally have Thanksgiving at my own house so I can indulge a while after the actual meal itself.
I plan on eating my weight in stuffing. So, does it count if I make double the stuffing just to eat leftovers later?