Green Your Holiday Spread
Now that you’ve got the decorations and partyware green themed, the food is the next essential ingredient to an eco-friendly party. Whether you decide to make the food yourself, have a potluck, or go with a caterer here are some tips for a spread that will keep your impact to a minimum.
Tip: Buy local, organic food for your holiday party.
Organic
Organic food isn’t just about putting the cleanest food into your own body; it’s about the entire process it went through before getting to you. By using organic food at your festivities, you’re helping to keep chemicals out of your body, but in the process you are keeping the environment and the workers who harvest your food chemical-free as well. While you may not be able to afford to make your whole spread organic, buying organic fruits and veggies is a great place to start.
Local
Not only is it helpful to your own community to buy local, it is also helpful to the environment in general. By buying local in the winter, your food will generally be fresher because it was harvested more recently before making it to your dinner table. This also cuts back on climate-change impacts on the environment because your food isn’t traveling thousands of miles before reaching the table. The best places to look for local foods would be at a farmers' market or even through local CSA’s (community supported agriculture), so make sure you do your research before the party.
Compost
Don't forget to use those recycling and compost bins that you've set out for the party. By composting what you don't eat, you are helping that next batch of holiday food to be grown. This way instead of your leftovers going to a landfill, they will go back into the soil to aid new crops to grow or livestock to eat well themselves.
--Jess Krager
--Photos courtesy of iStock/manleyaudio
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