Let’s Eat! How To Reduce Your Foodprint for Earth Month

April celebrates Earth Month and April 22nd celebrates Earth Day each year to raise environmental awareness and promote a cleaner, healthier environment. It presents an opportunity for us to take stock of our own foodprint. A “foodprint” measures the environmental impacts associated with the growing, producing, transporting, and storing the food we consume every day.

Some tips to celebrate earth month:

Use buggy boxes and bring reusable bags to shop. Bringing your own bag for carrying groceries home reduces the use of single use plastic bags.

Americans are using 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. If you utilize single use plastic bags, look for recycling collection containers at each Food City location.  The bags are bundled with plastic wrap waste from the store and recycled to produce composite building materials.   Food City has reusable buggy boxes that you can purchase and bring back. I love them because they are super convenient to carry and spacious. So grab a buggy box to fill your cart.

Another tip for reducing your foodprint is to reduce food waste with really simple hacks.

–          When purchasing fresh produce, only buy what you can eat, cook or simply freeze for later use.

–          Make large batches of soups, chilis and store in a container to freeze for later.

–          Purchase canned and frozen fruits and vegetables.

–          Utilize the whole part of the plant – make pesto from broccoli stems, save scraps of vegetables to make a stock or soup.

Add more plants to your diet.

Not only does eating more whole plant foods, like fruits, vegetables, beans and whole grains mean more vitamins, minerals and fiber and reduce risk of certain chronic diseases, but plants use less water and produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

Here are some great plant-based picks to

Barvecue – plant based meat alternative made in North Carolina. Barvecue operates the world’s largest plant-based smokehouse using simple and clean ingredients.

Gardein Ground Be’ef

Starting with a fresh take on a taco bowl. Featuring plant powered protein from Gardein ground be’f – made from textured soy protein which offers 18 g of protein and 5 g of fiber. Simply heat on the stove top pairing with your favorite taco seasoning and can of beans. Now for the fresh component pair shelf stable canned corns with Red Sun Farms –SweetPop tomatoes and ShortCut recipe ready red onion, flavored with a taco seasoning and olive oil.  Build your bowl layering salad greens, minute quinoa, Gardein be’f and bean mixture and finish with vegetable marinade.  For a decadent plant based finish try cashew cheeze – made in Tennessee from cashews and organic ingredients.

Vegetarian Taco Bowl

·         Gardein Plant-Based Ground Be’f

·         2 tablespoons Food Club Taco seasoning

·         1 –15 oz can Full Circle Market Black Beans, drained

·         1 cup Food Club canned corn, drained

·         1 cup Red Sun Farms –SweetPop tomatoes

·         ¼ cup ShortCuts Recipe Ready red onion, diced

·         cilantro

·         Fresh! Leafy Lettuce

·         Full Circle Market Brown Rice

·         1 tablespoon oil

Organic Girl Greens- Triple washed organic greens packaged in 100% recyclable packaging and made from recycled water bottles.

Apeel Avocados – What sets Food City avocados apart is that they are protected with Apeel.  Apeel uses plant-derived materials that exist in the peels, seeds, and pulp of all fruits and vegetables to create a protective extra peel that seals moisture in and keeps oxygen out. This means that your Apeel protected avocados will stay at peak ripeness for longer, cutting down on food waste.

Chosen Foods Mayo – Dress up your plant-based creations with Chosen Foods Vegan Avocado Oil Mayo, made with only avocado oil, aquafaba from garbanzo beans, fava bean protein, and organic flavorings.