5 Tips for a Greener Diet

Easy ways to make eco-friendly food choices at home.

1. Take a bite out of global warming. Choose organic foods to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 68 percent. Find more tips on eating to lessen your environmental impact at coolfoodscampaign.org.

2. Seek out peaceful pork. In Righteous Porkchop (Collins, 2009), Nicolette Hahn Niman describes her quest to find meat and dairy products produced by environmentally sound and humane means (and offers tips). She also reveals how she met—and married—California cattle rancher Bill Niman, and transformed from urban attorney (who once worked for Waterkeeper Alliance) to rancher.

3. Start a sustainable discussion in your community. Northwest Earth Institute (nwei.org) aims to empower people to protect our environment by offering discussion courses. We recommend Menu for the Future, which examines ways to create and support a sustainable food system.

4. Grow your own produce. In Organic Crops in Pots (CICO Books, 2009), Deborah Schneebeli-Morrell offers step-by-step advice for growing a range of fruits, vegetables and herbs in pots. We love her suggestion to use unique containers, such as grocery baskets, colanders and recycled tins. Get 9 easy tips to start your own salad greens container garden.

5. Be sushi smart. Is maguro (tuna) more sustainable than sake (salmon)? To find out, download Monterey Bay Aquarium’s latest guide (montereybayaquarium.org), which categorizes sushi into best choices, good alternatives and those to avoid. Sake is generally a better choice than maguro, but in many cases it depends on where the fish was sourced. So ask your server where your sushi came from.

Healthy Recipes for: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter