8 SUSTAINABLE IDEAS FOR A GREEN THANKSGIVING

Who doesn’t love Thanksgiving? From the delicious food to the cozy reunion with family and friends, Thanksgiving is high on the list of our favorite holidays. However, when it comes to sustainability, Thanksgiving is less than ideal. Turkey Day is one of the least sustainable holidays mainly due to the large amounts of wasted food and the environmentally-harmful travel to meet loved ones. The good news is that celebrating a green Thanksgiving is possible, and we’re here to help you make it happen!

Before we jump into our green Thanksgiving tips, we wanted to share some eye-opening facts about the environmental harms of Thanksgiving and why change is so important.

Why You Should Aim for a Green Thanksgiving

ReFED, the leading national nonprofit working to combat food waste, estimates that a whopping 305 MILLION pounds of food is thrown out in the U.S. every year on Thanksgiving.

To give you an idea of the impact that this level of waste has on the environment, producing this amount of food generates greenhouse gas emissions to the equivalent of driving 169,000 cars for one full year and has a water footprint of 104,000,000,000 gallons. This is the same amount of water used by everyone in New York City for 3 ½ months!

Keep these numbers in mind while you plan your Thanksgiving menu. Better yet? Help educate your friends and family and teach them why throwing a green Thanksgiving is so important!

 Ideas for a Green Thanksgiving

Now that you understand the importance, it’s time to jump right into it! Keep reading for our simple and easy-to-implement tips for a green Thanksgiving.

Nix the Grocery Store & Shop Local

A green Thanksgiving starts with a green shopping list! This Turkey Day, skip the grocery store and buy your ingredients at your local farmer’s market instead. By buying local, you’re purchasing items that haven’t had to travel very far to end up at your table - A.K.A., items that have a lower carbon footprint and are more eco friendly.

Additionally, local foods are grown on smaller farms using more sustainable practices than large food conglomerates. It’s even better if you can afford to shop organic, as natural organic products don’t come with synthetic chemicals and do not contain genetically modified organisms.

For more information about the environmental impact of Farmers Markets vs. Grocery Stores, visit our post “The Time to Select Our Food Mindfully.”

Plan Your Menu with Sustainability in Mind

At most Thanksgiving dinner tables, guests are confronted with more food than they can actually eat. It’s not uncommon to end up with unbuckled belts due to all the tempting and delicious dishes covering the table! 

As common as this may be, keep in mind that an estimated 204 million pounds of perfectly edible turkey will be discarded after Thanksgiving dinner. Following the turkey into the trash is more than 160 million pounds of vegetables and side dishes. In order to lower these staggering figures in 2022, we need to start thinking GREEN.

For starters, do not overestimate the amount of food your party can eat. It is recommended to cook half of what you think you'll need. Try to stick with normal sized portions, instead of the dramatically increased portion sizes that Americans are normally served during Thanksgiving dinner.

Next, be sure to talk to your guests in advance and coordinate who will be bringing what. This is helpful to avoid duplicate dishes and more wasted food. Do your best to use spices that you already own, instead of buying new ones and - most importantly - shop conscientiously before you cook.

All of these tips are a great way to reduce food waste and achieve a green Thanksgiving celebration.

Compost Kitchen Scraps or Freeze Them for Later Use

Composting your kitchen waste is a great way to recycle and repurpose your scraps. If you aren't sure how, you can check out our blog post  “How to Compost in an Apartment Without Worms,” where we teach you how step-by-step. Composting is super easy and a great way to avoid food waste!

If composting seems a bit too intimidating, you can also freeze your kitchen scraps to use for a different recipe later on. Get creative! There are plenty of recipes to make with kitchen scraps (like homemade vegetable broth).

Freeze Your Leftovers

Instead of throwing out leftovers, freeze everything that you won't realistically be able to consume in the next few days. Trust us - you'll be happy to have delicious Thanksgiving leftovers in the freezer! Especially when you're burned out from cooking after the holiday.

Store Your Leftovers in Plastic-Free Containers

Swap out the traditional plastic wrap for reusable beeswax wrap. Use glass tupperware instead of plastic and, if your guests plan to take some food home, ask them to bring their own glass containers!

Find more plastic-free kitchen ideas in our recent blog post, “10 Easy Steps to a Plastic-Free Kitchen.”

Go Big on Veggies and Sides Instead of Meat

The meat industry is responsible for emitting huge levels of carbon dioxide. These practices are harmful to our health and strongly contribute to climate change. We can do our part to lower these harmful emissions by eating less meat. During your green Thanksgiving, load up on vegetables and side dishes rather than going overboard with turkey and meat options. 

Ditch Disposable Cookware

If you've been a My Kitchen & Me customer for a while, you may have already invested in cloth napkins, loofah sponges and other sustainable kitchen items. This is a great start, but don't forget to ditch the disposable cookware on Turkey Day.

We know that using paper plates and plastic cutlery shortens your dish washing time, but it's not worth it in the long-run. Be sure to use reusable dishes and cutlery during your green Thanksgiving.

Travel Green

Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel days of the year. Many people fly or drive back home to be reunited with their loved ones over the holiday. In honor of your commitment to green living, we strongly recommend switching to more eco-friendly travel options, like taking the bus or carpooling. These changes will significantly reduce your carbon footprint and will help the fight against the climate crisis. 

With these eco-friendly tips, you're now ready to throw a green Thanksgiving in 2022!

Take a moment to remember that Thanksgiving is not actually about the food, but about being grateful. At My Kitchen & Me, we are thankful for all the resources our planet provides to us. We believe that, by keeping sustainability top-of-mind and celebrating a green Thanksgiving, we are giving back a bit to this wonderful planet.

Did we miss anything? If you have other helpful tips to throwing a green Thanksgiving, drop them below in the comments! And don't forget to follow us on Instagram @mykitchenandmeonline for daily sustainability tips and eco-friendly living.