Green Divas Guide to Delicious Living: Low-Stress Sustainable Kitchen 1

Aside from gathering the freshest, healthiest, most nourishing locally and responsibly grown food for the pantry, I have some sustainable habits that I find help not only minimize the waste, but maximize the output of yummy and fun food.
Here are a few ‘Fresh Ideas’ for your sustainable kitchen:

Recycle
This may seem elementary, but a lot of people don’t realize how much they throw away that could be recycled.

Cardboard - we breakdown EVERY cardboard package and box and put it in a crate where ALL of our junk mail goes.

Plastic - most plastic containers are recyclable. yes, another bin, but saves a lot in the landfills!

Composting - there are a lot of inexpensive and easy products around to help set up a variety of kitchen composting scenarios. I have a stainless steel composting bin and I use compostable bags to help gather all our food scraps to help create luscious soil for the gardens. NOTE: if you don’t have a garden, you can see if there is a local community garden who might be very happy to have your kitchen scraps.

• » See also: Gluten-free Squash Pancakes
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Reuse

Paper Towels - I can’t say we’ve successfully elminiated the use of these handy things entirely, but what we have found is a great local source for 100% recycled content paper towels THAT AREN’T OUTRAGEOUSLY PRICED. Check out Marcal paper products. The amazing thing is that they’ve always used recycled paper! Who knew?

Sponges & Cloth - There are a mess (punn intended) of cool eco-friendly sponges out there, including the Casabella Faucet Sponge and we found these wonderful biodegradable (after several washes) bamboo kitchen towels!

Cloth Napkins - I’ve collected a variety of cloth napkins and have trained my family to reach for them.

Cleaning
I have my favorites, but I use almost exclusively non-toxic, earth-friendly cleaning products for kitchen as well as the rest of the house. See the product comparisons Jen and I did for Relevant Times.

Plastic Baggies - NO. I don’t have plastic bags drying all over my kitchen! However, I did stumble upon an interesting product that helps clean them in the dishwasher! Check out Bag-e-Wash.

This is the first of a series of entries on the Low-Stress Sustainable Kitchen. I would love to hear from readers about their tips for a greener kitchen! Chime in and stay tuned!

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