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You don’t have to go cold tofurkey to green your Thanksgiving meal. Try these six ways to have a celebration full of all your favorite Thanksgiving traditions — while putting some eco-friendly twists on your feast.
1. Have the “coolest” Turkey Day ever
Can a turkey dinner help fight climate change? It can when it’s made using foods that have a low carbon footprint. But you might wonder if it’s greener to opt for Tofurkey or a free-range, local heirloom turkey, and resources like the Cool Foods Campaign can help.
Next day while munching that first t(of)urkey sandwich, share how low you were able to go (and how your guests liked your green meal) with others at 100-Mile Diet Thanksgiving Challenge. The campaign connects thousands of people across the continent trying to green their Thanksgiving with close-to-home food — anything from a single dish to an entire feast.
Using fresh veggies instead of canned is another way to green your meal: Commercial canning of vegetables uses 3 billion kWh of energy per year — enough to run 8,571,428 refrigerators for an entire year!
2. Stock up on organic foods for dinner
“All the ingredients for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner are available in organic versions,” says Holly Givens, public affairs advisor for the Organic Trade Association. “It might take a bit of work to find an organic source for some of the ingredients, but most will be available at natural products stores, food co-ops and even mainstream supermarkets.”
Organic produce is grown without pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, and organic turkeys are raised without antibiotics or growth hormones.
“One of the things to be thankful for is having a healthy world,” says Givens. “Choosing organic foods for Thanksgiving dinner is one way to show your gratitude.”
2. Invest in a roasting pan (or borrow one from mom)
Disposable roasting pans are inexpensive and readily available on grocery store shelves, especially this time of year. But if everyone in the United States used a disposable roasting pan to cook their Thanksgiving turkey, there would be 46 million tinfoil pans heading to the landfill every year.
Instead, buy a heavy-duty roasting pan you can use every Thanksgiving (or anytime you feel like cooking a bird or roast). You can also borrow a roasting pan and thank your mom, sister, friend neighbor for having a well-stocked kitchen!
3. Get out the china & cloth napkins
Paper plates and napkins sound like a good thing when you’ve been slaving over a hot stove all day — but their environmental impact is huge. Same for paper napkins. The average American uses 2,200 two-ply paper napkins per year — which adds up to 662 billion napkins being added to the landfill on an annual basis.
“By using cloth napkins and china plates you’re preventing the wasteful use of trees for disposables,” explains Trish Riley, author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Green Living (Alpha, 2007). “Protecting our trees is important for [mitigating] global warming because forests help process CO2 in the atmosphere.”
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