Healthy Food & Green Living

A Powerful Relationship

There are many reasons why one might make the decision to eat a healthier diet. Some of those reasons include an attempt to lose weight, improve the quality of life, or to facilitate healing from an ailment or illness. Another powerful reason that you may not have considered though is that healthier eating can be linked closely to greener living and a more sustainable lifestyle. What we choose to eat impacts not only our health but also the health of our planet. The following are just a few of the ways that greener living and healthy eating can be linked.

Organic Food – The pros and cons of organic food have been widely debated. Several studies over the past few years have concluded that organic produce may not have more nutrients than conventional produce. What gets overlooked though is that no studies have been able to show that ingesting pesticides is good for us. Eating organic and choosing to remove these potentially toxic chemicals from our diet is a huge step towards a healthier diet. When we choose organic we are also choosing to support an agriculture system that does not pollute our soil and ground water with pesticides and other harmful chemicals.

Growing Your Own – So many of us are dependent upon stores and farmers for all of our food. This takes the control over what we eat out of our hands. We no longer know where our food comes from or how it was grown. When we grow our own food we take back some of that control and we ultimately eat healthier foods instead of the processed or pesticide laden varieties found in grocery stores. Growing your own food is also more self-sufficient and green because you are more likely to use few, if any, chemicals and use regular or heirloom seeds instead of the genetically modified seeds common among big agriculture. Your health benefits and our soil does too.

Eat Local – Closely linked to growing your own food is eating local food. If you cannot grow it yourself you can at least support your local farmers and farmer’s markets. You benefit from all the vitamins and minerals found in fresh foods and they taste better than food that has travelled 1500 miles across the country to reach your plate. You are also likely to eat more fruits and vegetables and fewer processed foods if you shop with local suppliers instead of chain grocery stores. Local food is also great for the planet. It does not have to travel far to reach you and this means less fuel burned to transport food and less pollution.

If you are striving to eat a healthier diet and live green then you should be very happy to know that both of these goals can be complimentary to each other. You can eat healthier and live a greener lifestyle at the same time.