7 Ways To Honor The Planet In Your Kitchen

7 Ways To Honor The Planet In Your Kitchen

Protecting the resources that provide us with healthy soil, air and water starts in the very place where we appreciate these resources’ gifts! Our kitchens circulate more food, packaging and waste than any other room in the house, which makes a few changes within their walls so very impactful. As you think about how you can live fruitfully with less, we’d love to give you a few ways to reach your goals. Come and visit our little store when replacing your single-use items with reusable products like Beeswrap and glass containers.

1. Ditch the paper towels and napkins. You can do this! Rip the band-aid off and purchase a stack of sturdy terry-cloth kitchen towels for wiping spills, sanitizing surfaces and drying off your stove and counter. My kitchen has a stack of terry-cloth cleaning towels, a few sturdier cotton ones for wiping hands while cooking and a set of very-sturdy napkins for our table setting. Throw your towels in the wash and reuse them over and over. 

2. Buy sturdy. Lose the single-use plastics and flimsy containers and focus on better-quality, longer-lasting items such as glass food storage bowls and ceramic wares. If you’re getting glass jars, consider wide-mouth ones for easier filling (and dipping spoons into- like, say… for chocolate pudding). When shopping for these items, pick them up, feel them and ask yourself how many years of wear they’ll yield you.

3. Shop a few days at a time. Food waste is a terrible blight on food iniquity and our carbon footprint. Try buying three to four days at a time for fresh items, like greens and fruit and buy only long-lasting items like onions and flours in bulk.

4. Make snacks instead of buying individually-wrapped treats. Lose the single-pack snacks and make a batch of granola bars, brownies and cookie pucks. We love freezing a few different items for a good rotation of sweets and when needed, wrap them in resealable beeswax papers.

5. Bring your own bags. Keep a few reusable bags, both large totes for checkout and smaller ones to bag up your produce, in whatever mode of travel you use to get to market. 

6. Buy local! Consider the economic and environmental impact that buying straight from the grower can be. Shopping at farmers markets or your local CSA does so much good- your fruits and vegetables, grown locally and in season, taste far better than imported ones picked before ripeness to make the long, C02-emitting trips without bruising. Your local growers will receive a far larger portion of your spending dollars when distributors are taken out of the mix and return those dollars back into your community. We’ve been committed to our farmers markets and Co-op for years and have seen the impact that our spending has made for local producers.

7. Use skills, not gadgets. If you’ve taken a class from us, you know our ethos! Keep your kitchen simple and free of single-task tools and focus on having a good chef’s knife, a sturdy cutting board, a pair of tongs and a few wood spoons. A clutter-free kitchen will look and feel better and have you cooking quickly instead of fumbling through the junk drawer searching for the egg slicer.

Happy Earth Day! Keep those kitchens sustainable, and if you’re in need of any essential tools, Bee’s wrap, towels, reusable bags, or more – stop by the Gourmandise shop on the first floor of Santa Monica Place shopping center.

Clemence Gossett