WASHINGTON — Between all the shopping, the cooking and the eating, Thanksgiving can take a toll on the waistline, but it can also effect the environment. Food waste piles up, greenhouse gas emissions escalate and more pesticide-containing produce is consumed.
This holiday season, the experts at Environmental Working Group have a few tips to keep your festive dinners healthy for you and for the planet.
Buy a smaller turkey: Each year, nearly one-third of the meat on the turkey goes straight into the garbage. This contributes to the world’s growing problem of food waste. If you know you’re bad at using up leftovers, buy a smaller turkey, or even a roast chicken, this year.
Prefer to have your fridge stuffed with extras come Friday morning? Lots of chefs and cooking publications offer creative recipes to utilize everything from leftover stuffing to the remaining slices of pie.
Make your cranberry sauce from scratch: The convenience of picking up a can of already-made cranberry sauce is hard to ignore: All you have to do is pop open the top and pour it in a dish.
But before you search for the can opener, consider this: Most store-bought cranberry sauces are loaded with added sugar; some contain more than 30 percent.
“In addition to the sugar that comes naturally in the cranberries, the manufacturer is adding mostly high-fructose corn syrup or dextrose or these other artificial sugars,” says Jose Aguayo, a database research analyst at the Environmental Working Group.
He says a single serving of the sauce can amount to nearly half the recommended amount of daily sugar — leaving you with little wiggle room for pumpkin pie.
Most cans are also lined with BPA — a chemical found in food packaging. Aguayo says if that’s a worry for you, making your own cranberry sauce at home will eliminate your exposure to the chemical compound.
Shop clean: The Environmental Working Group is known for its annual “Dirty Dozen” and “Clean 15” lists, which document fruits and vegetables that contain high and low amounts of pesticides.
The guide is to help budget-conscious consumers decide when they should spring for organic, or when conventional is OK.
“Organic foods are grown without the use of pesticides, and so pesticide residue in them is much lower compared to their standard counterparts,” Aguayo explains.
White potatoes make an appearance on EWG’s Dirty Dozen, so the organization recommends opting for organic white potatoes or conventional sweet potatoes (which make the Clean 15 list). Switching to sweet potatoes gives your spread a nutritional boost, since they are packed with vitamins and minerals.
Check the “score” of your food: As you make your last-minute trips to the grocery store, Aguayo says EWG’s Food Scores app can help you navigate which products are “healthiest,” based on the nutrition, ingredients and processing.
Before you reach for a box of gravy or that frozen pie, scan the package, check the app and make the healthiest decision possible.
