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Celebrate the Holidays with Earth-Friendly Feasts
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by Diana Artemis | 2006

A thoughtful choice of foods can make your holiday celebration a time of conscious connection with the natural world.

It’s the holiday season once again. In the over-stressed times we live in can we pause and do more to put thanks and love back into our holiday celebrations? The Sustainable Consumption Committee (SCC)’s True Cost of Food Campaign makes it clear that our choice of food, now more than ever during the holiday season, affects our earth, our health, and what we leave as a legacy to our children and our children’s children. Let’s pause and think about where the food we eat came from, and at what cost to the environment.

What is Eco-Cuisine?

In his book, Eco-Cuisine: An Ecological Approach to Gourmet Vegetarian Cooking, Ron Picarski writes, “Ecology is an awareness of the interrelationships between living organisms and their environment. Eco-Cuisine is about the human diet and its relationship to our personal health and the natural environment. We must begin to look at food as a route back to nature and a way to understand our connections with natural cycles. We need to live in harmony with nature and within our biological boundaries that are part of that natural system.”

During this holiday season, let’s think about our health, our children’s health and the health of our planet.

A delicious cooked meal, especially if it’s shared with friends and family, provides nourishment for the spirit as well as the body. Food that is locally grown by organic farmers is healthy for our communities and local economy. Respecting the earth and its animals when producing and eating food creates the harmony that we seek in relating to each other and our planet, and allows us truly to celebrate in a way that honors our earth and each other. Historically, food was a celebration of life: growing, preparing and eating the fruits of the field were once one of the strongest ties to community spirit.

As Sierra Club members, let’s lead the way. This year, invite your friends, neighbors, and family members to a low-impact, cruelty-free holiday meal that is mindful of its origins and the connections that bind us all to a sustainable planet.

Diana Artemis is Co-Chair, Sierra Club National Sustainable Consumption Committee and the National True Cost of Food (TCOF) Campaign.  To learn more about the TCOF Campaign, visit: www.truecostoffood.org.

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