We all want to do our best when it comes to making eco-friendly choices and just reducing our impact on our Mother Earth. It’s summer and many of us are not eating at home as much. When we're not home as often, it’s so easy to just stop in somewhere and grab something to eat. But if you think about it from a waste perspective, when we are ordering food out, whether it be fast food or going to the grocery store or hitting the deli, it often includes a lot of waste. Usually small plastic containers that cannot be recycled or, yikes, styrofoam, which you know, never breaks down. It's pretty terrible for the earth. But there are simple ways to reduce your carbon footprint while enjoying all your favorite summer activities.

5 Tips for Eco-Friendly Eating on the Go

Whether you're meeting friends at the lake or the library (here it’s the Puget Sound and we love jumping on our SUPs and hitting the beach), you know after a day of summer fun, you and the kids are going to be hungry. We all know what happens when we have hungry kiddos. Adults can get pretty hangry too. So you want to be prepared but don’t want to be wasteful. 

As you know I love to start simple with easy things that you can incorporate into your everyday life that can make a huge difference.

1. Save ALL of your plastic bags

We still eat regular old sliced bread for sandwiches. And every time we get one of those loaves of bread, it comes in a plastic bag and those bags are one of the hardest items to find recycling for. So save the bag! Get those extra crumbs out and reuse them. We use them for everything from packaging up our produce and putting it in the fridge to just reusing them for snacks or for sandwiches or really anything. They tie up nicely and work just as well as any purchased sandwich bag. It’ll not only save the earth but your wallet as well.

2. Invest in some great reusable containers

Non-plastic of course! Silicone really is my favorite because it is really safe. It doesn't have any plastic in it so you don't have to worry about BPA or any of those other harmful chemicals that you find in plastic. 100% food grade silicone is really great. I have some in my online store that I love and you can check them out here. They're easy to clean, they're really durable, you can stick them in the dishwasher. Can’t get any easier for lazy summer days.

3. Mason Jars!

Aren’t they the best?! Mason jars are such a useful and affordable way to carry around snacks. And they come in so many different sizes! They have really small ones and they're so adorable. The larger ones, you can put yogurt parfaits in them, or the really big ones can hold an entire salad to share with a friend. They have so many uses around the home and can be reused over and over. And no plastic!

4. Make it at home

Just bringing your own food is going to be more eco-friendly to begin with. But also when you are making that snack bag, it’s easy to choose individually wrapped items like granola bars or fruit snacks and all of that stuff. But again, every single little package has its own piece of trash associated with it. Some things we used to buy but now make at home are:

• Hummus - Soooo much better homemade!

• Granola Bars

• Trail Mix

• Smoothies/Yogurt drinks

All of these can be made at home and packaged in reusable containers or those plastic bags you’ve been saving. You go, Earth guru! 

5. Don’t forget your water bottle

So many people just grab an extra water bottle, a plastic one, because they forgot their water bottle at home. Well, we know how many plastic water bottles there are in this world and they are really not reused and they're often not recycled. If they are recycled, they're usually only recreated into one other plastic. So they're still going to be on this earth for a really, really, really, really, really long time. Can I get another really? So how can you remember?

• Leave your water bottle by your keys the night before. I hang my keys on my water bottle so I have to grab both at once.

• Leave an empty water bottle in your car that you can fill up in case you do forget. Yes, it’s best to drink filtered water but that one time you forget it at home won’t hurt and you’ll be saving plastic from entering the oceans and landfills.

 I know how busy summer is and I hope you enjoy it to its full extent! This year hopefully is a lot different than last summer and we deserve to have some fun in the sun!

So just go out and enjoy life and make those small changes and small choices that will be good for the earth.