To me, I think the most important starter in “Going Green” per say, is that of a Green Kitchen. You not only want to eat healthy, local and organic but want to make sure you are preparing that tremendous food in a healthy kitchen as well. They both seamlessly mesh together in one perfect combination! Here are a few tips to get you started……

1. As you are at your local farmer’s market, CSA (community supported agriculture www.localharvest.org), or simply shopping healthy at your grocery store, really try to do the following for your families health and the planet. Look at where that product/fruit is harvested (try your hardest to find something within 100 miles of you), if shopping at the grocery store try and shop the outskirts of the store (not the isles where the processed food is held). Organic is the best but here is a great list for the dirty dozen of items that are a “must” to purchase organic http://www.foodnews.org/fulllist.php and then put all of those wonderful pure items in your reusable grocery bag!

2. If you are purchasing your items locally and know where your produce came from (and when I say know, I mean know exactly who your farmer is), then you are probably okay to not have to use a produce wash. If you don’t know them and even if you do, it’s not a bad practice to get into washing all of your produce. BioKleen has a great produce wash and it is concentrated, so it lasts a long time.

3. While you are cutting those delicious new vegetables, then it is really green to use a non-toxic, recyclable, anti-bacterial cutting board. If you have not heard by now the plastic cutting boards are not great for your health. They are implementing all new regulations for water bottles listed with Bishpenol-A in them but I am not sure if this has trickled down the line yet in all products. I know I had plently of plastic cutting boards in the past and they all had slit marks on them and you could see the plastic strips hanging off of each cut. Well guess where those go! In your food and in you! Use a wood or bamboo cutting board and you will be good to go! Bambu has a great one and I have used it for over a year and a half now and LOVE it!

4. You’ve made your fabulous meal, with your juicy organic ingredients and now you have to store the leftovers. Just like we are desperately trying to reduce our plastic consumption in grocery bags, we are also trying to do the same thing for “all” plastics. I recently (and I mean recently, it took me a long time to get rid of these) got rid of my plastic tupperware. I swapped out for glass tupperware but I did not purchase anything new. I started to reuse all of the glass jars I was getting from pickles, pasta sauce, etc and washed and reused them. Again a big part of “going green” is looking at your waste consumption and what kindof packaging you bring into your home. I try and see if I can reuse something first and if not, I definitely make sure that it can be recycled. I do realize that we still need some of our plastic bags for things (although I am really trying to get rid of this alltogether), so I only purchase one supply and hang dry them and reuse those as well. My favorite thing this past year has been my plastic bag dryer! Such a great concept and so incredibly simple! I wish I would have thought of that!

5. Back to those cleaning products, that I think I have written a thousand articles and blogs on!!! I cannot stress enough about the toxic cleaning products and their importance in your new found green/healthy life. Would you put a bottle of your liquid 409 on your child’s plate for dinner??? Then why would you clean with it (as they are crawling, running, playing around the house in it), dump it down the drain where it goes in our waterways and into our oceans and then put a piece of fish, or something else from the ocean on your child’s plate for them to eat?? When will we finally all realize that we are all apart of each other, all connected and what we do each and every day has an effect on the environment and our families?? So! Enough of my preaching (but please hear what I said) and change out those cleaning products! Do not clean up your counters after an amazing healthy meal that you and your family adored and wipe your counters with toxins. Just Say No!!!! Here are some great ideas (click here) but just go to about any store nowadays and you will be able to find “something” that is much better than what you may be using now. There is also a myth that they do not work as well and that is a crock!! My grandmother cleaning with lemon juice, vinegar, baking soda, etc all of the time and never had an issue!!

These are my top 5 Greening Your Kitchen ideas. This should be an ever expanding blog because this would take several blogs to paint of great picture of what a green kitchen would really look like! Hmmm…. I think I would look our for a Greening Your Kitchen Part 2 soon…..:)!!