THE KITCHEN ACTIVIST
THE KITCHEN ACTIVIST podcast will give you bite-size action steps in each episode you can implement NOW in your kitchen, the most effective place to grow well-being for people and our planet. The host is the award-winning author of EAT LESS WATER and Kitchen Activist Florencia Ramirez.
THE KITCHEN ACTIVIST
TURN YOUR HOLIDAY SHOPPING INTO A FORCE FOR CHANGE: STRATEGIES FOR ECO-FRIENDLY GIFT-GIVING
The holiday season often evokes images of bustling malls, long shopping lists, and beautifully wrapped presents. Yet, amidst this festive hustle, a pressing question arises: Can holiday shopping become a catalyst for sustainability and positive change? In the latest podcast episode, Florencia Ramirez takes listeners on a transformative journey, offering strategies for eco-friendly gift-giving that align with environmental and personal well-being values.
In this episode, Florencia delves into mindful shopping, highlighting the significant impact our spending can have during the holiday season. With U.S. holiday spending projected to surpass $1 trillion, there's immense potential to channel this economic energy toward supporting eco-friendly businesses and local artisans. By choosing thoughtful, sustainable gifts, we promote environmental wellness and nurture our communities.
The episode provides practical ideas like shopping from farmers' markets or supporting local vendors. It even suggests gifting items like apple cider vinegar in glass bottles with reusable straws, emphasizing health and sustainability. The episode goes beyond individual choices, underscoring the power of collective action in driving change.
Here are the links to the farmers' market business mentioned in the episode:
Chocolatier- Ex Voto
Coffee Roaster- Ragamuffin and Beacon
Spirits- Alquimia Tequila
Apple Cider Vinegar- Cuyama
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Welcome. I'm glad you're here. Together, we will turn our shared concern about the state of our environment into a force for change. It will require you to reimagine the role of your home kitchen as more than a warehouse of food or a room where we cook and gather to eat. The time has come to enter your kitchen with eyes open to the transformative power it harnesses for the planet and you. The home kitchen has always been ground zero for positive environmental and social change. Waiting for you to take your position as a kitchen activist Now that you arrived, you will change the world with what you eat. Hi, my name is Florencia Ramirez. I'm your host of the Kitchen Activist. Welcome back.
Speaker 1:We are here to explore ways to live more sustainably, starting in the heart of the home, which is our kitchen. So today I want to talk about a topic that's on everyone's mind. As we're getting closer to the Christmas holiday, to the Hanukkah holiday, the gift-giving holiday season, I've been thinking a lot about how do I want to shop and use my dollars to make a difference? Because, as I talk about with kitchen activism, I talk a lot about how our food shopping can be such a force for good by aligning ourselves with a solution and with people who are at the front lines of climate action, of water conservation, of saving this planet, and that we can align ourselves through our dollars, through this currency of energy, to support that work. Well, it's absolutely the same when we talk about using our dollars for this gift-giving season. So I started to think about how can I align my shopping for other stuff, other holiday stuff, with this idea of using that energy which is contained in my money to support the things that I care about, which is the health of this planet, the health of workers, my health and the health of the people who I care about. So here's a staggering statistic to kick things off, just to give us a perspective of how much money we actually spend, imagining how we could use that power, that energy, if we were to funnel it towards the types of businesses that we want to grow.
Speaker 1:In the US alone, holiday spending is expected to exceed $1 trillion this year. Globally, that number jumps to over $2 trillion. That is a tremendous amount of money or energy that we can harness for good. I can't control the way anybody else spends their money, but I can make that decision for myself and I'm just going to share what it is that I plan to do and maybe give you ideas of how you can approach your holiday shopping if you're feeling that same hesitation when approaching shopping again in the same ways, which is getting on Amazon and buying lots of things that are made from plastic and supporting these huge corporate conglomerates. So if you're having the same kind of gut response, that just doesn't feel right.
Speaker 1:I got you, I have some good ideas to share with you, but I do want to just say this that obviously we're not getting this right either, because the studies show that more than half of the people don't actually like the gifts they receive. So we're spending all of this time, money and effort to think about what to buy people and they don't even like it. Half the time they don't even like it or they're not using it, and then all of that just ends up where Right. It's resources that are wasted. It's time to reimagine it and to reinvent what gift giving can look like, just as I approach my food shopping every week, you shop your kitchen first, the farmer's market second and the grocery store third, and so in this way I'm thinking about it. Okay, I could shop my house first, because I do have gifts here that I've collected. So shop your kitchen, shop your house and shop your garden. Maybe your garden also has some beautiful flowers that you can dry those of us who live in areas where there's still flowers and create something. Can you harvest some fruits and put that into a beautiful bowl or basket for somebody? So think about what is it that you have, first at your home? The second thing is to shop your farmer's market, and this is where I have a lot of good ideas. And when I say farmer's market, and this is where I have a lot of good ideas, and when I say farmer's market, yes, the tents that pop up somewhere nearby in a empty parking lot or at the park, but I also mean the farmer's market that's happening all around us, the brick and mortar farmer's market, like your chocolatier, your baker, your coffee roaster, and then you also have your virtual farmer's market, right, because many of these vendors that you find either at your farmer's market, with the pop-up tents that come to your community once a week, maybe twice a week Also, these small shops, these small brick and mortar shops, many of them have a virtual marketplace where they need us to shop and give them also that stream of income. So there's all of these ways to shop the farmer's market, farmer's markets they're bursting with unique, thoughtful gifts that include handmade goods and also wonderful foods that we could think about.
Speaker 1:Let me share some of the ideas that I've thought about that I plan to do. I plan to shop my farmers market in the next couple weeks. For example, my sister-in-law mentioned that she wants to incorporate apple cider vinegar into her daily ritual to increase her gut health. I know that at my farmer's market there's a small batch apple cider vinegar that's using an ancient fermentation technique. It's organic and it's in a gorgeous glass bottle, no plastic involved. I plan to also include a stainless steel straw because that when I drink my apple cider vinegar, that's a little hack that I do so that I can protect the enamel on my teeth. So I'll pair that the apple cider vinegar, with a nice reusable stainless steel straw. And there you go. It's a sweet gift that will promote my sister-in-law's health and hopefully it'll introduce her to this apple cider vinegar and she'll go back to the farmer's market and support them again.
Speaker 1:At my farmer's market there's a potter. She's a lovely person. I'm always happy to support her. She has mug berry bowls. I can purchase a mug, and that alone is a wonderful gift, or I could pair it with coffee. The roaster that I have in my community, beacon, is one that I love, and Ragamuffin so those are just two in my community that are purchasing direct from small scale farmers in the tropics who are organic and using techniques in alignment with nature. They are doing so much wonderful work to bring us coffee that's clean and good for our bodies and good for the planet. I can just give the gift of coffee. I could give the gift of a hand-thrown mug, or I can pair it together and have a really wonderful gift for somebody.
Speaker 1:So here's some other ideas. I mentioned hand-thrown pottery, handmade jewelry, local honey or dried floral arrangements. If I was in Santa Fe, there's always some wonderful wreaths made from chilies. For example, there's wooden cutting boards or centerpieces, artisanal skincare products and eco-friendly candles, organic produce baskets or potted plants, thinking about these gifts being the base of your gift. And then you could always add on things Like, for example, with jams or nut butters. You could add on a lovely olive wood spoon or olive wood knife, and I love olive wood.
Speaker 1:It's incredibly sustainable because the way it's harvested, they don't cut down olive wood trees and olive trees can grow for a thousand years, so they just harvest. They harvest branches, and that's why olive wood products tend to be smaller, like kitchen utensils or cutting boards, bowls. That's something that can last somebody for years and years. At the end of its life cycle, it can be composted, unlike plastic. Speaking of plastic, a plastic bag lasts 10 to 20 years, a plastic straw 200 years. A plastic bottle lasts us 450 years and fishing line 600 years. And remember, plastic doesn't fully biodegrade. Instead, it photodegrades into smaller pieces called microplastic, which are persistent indefinitely. So, also, thinking about Christmas decorations a plastic Christmas tree versus a real Christmas tree. That's biodegradable, which is why I buy a Christmas tree from a FSC certified source, where they're growing trees and on farms. So, thinking about Christmas garlands too, like Christmas garlands cannot be recycled.
Speaker 1:I would like to have a Christmas garland to go on my staircase, which is nothing that is needed, but it's something that I wanted. And I started to look on Amazon because I'd like the knee jerk response for me and I realized I don't want to have this plastic thing up going up my stairs, because what is what? What's gonna happen once I'm done with it? So then I went on Facebook Marketplace to see what was out there and then I realized let me think differently about this. What's another way that I can purchase a decoration but still be in alignment with my values, which is to bring no harm to the planet with my purchase? Then it occurred to me what about felt?
Speaker 1:I went on to Etsy instead and I'm remembering Etsy as like this collection of a farmer's market a lot of small scale makers, different small scale artisans who are going above and beyond with the types of products that they're producing, and that is certainly the case with this garland that I purchased from a small shop. They hand sew the felt. It is actually less expensive to buy this felted garland than it would have been to buy this plastic one. So, just thinking outside the box, when we shop our farmer's market, we eliminate the middleman. So when I'm purchasing direct from that shop and from Etsy, or I go to the farmer's market and I'm purchasing direct from them, if I go to my chocolatier, I plan to get small boxes of chocolate from our local chocolatier, who is purchasing direct from cacao producers in the tropics who are using organic methods and not cutting down forests to grow their chocolate Shopping.
Speaker 1:This way has so many benefits. For one, it eliminates the middleman. It ensures that more of our dollars go directly to the people creating these products, often as much as 90 cents per dollar, compared to 14 cents when we buy from a big box store. I mean, think about that, that, 90 cents versus 14 cents. So I'm focusing on gifts that are made with long lasting or compostable materials.
Speaker 1:To minimize my waste, I'm choosing local and planet-friendly gifts that help to reduce the environmental impact of the holiday season. So let's circle back to those numbers Trillions spent. Half of all gifts are unloved. 40% of people are going into debt, and it doesn't have to be this way. Are going into debt, and it doesn't have to be this way. So what if, instead of buying generic, mass-produced items, we choose gifts that support local economies, that bring joy to the people we care about and honor the planet at the same time? So I'm going to just give Do a rundown of some gift ideas Small batch vinegars, jams, nut butters, and think about pairing it with an olive wood spoon, a sweet spoon.
Speaker 1:Hand-thrown pottery, handmade jewelry, local honey, dried floral arrangements, wooden cutting boards or centerpieces, skin care products made in small batches from small scale businesses nearby, eco-friendly candles, organic produce baskets or potted plants. Think about organic spirits, like I wrote in my book alchemia, tequila, so that could be paired with some shot glasses, biodynamic wine, vineyards, if you live close by vineyards, or you can order that online on the virtual market farmer's marketplace. Coffee from your local roasters, who are thoughtfully procuring their beans from sustainable sources. The same goes for chocolate your local chocolatiers. Do you have a cheesemonger in your community where you can purchase some really beautiful cheeses and support organic dairies locally and also around the globe? So I hope these give you some ideas. Think about what's available at your farmer's market. And I hope these give you some ideas. Think about what's available at your farmer's market and I'd love to hear your ideas. Drop me an email. You can find my email on the show notes. You can message me on social media. You can find all the places that I am on the show notes as well.
Speaker 1:This holiday season, let's remember there's power in the collective. This holiday season, let's remember there's power in the collective. So by shifting how we shop, we can create a ripple effect that supports small-scale producers, nurtures the planet and builds stronger communities. If you're looking for more ways to live sustainably, download my free meal plan template, because that is such a powerful place to begin kitchen activism, and it will not only will make your life more joyful at the end of the day when it's time to think about what to make for dinner, but it will reduce waste and save you money.
Speaker 1:And don't forget to tune in again to the next episode of the Kitchen Activist. So until then, happy gift giving and happy planet saving. There is power in the collective. Let's stay connected. Sign up for my newsletter and receive more tips in your inbox weekly. You can also find me on your favorite social media space. Please remember to hit subscribe and leave a review, even if it's only the star rating, because every one of them will increase the chances of other like-minded folks to find us. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Together, we will write the story of wellbeing for this planet we have the privilege to call home.