151. Hosting a Thanksgiving celebration that's just a little more sustainable

This week let’s chat about some practical suggestions for hosting a Thanksgiving that’s just a little more sustainable. From planning the meal to polling guests before they show up, you’re sure to leave today’s episode with at least one idea you hadn’t considered before!

Links from today’s episode:
Time Magazine: Thanksgiving Food Waste Is Nothing To Celebrate. But There Are Ways To Combat It
https://time.com/6236321/thanksgiving-food-waste-ways-to-avoid/

Farm-to-Table Thanksgiving: How to Host a Sustainable Fall Feast
https://biofriendlyplanet.com/farm-to-table-thanksgiving-how-to-host-a-sustainable-fall-feast/

ICYMI another episode you might enjoy:
Episode#108 Decolonizing our Thanksgiving Plates (recorded before the 2024 rebranding of this show)

Connect With Genet “GG” Gimja:
Website https://www.progressivepockets.com
Twitter https://twitter.com/prgrssvpckts

Work With Me:
Email progressivepockets@gmail.com for brand partnerships, business inquiries, and speaking engagements.

Easy Ways to Support the Show
1. Send this episode to someone you know! Word of mouth is how podcasts grow!
2. Buy me a coffee (or a soundproof panel!) https://buymeacoffee.com/progressivepockets 
3. Leave a 5 star rating and review for the show!

//NO AI TRAINING: Any use of this podcast episode transcript or associated show notes or blog posts to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. This includes, without limitation, technologies that are capable of generating works in the same style or genre as this content. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models//

Transcript

Welcome to Progressive Pockets! I go by GG, that’s short for Genet Gimja. This is a show about reclaiming some of our power to shape the world we want. I don’t think billionaires should be the only ones shaping our world and I also think that we non-billionaires have more power than we’ve been led to believe. So on this show I provide gentle, practical ways that we can flex the power of our money.

So what are we talking about today? Well, the days are getting shorter, there’s a crisp in the air, or if you’re from a hot state it has gone from unbearably hot outside to bearably hot outside. The holidays are upon us.

And today’s episode is going to be about hosting a sustainable Thanksgiving celebration.

As always, we’re not looking for perfection, we’re just looking for progress. So please just look for any of these suggestions that can take you to the next level of sustainability for your Thanksgiving celebration.

If you’re like most Americans, sustainability kind of goes out the window during the holidays. Our holidays tend to be pretty commercialized in America and so there is a lot of very attractive messaging about all of the things we can buy for the holidays. And it just gets more commercialized every year. I’ll give you an example. When I was a kid, Halloween was very different than it is today. I don’t think I knew any kids that had store bought costumes. We were given hand me down shirts and pants and we kids made our own costumes, or if our parents couldn’t spare any hand me downs, we used construction paper and staples to sort of put something together. And then we grabbed the pillowcase off our pillow and then walked to our neighbors that had their porch lights. And that was it. During one portion of my childhood we lived in a big subdivision so we didn’t have to cross any major streets to reach our neighbors so we could go trick or treating at more homes without adult supervision. And I remember in a neighborhood of about 50 homes, there was 1 home that had decorated for Halloween. And this was an anomaly, we just knew that Halloween was their thing. It was one of those families that Halloween was their personality. They didn’t decorate for any other holidays. That was their thing and it was widely known in the entire neighborhood. They were the goth family. The kids wore black the entire year, lots of black eyeliner. When you thought of going over the top, which meant decorating your home for Halloween, you thought of that particular neighbor. 

Contrast that to this past Halloween here in Washington DC. There were so many homes that were decorated for Halloween. The fake spiderwebs and fake tombstones and fake skeletons and fake witches and so many strings of purple lights. Smoke machines and decorations that had sounds coming out of them. And there were so many homes that were decorated, block after block. And nowadays when I visit my friends, they probably do have a Fall decorative item, at least a candle specifically for the season, maybe they have those beautiful velvet pumpkins. It’s all very beautiful, I love Halloween it is my favorite holiday. And I love all of this decor and I’ve been informed by my loved ones that I am over the top. But all this stuff is new. The decor, the store bought costumes- I don’t think I got a single trick or treater this year that had made their own costume, all of the kids had store bought costumes, things have changed!

And this got me thinking about the commercialization of our holidays and this time of year I’m thinking specifically about Thanksgiving and Christmas and all of the shopping and decor and stuff that goes into it. And honestly, how tempting it is to be kind of wasteful this time of year. The sun is going down earlier and sometimes shopping for holiday stuff can be cozy. Move over velvet pumpkins now it is time for velvet reindeer. We are seeing a lot of direct and indirect advertising and messaging encouraging us to make our homes cozy for the holidays by buying new things. And if you’re hosting your family and friends for the holidays there can be an added pressure to really wow your guests or at least to spoil them with elaborate decorations and meals.

When it comes to Thanksgiving, there are a lot of opportunities we can think about to make our celebrations just a little more sustainable. 

American households will waste around 300 million pounds of food this Thanksgiving, according to an estimate from ReFED, they are a New York based food waste research organization and I’ll have the link to that research in the show notes. 300 million pounds of food in one day is triple the level of food waste we usually create on a daily basis which is already high. And the thing about 300 pounds of food waste on Thanksgiving Day isn’t just about the millions of meals that could have been available to our community members who need them, but also about the greenhouse gases produced by that amount of food waste when you consider the emissions in growing the food and transporting it. The greenhouse gas emissions from the food waste this Thanksgiving is equivalent to 170,000 cars driving for a year. Yikes.

And that’s just the food. Rethinking our food plan for Thanksgiving is just one way we can be more mindful this holiday.

Let’s talk about them.

If you’re hosting Thanksgiving, you’re probably going to start by thinking about the menu. Let’s talk about the food. There are lots of opportunities to be a little more sustainable this year.

You might consider choosing locally grown, seasonal produce. That means you will be choosing ingredients that weren’t flown all over this globe to get to your table.

In general, veggie dishes are going to be more sustainable than meat dishes, if you’re thinking about the carbon emissions needed to grow and process our food. But I tend to think that Thanksgiving is once a year and if eating turkey is your tradition, I think you can go ahead and enjoy it. And think about reducing the amount of meat you eat the other 364 days of out of the year.

Which leads me to another suggestion you might consider which is asking your guests what they want to eat. Maybe it is traditional to make a certain dish, but nobody actually eats it! So by asking your guests what they want to eat, you can cut down on a lot of food waste. And that’s definitely good for sustainability.

I also like to use those online food calculators to find out how much to cook for each person. Now, I come from a culture where hosting means never running out of food, so I definitely add extra but I do like to start with those online calculators to figure out for example how many potatoes to mash for a group of 12 people. The online calculators help me make extra but not too much extra.

I encourage my guests to take leftovers home. Have them bring their own containers so you’re not buying a bunch of single use plastics.

And for whatever is left, I also immediately freeze leftovers in individual portions that night while the food is still pretty fresh. Don’t make the mistake of freezing a big block of food because you probably won’t pull it out of the freezer and thaw it, take those extra minutes to portion everything into smaller portions that you know you’ll use all at once when you thaw it out. Those are some ways to reduce food waste which is huge for sustainability.

And for the actual trash, the food scraps, depending on your neighborhood, you may be able to compost them. And if you resist buying those adorable holiday napkins with the metallic designs and shiny stuff, you can compost the napkins too.

Which leads us to the next way to be a little more sustainable this Thanksgiving and it is in thinking about your table settings and decor.

Rather than decorating with those gorgeous velvet pumpkins, we can think about decorating with natural materials. Going for a walk finding a branch or some pinecones, something to decorate with.

For the decor that you are purchasing, buy quality items that will last for years and years and hang on to them or regift them when you are done with them. Try to avoid the single use type of decor that will definitely end up in the landfill after a year or two or when the trend changes.

If you can avoid single use plastics for your Thanksgiving meal, that is another great option. I’m thinking about the cutlery and plates. If you don’t have space for reusable dishes and cutlery, there are some nicer biodegradable options these days.

And in the same way it is a good idea to empty your dishwasher before your company comes over so they can help you load it when the meal is over, you can also set up a recycling station so your guests can separate out their waste. Maybe you have a compost bin set up next to a recycling bin next to the trash can so they can scrape their food waste into the compost bin and then put their cans into the recycling bin and then whatever is left into the actual trash can. Help them help you. I know for me, a lot of times when I am being the most wasteful it is out of convenience. So setting up those systems ahead of time can help with that.

I think there’s also an opportunity to get your guests in on it too. You can ask them to bring a natural decor item. If you are a potluck people you can ask them to bring sustainable dishes and that can start a nice conversation about sustainability. It’s up to you and what feels right for your friends and family. But I will tell you that hearing a friend or relative talk about how they’re trying to host Thanksgiving this year with less waste is probably going to be way more impactful than hearing it on the news or some podcast lol. So your words can have a lot of power this holiday season.

Alright, who is ready to eat?

I want to recap these sustainable Thanksgiving ideas really quickly before you grab your notepad and start planning.

Here’s what we covered today:
Consider locally sourced ingredients
Use an online food portion calculator to avoid making way too much food
Poll your guests to find out what they’ll actually eat. If nobody ever eats that traditional dish that you make every year, maybe it’s time to give it a rest.
Encourage your guests to bring their own containers for leftovers so you can avoid single use plastics.
Set up a recycling station so your guests can compost their food scraps and separate out their recycling. 
Try looking for natural or long lasting decor rather than trendy decor that will end up in the landfill in a year or two.
And finally, be open with your guests about what you’re trying to do this Thanksgiving. Hearing that your friends and family are thinking about sustainability can have an impact.

If you have more time today, here’s another episode to check out, episode 98, it is called “Decolonizing our Thanksgiving Plates” and it is a pretty popular one. I’ll link it in the shownotes.

Progressive Pockets is now an award winning podcast, if you haven’t heard about that yet, you might want to sign up for the newsletter. You can sign up on progressive pockets dot com or you can send an email to progressive pockets at gmail dot com.

If you have a moment, please tap the 5 stars on your podcast player app, and even better, please leave a review for the show. I am also booking speeches and workshops for next year so please get in touch if you’d like me to speak to your employee resource group or at your conference. Progressive pockets at gmail dot com.

Let’s end with a quote…
"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." That quote comes from former president John F. Kennedy.

Let’s talk again soon!