Celebrity Cook Sara Kiyo Popowa's Top Tips for Eating Sustainably

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Food blogger and celebrity cook Sara Kiyo Popowa, in collaboration with Wren Kitchens, the biggest kitchen retailer in the UK and soon launching in the USA, shares her top tips on how to cook and eat sustainably. It may be more difficult to think of the environment when buying and cooking food, but if it's good for the planet, it's almost definitely good for your health too. The food we eat can have a huge impact on the world we live in. Being environmentally conscious when it comes to the food we eat can often seem a daunting and restrictive task, with many fearing that their entire diets will need to change. However, cooking and eating green can be as exciting as it can be easy.

​1. Only food shop once a week
If possible you should try and do your grocery shopping only once a week. By reducing the number of trips we take when shopping for food we can avoid buying more than we need. A top tip to avoid this is to think of ingredients with multiple uses in mind whilst making sure you buy all the ingredients in one go.

2. Subscribe to a veg box
Subscribing to a veg box is a great way to help the environment as well as offering your support to local farmers. In order to reduce food waste, make a pact with yourself to use up all of the vegetables in the box. This can be a fun challenge, especially if you’re not as familiar with some of them. You can also rediscover the beauty of the old seasonable vegetables by using them in different ways.

3. Buy your favourite items in bulk
Whether it’s a routine snack or a specific ingredient, everybody has those food and drink items that they love to over-consume. One way to save the environmental impact and also save money is by identifying these whole food staples and buying these items in bulk – this can be done via many online sellers. It saves on packaging and energy in production, as well as saving you money.

4. Eat in-season produce
Most fresh foods have a specific season in which they are ripe and easy to attain.  Eating seasonal produce doesn't just benefit your body, but it will also support the local farming economy and the local landscape through supply and demand. Seasonal vegetables will provide your body with what it needs in that season, for example cooling, refreshing fruits in summer and starchy root vegetables in winter.

5. Commit and be motivated
It's important to find your own motivation as to why you want to cook and eat more sustainably. Once you have discovered what it is that is driving you to change your diet, it's much easier to stick to the changes you make.
Shopping, cooking and eating more sustainably may seem like extra effort, at least to begin with. However, as time goes on you will see the changes having a positive impact on areas in your life and parts of yourself you may have never expected.

Are you ready to eat sustainably now? Share your tips in the comments and your experiences shopping or cooking with sustainability in mind.