What does a typical week during the holidays look like for you? Perhaps you’ll be preparing for a Friendsgiving around Thanksgiving, baking pies or bread for neighbors you’re thankful for, then your family’s traditional meal will be shared on the holiday. During the December holidays, there will be the office potluck on a Tuesday, a neighborhood cookie exchange on a Thursday, and your family’s celebration before New Year’s. Between all these food-focused gatherings, you’ll be grabbing takeout or frozen meals, because who has time to cook on regular nights with all this holiday chaos?

Beyond the Feast: Your Guide to Sustainable Eating Throughout the Holiday Season illustration

Americans generate 25% more waste during the holiday season between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, tossing a million extra tons of waste each week. From Thanksgiving alone, nearly 312 million pounds of food will end up in the garbage. This is the reality of holiday eating for most of us—not just one big feast, but weeks of celebrations, gatherings, and convenience meals that add up to a massive environmental impact.

We’re going to tell you how to make important holiday choices to protect the planet, but we first want to interrupt for a minute to tell you that our new book, Your Earth Share: Seven Pathways to Sustainable Living, should also fit into your holiday plans! An inspiring, budget-friendly, accessible (102 pages) gift book for your friends and family interested in sustainability is available now! (And it’s a one-of-a-kind book, offering measurement tools to measure progress). You can find a description and easy ordering on our website:

https://suspra.com/books/earthshare

Back to One Step This Week, below, and all you can do ‘Beyond the Feast’ this season!

The good news? Every meal is an opportunity to make wiser choices that protect our planet. Whether you’re hosting gatherings, bringing dishes to share, or simply feeding yourself during this busy season, small steps can dramatically reduce your environmental footprint.

Quick Start: Simple Swaps for Everyday Holiday Eating

Plan before you shop. Before heading to the grocery store for any holiday gathering, take fifteen minutes to inventory what you already have. This helps you avoid buying more than you need—especially when it comes to common kitchen staples like dried herbs, spices, condiments, and vinegars. Create a specific list and stick to it, resisting those tempting holiday displays of foods you don’t actually need.

Do you have an annual plan for your spice racks and freezer shelves? Before the holiday rush, devote a morning, afternoon, or evening taking stock of your staples and storage situation. Could you possibly better organize what’s already in your freezer to create your own stash of frozen meals so you don’t need to buy more from the store?

Use a portion calculator. A huge source of holiday waste is simply making too much food. The “Guest-Imator” tool helps you calculate exactly how much to serve based on your number of guests and their appetites. It even lets you specify if you want leftovers and how many meals’ worth you’d like. Take the guesswork out of party planning! Studies show that over 65% of shoppers buy more food than needed during festive seasons, driven by fear of running short during gatherings. A community of like-minded individuals can support each other in resisting this urge and celebrating abundance without waste.

Add one plant-based meal per week. The holiday season offers an excellent opportunity for most families to reduce the environmental impact of their meals simply by adding more plant-based options to the weekly menu. You don’t have to skip the turkey on Thanksgiving—but couldn’t Monday night’s dinner be a hearty vegetable stew or pasta primavera instead of another meat-heavy meal?

Store food properly from day one. Proper storage extends the life of your ingredients and prevents premature spoilage during the busy holiday season, when that forgotten bag of vegetables can easily get lost in the back of the fridge. Put meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, and produce in the refrigerator as soon as you get home. Potatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, squash, and pumpkin should be stored in a cool, dark place — in a pantry or closet, not in the refrigerator.

Create an “Eat Me First” zone. Designate a specific shelf or clear container in your refrigerator for items that need to be used soon. Label items with dates and use the “First In, First Out” (FIFO) method—older items go in front of newer ones. This simple organizational trick can dramatically reduce the amount of food that gets forgotten and spoiled.

Intermediate: Strategic Planning for the Entire Season

Map out your holiday calendar. Take a few minutes to list all your upcoming holiday events—parties, potlucks, family gatherings, cookie exchanges. Consider what you can prepare from local ingredients, especially what’s available now from organic farms in your area. This big-picture view helps you plan which dishes you’ll make, which you’ll buy, and when you can buy in bulk to use the same ingredients across multiple events.

Source seasonal and local ingredients. On average, food travels 1,500 miles from farm to plate. Seasonal produce is more cost-effective because it’s fresher and not grown against the elements, resulting in reduced transportation and storage costs. After the fall harvest season, when food abundance is at a peak, winter offers root vegetables like carrots, parsnips, and turnips; winter squash; hearty greens like kale, chard, and Brussels sprouts; and storage crops like potatoes and onions. Visit your local farmers market or sign up for a winter CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share to access fresh, local produce throughout the fall and winter seasons.

Coordinate potluck takeaway. If you’re hosting a potluck-style gathering, suggest that guests bring their own empty takeaway containers and take home leftovers rather than throwing away food at your house. You might even put out a stack of clean and empty takeaway containers for people who forget to bring their own. This encourages your guests to be more mindful and to help you reduce the overall environmental impact of your holiday get-together. If your guests are receptive to the “take home your own leftovers” idea, you’ll have far less garbage (or compost) to take out at the end of the party!

Master the art of creative leftovers. Transform leftovers into new dishes like turkey pot pie, casseroles, soups, or broth. Add veggies to omelets, turn potatoes into pancakes, or repurpose cornbread into salad. Keep a running list of “leftover ingredients” on your refrigerator and search for recipes that can incorporate them. Apps like SuperCook let you input what ingredients you have and suggest recipes that use them.

Freeze strategically. Mashed potatoes and stuffing can be frozen in bulk in sealed containers or as individual scoops on a baking sheet, then transferred to freezer bags for easy single servings. Cranberry sauce can be put in sealable bags with air pressed out. Most frozen foods maintain their quality for months. Label everything with dates so you know what you have and when to use it.

Advanced: Leading Sustainable Holiday Eating

Design plant-forward holiday menus. If your family and friends are already entirely on board with plant-based eating, this is a time to show them what’s possible! Create show-stopping plant-based centerpieces like mushroom Wellington, stuffed winter squash, or lentil shepherd’s pie that are so delicious your guests won’t miss the meat. Complement these with traditional side dishes, and you’ve created a memorable meal that isn’t attempting to imitate meat but supplant it.

Build a zero-waste kitchen system. Freeze vegetable scraps like onion skins, carrot ends, and old herbs to make winter soup stock. Search online for recipes that use foods left over in your fridge. Keep a dedicated bag in your freezer for veggie scraps, and when it’s full, simmer them with water and herbs to create rich homemade broth. Compost what can’t be eaten or used for stock. The goal isn’t perfection—it’s progress toward minimizing what ends up in the landfill.

Share abundantly and intentionally. Share food with neighbors or folks in your neighborhood who may be alone during the holidays. If you’ve made too much food, pack up fresh portions while the food is at its best and deliver them to neighbors, especially those who might be spending the holidays alone. Even better, find out if your community has food rescue programs and learn how you can participate.

Track and improve your waste. Keep a simple food waste log for the holiday season. Each time you throw away food, note what it was and why (spoiled, made too much, didn’t like it, etc.). This awareness helps you identify patterns and adjust your purchasing and preparation habits. Many people are surprised to discover they consistently overbuy certain items or that specific foods regularly spoil before they are used.

Expert: Community-Scale Holiday Sustainability

Host a sustainable holiday potluck series. Invite your foodie friends to join you in a holiday-season challenge: set up a schedule so you all visit each other’s homes for a potluck series, bringing only plant-based dishes made from seasonal, local ingredients. Share recipes, cooking tips, and sources for local food.

Create a neighborhood food-sharing network. Social media and online communities are great places to share tips, strategies, and success stories about reducing food waste. Start a neighborhood Facebook group or WhatsApp chat, or use apps like Olio to facilitate food sharing. Members can alert each other when they have excess produce, baked goods, or prepared food available. This transforms potential waste into community connection.

Advocate for institutional change. If you’re part of an organization that hosts holiday events, push for sustainable food policies. Suggest plant-forward menus, local sourcing when possible, proper portion planning, and composting programs. Document the cost savings and environmental benefits to build support for making these changes permanent rather than one-time efforts.

Measure and share your impact. Track metrics like pounds of food saved from waste, money saved through strategic planning, or pollution prevented through plant-based meals. Simple practices like keeping a food waste diary or using digital tools can reveal surprising patterns and lead to smarter purchasing and preparation decisions. Share your results with your community to inspire others and demonstrate that sustainable eating during the holidays is both possible and beneficial.

Holiday Abundance

Sustainable holiday eating isn’t about deprivation or sacrifice. It’s about an abundance of creativity in using what we have, an abundance of connection when we share food with neighbors, an abundance of local flavors when we eat seasonally, and an abundance of health when we eat ingredients that are good for our bodies and our planet. The most sustainable holiday feast is one where nothing goes to waste and everyone goes home satisfied.

Holidays are traditionally about gratitude, generosity, and gathering. By making our everyday eating choices more sustainable, we express gratitude for the Earth that provides our food, generosity toward future generations who will inherit the planet we’re shaping today, and a deeper kind of gathering—one that includes not just the people at our table, but our entire community and ecosystem. This week, choose a step for a more sustainable food system and a healthier planet for all to enjoy—this season and for many to come.

References and Resources

Food Waste Reduction Tools

Seasonal and Local Food

Plant-Based Holiday Recipes

Food Waste Research and Statistics

Environmental Impact of Food