New Year’s resolutions related to food are probably some of the most common. I guess it makes sense, given that food is such a central part of our lives and is also such a central part of many of our problems. Of course, as Heather pointed out earlier today, a lot of people don’t take their resolutions seriously and won’t even try to fulfill them. But if you are a regular reader of Eat.Drink.Better., my guess is that you may be a little different and may really want to achieve the change you are thinking about. Hopefully, we can help you along the way.
As Heather also discussed, making general resolutions like “eating healthier” are harder to keep (and even to understand) than very specific resolutions.
I’ve got a few predictable resolution ideas below (to help prod you along if you are already thinking about one of these) and a few unique ones or ways to help you stick to your resolutions as well.
New Year’s Resolution Ideas
1. Go Vegetarian: As we so often discuss, going vegetarian is good for your health, good for the environment, and, of course, good for the animals whose lives are saved.
2. Go Vegan: And even better than going vegetarian, you could go vegan. After looking at the dramatic increase in horrible factory farming in the U.S. recently, my big hope is that a lot more people choose to do this tonight. We’ve even got a whole series focused around helping those interested in doing so — our Eating Vegan series.
3. Eat Out Less: Eating out wastes a lot of energy and, often times, the food isn’t even as good as what you can make at home. Make a plan — look at how much you ate out last year (or estimate) and set a plan for how often you will eat out in 2011.
4. Eat Less Sugar: I’m not in research mode at the moment and not going to go try to prove this statement, but my guess is that a ton of the health problems we face are simply from eating too much sugar (and processed food). Make a commitment to cut out the sugar more. If you can, make a plan for how to monitor and ensure you do.
5. Don’t Waste Food: Americans waste more food each year than is gained from the oil and gas we get from the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve seen that we waste somewhere between 25 and 50% of our food. Surely, we can do better. (Note: #3 on this list would probably help a lot with this resolution idea.)
6. Eat Organic More: Organic, plain and simple, is the way to go. For the environment, our health, world hunger, and more. For anyone who doubts this, I recommend you read Organic Manifesto.
7. Eat Local More: Transportation is one of the leading causes of global warming pollution in the world, especially in the U.S. Cut out some of that pollution (potentially, a lot of it) and eat fresher food by eating local.
8. Eat Less Processed Food: See above regarding sugar. Just take a stand, cut it out.
9. Make Regular Pot-Lucks with Your Friends: Fun, helps you to stick to your ideals, and gives you all kinds of new food ideas. Talk to some friends and set this up.
10. Start a Garden: Well, what is better than growing your own? I’m thinking of getting into this topic a lot more this year here on EatDrinkBetter. My New Year’s Resolution for writing on EatDrinkBetter 😀
Some Ideas for Sticking to Your New Year’s Resolution(s)
1. One key things Heather mentioned was to not have too many resolutions. So, first of all, don’t try to tackle all of the above (at least as your New Year’s resolutions).
2. Getting help from friends, monitoring your progress, and discussing your plans and troubles with others are other topics Heather touch on and I had what I think is a great idea with regards to this. How about posting to Eat.Drink.Better once a week telling us how your doing — admitting to setbacks (which shouldn’t mean you lost and need to give up), telling us about good tips you picked up, or sharing whatever comes to mind.
3. If we have a number of people wanting to do #2, perhaps we could even set up a forum for this on our Facebook page. And as an alternative to #2, if you are not up for writing full posts (not so hard, really), perhaps you could do short updates once a week on our Facebook page.
I’m sure there are more ways to make sure you stick to your resolutions. And more good New Year’s Resolution ideas.
Please, feel free to share your ideas in the comments below!
Photo Credit: taivasalla