Last week I hosted a bookclub on Michael Pollan’s In Defense Of Food. Many of us had seen the movie Food, Inc and we had a great discussion debating the merits of various points from both the movie and book. I thought the best one was Pollan’s advice to stick to foods that have 5 ingredients or less. Simple advice and yet so hard to do in today’s grocery stores. So, Pollan adds, get out of the grocery store. That is more difficult than it seems. For instance, In my household we get our CSA box only 10 weeks out of the year, our cow-pooling is great but we don’t like a lot of red meat to begin with, and our garden plot is tiny due to our small yard at the beach. The nearest farmer’s market is a 45 minute drive. Small changes do help, but to totally change our western diet we need big changes at the grocery store too.

One of the most interesting comments came from one of the moms in the group who had led the conversation from healthy food to healthy household cleaners and said a friend emailed her about the dangers of today’s sunscreens right after she just replaced all of her plastic with BPA-free bottles. Whew, take a breath, right? That’s exactly how she felt… she needed a break. She said, “I could not even open the email because I just could not take any more”. A lot of people agreed. The changes many of us are making to lead a more healthy and sustainable lifestyle feel good. But they can also be expensive and exhausting!

The fact is that we do make choices every day that affect our health and the planet. But overhauling your lifestyle in one day may not be possible. Make good sustainable choices. Buy reusable rather than disposable items. Read what the experts have to say and then use your own instincts. I try to remember, as Pollan points out, that “the experts” have been very wrong in the past. But our instincts are usually right.