A growing number of businesses are transitioning to a greener operation, hoping to help the environment and save money at the same time. And one of the more exciting and beneficial of these processes is eating green, which many businesses are now readily encouraging.
What is eating green, and how can it help your business? Understanding this simple question will help to make it easier for you to implement this type of into your operation. And the benefits that you receive will be numerous if you’re ready to handle the demand it places on your company.
What is Eating Green?
Answering the question “what is eating green?” requires stepping back from the foods people eat every day and understanding how they affect their health. Unfortunately, most people in America have a meat-heavy diet that uses various processed foods full of chemicals and is very wasteful.
Green eating takes a step back from this diet and tries to create a healthier diet. Processed foods are avoided as much as possible, while other types of ingredients are emphasized. Just a few elements of the green eating movement include:
- Focusing on Green Foods – The foods you eat will be primarily fruits and vegetables, mainly grown locally. You aren’t going vegetarian or vegan and can still eat meat and other items. However, you will only eat small amounts of these items in comparison to your old diet.
- Emphasizing Sustainability – The foods that you eat should come from sustainable sources and be as free of various pesticides and other chemicals as possible. In addition, everything should be incredibly fresh and tasty, allowing you a diverse range of options for your meals that are more than worth it.
- Eating Ethically Raised Items – When you eat meat in your diet, you need to make sure that everything was ethically raised. This means that the animals were given plenty of fresh air, not given chemicals, and were slaughtered using humane and safe methods whenever possible.
- Reducing Food Waste – Eating green asks you to minimize the amount of food you waste by eating only what you need. The idea here is to cut back on the kind of waste common in so many people’s lives and help minimize the dangers of excessive food pollution.
The foods you’re going to eat here will be primarily leafy greens, like lettuce, cabbage, and kale. However, you’ll also eat many other types of vegetables, like corn, potatoes, beets, and much more. Your diet will also consist of various kinds of fruits that help to provide sugar and more.
Just as importantly, you’ll likely eat various types of whole grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes. Meat products are allowed but should follow the guidelines listed above and should be used as minimally as possible. This allowance is often beneficial for many companies who may find it’s hard to get some people to follow this process.
As importantly, many businesses may also find this process strange or debate the benefits that it may provide them. That said, the advantages are numerous for companies who just take the time to implement them. Fully understanding this fact should make it easier to answer “what is eating green?” with the answer “something our business loves.”
How Can This Help Your Business?
When talking to your employees and trying to answer “what is eating green?” to confused managers and stockholders, it is essential to emphasize how this may help your business. Try to compare it to working with a recycling company and discuss how it helps the surrounding environment.
If all else fails, point out that federal awards are often available to companies taking these steps. That should make many profit-centered executives happy. That said, you may also need to talk with your law office to ensure that you implement these concepts in a streamlined manner.
As a result, it is important to highlight a few different ways that this process can benefit your business. Doing so will require you to understand each of these concepts fully and will make it easier for you to make your case to a bemused and barely engaged audience of executives:
- Save Money – Green eating can save a business a lot of money by preparing meals and other dishes for their employees. Instead of buying expensive and unhealthy meals, they can use natural ingredients to provide their employees with great food.
- Enhance Employee Health – Improving employee health through green eating will cut back on expensive insurance premiums and cost hikes. It also cuts back on missed hours and wasted work time, creating a better and more focused work environment that produces more money.
- Improves Company Reputation – Businesses that use green eating can market this fact to people and create a better and more respected image. In this way, they can get more business by attracting people who may not have worked with them if they didn’t create these initiatives.
- Boost Employee Morale – When employees feel like businesses care about them and take steps to protect their health, their morale increases. And better business morale results in more substantial work, a major win-win for everybody possible with high-quality green eating initiatives.
As you can see, many benefits eating green can provide for your facility. If your business ends up interested in this process and reacts positively to the question “what is eating green?” there are many steps that you can take to execute this process and make it more effective and efficient.
That said, you need to understand where you can find this type of green food to ensure that you get the most value out of your money. Thankfully, it shouldn’t be too hard to find a great source of green food and to implement it into your office in a way that makes sense for your needs as a business.
What Sources of Green Eating are a Great Choice?
When answering the question “what is eating green?” you also need to know where you can find sources of green food that will help your company. There are many different options here, each of which can provide you with various advantages and make this process simpler.
While you aren’t going to find many of these items in an office supplies store near you, it is possible to see them in a variety of different places. Just a few options that you should consider if you want to implement a green eating initiative for your company’s employees include:
- Employee-Tended Gardens – If your employees are interested in this change, see if they’re willing to start growing food at their homes. You can have them bring in various ingredients every day to your office, trade them, or even cook meals at home to bring to work for everyone in the office.
- Business-Tended Garden – When your employees don’t have the space to create a garden, you can make one right in your office. Use small containers to grow various types of foods, and reach out to local metal recycling companies for help finding items like buckets and more.
- Farmers’ Markets – Most towns should have a farmer’s market where local growers come to buy and sell foods. Set aside your standard restaurant expense account to purchasing these foods and bringing them to your facility. Doing so cuts out a lot of difficult growing and supports local growers.
- Local Co-Op Shops – These locally owned businesses typically contain a large amount of healthy and organic foods. Send employees on paid shopping trips to these stores, and you’ll find that their enthusiasm for this type of initiative goes up exponentially faster than you would have expected.
The best way to encourage green eating is always to buy local foods whenever possible. This choice is smart because it helps to support your economy and keeps your meals as fresh as possible. It also encourages your employees to perform simple steps that will make them happier and healthier.
That said, we know that it’s one thing to bring healthy foods to your facility and another to expect people to eat them. While many of your employees may be interested in this type of process, others may turn their noses up at green food or need a little encouragement to follow these guidelines.
That’s why we suggest following the guidelines below to make this process more interesting for your employees. Getting your employees engaged and excited about eating vegetables may seem like an impossible challenge, but it can be done if you’re intelligent about this situation.
What Methods Can Companies Use to Encourage Green Eating?
Now that you understand the answer to “what is eating green?” you need to know how to create a proper initiative. This process is challenging because you need to make sure that you take the appropriate steps and don’t alienate your employees by making this type of eating mandatory.
Remember: people don’t like being told what to do unnecessarily. And if you’re telling them what to eat, they’re likely to answer the question “what is eating green?” with the answer “annoying!” So here are a few different ways that you can implement this initiative and get great results from your workers:
- Focus on Unique Dishes – If your employees think green eating is just “eating salad and vegetables,” surprise them with green Chinese food dishes that replace met with hearty protein-rich greenery. You may also get Hispanic food distribution companies to help with this process.
- Create a Reward System – Try to reward your employees for eating green every day, giving them gift cards or cash rewards at the end of the month. They must prove that they ate green at work every day, such as getting a punch on a card from one of their supervisors or managers.
- Host Growing and Food Preparation Events – Growing food in your office or a business-held garden is an excellent way of encouraging this process. You can also have cooking events that bring everyone together for even more fun. Make sure to store any fertilizer or other items in a safe container.
- Grow Other Beneficial Plants – Many of your employees may be interested in the healing power of non-edible plants and may enjoy options like growing and using whole hemp flower growths. They can then be encouraged to eat healthier and greener foods alongside these dishes.
Whatever option you choose, it is vital to make sure that you stay consistent and engaging. Your employees need to feel like they are part of your program and reward them for their excellent behavior. If they don’t feel integrated, they may end up not enjoying it very much or at all.
Critically, you also need to make sure that you take steps to keep everyone safe and healthy. For instance, you should warn people of any allergic ingredients in your dishes to avoid dangerous reactions. In addition, it would be best to let people bring various dishes and foods to work every day to prevent complications.
And you also need to take steps to keep this process as safe as possible for everyone involved. For instance, steps like water sanitizing will ensure that you can answer the question “what is eating green” in a safe way and avoid injuring your employees simultaneously: a win-win in this situation.
So What is Eating Green? A Powerful Business Tool
As you can see, implementing this type of green eating initiative is an excellent way of expanding your business and making it a healthier and safer place for your employees. But, just as importantly, you can avoid the kind of long-term health issues that unhealthy foods may cause them, cutting back on health dangers.
Thankfully, it should be relatively inexpensive to implement this kind of initiative if you are smart about it. First, make sure that you host a meeting answering the question “what is eating green?” and identify those people you think will enjoy it. Doing so will encourage others to join in the fun.