Sustainable Storytelling- Food for Thought
A weekly showcase of artists communicating about climate change
Climate has a communications problem. Art and storytelling are powerful climate solutions. This is designed to be an antidote for doom scrolling, brightening your inbox to provide climate education and hope to soothe climate anxiety.
This week we’re focusing on food! Combining something everyone loves (food) with something a bit harder to digest (climate change) makes the topic a bit easier to communicate. These folks share simple swaps you can make in your kitchen while helping us imagine a more sustainable future.
Rainbow Plant Life
I have become obsessed with Nisha Vora’s Youtube channel, Rainbow Plant Life. She makes vegan cooking beautiful and nourishing.
I think her ability to make recipes that are just delicious and also vegan is an incredible tool to encourage more plant-forward meals. Her new cookbook, Big Vegan Flavor, comes out next week too! Watch her videos here.
Pale Blue Tart
My amazing friend Caroline is a food writer and Le Cordon Bleu trained pastry chef who is on a mission to make dessert a climate solution through her newsletter Pale Blue Tart.
She’s baking climate-friendly desserts including brownies for climate week using King Arthur’s regeneratively grown Climate Blend flour. I had the honor of eating some of the extras from her recipe-testing and they were some of the best I’ve ever had (they reminded me of my grandma’s famous brownies!).
Her ability to weave in storytelling through connecting to the food we eat is so powerful and playful. Get the recipe here.
My favorite climate-friendly food creators
PlantYou - Carleigh inspires people to eat more plants and re-think how they use their food scraps in her series Scrappy Cooking.
Sustainably Vegan- Immy is one of the first sustainability Youtubers I found on my climate journey 7 years ago! She’s doing a “100 days from Scratch” series right now showing how to make your own tempeh bacon, almond brie, tofu, and more.
Justine Snacks- Justine creates simple, inventive recipes that center around cooking seasonal food (and mostly plants!). Her new cookbook comes out in October. Pre-order here!
Relauren- Lauren is climate activist and storyteller who shares creative plant-based recipes while speaking to the bigger picture of how to take climate action.
There are so many more that I love but I will pause for now! I use my Instagram mostly to look at food and art these days, so send any of your favorites my way.
Climate Art 101 Student Spotlight
I wanted to spotlight all of my students from this first cohort! I went through our Slack and saw there have been over 150+ pieces of art created since the program went live in May. I am beyond proud and in awe of every single piece of art they make!
If you are curious about how to learn to make your own climate art, I’d love for you to be a part of the next cohort of Climate Art 101 which starts September 16. There’s only a few more days left to get 50% off and lifetime access to the curriculum for $75.
My Art of the Week
Sometimes you just need to paint an entire cucumber…
I am very on board with Logan Moffitt making eating seasonal produce cool! I thought the main climate benefit of eating seasonal produce is that it cuts down on food miles. It turns out the larger source of emissions when growing food out of season is the energy it takes to heat a greenhouse.
So cheers to eating more cucumbers this summer! 🥒
Ok this newsletter made me HUNGRY! I’m gonna go eat another climate-friendly brownie. See you next week!