Sustainable Living at Synergee

Sustainable Living

Most of us want to be healthier and create a healthier world. At Synergee, we take steps every day to do just that. For some, this involves recycling plastics at home. Others focus on hitting that 10,000-step mark we hear so much about. Today, we’ll focus on sustainable living and eating.

Sustainable living and eating emphasize foods, animals, and resources that are cultivated directly from the earth and recycled back into it without harm to you or the environment. Sustainability is about more than being self-reliant. According to our functional medicine experts, including Lori Esarey and Kelly Engelmann, it’s the holy grail of health and wellness. Read on to learn why we call sustainability a nutritional and spiritual superpower.

What Is Sustainable Living & Eating?

On the surface, sustainability is about limiting our negative impact on the planet. It encompasses everything from reducing our footprint on the land to ensuring the humane treatment of livestock.

However, sustainable living and eating can save not only the Earth but also your life. Sustainability helps maximize your nutritional intake and absorption while ensuring you’re making the world a better place.

Sustainability: A Symbiotic Relationship Between You & the Earth

We’ve all heard about the macro benefits of sustainability. Growing your own fruits and vegetables or sourcing them from sustainable farms reduces reliance on destructive agribusiness practices that deplete soil nutrients. Eating ethically sourced meat prevents the suffering of livestock raised in industrial systems.

But sustainability does more than protect the planet—it has incredibly positive effects on you. For example:

• Homegrown fruits and vegetables retain nutrients and avoid harmful pesticides and preservatives.
• Ethically raised livestock provides better nutritional value, as these animals are fed natural diets and raised in humane conditions.

Sustainable living creates a win-win relationship between you and the Earth.

Sustainability’s Many Flavors

One of the best aspects of sustainable eating is the variety it brings to your dining experience. Here at Synergee, we promote countless ways to elevate your meals sustainably.

Juicing
Juicing tops our list of favorite sustainable eating strategies. While fruit-based juices can be beneficial in moderation, we encourage patients to focus on vegetable-based juice blends. Packed with health benefits, some of our favorite juicing ingredients include:

• Celery
• Kale
• Spinach
• Chard
• Beets
• Carrots

The natural sweetness of carrots and beets can make a vegetable juice blend feel indulgent without added sugars.

Herbs & Spices
A common misconception about sustainable eating is that it’s plain and bland. That couldn’t be further from the truth! Organically grown herbs and spices can add bold flavors while supporting a sustainable lifestyle.

Whether it’s fresh basil in your pesto or homegrown nutmeg in your Thanksgiving yams, herbs and spices are a cornerstone of sustainable cooking.

Actual Flavor
Many people don’t realize what they’re missing until they switch to sustainable eating. Foods grown naturally, free from chemicals and heavy processing, have rich, authentic flavors that can’t be replicated. Once you experience this, it’s nearly impossible to go back to conventional supermarket fare.

Sustainability’s Health Benefits

Beyond protecting the planet, sustainability offers profound health benefits. Modern supermarket foods are often laced with harmful chemicals and stripped of nutrients, contributing to inflammation, gastrointestinal issues, and chronic diseases.

Switching to sustainable foods eliminates these harmful additives while introducing nutrient-dense options that can transform your health.

Microgreens & Veggies
In a previous blog, we explored the power of microgreens. Like humans, plants have their most nutrient-dense “youth” phases. Harvesting vegetables early, during this stage, yields exponentially higher nutrient levels compared to their mature counterparts.

This simple shift in cultivation provides your body with powerful health benefits, making microgreens a staple of sustainable eating.

The Only Real Cure
The Western world has become reliant on pills and procedures to manage chronic illnesses like diabetes, heart disease, and even cancer—many of which are exacerbated by a poor diet.

Sustainability offers a path to address the root causes of these conditions. At Synergee, Lori Esarey and Kelly Engelmann have seen countless patients achieve incredible results by adopting a sustainable lifestyle, sometimes even eliminating the need for medications they once thought were essential.

Why Synergee Believes in Sustainability

At Synergee, we embrace functional medicine, which takes a holistic approach to health by addressing every aspect of your lifestyle—from diet and exercise to psychological and spiritual well-being.

Sustainable living isn’t just about self-reliance. It’s about transforming your life and creating a healthy relationship with food, your body, and the planet. By choosing foods that are grown and raised naturally, without artificial additives or harmful farming practices, you can unlock energy, vitality, and wellness.

Ready to embrace sustainable living? Let Synergee guide you on this journey to a healthier, more fulfilling life—for you and for the planet.