Derval O'Rourke: Helping the planet and staying healthy

Derval O'Rourke: it's about making small changes

I am so happy to see more and more options being made available to everyone to live a healthy lifestyle. I am even more excited to see that these options are environmentally friendly too! I’ll be talking all things earthly and have a delicious recipe for you to try now that the weather seems to finally be taking a turn for the better (I hope I didn’t just jinx it!).

Without even thinking about it, I can think of so many ways we can help the environment without compromising a healthy lifestyle. In a way, a healthy lifestyle should have the environment included. Remember when we were small, we were always told “leave any place in better condition than how you found it!” This was drummed home by teachers and parents growing up and it has become part of my DNA. So, it stands to reason that I want to leave this earth in a better state than I found it.

Doing our small part for the environment does not mean that everyone has to, all of a sudden be completely green. Like everything we do in life, it’s about putting a little bit of thought into it and making some small changes to make a positive contribution. It’s easy to say “walk to work” when your job is 10 minutes up the road, but that’s not always the case. We can’t all walk the kids to school and then dash back to the house to get the car to go to work. And don’t get me started on the unpredictability of the weather...

Here’s 5 ways to do your bit for the environment with a healthy lifestyle:

1) Buy as much fruit and veg without packaging. When I can, I love going to Farmer’s Markets to buy fresh produce. www.neighbourfood.ie might be a good resource to find local markets in your area.

2) Ask your local shops if they plan to support this in the future – if they know customers want it, they are more likely to provide it.

3) Recycle as much as you possibly can and reuse those bags! Repak.ie do a lot of great initiatives around recycling that you might like to check out.

4) Grow some of your own veg – this could be a lovely project to get the kids involved in too. A great resource to check out is www.giy.ie to help you get started.

5) If the shops are local, take a stroll instead of the car.

Not all of these will be things you can adopt into your daily life, but if it starts a conversation about other things you could do, great! Check out your local community and see if there are any projects you could get involved in to make the place you live in, better. There are so many initiatives now such as Tidy Towns, Walking Clubs, Cycling Clubs

Wellness Tip: Look up some ways you can incorporate some environmentally friendly ideas into your daily lifestyle and pick one to put into action.

Exercise Tip: Walk on the Wild Side! This week, only use the car for necessary journeys, wherever possible, walk. No lifts where possible, use those stairs and lets get those steps numbers up this week.

Turkey stir fry

recipe by:Derval O'Rourke

A super quick, easy and healthy midweek dinner option

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 10 mins

Cooking Time

 15 mins

Total Time

 25 mins

Course

 Main

Cuisine

 Thai

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp coconut oil

• 1 onion, finely sliced

• 1 chilli, finely chopped

• 4 garlic cloves, crushed

• a thumb-sized length of ginger, grated

• a handful of broccoli, broken into small florets

• 1 carrot, peeled and cut into matchsticks

• 1 pepper, finely sliced

• 400g turkey mince

• 3 tsp soy sauce

• 1 tsp fish sauce

• 125g brown rice

• a handful of basil leaves

Method

1. Heat the coconut oil in a large pan over a medium-high heat.

2. Add the onion, chilli, garlic and ginger and stir-fry for about 3 minutes.

3. Add the broccoli, carrot and pepper and stir-fry for another 3 minutes.

4. Add the turkey mince, soy sauce and fish sauce and stir-fry for 8 minutes or until the turkey is cooked through.

5. Meanwhile, cook the rice according to the instructions on the package.

6. Spoon the cooked rice into warmed serving bowls, making a well in the centre. Spoon the stir-fry on top. Tear the basil leaves and scatter over the stir-fry. Serve without delay.