Good Vibes & Gratitude: Quick Tips for a Nontoxic Thanksgiving
#18 Good Vibes & Gratitude: Quick Tips for a Nontoxic Thanksgiving
Turkey, pie and good vibes only! 🦃✨ This Thanksgiving, we’re turning up the gratitude. Join Karl & Marguerite, as they serve up quick, easy tips & tricks for keeping your holiday nontoxic. From unapologetically setting boundaries to keeping your peace (and your plate) full of clean, feel-good eats. We’ve got you covered for a stress-free, joyful celebration!
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0:08 Welcome back to Unapologetically Crunchy. I'm Marguerite, and I'm here with Karl. Hey everyone. And we're going to have a little Thanksgiving episode today. Yeah, now that Halloween's over, everyone's turned their attention towards Thanksgiving. We've already seen. Some and Christmas and. Christmas, of course, right? But always already seen the decorations start shifting and it's only been two days since Halloween. 0:27 So, you know, super exciting. And that's where everybody's mind's at. So let's have a quick little conversation about it today, how you can make Thanksgiving a little more healthy, a little more non-toxic for your mind and for your physical. Health, let's do it all. Right, perfect. So we've just got a few tips today, a few for your mental health and a few for your physical health. 0:45 Very easy things, high level, but just something to think about as you start planning for Thanksgiving this year. Yeah. We've always had a wonderful time hanging out with family and friends. I think it's one of our favorite holidays. Oh, by far. Yeah, even ones where we just lay low a little bit, we still have people around and just try to enjoy our time and let loose and relax a little bit. 1:04 And I think that through the mental side of this, you'll really see that that's the key, is to let loose. Just clear your mind and really let go of the idea of perfect. I agree so much. I mean, so many of us are perfectionists or recovering perfectionists. Yeah. 1:19 We're trying to be a recovering perfectionist. Me. Yeah. A little bit myself too. So that's a really, really good tip that you have there, a good reminder all. Right, cool. So let's dive in. It'll be a quick episode today, but you know, just a few tips to hope you stay a little bit more crunchy as Thanksgiving comes around. 1:38 So as you're planning first for your mental state, set boundaries where you need to let's all avoid hot topics that can really 'cause tension at the dinner table or as you're sitting around having a drink, whether you're comfortable with your family enough to like shoot out a group text and say, hey, let's keep it late this year. 1:56 Let's avoid controversial topics, whether that's politics or whatever, or in the middle of it, always an opportunity to redirect a conversation. It's something that we use quite often. So when somebody starts going in that direction, like, hey, let's, let's talk about apple pies, not policy. 2:11 Yeah, I mean, let's be real. Like it's not fun talking about politics. Like it just is not fun. And we want to have fun on the holidays. Exactly, so keep it light. And in life. And in life, of course, some of that stuff we don't need to talk about every day. That is not what Thanksgiving is all about. Yeah. And so when that when it does happen, you know, when you're in the middle of conversations and you start to feel a little overwhelmed or maybe you're not feeling like you want to be there for the moment, which happens even if you're with your loved ones. 2:38 Take a break, go help in the kitchen, help with the kids if they're running around, go start a game up or something with them. I think that's one of my favorite things to do. Yeah. Or then also just get outside. If it's warm enough, go outside, say you need some fresh air, grab a drink, go outside and put your feet in the grass and kind of hang out for a minute. 2:54 Go look at some birds. Have no, no, no hesitation in going out and taking care of yourself and getting a quick little mental break from whatever conversation might be happening. Absolutely. It can be super stressful sometimes and anything that you can do to just kind of make sure that you have a peaceful environment inside you and protect yourself, it's always a good thing and everybody else too. 3:16 Right. And I think this will lead into the second tip, which is we want to walk away from Thanksgiving at the end of the day feeling re energized and connected and just feeling good. Like we had moments with our family, we were able to give thanks, we had a great meal and a lot of fun too and not step away from it triggered by somebody or some comment. 3:36 So it's really important to set those boundaries and then as you go into it, not just with the people, but with the setup, with the food, decorations, drinks, whatever it may be, manage your expectations, right? Thanksgiving dinner itself does not have to be perfect. When you aim for perfect, you're setting yourself up for some sort of stress. 3:55 And that's what we want to avoid, right? Stress and anxiety. Focus on connection, not control. So, you know, always think to yourself something will go wrong and that's OK. And nobody is going to care. Nobody's going to care. You're not going to remember that there was a little dog hair on the floor or that what, the green bean casserole wasn't as crispy or something as it should be. 4:16 Nobody's going to care. Remember that after they leave. So it's not the most important thing. We've had some great moments in our past where we've hosted Thanksgiving or Christmas. You know, one of these big events, one that I remember is I was responsible for cooking potatoes for everybody and I had this grand idea, you know, I got everybody. 4:37 An individual potato is going to do this whole setup where they could layer on all the toppings they wanted and it would be perfect. This is before my time this. Is a little bit, Yeah, it was a little long ago, but it was it was set up. I wanted to do it just like we used to do at football tailgates, right? It was the best meal of the year. So I tried, I got everybody excited. 4:53 We talked about it for a few weeks. I had everything prepared. I was cooking them and cooking them and cooking them. Everybody's waiting for it, you know, and didn't have a potato with their actual meal and they just weren't cooking until I realized that the oven wasn't actually on and it was crazy. 5:08 It was so silly, right? Like it was a different oven. I was at the parents house. I didn't realize what button I needed to push, and I didn't ruin dinner. Everybody laughed. They gave me a hard time. We had a great time about it and we made a memory that I don't think anybody's forgotten to this day. Of course. 5:24 Every time we get together for a meal or a holiday, that comes up. And now it's just a funny story, you know? We talk about the freaking potatoes. But I do have a question like what is it with you and potatoes? Because we had a potato mishap too. Exactly. Maybe we should avoid potatoes this year. Before, so just not. Care Man is your expectation. 5:41 Yeah, that. The next was a few years later, probably cooking potatoes, peeling them and everything. And of course, I don't know what I'm doing, so a few potato skins went down into the garbage disposal. Yeah, We didn't know what we were doing. And I mean, also, I'm, like, fresh off of moving back from New York City, where I never was cooking. 6:00 I never, like, even cooked a Thanksgiving meal. And so you and I are just sitting there chilling, just peeling our potatoes over the sink like it's nothing. No big deal. And then we learned, hey, that's not something you could do. Can't do that. And the garbage disposal broke, the sink broke, and it was the only one that we had in the House, of course. 6:17 Yes, so. Put everything to like a hard stop. Yep. Oh no, what do we? Do but luckily our sister-in-law, she had a hookup because she worked at like an HVAC place and so they are plumbing place or something like that and they were able she was able to get a maintenance guy over to help us out. So saved our Thanksgiving. 6:34 Oh, it was great, though. It was like a little adventure in the middle of Thanksgiving and everybody ended up pitching in and we got everything cleaned up by hand or whatever we had to do, right. We moved things aside and we said we'll deal with it later. Today is all about having fun, and I think we kind of laughed our way through that one too, which was great. 6:49 Yeah, it was still funny. We still talk about how funny it is, right? I actually literally was just talking about that with somebody the other day. It's because of like the starch and potatoes. It isn't good for the pipes or something like that. I don't. Know yeah I think we just overloaded it too I just couldn't breakthrough yeah it's a. 7:05 Total mess. But everybody remembers that story now. It was fine. Yeah. So that was a fun adventure. And it was one that if I had gone into it, if Marguerite had gone into it thinking it had to be perfect, and if one piece was missing or something went wrong, we were in big trouble. We would have had a really miserable Thanksgiving, but we didn't care. 7:23 Nobody else cared. We turned it into a lot of fun. Sure did. It was great. So then let's move on. So the biggest part of Thanksgiving is the food, the cooking, all the prep thing that goes into it, right? Yeah, this is. Margaret, it's way better at this than I am. But it's pretty self-explanatory here. 7:39 I mean, if it's possible, it's not always possible, but if it's possible, just try to, you know, make everything with whole ingredients. I have a tip for Turkey too. I know around our area there's some farms that have pasteurized turkeys that you can get. So not only are you getting a healthy Turkey, you're also supporting your local farmer in your community. 7:59 So that's always a good idea. And if you can't do that, if there's nowhere around you that has any local farms, I think it, I don't know if I'm pronouncing this right, but the Turkey you found was a really good ditzel or Dietzel or something. So ranch. Yeah, they just started, they just started selling some ground Turkey sprouts too. 8:15 So they might actually have turkeys there. There's quite a few options online too, if you just do a little searching you can find it and if it's early enough they'll ship it to you. They all do a great job. I've ordered from a couple different farms actually, and they always come, you know, well prepared, wrapped, cold, everything you know, all good to receive and get ready to cook for Thanksgiving. 8:33 And they're delicious. Delicious for sure. So yeah, using those whole ingredients, if you can get that, that natural Turkey, that's that's the key. But whole ingredients over canned and boxed ingredients that you use, even if you just switch one or two here and there, right, you're making steps in the right direction towards a more non-toxic Thanksgiving. 8:51 Totally. Or even something like cranberry sauce, if you guys like cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving, you know, just try to do fresh berries if you can. Or was it desserts? Maybe try sweetening with honey or Maple syrup. Just anything little you know. It might be a little bit easier with anybody who has kids and their family running around too, avoiding a crazy sugar high. 9:10 Right. And the crash too, which? Can be worse, yeah. But yeah, keep the flavour and just reduce the heaviness wherever you can. Like if you're cooking with a lot of butter, maybe substitute what, olive oil and avocado oil That works. You mentioned, you know, using honey or Maple syrup to sweeten versus refined sugars, coconut milk instead of that heavy cream. 9:31 Just a few things here and there. It can all add up. And then the other side, you know, I don't want to say forgo some of your favorites, but maybe add more of the like, roasted vegetables and the lighter sides to go with the meal so you're just not so heavy and so overwhelmed by what you've been eating. Yeah. 9:46 Or if, I mean, this isn't super crunchy, but I mean, do we all have to be 100%? No. So if you drink alcohol on Thanksgiving, you know, I try to be mindful about mixers or things like that or just drink like straight champs or, you know, maybe put a fresh strawberry in your drink or something just to help balance it out a little bit. 10:07 Yeah, that's a big help. And then also make sure you're staying hydrated throughout the day. Fresh OJ for mimosas. Fresh OJ for mimosas. That's a great one. Electrolytes. Electrolytes during the day, or do it ahead of time and do it afterwards, whatever. It takes nobody wants a hangover. Right, exactly. 10:23 Oh, but by the way, if you do want to avoid getting a hangover, I got a hot tip for you is milk Thistle tea. That helps a little bit, so try it. Perfect and electrolytes too. Yeah. So those are our tips just to get us started now that we've turned our focus on the Thanksgivings, setting some boundaries, let go of perfect and then make a few swaps that can really be a lot better for you. 10:45 And I think one that I, I personally like is add positivity on purpose. Go into the day, Don't be stressed out and anxious about how everything's going to go. Keep your head in a positive vibe, right? It's contagious as people come in and see that you're having a good time. 11:02 Turn on the music, whatever it is, they will start having a good time as well. Keep the the attitude and the conversation light and happy. Totally, and some fun ways too that you can add positivity are games or even like a pie making contest or something like that. 11:18 Just I know a lot of people like to play like charades and things like that. That's always so much fun and just remembering at the end of the day what Thanksgiving is about. It's about gratitude and I know when we always have our families over, I always feel like super grateful just to be like having everybody spend time together and laughing and things like that. 11:39 How it is for the kids to seeing all that. I think it's just really fun. And so definitely just focus on that. Yep. So there you go, let's make Thanksgiving a little bit more non-toxic. Let's choose peace 'cause that's the best side dish. 11:55 That's not corny at all. I think it's great. It's cute though. And I do want to mention two guys. So we have a couple episodes coming up and I don't know which order we are going to air them yet, but one is about EMDR, which is a really awesome that's a. 12:11 Great episode, it was a really good interview with a lot of really cool information. Yeah, and it's kind of give some tips to there's a little bit of tips, you know, just to try to help avoid like some triggers if somebody is kind of has like a little bit of anxiety going into family situations. 12:26 And then we also have a fun episode about a gluten free dessert. So that could be an option for some Thanksgiving desserts. So stay tuned and we will let you know when those are going to air. And also, you know, follow along with us on Crunchy Pod too, if you're not already, and you will be able to see updates and behind the scenes and lots of really fun stuff from our episodes and our guests. 12:48 Perfect. Well, happy Thanksgiving, everyone. We'll be back with with those episodes and probably a couple more of Marguerite and I as well share some more tips. Happy some. Tricks We will definitely come back and have like a post Thanksgiving episode in between our guest episodes for sure 'cause we love having our episodes and connecting with you guys. 13:04 Have a great day. Peace, love, and crunch. Thanks so much for listening. If you'd like to follow along with us, you can find us on Instagram at Crunchypod and at Unapologetically Crunchy. We have the same handles on Tiktok too. And check out our websites at crunchypod.com and unapologeticallycrunchy.com. 13:24 And if you have some tips and tricks you'd like to share with us, feel free to DM us or contact us on the website. And one more thing, if you love our podcast, please consider sharing with every single person you know who would love it and leave us a review. Oh, and you can tell them to read a review too. 13:42 We are so beyond grateful for your support. Thank you so much. Peace, love and crunch.
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