About Small Footprint Family

My name is Dawn and welcome to Small Footprint Family!

As a new parent and longtime environmentalist, this blog is about my family’s adventures in learning to reduce our environmental impact, take good care of ourselves, and enjoy the simple pleasures in life so we can ensure an abundant, healthy future for all children.

As a work-at-home mom, this blog is provides me with a (much-needed) creative outlet for my passions, and a small income from ads and affiliations with great, eco-friendly companies that I think make a difference in the world.

I post 4-5 times a week, typically in the following format (though I reserve the right to change it up at any time.)

• Mondays: Giveaways, contests, and general articles about health and the environment.
• Tuesdays: Eco-Tip Tuesday – simple ways you can reduce your household ecological footprint and save money.
• Wednesdays: Real food recipes that are usually raw, Paleo or traditional. All recipes are always gluten, soy, and casein free. Most are SCD/GAPS-legal.
• Thursdays: Greenlinks – weekly environmental news highlights with links to full articles for your weekend reading pleasure.
• Fridays: Articles about real food, nutrition, food myths, sustainable agriculture and other topics related to healthy soil, water, food and families.

About the Author
While my main occupation is currently Mommy to a beautiful, 17-month-old girl, this was not always so. In my former, work-a-day life, I was a Master Gardener, Master Composter and extension agent, a certified arborist and Permaculture designer. I started and ran one of the first greenroof companies in the nation, and I have spent most of the last 15 years designing and running workforce training programs for “green-collar” environmental jobs in low-impact development and sustainable, urban agriculture. These days, I write and occasional consult with green businesses and people who want to live in a more eco-friendly manner. You will see my passion for and experience in these subjects appear in many of my articles.

Now that I am focusing most of my energy into caring for my family, my environmental passions have shifted from the public to the private sector. Like many modern, “green” American families, my family aspires to live in an eco-friendly home powered by renewable energy. We use cloth diapers, buy less and reuse more, we grow an organic garden and compost pile, and we choose nutritional and alternative therapies over pharmaceutical drugs whenever possible.

Because my daughter has severe food intolerances (and, as I later discovered so do I), we have come to truly understand why Hippocrates said that food is the first medicine. By learning to carefully nourish my family, I have found a new way to focus my passion for healthy, sustainable food. I am currently studying for an MS in Nutrition, so I can help people find their own healing through better food choices, and you will see what I am learning reflected often in my postings.

Inspired by sustainable agriculture, the raw food movement, Paleolithic-style eating, and Dr. Weston A. Price, I think the choices we make about eating are some of the most powerful means through which we can live our values. I believe the idea of “better living through chemistry” is a myth—particularly when applied to food and health. Food should come from farms, not from factories.

We are on a first name basis with the market farmers who grow our food, we belong to a CSA, and we also grow as much of our own as we can. That said, my husband is the chef in the house, not me, but I do value whole, organic, local food, pasture-raised animal products, and traditional fats. You’ll find that the majority of my recipes are in-season and simple and quick to prepare—which is how I like to eat. All recipes are grain, soy and dairy free, and the majority of them are raw, Paleo/primal, and GAPS/SCD-legal.

I sincerely hope you enjoy what you read, and maybe even take something away that enhances your own life.

Thanks for stopping by!

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