“Don’t run from fat because you heard a negative story once. When used healthfully, fats can have great benefits for pets.”
Cathy Alinovi, DVM, Executive Director, Next Generation Pet Food Manufacturers Association (NGPFMA) Page 02
“There are some pretty basic interventions that make it easy, economical, and, yes, delicious to save food in your home.” Dana Gunders, President, ReFED Page 06
Nature’s Miracle® Advanced Stain & Odor Eliminator is a fast-acting cleaning solution that can keep pet-lovers homes smelling great.
Accidents happen, as every dog owner knows. Nature’s Miracle Advanced Stain & Odor Eliminator for dogs is an enzymatic, severe-mess stain and odor remover that includes patented microbes that target your toughest dog odors!
Bacteria-based formulas produce enzymes when they come into contact with a food source — pet urine, feces, vomit and other bio-based messes. This enzymatic cleaner continues working as long as the food source is present. Freshens with a light fresh scent.
Written by Nature’s Miracle®
It’s not what’s on the bag, but what’s in the bag that needs to be considered for cold weather. Here’s how to discern what’s in your pet food and what your pets need for the winter months.
There are always great things to say about cold weather. Fresh snow is great to jump in, tunnel through, and play games in — especially when you have a four-legged friend to share it with. However, living day-to-day, our pets experience certain negative effects of cold weather. Dryness and dandruff along with the need for extra energy are the biggest needs during the winter months. Luckily, we can address these through diet and a little environmental control.
As the air cools, it holds less moisture, thus becoming very dry. Think about what happens to your own skin in the winter months: lips become chapped; fingers and feet crack. The same thing happens to our pets. Their paw pads may become very dry, rough, and have small to large cracks. Dandruff also becomes very common.
Not only does winter air hold less moisture, but many houses use forced air for heat in the cold winter. This forced air accentuates winter dryness. Humidifiers can be helpful to combat low humidity and air dryness. Humidifiers are one example of environmental control, adding moisture back into the environment.
Publisher Razelle Amante, Shaina Heitzner
The other winter need is energy, or calories. Think what your body does when it’s cold — it shivers. Shivering generates heat, but the body is burning calories at the same time — that’s how it heats itself. This means cold weather creates a demand for extra calories.
It’s not always as simple as more food volume. Sometimes, pets need specific
foods to replenish heat and calories. Often, fat is what’s needed. Fats can help with energy and dryness. Pets need dietary fat, but these need to be healthy fats.
Many pet owners have luck supplementing their pets’ diet with fish oil, coconut oil, olive oil, beef tallow, or ghee. Heavy working dogs like sled dogs and Iditarod competitors need an abundance of fat or tallow added to their diet to provide sufficient calories for warmth and energy. Don’t run from fat because you heard a negative story once. When used healthfully, fats can have great benefits for pets.
Now that we better understand pet dietary and environmental needs during cold months, let’s tackle the big topic: what’s in the bag or on the label. In truth, the biggest thing people do for their pets is feed them. For the majority of pets, the most commonly fed food is dry. However, dry food accentuates the dry aspect of winter weather. Therefore, the biggest, most important thing to do is feed your pet food that nourishes and provides internal moisture.
Certain fresh pet foods do tackle dryness in winter. A fresh food diet is 65% moisture, thus moisturizing the body internally. It also uses fat to provide energy, thus warming the body. The presentation of that fresh food depends on the pets’ needs. Fresh diets can be made at home or with a pre-mix. Fresh diets can be purchased, gently cooked, or uncooked/raw.
Written by Cathy Alinovi, DVM, Executive Director, Next Generation Pet Food Manufacturers Association (NGPFMA)
Pancak
There are lots of ways to give your pet some love — a pat on the head, a long walk in the park, a cuddle on the couch, and even a healthy, thoughtful meal are all acts that can show them you care.
For one pet food maker, The Honest Kitchen, feeding pets goes beyond just nutrition — it’s an act of love. Their dehydrated foods make it easy to serve your pet a warm, wholesome meal during the holiday season and throughout the entire year. As the first human grade pet food brand, their products meet the same quality and safety standards as healthy human foods, and for over 20 years, they’ve helped pet parents care for their pets’ health while treating them to a delicious meal they’ll love.
“Our company was originally founded on the principle that there is a direct link between good food and good health,” said Lucy Postins, founder and chief integrity officer at The Honest Kitchen. Postins came up with the idea when her dog Mosi’s ear infections resolved after she fed him a homemade, whole-food diet.
Reap the perks
To make their dehydrated pet food, The Honest Kitchen sources the same whole food ingredients you’d find in your own kitchen, like cage-free chicken, broccoli, pumpkin, oats and banana. They gently cook these ingredients before dehydrating them to retain nutrients while removing moisture. This makes it ideal for storage — being both shelf stable and compact in size.
Serving dehydrated food isn’t quite as simple as scooping dry food into a bowl — but The Honest Kitchen makes it about as easy as can be. You simply mix the
dehydrated food with warm water and wait for three minutes before serving. The hardest part, Postins says, is that most dogs can’t contain their excitement when they get a whiff of the food!
The price may seem high at first, but it’s important to note that one 10-pound box can make 40 pounds of food after adding water. For a 30-pound dog eating
The Honest Kitchen’s whole grain chicken recipe, that comes out to just $2.44 per day.
“For pet parents looking to upgrade from traditional kibble, The Honest Kitchen offers a convenient middle ground compared to other premium options like fresh, raw, or homemade dog food,” Postins said. “Unlike these options, dehydrated food doesn’t need refrigeration, takes minimal time to prepare, and is often more budget-friendly.”
The Honest Kitchen regularly receives handwritten letters, emails, and phone calls with positive feedback from pet owners sharing how the food has impacted their pets’ lives. (The company highlights 3,000 such anecdotes in a section of their website, True Stories.) They also offer recipe suggestions for your pets, such as cranberry holiday muffins and a birthday cake, along with simple how-to videos.
“It’s a common-sense approach that what you put into your body directly
affects the ways every cell and organ actually operates, and it holds true for pets in just the same way as it does for humans,” Postins said.
The Honest Kitchen has conducted surveys to understand the real-life effects of their product. In a 2024 survey of more than 2,000 customers, 71% of respondents reported their pets saw better digestion after switching to dehydrated food. In an in-depth study published in 2015 involving 11 families over the course of 12 weeks, eight participants agreed their pet had improved skin and coat health after changing their diet to The Honest Kitchen’s grainfree fish dehydrated food. Among the participants, nine stated that their pet experienced additional positive behavioral or physiological changes, like needed weight loss, by the end of the study.
“I honestly think there’s no better feeling than the sense of peace and gratitude that comes from providing a healthy, happy life for your pup or kitty, and seeing the way they gaze at you with adoration while you prepare them a wholesome meal,” Postins said. “It’s monumentally meaningful to be able to provide them with good quality, tasty food that they can’t wait to devour, and which in turn provides them with the best possible chance at a long and happy, active life.”
Written by Melinda Carter
The stars of HGTV’s “Fixer to Fabulous,” Dave and Jenny Marrs share their best tips for making your home more sustainable without breaking the bank.
How do you incorporate sustainable practices into your home designs?
Jenny: When designing a space, I often manage the sunlight — either with filters or by layering window treatments — to help naturally regulate indoor temperatures and make a room feel cozy and comfortable. Even the paint or wall color can make a difference. Lighter colors make rooms feel brighter without consuming electricity.
Dave: When addressing any issues in a home, it’s helpful to have data. I often recommend a home energy survey by a licensed professional. This survey will pinpoint gaps in the insulation and identify any airflow issues throughout the home. Solving these problems can provide better comfort and energy savings.
What inspired you to prioritize sustainability in
your renovation and building projects?
Jenny: We have five kids at home, and we need to ensure their futures on this planet. We travel internationally, either for our “Fixer to Fabulous Italiano” series or as a family, and we’ve been inspired by the mindset of other regions of the world where sustainability is effectively practiced daily.
When renovating a home, we explore affordable ways to make it sustainable and more energy efficient. That’s why we teamed up with Daikin for the Sustainability Series, their latest initiative that brings the conversation about sustainability to the forefront.
What are some sustainable features that add long-term value to a home?
Dave: Solar panels with energy backup are a sustainable solution that may add value to your
home. On a recent episode of the Sustainability Series, we met with a local contractor in Washington state to see how solar energy, even in a wet climate, can be harnessed to power a home’s appliances and HVAC system. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) found that home value increases by $20 for every $1 saved on your utility bills. Depending on your location, this may translate into a higher market value when selling your home.
Are there any small changes that make a big impact on reducing a home’s energy consumption?
Jenny: There are plenty of small changes that add up to big energy savings over time, like installing smart thermostats, ensuring that the home is properly insulated, and enrolling in a seasonal maintenance program for your HVAC
system. Use natural light during the day, and at night, encourage everyone in the family to turn off lights and unplug gaming systems, printers, toasters, and desktop computers when not in use. They’re what we call “vampire” equipment; they use energy even when not in use, and we’re not always aware of that.
What advice do you have for families who want to make their homes more sustainable over time, but might be working on a budget?
Dave: If you can’t afford to replace your entire HVAC system with a more sustainable option, consider installing a smart programmable thermostat that reduces energy consumption when away from home and can be controlled remotely. Installing motion sensors on lights and sleep timers on appliances can also help.
Forget on-off heaters and air conditioners. New energy-efficient systems are adaptive in real time, allowing precise variable settings to meet your heating and cooling needs, and they can help keep your energy bills low.
Heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration (HVAC) needs are year-round. They can vary seasonally and in different climates across the country. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says American households spend an average of 52% of their energy on heating and air conditioning.
A major sustainability goal for these HVAC systems is to phase out natural gas appliances and replace them with modern, all-electric ones.
“Electrifying your home means you can heat and cool with electricity and not rely on fossil fuel-burning appliances,” said Nathan Walker, senior vice president at Daikin Comfort Technologies North America, Inc. (Daikin), a leading producer of HVAC products.
High-tech heat pumps
Heat pumps can be used for both heating and cooling. And the term can be confusing.
“An air conditioner takes the heat out of your house and puts it outdoors,” said Doug Widenmann, Daikin’s senior vice president of marketing. “A heat pump is simply an air conditioner that has the ability to reverse its cycle. When in heating mode, it takes heat from the outdoors and moves it inside.”
But not all heat pumps are the same. Conventional HVAC systems have an on/off switch with a fixed speed that starts and stops the heating and cooling. Daikin’s all-electric, adaptive, inverter technology is different because it runs at variable speeds, adjusting to the home’s needs and can be controlled by the homeowner.
Daikin is a pioneer in sustainable technologies, including advanced inverter-based heat pumps with variable speeds.
“Heat pump technology has improved because of inverter compressors,” Widenmann said. “Daikin manufactures its own inverter compressors. And it’s the combination of a heat pump inverter that allows the functionality of affordable, super-efficient systems for both cooling and heating.”
Based on long-standing data, Daikin inverter heat pump technology can extract more efficiently in heating or cooling mode than traditional single stage heat pumps. Inverter systems can extract heat in very cold conditions — as low as -13 °F — while using a limited amount of electricity. In fact, Daikin has just successfully completed the final stage of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Residential Cold Climate Heat Pump Technology Challenge. By bringing together manufacturers, utilities, and
other stakeholders, this initiative endeavors to develop next-generation heat pump technology that delivers reliable and energy-efficient heating in extreme weather conditions.
Comfort and convenience
“Your HVAC system is not just about cooling and heating; it’s about managing your entire air stream in your home,” says Lee Smith, Daikin’s vice president of strategic marketing & environmental technology solutions.
These products integrate with smart technology, including controlling your HVAC with a phone app and solar integrations. Whether ducted or ductless systems (wall mounted or floor mounted), or even low-temperature floor heating and radiators, heat pumps seem to fit in most applications whether a heating system is already in the home or not.
Since Daikin’s heat pumps produce heat without using standard combustion methods, they can reduce direct CO2 emissions compared to traditional heating systems. They use less energy over their lifetime, making them a cost-effective investment (when compared to traditional heating systems).
“Inverter heat pumps provide long-term performance and reliability. They can be designed and manufactured with less raw materials, including steel, aluminum, and copper, and less refrigerant than conventional HVAC systems. Inverter heat pumps can be lighter and smaller than traditional systems, which means they can be transported more efficiently,” Smith said.
Daikin aims to create HVAC products that meet state and national carbon emissions reduction goals. By reducing greenhouse gas emissions throughout their products’ lifecycles, the company aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
The government is helping consumers adopt this new, efficient technology by offering tax credits, rebates, and other discounts established by the Inflation Reduction Act.
Written by Kristen Castillo
Learn more about Daikin’s inverter heat pump technologies at northamerica-daikin.com/ our-impact/dsic
In the United States, 38% of all food goes unsold or uneaten. That’s equivalent to almost 149 billion meals. We call this “surplus food,” and it’s worth about $495 billion, roughly 1.8% of the total U.S. gross domestic product.
While a small portion of it is donated, most of it goes to waste. All of this occurs while 1 in 7 Americans are food insecure, meaning they lack reliable access to sufficient, affordable, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food.
When food goes uneaten, the resources used to produce it go to waste as well. If all of our country’s surplus food was grown in one place, this “mega-farm” would cover an area the size of California and New York combined. Growing the food on this wasteful farm would consume nearly a quarter of all freshwater and 16% of total cropland in the United States.
A comprehensive problem
Loss and waste occur at each stage of the supply chain, with the majority happening at consumer-facing businesses (e.g., grocery stores, restaurants, other businesses that sell and serve food) and in homes.
More than three-quarters of surplus food comes from perishables like produce, meats, prepared fresh deli items, and bread. Fruits and vegetables alone constitute more than a third of total food waste.
Food waste in the home happens for a number of reasons — poor food management and improper storage causing spoilage, unplanned purchases leading to buying more than can be consumed, and misunderstanding of date labels leading to throwing away food that’s still good to eat.
Written by Dana Gunders, President, ReFED
Consumers like you and me are the largest source of food waste. Nearly half of surplus food — the food that goes unsold or uneaten — occurs in homes at a value of $264 billion.
Amajor reason food waste occurs at such high rates in homes comes down to habits and behaviors. Fortunately, there are some pretty basic interventions that make it easy, economical, and, yes, delicious to save food in your home. Start with these five easy-to-use strategies to get the most out of the food you’re buying.
1. Plan ahead
Think a few days or a week ahead to consider what you’ll be eating before you buy groceries. Consider “recipe trios” to help use up food that you buy in bulk. For example, if you cook a roast chicken for dinner one night, make chicken tacos the next night and chicken salad for lunch the following day. If you’re going to order takeout or cook a frozen pizza, plan for that, too, so you don’t buy groceries you don’t need.
2. Store your food properly
Different foods need to be stored differently, and they’ll last a lot longer when they’re stored properly. For example, fresh herbs can be stored in a glass of water in your fridge; apples should be stored in the fridge, but oranges are fine on the counter; and bread should be wrapped in plastic or aluminum foil to retain moisture. If you’re not sure how to store something, look it up online; there’s a lot of great information that can help you.
3. Use your freezer
Freezing food is a great way to extend its life.
You can freeze almost anything, including cheese, milk, pasta, and even that half-empty jar of pasta sauce. An added benefit is that when you don’t feel like cooking, you can just take something out of the freezer to heat up and eat.
4. Learn the labels
Learning how to properly read the date labels on food — “best if used by,” “sell by,” or “expires on” — can save you from throwing something away when it’s still perfectly good to eat. Date labels typically refer to quality, not safety. Major food industry groups have endorsed the use of “use by” to indicate when a product should be discarded for food safety reasons and “best if used by” to indicate that the date is about quality and the food can be consumed beyond that date. Use your best judgment — if a product looks good, smells good, tastes good, and has a “best by” or “best if used by” label, it’s probably safe to consume.
5. Eat down
As you’re planning ahead for what you’ll be eating for the week, plan a day to “eat down” all the leftovers and excess food collecting in your fridge. Create a smorgasbord of leftovers for your family to graze on. Some people like “Wasteless Wednesdays,” while others go with “Stir-Fridays.” You can also plan on bringing your leftovers to work for lunch and just pop them in the microwave.
Written by Dana Gunders, President, ReFED
By following these steps to make your home more efficient and sustainable, you’ll not only save money on your monthly utility bills but benefit the planet as well.
Have you ever stopped to think about the amount of time, energy, and resources that go into maintaining your home? For example, the amount of electricity used to heat and cool your home, or the water used to wash the dishes and keep your lawn green throughout the summer?
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average U.S. household spent more than $1,600 on electricity in 2022. Additionally, the Environmental Protection Agency reports that American families use more than 300 gallons of water per day — enough to fill over 2,200 bottles! While this may seem like a lot now, these numbers are only expected to climb as temperatures fluctuate due to climate change.
The good news is that with just a few small tweaks, you can turn your home into a model of sustainability that has a positive impact on the environment while also saving you money in the long run. Here are a few suggestions to help you get started:
Energy consumption is a primary contributor to a changing climate, producing around 20% of greenhouse gases in the United States. Save money and energy at home by unplugging electronics like phone chargers, DVRs, printers, computers, and rarely-used TVs when they’re not in use. These electronics still consume energy when turned off and plugged in, and they can add an extra 10% to your monthly utility bill.
Heating and cooling together typically account for 35–40% of home energy use. Regularly cleaning and replacing your cooling unit’s air filter can lower its energy consumption by up to 15%, and using ceiling fans to create a cool breeze
in the summer or circulate warm air in the winter can keep you comfortable without touching the thermostat. Don’t forget to check for air leaks around windows and doors, and seal them properly — air leaks can add 10-20% to your heating and cooling bills if left unaddressed!
Speaking of leaks, according to the EPA, the average household’s water leaks can account for nearly 10,000 gallons of water wasted each year — that’s nearly a trillion gallons of water nationwide! Check for leaks at home in your kitchen, bathrooms, and outside. They’re often easy to fix and can save you about 10% on your water bill.
The average American generates around 4.9 pounds of garbage per day. Reducing consumption and reusing items is the most effective way to reduce individual waste and prevent the emission of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Before purchasing new items for your home,
school, or office, look around and see what you can reuse, or try to buy secondhand first. Upcycling old or unwanted household items can be a fun DIY project for the whole family!
The right home landscape can save energy, water, and money. According to Energy.gov, a well-designed landscape can save enough energy to pay for itself in less than eight years. Depending on where you live, a few smart landscaping choices, such as creating shade, building windbreaks, and using xeriscaping techniques can help you weather hot and cold temperatures, chilly winds, and water shortages.
If we all take small steps to make our homes more efficient, it could make a positive difference for the planet and improve the quality of life for everyone.
Written by Michael Pope, Director of Content Marketing, National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF)
