Hi and welcome! I’m Susannah, a plant-loving energy nerd who has spent the last decade researching shortcuts to help busy people live greener, healthier lives. I’m passionate about helping others cut through the noise and find the easiest ways to live more sustainably and naturally.
As a freelance writer, I’ve published hundreds of articles on plants, health, environmental topics, and herbal remedies. My work has appeared in Mother Earth Living, Northern Gardener, Sierra, Ensia, Eartheasy, The Upside, and numerous other websites and podcasts. I also wrote a book on elderberries, which has hundreds of 5-star reviews. I hope you’ll check it out!
HealthyGreenSavvy is my little corner of the internet, where I share practical, easy ways we can live greener and healthier. You’ll find a lot about foraging and growing food, how to use natural and herbal remedies to support health, and how to make our lives more eco-friendly.
Whether it’s finding herbs that can promote better sleep, home remedies for coughs and bug bites, easy zero waste swaps, or creative ways to use orange peels, coffee grounds, and pine needles, there’s something here for anyone curious about easy ways to live more naturally.
I also spend an inordinate amount of time digging deep into cutting-edge research, from the impacts of light exposure on our health to the measures we can take to protect mitochondrial function.
If you’re new around here, I hope you’ll pick up one of my free e-books and join our weekly newsletter!
If you’re long on good intentions and short on time, you’ve come to the right place. I created HealthyGreenSavvy for busy people like you who care about their health and that of the planet.
Here’s where you’ll find dozens of savvy shortcuts to better health and greener living. I spend huge amounts of my free time researching ways we can live healthier without too much extra effort.
HealthyGreenSavvy is where I boil it all down, with super-practical ways you can eat better, avoid toxins, and tread more lightly on the planet. Plus tons of ways to make the most of the powerful plants growing all around us.
This site aims to give you tools and inspiration for making smart choices about the food and household products you buy as well as tips for making a healthy home that are practical, simple and reasonably priced.
You will not find complex recipes or suggestions for expensive products. To fly here, products and projects must be relatively quick, simple, and affordable or I’m not interested.
While there will be a good deal about food here, this is not a “foodie” blog and the food suggestions (with rare exception) will all be quick and easy. And though I do generally believe in eating “clean,” I also think it’s a good idea to eat a little chocolate most days (check why that’s a healthy habit here).
Though I think regular exercise is critical to well-being, this is not a blog about fitness. And while a passionate environmentalist, I’m not a homesteader raising my own grain and goats. (But props to those who are — I might if I had the time and energy! I do grow quite a lot of food on our 1/5 acre lot, though.)
If you’re looking for shortcuts and smart ideas for healthy, green living that fit into an already full life, you’ll find loads of tips to inspire and save you time, energy, and money.
Whether you’re just embarking on your journey toward healthier, greener choices, or you’ve been at it awhile, I expect you’ll find something here to help you along. And please share your own tricks and tips for healthy, green living with the rest of us!
- Need some healthy food options for hectic evenings? Check out “Healthy Food & Easy Recipes” in the menu bar.
- Want to know some fantastic hacks for better health using things that you probably already have in your kitchen? Click on “Natural Remedies & Herbs.”
- Looking for affordable non-toxic cleaners and personal care products? Head to “Eco-Friendly.”
- Want some easy gardening projects from a “good enough” gardener? Click “Garden.”
- Interested in recommendations for useful green products? Check out “Recommended Products.”
I also share numerous helpful posts from around the blogosphere on social media, so consider joining the HealthyGreenSavvy community on Facebook or following me on Pinterest.
My book, Everything Elderberry explores what research tells us about elderberry’s effect on health and includes expert growing advice, plus 62 delicious recipes for using elderberries and elderflowers. It involved months of research, dozens of interviews, and a ton of kitchen experiments. It contains information on elderberries and elderflowers you won’t find anywhere else.
About Me
I’m a freelance health and environmental writer and mom of two kiddos (now ages 15 and 13) who writes part-time and obsesses about ecological and personal health full-time. I’m a longtime voracious reader of books, magazines, and websites about nutrition, health, gardening, and green living, and I LOVE to talk to others about smart and sustainable choices we can make every day.
On this site I break down what I’ve learned through hours of research about avoiding the chemicals that permeate our lives, easy and affordable ways to feed your family healthy food, and nifty ideas for reducing your ecological impact.
I’m passionate about food-based and herbal remedies for common ailments and for just feeling better everyday. Life can be tiring and overwhelming! But with some savvy tools, you can meet these challenges with more energy and calm. We all need more of those, right?
What you will not find here are recipes involving too many complicated steps or ingredients or draconian rules about what is and is not ok. Eating organic is certainly a laudable goal, but I don’t think a non-organic chip at a party is the end of the world.
I mostly stick to whole grains and plenty of fruits and vegetables, and buy organic whenever I can as long as the price isn’t prohibitive. (Did you know organic sometimes costs the same or less than conventional? Check out my e-book, Eating Healthy On A Budget, for numerous strategies to make healthy food fit your budget.)
My Backstory
I’ve been interested in environmental issues for as long as I can remember, and though my PhD is in American literature, I incorporated environmental topics into my teaching and research whenever I could and kept up with the latest environmental and health news. I have served on my city’s Environmental Quality Commission for 10 years. I left teaching in 2015 to devote myself to my longtime passion for research and writing on health and environmental subjects.
Becoming a homeowner in 2002 by saving a 100-year-old house slated for demolition and moving it to a new site with my husband introduced me to the world of home renovation and the burgeoning marketplace of green home products. I’ve become a notorious energy nerd, and love to geek out about the benefits of home solar, community solar, insulation, energy audits, and geothermal heating.
(BTW to-be-demoed houses are FREE, an example of how green choices can save you money. Of course, moving a house is definitely not in the category of “practical green,” and in hindsight I don’t recommend it to anyone but the young and slightly crazy, with little money and oodles of time and gumption.)
As I replanted the yard we razed to move in our house, I discovered the exciting world of gardening. I began by planting our half lot with traditional grass and foundation shrubs, but as a lover of fresh fruits and vegetables with limited space to grow them, I soon started searching for ways to grow food anywhere I could (see my post on this project here).
With only slivers of back and side yard (in full shade), my garden had to go in the front of our corner lot. After many experiments (and many, many failures), I now grow 6 kinds of berries, as well as plums, grapes, apples, rhubarb, and raised beds of greens, squash, tomatoes and ground cherries where there used to be grass. I’ve read widely about permaculture, water conservation, and innovative gardening tricks that I share here.
I practice “good enough” gardening, so my soil isn’t optimized, my beds are messy, and the weeds are more numerous than perhaps the neighbors would like. (Though lots of them are edible, so they wind up in salads and smoothies.)
I hope the fact that my yard is not picture-perfect emboldens you to give good-enough gardening a go, too. If you’ve never grown anything, pick up my free newbie gardener guide, Get Growing! here.
Ready to join me on a journey to healthier, greener living? Get started here.
