This cookbook has been designed by the Ziptrek Giants, our internal sustainability committee, to inspire Sea to Sky residents, and more broadly BC residents to cook more consciously and consider the impacts of where, when, and how food has come to be on their plates.
We have taken favourite meal and recipe ideas from our team members at Ziptrek and suggested plant-based and minimal waste ingredient alternatives whenever possible. These alternatives are based on local availability here in Whistler, but we encourage you to research options in your own area. There is nothing more satisfying than sitting down to a meal sourced from locally grown produce, supporting local businesses, minimizing food kilometers, and minimizing harm to other living creatures.
Thank you so much to those accommodating local businesses who opened your doors to us filming and photographing in your stores and more importantly, thank you for providing our community with fresh, seasonal, organic, plant-based and minimally packaged ingredients! Our bodies and the planet are so much better for it!
The Giant’s Cookbook Pledge
Our footsteps here are intertwined;
for the more we take, the more we leave behind
And our appetites will always bulge
To enjoy our course and so indulge
So to take this volume, I do so swear,
To shop and cook with greater care,
And as far as I am able to so choose,
Will reduce my mark on Nature’s bruise
If you've ever had the pleasure of ziplining with Ziptrek Ecotours you'll have heard or seen a lot of information whilst on our course about The Natural Step. The Natural Step is the sustainability framework chosen by the Municipality of Whistler to help guide them in their quest to become a completely sustainable society by the year 2050! At Ziptrek we define sustainability quite simply as "living within the capacity of the planet to support life".
This is a huge task for any municipality, let alone a tourist town such as Whistler, but absolutely fundamental for all societies around the globe, if we are to heal and restore the planet. With a mission as complex and important as this, guidance in the form of a framework is paramount to success.
The Natural Step was designed by a Swedish Oncologist named Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt. You can think of The Natural Step as a set of care instructions for looking after our planet.
The four care instructions of The Natural Step can easily be remembered using: Take, Make, Break, Cake!
We must be careful not to TAKE too much out of the earth itself, for instance, fossil fuels, metals, and minerals.
Be careful not to MAKE too many chemicals and products that cannot then be processed by the earth.
Be careful not to BREAK the life-giving ecosystems on the surface of the earth.
And be conscious to share with others to ensure that all human needs are met - everyone gets a slice of the CAKE.
As you explore the recipes on this website, you will notice we have made suggestions at the end of the recipes of ways that you can modify the recipes to more closely align with the four care instructions of The Natural Step. In the section below we have shared some examples of how choices you make with your food can meet the requirements of the four care instructions.