Eco Women: Protectors of the Planet!

A LITTLE GLITTER, GLITZ AND GLAMOUR

November 10, 2009 · Leave a Comment

A lot of us are planning to get a new dress, a new haircut or add some color to spice up our appearance for the up-coming holidays. We can get a little glitz, glitter and glam and still be green. But there’s no need to be wasteful in our holiday celebrations.

So go get your hair highlighted or even lowlit without any guilt because although we might not have enough hair to make a donation to Locks of Love that doesn’t mean the hair needs to go to waste. We can still donate those locks and help a good cause at the same time.

Hair is an amazing substance. It can absorb oil right out of the air. That’s why we need to wash our hair so often. But we can use that absorption ability to help the earth. We’ve all heard horror stories about horrible oil spills. Well, when we get our hair cut, we can help clean those spills out of the environment by going to beauty salons that sweep up those strands of hair and donate them to Hair for Oil Spills Program. Just click here, and tell your local salon about this EZ-smeazy program. You’ll help the salon go green and keep our world clean–at the same time!

→ Leave a CommentCategories: eco holidays · green around the world · health · personal care

Five Tips for a Simpler, Greener Thanksgiving

November 8, 2009 · 3 Comments

In the spirit of environmentalism, simplicity and common sense, Enviro-Girl is doling out a few free tips on how to make Thanksgiving a better holiday.

1. Start with the “Thanks” part — this is not a holiday about spending money. It’s a holiday about spending time. Time with family, friends, strangers. And “Thanks” is an attitude — it’s gratitude that we have enough and that, frankly, should be enough. Don’t get wrapped up in the presentation of your table that day, whether you have enough fall-themed placemats or organic cranberries for the sauce. Don’t let Martha Stewart, Rachel Ray, or anybody else tell you what Thanksgiving has to be. That pressure is unneccesary and unnerving.

2. Relax. If you don’t have enough turkey to go around or the mashed potatoes turned out lumpy, Enviro-Girl guarantees people will fill up on sweet potatoes and green bean casserole. Gluttony is unhealthy anyway. Thanksgiving dinner should not mean giant, heaping plates. Again, it’s about the “Giving Thanks,” not “taking Tums.”

3. Delegate. Tell your guests to bring a dish to pass — assign one person a salad, another person a pie. There’s no reason to go bankrupt at the grocery store laying out a Thanksgiving feast, nor is there any reason to stress out because you have to do it all because you don’t.

4. Reduce. There’s no reason to have a mountain of food — one kind of pie is plenty — there’s no “Thanksgiving Rule Book” dictating that every household should serve mincemeat, pumpkin, and apple just because it’s tradition. Make what you know you’ll enjoy and what you know you’ll eat. Wasting time, effort and money on leftover that you’ll throw away is a shameful way to celebrate this holiday.

5. Spend your time on what matters: give thanks. Whether it’s through prayer, individual testimony around the dinner table or as part of a game, spend a portion of Thanksgiving doing exactly that. When the younger generation sees that part of Thanksgiving Day is about appreciating all we have, that’s progress. Thanksgiving isn’t about replicating a scene in a Norman Rockwell painting, it isn’t about football, it isn’t even about turkey. However, wherever and with whomever you spend this day, Enviro-Girl encourages you to relax, delegate if necessary and spend your time cultivating an attitude of gratitude.

→ 3 CommentsCategories: eco holidays
Tagged: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving for your Pets

November 6, 2009 · 2 Comments

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, trust Eco Lassie on this.

And your pets, being the cute and darling members of your family that they are, deserve their own T-Day treats. Remember, the Pilgrims were big on sharing.

When it comes to that turkey, can you safely feed your pets?

The answer is yes, with some considerations.

If we’re talking raw turkey, your pet can eat any part of it, including the packet of giblets, and even the bones and necks. As I’ve mentioned before, dogs and cats are carnivores and in the wild, eat anything they forage. And yes, it’s always raw. The splintering of bones you read about only occurs if you feed your pet cooked turkey bones. So any part of the turkey can be fed to them if it’s raw. This includes the wings and the neck. (I smash Murray’s 1/2 of the neck a bit because she’s almost 14; Radar at 2 1/2 has no problems munching or digesting his bigger half.)

The situation changes radically if we’re talking about cooked turkey. After your long sitting at the table, you may want to share the leftovers with your pet. This is when you avoid cooked bones, and just give them meat. Avoid cooked turkey fat and skin: it has too much fat in it and can give your pet diarrhea and, if enough is taken in, even pancreatitis. But there is no question your cat or dog will like turkey. Many pet foods, especially those designed for pets with sensitive stomachs, contain turkey.

But we’ll assume you just want your dog or cat to share in your good meal. Dogs and cats can have cooked vegetables in small amounts, too. Avoid onions and some dogs don’t tolerate garlic, but green beans, a small amount of potatoes, and even a touch of gravy will give your pet a Thanksgiving feast he will enjoy!

Is there any doubt in your mind?

After dinner, the same tryptophan that makes you sleepy can affect your pet, so don’t be surprised when you doze off to find your pet right besides you~

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

→ 2 CommentsCategories: Uncategorized
Tagged: pets eat turkey with the rest of us; Thanksgiving goes to the dogs

The eco turkey

November 5, 2009 · Leave a Comment

A hot topic in recent years is heritage vs. conventional turkeys.

turk The typical Thanksgiving turkey is a Broadbreasted White that has been raised in cages, force-fed grains that are not part of their natural diet, and pumped full of antibiotics. Broadbreasted Whites are grown for size, not flavor. In fact, they grow so large that they cannot move themselves easily by the end of their short lives and cannot even reproduce without outside help.

turk2 Heritage turkeys are the exact opposite. Heritage turkeys are breeds that have been around a long time — generations. For the most part, farmers raising these breeds are doing so the right way — the birds are not kept crammed in cages, nor are they stuffed full of feed and antibiotics. They get much more exercise and have a varied diet. These turkeys take longer to reach maturity, but the resulting bird has more fat. Fat = flavor.

If you are interested in finding out more about heritage turkeys, go to Heritage Foods USA and The Daily Green.

Unfortunately, heritage turkeys do cost more per pound. That said, turkey is in general a budget-friendly item to add to your menu. For more on the topic, check out Enviro Girl’s post on turkey (including her foolproof recipe).

Tell the Eco Women: What kind of turkey will you be roasting this year?

→ Leave a CommentCategories: eco holidays · food · living green on a budget

Kids + Garbage = Creative Genius

November 4, 2009 · 1 Comment

Enviro Girl’s kids love to do art–and she’s happy to provide them with the essentials: paint, crayons, markers, glue. But the rest? Come from the recycle bin. An ice cream carton lid provides a palate for paint. An old baby bottle with the nipple cut back makes an excellent water dish–it helps knock off the excess water with each dip of the brush. Paper printed on one side is a canvas for all future drawings and paintings. For 3-D art, Enviro Girl cuts buttons off old shirts before they become rags, saves old greeting cards and egg cartoons, dissembles Grandma’s old junk jewelry and reserves bottle caps and old fabric scraps. Dry pasta and seeds also make excellent mediums for self-expression. These recycled materials supplement the occasional purchase of beads, glitter, popsicle sticks and feathers.

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And clean cans from the recycle bin are perfect storage for all art supplies–from colored pencils to sticker sheets to markers to pens.

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No muss, no fuss, creativity abounds when you combine kids and garbage! There’s no need to shell out for fancy art supplies and storage when you can repurpose the contents of your recycle bin. The only question remaining is how to display all that creative genius. For that I direct you here to Abby’s post where she explains how to do that on a dime with some paint and clipboards (super cute and clever!).

Enviro Girl says, “Save your money and don’t shop Hobby Lobby or Michael’s for what you can find in your trash bin.”

→ 1 CommentCategories: 3 Rs · living green on a budget
Tagged: kids art with recycled trash, recycle for art's sake

Seasonal, local Thanksgiving dinners

November 3, 2009 · 5 Comments

Thanksgiving is fast approaching — just a little over three weeks until the 26th. Are you American Eco Warriors ready?

Something that has always fascinated Recycla is the so-called First Thanksgiving at Plymouth Plantation, which was a simple harvest festival that was held in 1621. For their festival, the Pilgrims would have eaten what they had available at that time of the year. In that part of Massachusetts in 1621 those foods were:

fish (cod, bass, herring, eel) and seafood (clams, lobsters, mussels)
birds (wild turkey, goose, duck, crane, swan, partridge)
venison
grains (wheat flour, Indian corn and corn meal, barley)
vegetables (squashes, beans, and possibly peas)
nuts (walnuts, chestnuts, acorns, hickory nuts)
dried fruits (raspberries, strawberries, grapes, cherries, blueberries, gooseberries)

sweetpotatoes The foods that Americans now traditionally eat for Thanksgiving are actually the result of a national day of thanksgiving that Americans celebrated in 1863, and which has been celebrated annually ever since. Again, foods that were either readily available or had been stored for the winter were eaten — turkey, potatoes, cranberries, pumpkins, and more.

Since that time, Thanksgiving dinner has evolved and become much more a matter of personal taste and family tradition than a meal that celebrates another successful harvest and features seasonal foods. There are debates on the different kinds of stuffing (cornbread, chestnut, etc.) and the different ways to prepare the turkey (roasted, deep fried, and even grilled) and one’s preferences are highly personal and usually based on family traditions.

apples Recycla has a challenge for you this year: She wants you to try to serve foods that are available to you locally this time of the year — if not the entire meal, then try for just one or two parts of it.

Sounds difficult, doesn’t it? It won’t be.

So what foods should you try to change a little?

Well, that’s going to vary, depending on where you live.

squash The Eco Women live in six different states spanning four time zones. Here are a few examples of foods that would be available to them for Thanksgiving if they were sticking to local and/or seasonal foods. In this case, local foods would also include ingredients that were grown over the summer and preserved for the cold months.

Recycla lives in Virginia, where cranberries would not normally be found, so she would eliminate cranberries from her meal. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, and pumpkins are readily available. Apples are plentiful in the Old Dominion, so it would make sense to have homemade applesauce, cooked apples, and/or apple pie. She could make a butternut squash soup, roasted acorn squash, and/or cauliflower gratin. Late fall greens, such as collards, spinach, and even some hardy lettuces would also be possible. Pumpkin pie would definitely be on the menu.
Eco Lassie lives in North Carolina, closer to the coast. Oyster dressing for the turkey is very popular where she lives.
Enviro Girl reports that up in Wisconsin, a Thanksgiving dinner that included local ingredients would include cranberries, squash, potatoes, corn, and beans. She makes a sensational cranberry-walnut torte that is nice after a starchy meal.
The Green Queen says that out in the Pacific Northwest, they would definitely have squash, corn, pumpkins, pears, apples, and potatoes.
Up in New York, the Green Mommy says that apples are plentiful this time of year.

cauli These are just some examples. Those of you who live in the deep South, Southwest, or California have an amazing wealth of choices. If you’re not really sure what’s available to you, check out your local farmers’ market and see what’s available.

If you are interested in learning more about eating seasonally and locally, Recycla encourages you to read Barbara Kingsolver’s wonderful book Animal, Vegetable Miracle (click here for a review), which talks about her family’s year-long experiment with eating locally. She writes honestly about the challenges and pleasures of their endeavor. She talks about Thanksgiving, of course, and devotes a very humorous chapter to turkeys, which is we all know is the most important part of the meal.

On Thursday, Recycla is going to talk more about turkeys and give you the low-down on what you should know.

So that’s the scoop on how to re-think your Thanksgiving meal. Recycla challenges you to try to make your meal more seasonal. How you do this is entirely up to you, but she hopes you will make at least one change, great or small. And, don’t forget to give thanks for the farmers who grew your potatoes, corn, and more.

→ 5 CommentsCategories: eco holidays · food

Shocking Revelation About Plastic Packaging

November 2, 2009 · 3 Comments

A couple of weeks ago Enviro Girl’s local grocery store set up a bag recycling box–she doesn’t have any opportunity to recycle plastic bags with her municipal recycling, and this spot is on her route, so she determined to start saving her bags for dropping off.

Two weeks ago she began stuffing plastic bags into an empty recyclable wrapper from Seventh Generation napkins. Bagel bags, bread bags, wrapping from a Lands End order, packaging from a few Nerf guns Mr. B received for his birthday. Enviro Girl does NOT accept plastic shopping bags–she hasn’t for years. She isn’t a shopper, she buys what her family needs, little more, and she tries to purchase things that use minimal packaging. She always opts for paper packaging when it’s available. She recycles paper, glass, metal and plastic containers vigilantly.

After two weeks of setting aside plastic bags for recycling, this is what she’ll bring to the grocery store later today:

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TWO GALLONS of plastic bags generated over two weeks. TWO GALLONS (Enviro Girl placed that ice cream bucket there to prove the measurement). This is what an environmentally conscious family of five throws away in two weeks.

The mind reels.

Enviro Girl has been stuffing the equivalent in her local landfill for YEARS. A gallon of plastic packaging per week–bread bags, bagel bags, bun bags, etc. She is genuinely appalled at how much plastic is produced, purchased and thrown away without a second thought.

→ 3 CommentsCategories: 3 Rs · issues
Tagged: plastic bags, plastic packaging, plastic wrapping

Fast Fact: Don’t throw them out!

November 1, 2009 · 3 Comments

Now that Halloween is over, don’t throw away your jack o’ lanterns! Compost them instead. You can chop them up a bit or you can just toss them in. Either way, they’ll break down quickly and help nourish your garden next spring.

→ 3 CommentsCategories: eco holidays · fast facts · gardening

What’s difficult for you?

October 30, 2009 · 7 Comments

The Eco Women often have email conversations in which they discuss, well, EVERYTHING under the sun. They like to share articles of interest with each other and debate new research findings. They tell each other about new things they’re trying and areas where they’re having difficulty.

Yes, it’s true. Even the Eco Women sometimes have problems being green. Generally, they find green-ness to be easy, but occasionally, there’s something that stymies them.

For example, Recycla and Enviro Girl once confessed that they don’t wear eco-friendly deodorant. And Recycla has been honest about her trials and tribulations with her mascara.

It has occurred to the Eco Women that if they sometimes have difficulty being the greenest they can be, that their fellow Eco Warriors might have some burning issues. So today is about troubleshooting — tell the Eco Women something you’re dealing with and, if possible, they will offer suggestions and advice.

→ 7 CommentsCategories: issues

Review: Everything I Want to Do is Illegal

October 29, 2009 · 4 Comments

Recycla recently read Everything I Want to Do is Illegal and thinks this is a must-read for any Eco Warrior who is interested in eating locally and seasonally.

Written by Virginia farmer and food guru Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms, the book draws upon his decades of experience as a farmer. Salatin writes with great passion and not a little humor about why Americans do not have the freedom to choose the food they purchase and eat. He discusses how the official system favors industrial farming and corporate food, which makes it all that more difficult for the small farmer to make a living. Salatin also talks about how child labor laws impacted his children’s work on the farm, surprise food inspections, and the great lengths he’s had to go to in order give his clients the freshest and highest quality food possible.

As with any book that talks about beef, swine, and poultry farming, there are a couple of anecdotes that might or might not turn your stomach a bit, but overall it’s not disgusting. (Well, unless you’re a vegetarian…)

Everything I Want to Do is Illegal is an excellent addition to any Eco Warrior’s library. (And by “library” Recycla means all the books you read, not just the ones you buy; Recycla is a big fan of her local public library.) If you are looking for other books about local farming and local foods versus industrial farming, Recycla also recommends Fast Food Nation, Don’t Eat this Book, and Animal Vegetable Miracle.

Tell the Eco Women: What good eco books have you read lately?

→ 4 CommentsCategories: books