Eco Women: Protectors of the Planet!

Entries categorized as ‘living green on a budget’

Celebrating 2 Years of Eco Women: Sprouting…?

March 5, 2010 · 8 Comments


The Eco Women are celebrating their second blog anniversary this week! Check out our daily giveaways and leave comments to win prizes.

SPROUTING. . . ?

It may not be the same FLOWER POWER you think of when you hear those words but back in the 60’s the fun loving hippies turned alfalfa sprouts into a magical food source filled with antioxidents, phytochemicals and healing health properties.

Okay, maybe they weren’t the ones who turned sprouts into those things but they sure were the ones who got the word out. Suddenly seeds started transforming: Alfalfa sprouts were popping up in salads, sandwiches and grocery stores. But did you know, it’s EZ to sprout food and not only alfalfa sprouts?

Mung beans are one of the most commonly sprouted foods but Kala Chana and barley make regular appearances on the sprout shelves.

But there are so many other foods you can eat that sprout: cilantro, dill, fennel, basil – heck even brown rice and wheat can be sprouted.

But what is sprouting and why would anyone want to become one of those Sproutpeople?

According to Wikipedia “Sprouting is the practice of soaking, draining and then rinsing seeds at regular intervals until they germinate, or sprout. “

And you can eat these sprouts — but, like I said, why would you want to do it?

There are a lot of reasons to eat sprouts aside from taste and that fancy feeling of eating home-grown goodness that is really GOOD for you.

Sprouts are full of good things for your body: vitamins, minerals, proteins, phytochemicals, enzymes, and more. Plus growing them at home makes sense. It will save you money while being fun — especially if you have kids. This can be your own homemade “Bill Nye the Science Guy” kind of experiment. And for homeschoolers, even better. Plus you’ll end up with that a product that will be good for your body.

You can sprout dozens of seeds, beans, nuts and-like I said, even rice and wheat. All it takes is a little time. And I mean a little time. In just days you’ll have an edible food source growing in your new “inside garden”.

All you need to do is keep the seeds moist. You don’t want to over-water your seeds or they will mold and rot. Just purchase your seeds from any place you find a good price — only one exception — DON’T buy packaged seed that’s meant to be planted. Those seeds are often chemically treated to grow and are not meant to be eaten in that state. But you can buy seed directly from your local grocery store, healthfood store, and even on-line-just pick the place with the best price.

Then you take your seeds wet them (soaking them) and place them in a cool, dark place so they can grow. You’ll need to rinse the seeds daily so you’ll want to store your seeds in a mason jar with cheesecloth spread over the top of the jar-that way you can pull the cheesecloth away, rinse the seed, beans or nuts, and then drain them before you put them back in their dark hiding spot.

Some people even use old nylons to hang their seeds inside – down in the basement — just remember to wash those used nylons first before you start preparing food in them.

The beans and/or seeds will expand so you should only start with a couple tablespoons. I got carried away and used about a cup of lentil beans. My beans outgrew the Mason jar and had to be moved into a colander. They almost outgrew the colander but we started eating them so they wouldn’t. They were so yummy.

After you get your sprouts to the size you want, you can eat them or put them in a container and store them in the refrigerator until it’s time to munch on those crunchy little tidbits of goodness. They will stay fresh for a couple days — up to a week.

If you are still interested, check out sprout kitchen for a few handy, healthy and hardy recipes you can use to utilize your freshly grown sprouts.

Here’s a little more handy information:

Alfalfa should be soaked for 8 hours for 2 to 5 days in a Jar or tray. The main nutritional benefits you’ll get will be Vitamin A, B, C, E, K and minerals.

Barley should be soaked for 12-15 hours for 3-4 days using the jar or tray method. You’ll get B and C vitamins, plus minerals.

Lentils should be soaked 12 hours for 2-4 days to get vitamin C and iron.

Mung beans should be soaked for 24 hours for 2-5 days for Vitamin C, iron, and potassium.

Pumpkin seeds should be soaked for 8 hours for 1 day for Vitamin E and minerals – especialy iron.

But you can also sprout Almonds, Buckwheat, cabbage, chick peas, rice, rye, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds and more. Just look on-line to see what needs to be done – or leave a comment and I’ll look it up for you. You don’t have to buy store bought goodness – you can grow your own – right in your own kitchen.

HAPPY SPROUTING! And, add your own ideas in the “comments” section for a chance to win a prize: a book. And FREE is a very good price for all us thrifty protectors of the planet.

Hope you tuned in every day this week because the Eco Women are giving away prizes to celebrate their two year blogiversary. All giveaways are open until 8 p.m. EST on Friday, March 12. Winners will be randomly chosen and contacted over the weekend.

The Eco Women are not employed by the companies mentioned, nor were they compensated in any way.

Categories: food · gardening · green around the world · health · living green on a budget

Recycled Lumber

February 26, 2010 · 6 Comments

My husband is handy and he loves to be green so he has built me a lot of garden furniture and home furniture (including a headboard and some benches out of a torn down picket fence) — what a way to use recycled lumber.

Take a peek at what you can do with used, thrown-away, wood.


Think what you can do if you put your head, heart, and hands into it. Maybe you could be building headboards and garden benches out of recycled lumber. Or, if you have some other ideas, please share them in the comments section.

Categories: 3 Rs · house stuff · living green on a budget

Green Ways to Keep Your Family Healthy During Cold & Flu Season

February 10, 2010 · 3 Comments

Go to any elementary school, restaurant, airport or government office and you’ll see this information posted in bathrooms:

“Please Wash Your Hands”

It’s that simple!  FDA-approved, affordable, and convenient, hand-washing is the #1 way to stay healthy during cold & flu season.  Consequently, well-intentioned people are pushing anti-bacterial soaps into our grubby, germ-infested fists like a sales girl at Harry & David’s pushes free truffle samples.  Almost 3/4 of all the soap sold today is anti-bacterial, but is this really the best product for keeping us healthy?

Enviro Girl doesn’t believe it.  Her sinks are stocked with rectangular white bars of plain old Ivory Soap (the soap that floats!).  She insists her kids wash their hands before meals and before bed, she makes them get 9-10 hours of sleep every night, and she puts plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables on their plates.  Three kids — all attending public school and a variety of extra-curricular activities — only one cold since last winter.  No multi-vitamins or other chemicals were involved in this success rate.

But Enviro Girl is not a virologists or a biologist or a doctor.  She’s a SAHM.  Let’s see what the experts say about this topic.  To find out, Enviro Girl went to “How Stuff Works.”  She already knew how soap works — it provides a slippery surface for things to glide off your skin’s surface and down the drain.  But how does anti-bacterial soap work?  Does it work any better?  Is her family’s health just a fluke?  She learned four things:

1.  Most colds & flus are viral, not bacterial by nature, so anti-bacterial soaps do not provide any tactical advantage against them.

2.  Because bacteria is a living thing, it can evolve and it does evolve to become resistant to anti-bacterial chemicals.  Consequently, anti-bacterial soaps stop working after a while.

3.  Bacteria benefits us — and anti-bacterial soaps do not discriminate between good and bad bacteria.  It kills them all, leaving us with fewer defense for our body’s health.

4.  The anti-bacterial components must sit on a surface for about 2 minutes before they work. If your kids are anything like Enviro Girl’s, you know that anti-bacterial soaps aren’t going to be effective because kids speed-wash.

This information made sense to Enviro Girl.  She considers pesticides that do not discriminate between helpful bugs like honeybees and bugs she despises like mosquitoes.  Of course anti-bacterial soaps will destroy helpful bacteria.  And she knows our bodies become resistant to antibiotics, so why would anti-bacterial soap be any different?

How Stuff Works referred to a study Enviro Girl saw years ago:  Extensive testing of anti-bacterial soap has proved it’s no more effective than regular soap and water washing. Even the CDC endorses this stance.  They agree that the best way to keep germs at bay is to wash your hands with soap and water, scrubbing well, for 20 seconds, the time it takes to sing the ABC song.  And if soap and water isn’t an option, the only practical hand sanitizer is one that’s alcohol-based because that will kill germs.

Enviro Girl sez:  Quit buying anti-bacterial soaps.  Save money and buy a six-pack of Ivory bars to keep your family healthy and germ-free.  Antibacterial soap is not better for your health and the environmental impacts are yet unknown.  We do know this:  bacteria keep mutating in response to the widespread use of these products and that’s potentially more hazardous to our health.

Categories: health · issues · living green on a budget
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14 Easy Ways to Consume Less Plastic

February 8, 2010 · 4 Comments

In the last couple of years we’ve tried to consume less plastic at our house.  This not only shows in our garbage can every week (we throw away about 1 1/2 tall kitchen garbage bags a week), it also shows in our recycling.  I used to drag out a bin overflowing with plastic every other week.  Now we generate half the recyclable plastic from a couple years ago.  How did we achieve this?  It wasn’t painful and it wasn’t expensive.  Here’s how:

1.  We switched from buying bottles of juice to buying frozen juice concentrate.  Saves money, uses less packaging.

2.  We buy milk in reusable glass bottles.

3.  We preserve our garden produce by freezing or canning–no more buying preserved fruits and vegetables at the store.  We reuse the glass jars and metal lids each year.

4.  We never accept a shopping bag.  We bring our own and if we forget (because we’re human and sometimes do), we carry our goods out in our hands.  Fortunately, when you have 3 kids, you generally have plenty of hands to carry things.

5.  When the kids are offered plastic trinkets (at the grocery store, at restaurants, etc.) we politely decline.  They understand we have plenty of crap, there’s no need to add more.

6.  Likewise, when we go places we tell our kids ahead of time, “We’re not buying anything, so don’t ask.  We’re going in empty-handed and we’re walking out with only good memories of good times.”  On our last family vacation we brought back some shells and photographs–nothing else.  On a recent trip to play laser tag and video games, the boys handed their tickets to me and we walked out without cashing them in for prizes.

7.  We’ve encouraged our PTA to give out consumable raffle prizes at events instead of bargain bin toys and trinkets.  In our town we have the following locally owned and operated establishments:  drive-in movie theater, miniature golf, bowing alley, ice cream parlor, sub shop, movie/game rental store, family restaurant.  The PTA buys gift certificates to these places for winners–supporting our local economy in a win-win way.

8.  We buy soda and beer in glass containers–glass is 100% recyclable.  It’s not often that we need to buy soda, but we’ve found a locally made brand sold in returnable bottles.  Perfect for parties–the kids love all the flavors and the bottles are smaller-sized, only 7 oz.  When we entertain, we usually serve beer and lemonade and iced tea–the latter made in our own glass pitchers and served in our own glasses.  Healthier and better-tasting than the single-serve options of plastic bottled beverages.

9.  We bought a set of 8 plastic dishes  and plates for outdoor dining a few years ago.  We never buy disposable plastic plates for parties or picnics anymore.

10.  We bought reusable containers for the kids’ lunches and snacks.  No more plastic baggies–and we save money by portioning out bulk snacks instead of buying individually wrapped treats.

11.  Baked treats are made from scratch here.  Instead of Twinkies and Little Debbie cakes (wrapped individually in plastic), I bake a cake or cookies or a pie.  By preparing food from scratch, we generate less waste.

12.  When we buy clothes, we always leave the hangers behind at the store.

13.  We buy bars of soap, never bottles of liquid soap.  We don’t use anti-bacterial anything at our house and all five of us have suffered a total of 3 colds all winter so far.

14.  We opt for the paper-wrapped version of products–paper is a renewable and biodegradable resource, always trumping plastic.  Whether we’re buying paper for our computer printer or a carton of eggs, we buy the kind packaged in paper.  (It sure seems silly to package printer/copy paper in plastic, doesn’t it?)

Some of these things seem obvious, all of them are convenient to do.
Tell us, reader, how do you consume less plastic at your house?

Categories: 3 Rs · living green on a budget
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Could you do it?

January 26, 2010 · 5 Comments

Last week, the New York Times had an article about people who voluntarily live without central heat in their homes.  Take a moment to read it, then come back here to discuss.

What do you think?  Could you do it?

Recycla admits that there’s no way she could live without central heat.  That said, she does make every effort to be as efficient as she can with her heat use.  She makes full use of passive solar every day — throwing open her curtains at first light to let the sun’s rays in to warm her house.  Her thermostat is set to varying temperatures within each 24 hour period, so that the temperature drops a few degrees during the day while Recycla and her family are out of the house.  And if she feels chilly, she puts on a sweater, grabs a throw blanket, or hugs one of her loved ones.

How do you stay warm in the winter — central heat, fireplace, wood stove, or nothing at all?

Categories: 3 Rs · house stuff · living green on a budget

BIKE AND HIKE – You Just Might Like It

January 22, 2010 · 1 Comment

One way to go green is to Hike and Bike.

You can ride your bike rather than drive your car to help protect the planet. You can do this on a Saturday, when you’re going to do some quick short errands-to start out. You don’t have to start with a 20 mile ride. Start slow and enjoy the journey.

If you don’t want to ride, you can hike. Bring a cloth, heavy-duty, bag when you go for a walk. You can pick up a few groceries, go to the library and get a little exercise all at the same time.

Portland, Oregon is one of the best cities in the country for biking and hiking. Our City Council even designed a riverwalk just for us. There’s a path that has wonderful lighting, benches and easy access. You can walk around the waterfront and enjoy the scenery of the city. It’s the Portland Esplanade or Eastbank Esplanade.

Maybe your city has something similar to offer. If you take a few minutes to plan your errands around a nice walk, you might find that you really enjoy it and look forward to those short walks rather than dread doing the errands.

Life is short, we need to make the time to take the time, then we might enjoy the journey a little more.

If you have something special to share about your city, please share it in the “comments” section.

Categories: health · living green on a budget · transportation

11 Things to Rent (or borrow!) Before You Buy

January 20, 2010 · 2 Comments

Last week Recycla discussed ways to simplify life–and one way to do that is to OWN less.  Every time we buy stuff, we increase our carbon footprint on the planet–from mining the resources to make things to manufacturing to shipping and handling, the STUFF we NEED to HAVE burdens the planet.  An important way to live green is to buy less.   Ownership is a drag–you have to deal with storage, maintenance, repairs, warranty paperwork–why bother when you can rent?  Obviously some things are better owned than borrowed (toothbrushes spring to mind), but think of all you might save in storage space and money and hassle if you rented the following things before you bought them:

1.  Video games.  Sure, Little Timmy says he wants the latest X Box offering, but for a fraction of the cost you can rent it for a week at a local video store.  If he loves it, great!  Go buy it.  If not, you’re only out a few bucks and you’re not stuck with it collecting dust by your game console.  GameFly is one online site where you can rent games.

2.  Movies.  The truth is, we almost never watch a movie over again–unless we’re a kid and addicted to Pixar.  Just like with video games, renting a movie will give you a good idea of whether you like it or not–and if it’s that good, then go buy it.

3.  Heavy duty lawn and garden equipment.  Need to roll your lawn?  Cut a bunch of brush?  Till your garden?  Lawn and garden equipment can run to hundreds of dollars and it takes up a lot of space in your garage.  Many hardware stores and rental shops carry this equipment–Enviro Girl has found equipment for all kinds of work on her 60 acres for rent, saving her thousands of dollars.

4.  Camping equipment.  Unless you have a season pass to the state parks, you’re probably an occasional camper. In that event, borrow or rent your camper/tent/cooking stove.  If you’re new to camping as a hobby, renting will inform you of what features you should invest in when you buy the gear you want to own.

5.  Sporting equipment.  From skis to hockey uniforms to skates to golf clubs–you can rent it all.  If you’re a novice to a sport, just starting out and not sure you want to commit to buying the gear, rent it or borrow it.  Just like with camping equipment, renting will give you a good idea of what you want to invest in (or not) when you take up the sport more regularly.

6.  Party and event supplies.  From sound equipment to tents to tables and chairs to tanks of helium–why buy it when you can rent it?  Enviro Girl has seen everything from food service equipment (roasters and serving trays and place settings numbering in the hundreds) to inflatables available for rent.  She has rented a porta-potty, a tent, sound equipment and inflatables for various events at her place and was happy each time to use these things, but saw no reason to own them permanently.

7.  Cars.  That’s right, you can rent cars.  Enviro Girl has a sister who doesn’t own a car.  She lives in a metro area and owns a bus pass, a bike and cab fare.  Once in a great while she needs wheels and she spends a couple hundred to rent a vehicle when she needs one.  She probably saves thousands of dollars a year doing this.

8.  Carpet Cleaners.  Unless you own an apartment complex, you probably don’t need a Rug Doctor more than twice a year.  Rent it.

9.  Books.  Duh.  Borrow.  From the library.  Enviro Girl especially does this with unknown writers or writers whose work she’s certain she’ll read only once.  (Don’t let her fool you, though, she has shelves full of books.)

10. Toys.  That’s right, they’re little for such a short time or perhaps they’re visiting your house.  You can rent toys for babies and toddlers online at BabyPlays.

11.  Designer handbags, sunglasses, and jewelry.  Instead of shelling out for the latest trend, you can rent the latest look and satisfy your inner fashionista at Avelle.

Categories: 3 Rs · living green on a budget
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Plan NOW for your garden

January 19, 2010 · 7 Comments

Recycla has written before about how she is an avid gardener. Her goal for this year is to grow as much of her family’s food as she can fit into her 10′ X 40′ plot, as well as some containers and a few other locations in her yard.

Even though it’s still cold and snowy outside, Recycla and some of the other Eco Women are already working on various gardening projects, all of which involve reusing materials and saving money in the process.

For example, Recycla is saving her plastic gallon milk jugs. She’ll cut off the bottoms and wash them thoroughly and then have cloches to protect her tender plants this spring. A gardener could also use 2 liter plastic bottles for this purpose.

Recycla is also saving her Stonyfield Farm yogurt tubs. Later on, she’ll cut the sides into strips to make ID markers for her plants.  After that, when the markers outlive their usefulness, Recycla will recycle them with the rest of her #5 plastics.

Recycla will occasionally have an aluminum pie pan and she’s saving those to tie to her tomato cages and (cross your fingers) scare off the deer. If any of her CD’s chip or scratch badly, she’ll use them for the same purpose.

Recycla also saves all her newspapers, tears them up, and puts them in her compost bins to add as more “brown” matter. Eco Lassie is saving her newspapers too, in order to use for suppressing weeds.  She puts down a thick layer (8-10 sheets) and covers with mulch, compost, pine needles, straw, etc.  In addition to killing weeds, the newspaper also attracts earthworms, which will not only eat the newspaper, they’ll improve the soil with their castings.

Enviro Girl reports that she is saving her egg cartons to start seeds in. She also uses ice cream cartons, sour cream tubs, and other food containers to collect her harvest in and then share the bounty with friends and neighbors — particularly when it’s berry season and she has pints and pints to share.

These are just a few of the many possibilities available to you.  Tell the Eco Women:  What materials do you save and then reuse in your garden?

Categories: 3 Rs · food · gardening · living green on a budget

Seedy Thoughts

January 18, 2010 · 4 Comments

Gardens. Not my priority these days with the snow blowing and the ground frozen, but the seed catalogs call and I’m getting ready to crack them open and begin making lists (you know, things I need, things I want, things I lust for but will never grow in Zone 5…).

But before we begin the annual foray into garden catalogs, I’m impelled to speak on the subject of seeds. Heirloom seeds, that is. The au natural, free range, cage free organic seed.

Most seeds on the market are hybrid seeds. Hybrid means they’ve been tweaked genetically to perform a particular way. Hybrid seeds are native plant seeds adjusted to:

* produce their fruit faster
* tolerate cooler/warmer climates
* resist pests and diseases
* produce MORE than their granola-crunching, hemp-wearing Heirloom cousins

Hybrid seeds are also genetically altered to be used only once for that year’s growing season, so you have to buy new seeds every season and remain a constant customer to Monsanto.

The benefits of hybrid seeds sound pretty great, and in many cases they are, but often the genetic alterations bring on other side effects such as:

* blander, less flavorful fruit
* one huge harvest time (1-2 weeks) and then the plant is spent
* sometimes less productivity as the plant’s strength is disease/pest resistance, not fruit production

I’ve been planting Heirloom Seeds, seeds native to our planet, seeds best suited for where I live and seeds that produce wonderful tasting food for me throughout the growing season. The Heirloom Seeds are the same sort our ancestors planted in their gardens and the seeds keep from season to season, as long as 3-5 years sometimes.

I harvested the Improved Tendergreen beans I planted last spring every week starting in July through October. I’ve never heard of a hybrid bean plant with that capability–usually they produce a bushel of beans in a 1-2 week period and then they’re done. Late afternoon when I wanted a side dish of beans with supper I’d head into the garden with a bowl and pick until it was full. I did this as often as I wished and I still had plenty to freeze for using in the winter. I’d rather eat freshly picked all summer and into the fall than eat fresh picked for a week or two and have so much at one time that I start hating it. This is a problem many gardeners have (hence the Zucchini and Cucumber Assaults from well-intended and desperate neighbors every August) and a good reason to quit vegetable gardening altogether.

If you want a garden that produces a harvest for a few months, in amounts that don’t bring you to your knees begging for mercy, Heirloom Seeds are the way to go. Unlike my neighbors who were buried in bland-tasting zucchini plants for a couple of weeks, I had one or two to harvest every week over a few months and mine had a bright, crisp flavor the hybrid zucchini lack. Mine weren’t as big, but as is the case with many things, bigger isn’t better. Especially with zucchini!

The Red-Cored Chantenay carrot also treated me pretty well last summer, coming up in a gradual fashion. I’ve enjoyed Turk’s Turban and Delicata squashes that have unique flavor and excellent staying power when stored in a cool dry place. Progress No. 9 peas performed just like their bean cousins, coming in slow and steady all summer and early fall. I can’t rave enough about the Bloomsdale Long Standing spinach or the Mr. Stripey tomato’s fabulous flavor. My taste buds woke up when I ate the produce from Heirloom plants and the variety available–over fifteen varieties of tomatoes, a dozen kinds of squash–it’s really astounding.

Try planting Heirloom Seeds or Plants this spring. You’ll enjoy a more flavorful harvest and a longer season of fresh produce from your garden. And you’ll continue a tradition that goes back thousands of years.

In closing, an old garden joke: What do you call a man with no arms and no legs sitting in a hole? Phil.
(groan)

Categories: food · gardening · living green on a budget
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Quick Link: Save money on eco products

January 13, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Looking to save money on your favorite eco products?  Click here for an article that tells you how.

Categories: living green on a budget · quick link