Greenwashed?

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/sweet-dreams-with-a-sprinkling-of-greenwashing.html

This is an interesting site with an article on Greenwashing...which is defined as basically a false claim that a product is "green". So many companies are claiming that their items are "natural" "organic" "green" "eco-friendly"...etc...but often the truth is that there is a shell game going on, or only certain ingredients are natural, or that it is all a marketing scam. So what do we do about it?

The best advice I have seen out there is to remain suspicious, read labels, and don't "buy in" to things that are too good to be true. Do research and stick to items you can trust. Also, don't over spend on items based on these claime. But also, don't get too bent out of shape when the "Green" product you bought turns out to be a rip. Just determine to do better the next time.

I feel cheap...but in a good way...

So I have committed to a homespun Christmas, and the crafting has begun. But as Christmas approaches I find my temptation to shop has also increased. The twinkle lights are up in the mall and the Christmas music is finally welcome to me, although it has been playing for about 3 weeks. And I am in the mood to shop. But I have decided not to, so I am stuck. And I think this brings us to a crux of living verdantly...it is not always comfortable. It is a decision to look temptation in the eye and say "No". Not because one has to (although my committment not to shop is based on some real budgetary limits). But the choice to live verdantly has to do with making some honest choices about life and taking a path, not being swept along where ever the cuture takes you.

So this past Friday I did a little bargain shopping at Gabriel brothers and stopped at Target for a little look, but I did not do the massive spend that I have in previous years. And it felt strange.

So here is a question for you all. What brings you real joy. Because that is my goal this Christmas...less stress and more joy. So what brings you joy?

Family is an obvious one. Loving each other no matter what...even when we don't agree.


Accomplishment also. Setting goals and meeting them.

What else...what do you think?

(I love this picture...there is something so US about it!)

Meat Three Times (On the Ceiling if You Want Me)

Meat Three Times Update: Entering Week 3

The good news: So far, Meat Three Times has been a smashing success. I've been keeping rigorous track of my meat consumption, and besides one day where I stretched it a little by eating meat for dinner, and then also eating meat at the cast party that followed dinner (which technically is Dinner 2, so doesn't count as another meal??? or maybe it's dessert, and I ate meat for dessert - gross??), I've been very successful. I decided quickly not to count chicken stock as a "meat" - I put a star by that meal in my calendar to keep track, but seriously. I'll probably buy some vegetable buillion soon though, just to take care of that issue.

However, as week 3 dawns bright and I have already eaten 1 meat since Sunday Breakfast (my first meal of the new week), I'm looking down the line and realizing we have a problem: THANKSGIVING. Yes that great meaty holiday with all of its temptations is clearly visible on the horizon. One can't help but feel that for a non-strict non-vegetarian to make a fuss about meat over the Thanksgiving weekend could be construed as a little humbuggish. So what's a 3-timer to do? I think right now I'm going back and forth between making a good faith effort, basically knowing I'll fail but trying to keep the meat way down, and/or keeping good track and making up for it with a very spartan week next week. The other option - and one that I'm rejecting but that, let's face it, is tempting - is just to dive head first into the meat as soon as I get to Grandma's and then not emerge til Sunday. I trust in my fellow bloggers to hold me accountable.

Delicious no meat foods I've eaten in the past two weeks:
Egg and cheese croissant - sooooo good
More hummus and pita bread
More felafel
(Most of my foods have been very unhealthy this week due to evening commitments and a household flea problem - heavy cleaning = light cooking - so I'll submit more yummy and healthy vegetarian suggestions next time I post. But California Pizza Kitchen 5 cheese pizza with tomatoes is also good!)

Global Population Data

This is my favorite presentation on YouTube. Just the first 5 minutes is pretty impressive.



The world really has changed both in population and wealth/poverty relationship.

BRD

Meat Three Times a Week?: The Experiment

In college, it was the chicken nuggets. Now, we are not talking about good chicken nuggets. These were not homemade-from-golden-bird, chick-fil-a, or even McDonald's quality chicken nuggets. These were college cafeteria nuggets, grade E but edible meat, chicken lovingly referred to within our group as "sponge chicken." Yet this sad, spongy, piece of hyperprocessed meat leftovers was the thing that, over and over, kept me from my goal. That goal was to be a vegetarian.

Maybe the badness of the nuggets was the reason they were so appealing. If you're talking about a delicious, well-made chicken wrap on a spinach tortilla with dressing and fresh tomatoes, I mean, that makes you think about food. What could I do to capture all the fantastic qualities of this sandwich, but still skip the meat? Would a meat substitute work? What about a veggie patty? Felafel? Hummus? Or maybe it would be almost as good - just as good? - with no substitute at all. Just a few extra veggies and a good dose of dressing and maybe you've got the perfect wrap. Right?

Thinking about food is fun - and in fact, one of the most appealing parts of attempting vegetarianism for me is imagining new ways to cook foods both familiar and unfamiliar. How do you make a fritatta? What can I do with asparagus besides boil it? And how many of the million and one things you can do with a chickpea have I tried? But the point, my friends, of a chicken nugget is the EXACT OPPOSITE of this. A chicken nugget is not about thinking. It's about not thinking. It's about pulling up to a drive through window, taking the box of meat that the cashier gives you, and popping meat round after meat round into your drooling little mouth. Sounds gross, right? But oh no - it's so good.

Later in college, it was boil-in-a-bag chicken tikka marsala (I got that in England - you can't get the same thing in the states). Don't think, just boil - soooo good. (It really was.) Then after college, it was burger king at my work cafeteria; sure, you could get the veggie patty there, but it's so easy (and delicious) to just say, "Number one with cheese." In later life, it's been the ease of sticking something in the crockpot or oven or george forman grill - pot roast, chicken breasts, meaty steaks - they're all a lifesaver on a busy evening, and so effortlessly they transform from frozen blocks to delicious meals. You don't have to look up recipes or pick up produce - sometimes you don't even have to chop an onion. You just stick it in, pull it out, and it's done.

But the trouble is, once you start to think about your food, it's hard to stop again. This is what got me moving (slouching, crawwwwwling) toward vegetarianism in the first place - I was sitting, unsuspecting, in a science class one day and learned that our current system of meat production is environmentally unsustainable. Just like that - like it was nothing - I learned that our meaty way of life cannot be sustained. It fills the environment with methane; it destroys the value and the loveliness of our land; and, of course, it causes the lives of countless animals to be cruel, brutish, and short.

But it's not just that kind of thinking that keeps me trying to be a vegetarian. I also think about the great foods I never, ever would have discovered had I not been trying. I recently had a Hempnut burger at Jack of the Wood in Asheville. Would I have ever tried a food by this description were I not trying to be a vegetarian? Would anyone? I gotta say, I doubt it. But it was not only the best non-meat burger I've ever tasted, it was, for me on that day, better than a burger ever would have been. It was delicious. It was great. That's the kind of slightly scary discovery that can happen when you start to think about your food.

So, starting this week, I've set myself a goal of eating meat three times a week - the equivalent of one day of meat per week. Is this doable for me, the chicken nuggets queen? I'm not sure yet - but it's easier than going cold turkey. And I think if I can do it, and if everyone could someday do it, we might suddenly find that we've moved from a meat industry where sustainability is impossible and cruelty is a way of life, to one where sustainability and harmony are natural and cruelty unnecessary.

I'll keep the blog posted on my progress.

Those reusable bags that are piled in my trunk....

OK, so another fad in green living is the reusable grocery bag. You know the ones that sit at the ends of the grocery isles. And the ones you bought that are sitting in your trunk that you remember as you come to get in line with a full cart...and then you feel guilty and think about buying a whole new set...

And they are not just at the grocery store. They are everywhere. You can even get them with the name of your favorite sports team. I just bought one for my sister at my favorite LOCALLY OWNED retailer, Lily Jane. It is made by Bungalow 360 and is a great sturdy bag. Much sturdier than the cheapies at the store (with a price tag to reflect that). There are even silk shopping bags for the stars with a very hefty price tag of $943. Yikes!

So how much good do these little numbers do? Well just as you suspected, one or two bags do not end global warming...and if they sit in your trunk they do no good at all. But if we use them, do they do good? NPR had an interesting story on this. One thing that really stood out to me was a statement that in the end, only 1% of the environmental impact of a grocery trip is in the bags. About 7% is in the packaging of all the other items in the basket, and 90% of the impact is in products themselves.

So the bottom line is, yes, use reusable shopping bags. They are good for you! But every now and again skip 'em so that you don't have to buy bags to scoop the kitty litter in or to put in your bathroom trash can. Also, if you do use bags, make sure they make it to a trash can or preferably a recycle bin. Don't let them float around and get stuck in a tree somewhere...that is so tacky! :) And if you spend big bucks on them, don't think that this is money invested into the environment...a silk shopping bag is all about the look. But a sturdy canvas bag will actually last longer, so it may be a good investment.
THis one is a little number I made from an old t-shirt. Not so great to look at, but works well and is the ultimate way to repurpose something old to do something good.

Reduce Reuse Recycle Repeat!!

Stop it!

This is a campaign that I really like...it catches the eye and is profound in its simplicity. Stop it. Stop litter. So simple, and yet, why can't we do it.

But you know what I realized this year...we are ALL litter bugs. I mean, I turned 30 this year and I like to think now that I am absolved of all sins of comission or omission committed in my twenties. And in my twenties I did not think much about the problem of trash. But everytime we throw a bag away, it is like creating a little timecapsule to be buried in the earth for future generations. Scary huh? I guess I had the idea that all that stuff would "rot" and be gone after a few years in the trash dump. But no, turns out all that plastic pretty much preserves whatever is inside it forever! Ugh! So I am thinking a bit more about what I do with my trash!

So step 1 is easy: RECYCLE. And oh, I am ashamed at how easy it is! I already have to carry my trash to the conveneince center, so all recycling means for me is sorting some of my trash before taking it. And it is amazing how much space this gives you in your trash bags! If you don't throw anything stinky away, they last about twice as long in the kitchen can. I have just stuck a second can outside for plastics, glass, and cans. Also, this month I finally got a box for paper. So now I am set. I am really happy because my husband has gotten into it too! It thrilled my heart the first day he called to me holding a plastic bottle of some kind and said, "Isn't this recyclable? Where do I put it?" I am thrilled not because my husband is some kind of bum that I have to drag around on stuff, it made me happy because he was choosing to do this recylcing thing with me, and when we both decide to do something we are a powerful force. But when one of us is not on board our behavior tends to "resent to baseline" as I say at work.

Anyway, so we have gotten step one down. Step two is of course to minimize the stinkiness of the trash in the can by composting. I have not made it quite to that level, but I have started throwing food trash over the hill into the bramble a little ways from our house. That is the benefit of country living. But I have been reading some stuff on growing my own food, and composting can really help that process, so I am going to work on getting it set up over the winter so that I have some good compost started for Spring. Here is one instructional site about composting. This site says that 30% of waste comes from compostable yard and kitchen stuff. Man, what if everyone had a hill to chuck that stuff over, it would really reduce our trash! But also, compost is actually a valuable resource, so by putting in our plastic bags and burying it with our trash, it cannot be used for anything and is wasted!

So back to the issue of trash. I found a great blog that comments on the trash of Nashville. It is called "The Earth is Not a Trash Can" and she takes pictures of and comments on trash around town that she finds. She also includes informative articles and commentary. And it is important that places like Nashville think about the trash problem now, while there is no crisis, versus waiting until a crisis looms, like in places like Long Island New York or Naples, Italy.
Picking up trash and recylcing that trash or our own trash is a small first step to helping our world. Also, think about your trash. Is there someone who can use what you are about to throw away? Can it be fixed? Can it, or parts of it, be recylced? Could you use it for a few more months? Can it be flattend so that it takes up less space in the landfill? Just a few small ways we can do something good for our world.

Got any trash tips to add? I think you will see more posts on the issue of trash in the future, but this is just a start.

NOT green, but VERDANT

Verdant... it means living, growing, green. So I am trying to go Verdant, not just green. Why? Why go verdant when everyone is going green? Well, the reason is, that I want to cut through the lies that have become the "green" movement. And I want to find a livable way to care for the environment with eyes wide open to what is going on in our world.

When I say the lies of the green movement, I mean that terms like "green" and "natural" have been hijacked by everyone from the makers of cleaning supplies to cell phone covers. And it becomes hard to tell what is just marketing and what is actually going to help the environment. And sometimes we spend hundreds of dollars on supposed "green" items when we can do things that are more important to the environment by making small and free changes right in our own home.

The second issue is that these life changes have to be possible. We have to determine what is important to do and then find good ways to do it. I plan to take a real world look at the issues that face us daily and give some inspiration and encouragement about how we can be better to the environment.

So I am going to try to cut through this crazy maze and find small ways that we can all live a little more verdantly each and every day.