Link Roll

Here are a bunch of interesting articles in the New York Times online:

One Country's Table Scraps, Another Country's Meal: how much food do YOU throw away?

The 100-Mile Diet: a couple lives on only what grows within 100 miles of their home in Canada for a year, and writes a book about it.

The Year Without Toilet Paper: a NYC couple's experiment in living eco-consciously in the city

Greening Up By Cutting Down on Plastic Bags: many states are considering legislation to reduce or outlaw plastic bags in large grocery stores and pharmacies.

The Compact: an eco-living blog about going beyond recycling in our efforts to combat climate change

Making Soup... how my brain works

I started talking with a friend recently about health, eating, etc. I sent him an e-mail to give him an idea of how my brain works when it comes to food, I thought it was kind of funny and thought I would post it here:


To give you an idea as to how crazy I am about foods/cooking

I like to buy locally grown or made as often as possible. Organic too. I like supporting local economy. Organic insures no nasty chemicals will be in my food (which I feel attributes to many illnesses, cancers, etc) Local stuff also means less pollution in transport.


I bought lots of radishes yesterday at the farmer's market and of course had lots of the greens attached to them. What to do with the greens? I hate wasting food (have you noticed in the past, lol, like when we take your leftovers to feed the chickens?) *GOOGLE* !!!

I found a recipe for Radish Top Soup.

So, melt butter (I wish I had some cream from our friends with the cow to make my own butter *adds to my to do list* I don't agree with farming methods for meat and diary cows, they live a shitty life and I don't like to support that, plus I think it's nasty and unhealthy for us) I saute locally grown onions. In another pot I have chicken stock (organic from Food Lion, I couldn't get a locally raised chicken yesterday to make my own stock, will do that this weekend) Locally grown potatoes are cooking in it with a bit of sea salt. The radish tops get added to the onions in the butter. Then this gets mixed into the potatoes in the stock. This all gets blended to make a smooth soup - I'll add some heavy cream (again, I wish I had some cream from our friend's cow...) I have some organic black peppercorns I order online from Mountain Rose Organics that I grind fresh in a little coffee grinder and will add to the soup. If the soup is pretty good, I'll freeze some and make another pot of it for later in the year or for days when I am too lazy to cook! We actually just got a chest freezer from Chef Bruce which I am excited about!


So, yea, I am a bit fanatic about food *L* It's never as simple as "just soup" for me

Use a chest refrigerator, save electricity

Chest freezers are dramatically more efficient than their upright counterparts, simply because cold sinks and heat rises. When you open a chest freezer, the cold air stays inside. When you open an upright freezer, the cold air flows out like lava.

So why hasn't anyone applied this idea to refrigerators? Refrigerators use up to 1/3 of all household electricity (!!), so changing your fridge's efficiency can drastically impact your electricity bill.

One Australian got tired of waiting for a commercial product to be made and decided to modify a chest freezer into a chest fridge him/herself. The site sells kits to do this, although unfortunately they are designed for 220/240 volts.

Alternately, you could do the same thing with a refrigerator thermostat (often sold for turning chest freezers into beer keg coolers). I might just have to try this...

Book: The World Without Us

Have you ever wondered how big an impact humanity has had on the planet? How long will it take to recover after humans die out? What will be left of us for future civilizations (or alien explorers) to find?

These are the questions explored by Alan Weisman in his book The World Without Us. He explores collapsed civilizations and abandoned towns. He visits interesting places all over the globe, from an ancient forest in eastern Europe to shrinking wildlife preserves in Africa to a giant whirlpool filled with garbage in the middle of the ocean. Throughout his explorations, he hypothesizes about what would happen if humans disappeared from the planet tomorrow.

I am not doing it justice, but it is really fascinating stuff. I'm not quite done yet, but I definitely recommend this book.

A use for those yogurt containers! Hooray!

I no longer have to ship my yogurt containers back to my mother in Wisconsin to recycle for me!

From the Museum of Life and Science website (Durham, NC):
"Recently, the animal department has teamed up with TERRACYCLE implementing a recycling program. TERRACYCLE takes items that normally cant be recycled and re-uses them. That benefits the environment and the animal department, because for each item that we recycle, the department gets money."

Museum of Life + Science: Animal Department Blog: Put YOUR pouch to good use

Baby-safe dinnerware

Again, with the baby stuff! Does anyone have suggestions for baby-safe dinnerware? Everything out there seems to be made of plastic, and I don't want to put hot (or warm) food on plastic bowls and plates. I'm using Bambu-brand silverware, and have one bamboo bowl, but I'd love to find some small, food-safe plates. Also, ideally, I would find something reasonably priced, since we'll probably be pretty hard on them (on sale, plates like this are still around $15.00 apiece). I'm thinking of sticking velcro to the bottom of them (once I find some) to keep them sort of stuck to the highchair. The veneerware stuff out there, just doesn't seem durable. Although, it is really cute!

Other ideas?

moth-free clothes storage

Now that spring has sprung, it's time to put away all those wool sweaters (at least if you live in a climate like mine!). Before you pack them, make sure your sweaters are completely clean. Moths are drawn to any organic material, such as grease or food residues.

Instead of using stinky, toxic chemical moth repellents, try tucking sachets of dried lavender in with your sweaters to keep moths at bay. Lavender flowers can often be bought from the bulk bins at local health food stores. To make cheap and easy sachets, buy reusable cloth teabags (often sold, conveniently enough, next to the bulk herbs) to fill with lavender flowers.

Glass containers

Circling back to an earlier discussion, which is suddenly even more relevant in light of the BPA scandal, I found some cheap, airtight glass containers for sale on the internet. They are freezer-safe and microwave-safe, are tough enough to withstand dropping, and they claim to be "safe against environmental hormone." They come in sizes from 400ml/13.5oz (for $3.50) to 1900ml/64.25oz (for $7.50).

Bisphenol-A Free Portal: http://www.bisphenolafree.org/

I'm so glad that this is making mainstream news, finally! Last summer, when I told folks that they should stop using Avent bottles, they looked at me like I was crazy. I'm a little crazy, for sure, but I was right about this! Anyway, check out this site for information about Bisphenol-A, and especially the "Smart Plastics Guide."

Oh, and you might want to stop eating canned foods, too.