Garden update

Our garden is doing awesome. We ate the first salad from our garden last night and it was so good. In the picture on the left you can see from front to back: spinach, swiss chard, lettuce, herbs (dill, parsley, cilantro), sweet basil, peppers, jalepeno peppers, peas. In the picture on the right from back to front: tomatoes and sunflowers on the right hand side, then broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts (if you think you hate them, you have never had them fresh--they are so good!), peas, carrots, strawberries (we got to eat 3 before the crows got to them), more tomatoes (romas, slicing, cherry), butternut squash, pumpkins, yellow summer squash, cantalope and the giant monstrosity there would be zukes. Oh, and a very sad, very tiny little eggplant next to the squashes. I've been told eggplant isn't very easy to grow around here, so I wasn't surprised when it didn't grow too well. Not bad for people who have no idea what they are doing, right? The only thing we don't have, but probably need to get in there right away is cukes. Elsie loves to help weed and plant. And a big secret is that kids love to eat veggies they helped grow.

Chemical cleaners

I emailed OXO because that is who made my travel coffee mug. I wanted to know what kind of plastic it was, and they emailed me back and said this:

Laura,

There is no PVC in any of our food prep products. The interior of the
mug is made from Polypropylene.


Thank you,

OXO Consumer Care Center

So that would be #5. I'm glad to know it. I think its important that we let companies know that we are concerned about the way products are made.

I've been having a little slippage on the packaging front. I have found myself buying things that come in less-than-optimal packaging, such as those that cannot be reused or recycled. Our garbage amount hasn't increased a lot, but I still need to remind myself constantly about what I do and don't need to buy, and what alternatives there are. In the store yesterday, I almost bought two boxes of cereal because they were on sale, but then I changed my mind and bought the big bag of cereal that doesn't have a box instead. The bag still can't be recycled, but its better than twice the packaging.

So I have rid our house at this point of all "harsh", unnatural cleaning products. I really believe that anything can be cleaned with dilute vinegar. Anything that can't be cleaned with vinegar can be cleaned with baking soda. If that doesn't do it, vinegar AND baking soda will, or try using some Doctor Bronners soaps. They are REAL soap, not petroleum by-products. All the ingredients are now organic and fair trade. They have 18 or more uses when diluted including hand soap, dish soap, laundry soap, toothpaste, shampoo, carpet cleaner, all-purpose cleaner, etc. Its like the only cleaner you need. I personally wouldn't use it for toothpaste, though. It tastes gross. Baking soda works great for that. Here is a website with a list of recipes for safe, environmentally friendly cleaners for every use. Try the recipes out! Its cheaper than buying commercially-made products, too.

I got really freaked out by something I read about carpet cleaner. The last chemical cleaner I had was soap for our carpet shampooer (god, i wish our landlord would rip out that nasty carpet and put in some kind of hard flooring!!!!!!) and i cleaned our carpet with it, then read this thing about how carpet shampoo is horribly toxic to young children. Better for Emmett to eat dirt and dog hair off our carpet than eat that shampoo! Its horrible to think about. So i will now just put Dr Bronners in our carpet shampooer when we steam the carpet.

This website is really awesome--its where I found out about that carpet shampoo thing. Its called Children's Health Environmental Coalition (CHEC)
They talk about mitigating environmental risks for children in your house and outside of it. I could spend a long time looking at that website, as well as their parent website http://healthychild.org/ Even if you don't have kids, it has a lot of information about how to green up your house and lifestyle so you don't give yourself cancer when you are cleaning or eating.

Line-dry

Sometimes we dry our clothes on a rack like this. We also strung a rope between our fences in the back to line-dry that way.

Why I love to line-dry my clothes:
1. It saves energy
2. It saves money
3. It sanitizes and bleaches. It even bleaches out old stains. It works amazingly well.
4. The clothes smell "mountain fresh" without using a nasty detergent labeled "mountain fresh".
5. It is exercise, and satisfying manual labor (why do we let machines do our work, then pay for a gym membership to go burn energy on a machine?)
6. Elsie likes to help out.
7. It makes things last longer--it reduces wear and tear.

Garbage update

Today we are setting out our 32 gal garbage can for the first time since May 10. I'm not totally sure that we even set it out on May 10, but since we have definitely gone over a month at this point, we have easily reached our goal of only setting it out once per month.

The three recycle bins we have are for paper, plastic/aluminum/tin, and a separate one for glass. Almost all of our waste has gone into these bins (we have been setting them out weekly still).

So what is in that garbage can? What is not?

What is NOT in our garbage can: any recyclable container (plastic, even those that aren't curbside-able, we take to New Seasons to recycle--things like soy yogurt tubs, tofu tubs, etc.), glass, any paper product, any disposable item (save for the last of elsie's disposable pull-ups, we use hankies instead of kleenex, no paper towels, napkins, plates, no pads/tampons, etc), any food waste, any pet poo or cat litter (those get buried), any reusable item (such as margarine tubs that can be used as tupperware, plastic bags that can get re-filled at the bulk bin), any plastic bags (any we don't re-use have been recycled).

What IS in there, then? Plastic bags that are not reusable, such as those in boxes of cereal. I have really minimized my consumption of these things. However, we shop at a food liquidator because it is very, very cheap, and most of those products are packaged. So that is where those things came from. Pet food bags are in there--they aren't recyclable and there is no alternative. Bulk dog food doesn't work (we'd need to buy the whole bin). I guess we could make our own dog food but...yeah. I'm not quite there yet. Some disposable items that i can't find an alternative to such as Q-tips (any ideas?) , Lids to containers that are recyclable (you can't recycle glass jar lids, plastic tub lids, etc.) There is probably some other stuff in there that I am forgetting.

I want to try to go a month and a half before we set it out again...

Fake Plastic Trees

So I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago, who was telling me about plastic products and how some of them are being shown to contain Very Scary Chemicals. I had heard about this in regards to baby bottles, but didn't pay much attention since my kids never really had bottles. Well, I have since also gone to the pediatrician (anyone who is counting out there, Emmett is still like 93rd percentile for weight, weighing in at 20 lbs 11 oz at 6 months) and she was mentioning the plastics thing again. I have been confused, but now I know the deal, and so I am going to share it with you.

I heard a story on NPR the other day about plastic water bottles. A shocking and sad statistic is that only 23% of these individual-portion water bottles get recycled. And these bottles, recycled, are just as valuable as the first-run versions! Everyone wants these recycled bottles. It is sad when there is such a demand for a post-consumer recycled product, but nobody is recycling it. Well, people shouldn't buy their water in freaking little bottles, either. I mean, really! You can bring a bottle with you and re-fill it, or if you don't like tap water, fill it at home. Bottled water is the biggest rip-off ever. Brands like Aquafina and Dolsane (or whatever they are called--the coke and pepsi bottled waters) aren't even "spring" water. They are just purified tap water. If you really can't do tap, then buy it in huge, re-fillable 10 gallon jugs. You can even get it delivered! I, myself, like tap water.

Ok, so back to the thing about how plastics are scary. Here is the deal: many plastics contain a chemical called Bisphenol-A or BPA. This chemical is an endocrine-disrupting hormone that probably causes cancer, early puberty, developmental delays in children, etc. There is evidence that this chemical leeches into foods we eat or liquids we drink from the plastics that contain it. But there is good news! Not all plastics contain it. Sadly, almost all baby bottles and sippy cups do. So the most vulnerable among us are the ones getting it. What is wrong with people? Why are we putting Scary Cancer-Causing chemicals in baby bottles?

So here is the break-down. Look at the bottom of your plastic cup, tupperware container, or sports bottle. If it is a #7, it probably contains BPA and you should get rid of it. THIS INCLUDES NALGENES. I know, i know. Its sad and horrible. We all thought lexan was the greatest thing ever. Plus, all those healthy people carry their Nalgenes with them wherever they go. But they are not safe. Especially not for hot liquids. I cringe when I recall that i have put coffee in mine on more than one occasion. #7 plastics are ok if they are labeled "bio-based" plastic.

There are several other kinds of plastics we should not use. We should not buy them because they should not be made. We do not want these Scary Chemicals in our environment, in our children's bodies. It is unacceptable to use these chemicals, and the makers need to know that.

#3 plastics: Bad. contains DEHA (di(2-ethylhexyl)adipate) which is known to cause liver cancer. With a name like that, you know you shouldn't be using it! Also found in cling-wrap. Don't use cling wrap. Especially don't microwave it! This chemical is now found in our air, food, water and bodies. Not ok. #3 is also PVC or polyvinylchloride. This is a bad, bad thing. We do not want PVC in our lives. If your children's toys contain PVC, please do them a favor and get rid of them.

#6 plastics: Bad. Contain styrene which is toxic to the brain and nervous system.

Again #7 plastics, Bad. So many studies show this. Get rid of it. Don't buy it.

Go look at your child's sippy cup. If it says #3, 6, or 7, get rid of it and replace with:

Plastics #1, #2, #4 and #5 are all OK. No known endocrine-disrupters. No cancer. They are still plastics, but they are less evil than the other ones.

If you need alternative sippy-cup sources, please check out this great blog article on the subject. There is also a company called "Born Free" that is making BPA-free bottles and sippy cups. I'm too lazy to google it. You do it! If you aren't sure because it isn't labeled, this quick test will let you know whether your stuff contains BPA--is it hard and clear? Or is it squishy or soft-ish and cloudy? If it is hard and clear (think colored Nalgene) it contains BPA.

Here is a full article about which plastics are ok and which aren't and more info on why they aren't ok.

While you are at it, get rid of your teflon pots and pans. Teflon is also a Scary Cancer-Causer.

We are slowly replacing everything teflon with stuff that is stainless steel. We are getting rid of all plastic things and using glass, stainless steel or the safer plastics.

DIY (Do it yourself)

Wikipedia defines DIY as "a term used by various communities that focus on people creating things for themselves without the aid of paid professionals. Many DIY subcultures explicitly critique consumer culture, which emphasizes that the solution to our needs is to purchase things, and instead encourage people to take technologies into their own hands.

The actual activity of DIY goes back through the ages--since the beginning of time, people have used their own abilities and available tools and technologies to take care of their own needs, make their own clothing, and so on."

Doing things yourself often saves time, resources and money. Well, sometimes it doesn't save time, but it cuts down on waste and definitely is cheaper! My top eight list of things to DIY:

1. Buy grains and beans in bulk. Soak beans in water before cooking. Beans bought this way are SO cheap. Way cheaper than beans in a can. Buy all foods possible in their raw form. You have a lot more packaging and expense when you buy a box of rice-a-roni vs. just buying a big bag of rice.

2. Make your own cleaners. I'm going to post a list of recipes sometime soon. Basically, you can make a cleaner for anything out of vinegar and baking soda. You can make your own bathroom cleaner, laundry soap, shampoo, toothpaste, dish soap, etc. Its incredibly cheap and so much better for the environment than those horrible chemical cleaners. Bleach is the worst. Please, please do not use bleach. It is an endocrine-disrupting dioxin that has a very long half-life. It is horrible for human health and the environment. There are many alternatives to chlorine bleach.

3. Cutting your family's hair. With a little practice, you get pretty good. Jay has had to wear a baseball hat for a few days, but that is rare. Especially for little kids, a homemade hair cut is the best!

4. Grow your own food. Even if you don't have space, you can rent a community garden plot in most cities, or you can container garden with tomatoes, peppers, herbs, etc.

5. Make as much of your own food from scratch as possible. Making your own bread is so rewarding and fun. It only takes about 10 minutes of your actual time, the yeast do the rest. Cook from scratch as much as you can. For example, we make our own seitan (wheat meat), salad dressings, etc. Many things can be made in advance, then frozen or dried for later use.

6. Handcrafts. The best gifts are home-made and will be cherished for a long time. Things like sewing, quilting, knitting, clay/ceramics, crochet, woodwork, etc.

7. Car repairs. Some car repairs are pretty simple and you save yourself hundreds of dollars. Get a manual for your car off e-bay. You can at least change your own oil.

8. Home repairs/home improvement. I'll admit, I'm not the most knowledgeable about this topic, never having owned a home. But i've been told that with some good books and perhaps a class or two, it is very do-able.

Eating out...

In response to my brother Jason's question re: eating out and waste:
I think eating out produces a lot of waste, but that totally depends on where you are eating. Remember in "Supersize Me" when he showed how much garbage is made from a fast food meal? fast food and other highly packaged stuff is obviously very wasteful. There are ways to minimize your waste. for example, if you go to a burrito place, just have it wrapped in tin foil (which can be recycled). forgo the paper napkins, paper bag, plastic cutlery, plastic tub of salsa, etc.

The worst kind of eating-out containers are those big plastic boxes that can't be recycled. Ask for an "asian" style take out box. you can recycle the paper, just not the metal handle. As for eating-in a restaurant, it depends on the restaurant. Many restaurants are pretty efficient: they buy 50 lb bags of rice, 5 gallon jars of tomatoes, etc. They aren't (usually) opening like 50 16 oz cans a night. If you are eating off of normal plates, forks, knives, etc. Then you are probably not generating too much waste. The food, however, is probably (definitely, unless they specifically say it is) not organic, not local. Its mass-produced food from giants like ADM, etc.

Some places, like Burgerville, really try to get local ingredients. This doesn't necessarily translate into sustainable (ie, "local" beef, is still a huge waste of resources). You can always ask where the food comes from. You know, vote with your dollars.

How the man likes to keep us down

Maybe this blog should be called "it's getting more difficult all the time" because sometimes that is what it seems like.

We just found out a few days ago that our health insurance premium is increasing $30 every month. I just love it when my insurance company sends me a letter: "just to let you know..." There's nothing you can do about it. Except go without health insurance. The kids and I don't get coverage through Jay's work, so we have to buy it privately. Nice, huh? I am not the only person that thinks that our health care system (or lack thereof) is going to destroy the middle class. A survey of people who filed bankruptcy in 2001 and again in 2005 showed that a full half filed because of a serious medical problem. Of those that filed because of health problems, 75% had health insurance. That is how sucky our health insurance problems are. Even if you are covered, if you get really sick, you are SOL. If you don't have a job that pays for insurance, you are screwed as well. Or maybe your boss just doesn't think they should have to shell out for your wife and kids. I'm personally really looking forward to Michael Moore's new movie about our pathetic health care system.

Then, today, we found out that our landlord is increasing our rent $100. That would be a 12% increase. Way more than inflation. And its not like this represents some increase in costs for them. They just want to make more money. Meanwhile, people like us struggle.

Oh, and PGE has announced that electricity rates are going up.

These aren't like luxury items. One kind of needs a roof over one's head. Portland used to be a very affordable city, but I guess that is about to change. Lord knows the houses to buy are way too expensive for the average first-time home buyers now. Basic items like food, shelter and health insurance are becoming expensive at a rate much faster than pay can keep up. Its just another way that people get stuck on the debt treadmill. What was congress' response to this problem? Make it harder, impossible really, for people to use their last resort: bankruptcy. People who have to do this are treated like deadbeats, but really, half of them just got sick.

Its just all so annoying. Sometimes I swear, I wish I didn't have to live in this society. If anyone out there says "love it or leave it!" I will say: ok, leave it. I'm sick of america and its stupid problems that nobody will do anything about. blah! can you tell that i am in a bad mood about all of this? Maybe I should go bomb somebody to make myself feel better. I hear Iran might make a good target.

Top 10 lists

Top 10 best things we have done to simplify and reduce our impact so far...(if you want more info on how to do these things, go back and read the earlier posts in May)

1. Drastically reduced our waste.
we have yet to put the garbage out to the curb. in fact, we had one 13 gallon kitchen garbage can unfilled for over 2 weeks. much of this garbage was stuff from before we started all this. there were a few things that went in there that could have been minimized: two food take-out containers, some wrappers, etc. But I have made a very conscious effort not to buy anything that comes in packaging that can't be reused or recycled. I have only used bulk bin plastic bags (over and over), glass jars, tin cans, plastic bottles and tubs that are recyclable. We have to take our #2 and #5 plastic tubs (like margarine tubs) to the store, because they can't be recycled at the curb. I haven't bought anything like crackers or cereal that come in a bag in a box. It hasn't been as hard as I thought. sometimes, it just comes down to "i am not going to buy this" because of its packaging. I have never done that before, so it is something I have to think about consciously.

2. Re-going vegan. The lower you eat on the food chain, the less you pollute, the less carbon you emit, the less waste you produce.

3. Not buying anything new. We haven't (other than those cloth diaper covers for elsie and the computer router that jay got). The amount of stuff we consume is destroying the earth. Plus, i've gotten some killer deals at garage sales lately!

4. Drastically reducing our energy consumption with a few very simple changes: line-drying laundry, washing laundry in cold water, using compact fluorescent bulbs for all lights, leaving things off when not in use (even if you just are out of the room for a short time). these things really make a difference.

5. Not buying anything disposable. No more paper towels, paper plates, napkins, tampons/pads (check out the Diva cup, Moon Cup or Keeper for more info. there are also lots of cloth/reusable pads out there), very little T.P thanks to "family cloth", no juice boxes, no individually-wrapped granola bars. Nothing that you just use once and then throw out.

6. Switching our household energy to green power.

7. Reducing our use of the car. We are working on selling the old car. We are using the bus and walking a lot more. We are grouping our trips together, and meal-planning so we only have to food shop once a week.

8. Stopping the junk mail.

9. Composting all food waste.

10. Localizing our food. I have made a big effort to not buy any produce from further away than Washington, California, and in a few instances, Mexico. Almost everything has been organic. We are also getting really excited about our garden, which is already growing so fast. In just a few weeks we will be eating our own zucchini, lettuce and tomatoes. I can't wait! Some things are just insane: don't buy apples from new zealand. Don't buy pine nuts from china (i think they ALL come from china). Don't buy turkish apricots--they really are from Turkey! We have enough food choices without shipping food across the globe.

Top Six Things That Have Been the Hardest...
1. Reducing use of the car. Sometimes, I want to take the bus, but its such an effort I just can't do it. Getting two kids and our stuff on the bus, especially if we need to transfer, walk a long distance, etc. Is just too much for me. Just a trip across town, a 45 minute bus ride, is scary to contemplate with two kids in tow. We are looking for a bike trailer, but I'm not really comfortable with Emmett riding in it for long distances. Our entire country has been set up with one thing in mind: the car. It is hard to imagine living without one. But we have reduced our use and become more efficient with it.

2. Not buying food from far away. Sometimes, you just don't know where food comes from. Maybe it was "made" in california or something, but where are the ingredients from? Unless you write to the company, you can't know. They probably don't even know, because it probably changes. It makes it pretty hard to buy some things local, like crackers, pasta or things like that.

3. Not making waste. Not making any waste would mean never, ever buying some things again. Maybe some day I can give up things like crackers (or maybe I could make my own?), certain kinds of cereal, etc. I have stopped shopping at Trader Joe's. They only have a few things that meet my criteria now. Almost everything there is completely over-packaged. It just makes my skin crawl to buy bell peppers in a non-recyclable plastic container with a styrofoam tray under it. What I need to do is write to companies and ask them to reduce their packaging. Why does cereal have to come in a bag in a box? It's so unnecessary.

4. Not buying "stuff". Although we haven't been shopping at the mall or anything, we have picked things up at garage sales and goodwill. I still feel the desire to consume stuff. To "solve" a problem with buying. I think I am done for a long while, but it seems like sometimes I just feel the need to buy something. I think we are conditioned to do this.

5. The difficulty with vegan vs. our goals/the environment. Sometimes, to be vegan, you need a certain product that you can't get just anywhere. What if that product is overpackaged (a LOT of vegan things have really awful packaging that is unnecessary or not recyclable, etc.) Some days I feel really restricted. I try to remind myself that I have so many choices and so much privilege that we think we are entitled to things, when really we are just used to them. So i can do without.

6. Taking short showers. Ok, so I love to take long showers. But I'm working on it, really! I justify it because now that I have two kids I only get to shower like twice a month. Ok, not really, that's an exaggeration. Four times a month, at least.

I'm also a bread-machine

So I made bread on Friday. I've always thought that bread must be pretty hard to make. But I'm a novice and I did it, and it turned out pretty well. It doesn't take very much time. It needs time to rise, but the mixing and stuff is pretty easy. I got the recipe from an old hippie 70's vegetarian cookbook called Laurel's Kitchen. Its actually a great cookbook, back from the days when there were no fake meat products and vegetarians ate foods in combination (to form complete proteins such as corn and beans, rice and beans, etc. as per Diet for A Small Planet) a practice that has been proven to be unnecessary. But it still has great recipes. The introduction to the cookbook, which I had never read until now, talks about all of the things this blog is about. It talks about the need to reduce consumption, and to live more simple, fulfilling lives. It talks about the life of a "housewife" and how it could be interesting and creative (ie, making your own bread, knitting, etc) or dull drudgery such as using a bunch of machines. I just thought it was interesting.

I tried to find a similar recipe to what I used online, but couldn't find anything. Basically, all you need is a tbsp of brown sugar in a bowl of 2.5 cups (i think...i need to double check the amount) 100 degree water. then add a tbsp of active yeast. Then when it fizzes, add 3 cups whole wheat flour (stoneground is healthiest) and mix. add a tbsp of salt. then add 3 more cups of the flour, one cup at a time. when it gets doughy, take it out and put it on a floured surface and knead it. then put it in the bowl to rise. cover it and let it sit for a few hours until it doubles in size. take it out, put it in two oiled bread pans (divide it in half) and really push it down into those pans so there isn't any air trapped. then let it rise once more. preheat oven to 375. when its all the way risen and the oven is warmed fully, bake it for 40 minutes. it should have a hollow sound when you tap it after taking it out. that's about it.