Grow your own food May 23, 2008

I’ve written about victory gardens before, so I don’t feel like I need to write too much on my second goal for responsible eating again.  Plus, I’m trying to get a handle on the fact that No Impact Man linked to me in his blog today, and I’ve officially had more hits today than I had in the whole first three months I wrote this blog (for the record, its been almost 4 months I’ve been writing it now).  I mean, wow!  That’s a lot of hits for one day.  And I think it means No Impact Man reads my blog.  Eeeeee!  That’s a girlish squeal, for those of you who don’t know.  I usually only make those noises in emails with my friend Jeff, but I think today my blog needs one.

Okay, so lets go over the fine points of growing your own food, bullet point style (because I like bullet points).

• The price of food is going up because the price of fuel is going up, so its in our best financial interest to reduce the distance our food has to travel to get to us.  There’s nothing closer than your back yard/porch or local community plot.  The price of fuel is also going up because of ethanol (but I’ll blog about that later) and increased meat production doesn’t help (I blogged about that yesterday).
• In addition to hurting your wallet, food that’s traveled a long distance is bad for the environment, for obvious reasons.
• Conventionally grown food is also terrible for the environment, it pumps a ton of petrochemicals into our soil and water (and petrochemical use, because it uses up our dwindling oil supply, increases the cost of gas, which increases the cost of food, see my blog on Peak Oil).  What ends up in our soil and water eventually ends up in us.  Not to mention how those chemicals are directly on the food that we eat!  But organic is so expensive.  Its much cheaper to grow your own organic produce!
• Conventionally grown food is responsible in part for a lot of starvation in the world.  This is a really complicated issue, so for right now I’m only going to direct you to another resource where you can learn more.  Say No to GMOs  Promise to blog more on this later.
• Gardening is great exercise!
• Gardening is a great way to spend quality time with your kids and to teach them about community, health, science, and a variety of other amazing subjects!
• The food you grow is great for you!  And since you’ll have more of that healthy food just lying around, you’ll have less of a reason to snack on unhealthy, expensive, junk food.  Loose weight, keep grocery and health care costs down, and keep your kids strong and healthy, you can’t beat that with a stick.
• Gardening is a great way to connect with your local community, whether you’re gardening in a community plot or in your own yard.  Obviously, a community plot is very social, but a private garden in your own back yard (should you be lucky enough to have a back yard) can still be social because you’re probably going to have more fruits and veggies than you can eat and you can share them with friends and neighbors.
• If you’re involved in a community gardening project, there’s a good chance there’s going to be a man or two there who you know is into health, the environment and community.  And since he eats healthy and gardens, he’s probably going to have a good body.  I’m just saying.  If nothing else, they’ll at least be there for you to admire as they work, possibly without a shirt on.  What?  We’re single, we’re allowed to think these things.  Sheesh.

 I can’t think of anything else right now, but I think those reasons are awesome enough for us all to get started.

Why being green is so great for single moms May 3, 2008

Okay, so some of my readers may have noticed that I blog much more about living green than I do about being a single mom.  This is partially because I’ve been an environmentalist much longer than I’ve been a single mom.  I’ve only been a single mom five months now (a little over a year, if you count my pregnancy in there - I wasn’t single through my entire pregnancy), but ever since I first read 50 Simple Things a Kid Can Do to Save the Earth in the 1st grade I’ve been passionate about our planet.  I don’t remember who gave me that book, either.

But another reason why I blog more about living green than I do about being a single mother is because I believe the two subjects are inseparable.  That is to say, of all the people living green has the most benefits for, single mothers are near the top of the list (our kids, I’m afraid, hold the top slot).

There are two main reasons for this.  First, most single moms don’t want to stay single forever, and second, most single moms can use all the help they can get financially.  Living green helps you to get and stay in great shape, which (unfortunately, we live in a shallow society that values looks over personality, education, success and kindness - particularly in women) helps you out in the dating department.  And living green, if done correctly, is much cheaper than living whatever color not green is.  Brown, like smog?  I don’t know.

A few examples:

Biking and walking are great exercise.  And the more you bike and walk instead of driving, the more money you save on gas, maintenance for your car, and you help the car keep its value better by keeping miles off the car.

Growing some of your own food will save you butt loads in groceries, especially with food prices on the rise.  The more you grow, the more you save.  Plus, eating more of those home grown fruits and veggies means less junk food, and gardening, like biking, is great exercise.  And for those of you who don’t have yards, just about anything can be grown on a pot on your deck, or even indoors, and if that doesn’t work for you, look into community gardening opportunities, which helps you to get out and meet people, potentially single men, or people who can hook you up with single men.

Planting native grass seeds means less watering and maintainance, saving you money on utilities.  Mowing that lawn with a push mower is great exercise and saves you on fuel for a power motor.  Keeping that lawn small minimizes water useage even more, and minimizes your time mowing.

Avoiding plastics minimizes your exposure to BPA, which can mimic estrogen in your system and cause you to gain weight or make the baby weight more difficult to use.  Using natural alternatives to things like drier sheets, glass cleaner, lotion, etc., will reduce your exposure to pthaylates, which have similar affects.  I’ll talk more about natural alternatives later, because buying green brands can be more expensive, but there are ways to do it even more naturally and more cheaper.

Not to mention how much doing these things increases your childs health, sets a good example for them to be physically active, pleasantly social, socially responsible, and helps to leave them a world thats sill nice.  Because the most important thing to single mothers, more than not staying single or saving money, is the health, well being, and happiness of our children.