Ripping off other publications (with credit, so its not plagerism, right?) July 10, 2008

I read this today on the Yes Magazine website.  I think it is worth reposting and spreading around.

Has the cash economy swallowed up your life? Here are some ways to extract some of your time and “life energy” from the cash economy.

Reduce debt. If you can’t pay cash, don’t buy it. Practice being mindful about what you buy and why.

Do it yourself. Grow food, pick berries, can and preserve food, make wine, bake bread. Make or repair clothes, furniture, and gifts. Create your own entertainment. Walk, bike, run, or play basketball instead of joining a fitness club.

Share & Exchange. Take care of neighbor kids and elders. Play music, sing, act in local theater, write poems, hold art shows. Exchange haircuts for applesauce, bike repair for massage, language tutoring for babysitting.

Reduce waste & pollution. Weatherize your home or apartment. Reduce your car usage, or get rid of a car.

Buy local. Run buy-local campaigns, print stickers, publish or post a directory of local businesses. Acknowledge business owners who foster the well-being of the environment, employees, and the whole community. Convert public funds from luring outside corporations to supporting local businesses.

Start a new local business. Start a food market, credit union, wifi network, or even an electricity co-op. Explore ownership options like cooperatives, nonprofits, for-profits, or single proprietorships.

Buy Fair Traded when you buy imports. Vote with your dollar for a better world for all.

Wish me luck! June 17, 2008

This morning I opened my soy milk and found a little bit of mold growing on the spout.  I know its gross, but food isn’t cheap.  I wiped the mold out of the spout, and now I’m going to pour it on my cereal anyhow.  It doesn’t smell like its gone bad.

This is why I get food poisoning all the time.

For all of you crafty single moms out there June 13, 2008

Here is a site that gives you instructions for turning your old bras into nursing bras.  I am totally doing this.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Breastfeeding May 28, 2008

I want to say upfront that I’m not writing this in order to pass judgement on those who chose not to breastfeed (and certainly not on those rare women who cannot breastfeed). I just want to talk about the greenest, healthiest, cheapest and easiest way to feed your baby, for those of you who are still working out what you want to do.

My mom claimed that she had no trouble breastfeeding her children, and had no need of a lactation consultant or any advice. For all of the real women out there, I urge you to discuss nursing with any women you know who have nursed, with your doctor/midwife, and when you have your baby, with a lactation consultant. Also, check out a La Leche League meeting, even if you are still pregnant. There is loads of information and support there.

For most women, especially most women in industrialized, first world countries, there is a learning curve to breastfeeding. Its hard to get the baby in the right position, you’re not sure how to get them to latch on properly, it can hurt (it hurts more for some women than it does for others, it didn’t hurt too bad with me, for example, but I have friends who described excrutiating pain). But everyone tells you to hang in there for three weeks before you decide to give up, and they’re totally right. Three weeks seems to be the magic number, everything seems to fall into place after that.

All of the sudden, it just becomes the easiest thing ever.  I’m always amazed to hear women say, “breastfeeding was just too hard”.  Whats hard about it?  If given the choice when my son starts crying for food, do I want to get up, walk into the kitchen, warm up water, measure out formula, mix the formula, make sure its not too hot, then feed him, or do I just want to pull my boob out and stick it in his mouth.  Hmmmm.  Choice number two seems a lot easier to me.  And when I’m going out with my baby somewhere, I’ve got enough things to cart around.  I don’t want to be bringing bottles and crap too.  Afterall, I have to carry around my boobs no matter what.

A lot of women are aprehensive about breastfeeding in public, and I can sympathize.  At first, I went into bathrooms or tried to hide under a blanket too.  But eventually, I figured out how to keep pretty well covered up just by selecting certain clothing and holding my son a certain way.  Do people know what I’m doing?  Probably.  But who cares?  They can’t see anything, and if they think there is something obscene about feeding a baby, they are a pervert who needs to seek mental help and not push their repressed or guilty negativity on me and my son.  Those perverts are the ones who need to hide themselves away from society, not us mothers who are simply feeding our babies the healthiest food available to them.

Ease of use is probably my favorite thing about breastfeeding, but there are lots of other benefits.  First and foremost, you would have to be blind, deaf and living under a rock to not know that breastmilk is the best food for your baby.  Just nutritionally speaking, there is nothing on this planet that is better for babies.  In fact, numerous studies have linked formula to adverse health conditions such as asthma.  Breastmilk, on the other hand, has been linked to nothing but improved health.  I’m sure you’ve been inudated with information about it.  If not, you can surely find information on it anywhere where you can find information about being pregnant or raising a child.  Its everywhere.  And with all the benefits of breastmilk I have read about, I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t be drinking it.  Seriously.  The stuff is uber good for you.  Especially if you are a baby.

Not to mention, breastfeeding helps you to lose the baby weight.  It takes a lot of energy to make milk, which is why you have to eat more calories to maintain your milk production.  If you have a lot of baby weight to lose (like I do, 50 down, thirty more to go) you could, say, only add 400 extra calories to your daily diet, instead of the recommended 500, and watch the weight drop off.  The only time you will eat more than usual and still lose weight is during nursing.  Or if you have some sort of terminal disease.  I think we’d all rather nurse.

Furthermore, has anyone looked at the price of formula lately?  Its outrageously expensive.  Especially when you consider that there is a free alternative hanging off your chest.  Did I mention that alternative is better for the baby than formula is? 

Breastfeeding is awesome!  I love it!  Its a nice way to bond with and cuddle with my son, its the easiest and cleanest way to feed him, and at night, when he wakes up to eat, all I have to do is scoot him over, latch him on, and fall back asleep.  Easy as pie, doesn’t take more than a minute.  Thanks to breastfeeding and cosleeping (I’ll write about that later), I’ve been getting pretty much a full nights sleep every night since my son was two months old.

If nothing else, breastfeeding is super green, because theres no food thats more local than the milk strait from the tap.

Of course, going back to work can be challenging to breastfeeding.  Employers don’t always make it easy for you to pump, it can be difficult carting all the stuff for a pump around, and there’s no garunteeing that you will be able to pump as much as your baby needs (I can’t.  A pump is not as efficient at removing the milk from your breasts as a baby is, so you don’t get as much out with the pump.  Also, your milk production works on a supply and demand basis, and your body may adjust to making less during the work day, as mine has done.  We supplement with formula while he is in daycare during the day).  I encourage you to work through it.  I work through it because I know if I stop nursing, I’m going to have to cut a lot of calories out of my diet to lose the rest of this baby weight (and I love to eat).  Also, I like the time I spend with my son while nursing.

Here in Colorado, Gov. Ritter recently passed a law saying that employers have to provide a place other than a bathroom stall for nursing mothers to pump.  Check the laws in your state, there may be something similar.  If nothing else, continue nursing in the evenings.  Nursing is a special time between you and your baby, and it provides not only nutritional benefits, but also emotional benefits.

Well, it took me all day to write this post today, because I’ve been very busy at work.  Now its time for me to go and pick up my son from day care, so I can “feed him the boobie” as we like to say around my home.  If you have anything to add about breastfeeding, post it in the comments!

The rest of my responsible eating goals (because I can sum these up quickly) May 27, 2008

Organic vs. local.  What do you choose?  Personally, I don’t think it matters much, especially because around here its pretty easy to get food that is both organic and local.  But I chose to go for organic over local.  Why?  Well for one, I want to encourage as many people to adopt organic processes as possible, to preserve diversity, to keep toxins out of our soil, air and water, etc.  My other reasons are somewhat more selfish.  I just don’t want to be eating that crap.  Known and suspected carcinogens (that means they cause cancer), toxins, poisons, growth hormones, yuck!  These chemicals are blamed not only for massive amounts of environmental damage, but also for increased cancer rates, lowered fertility rates, increased risk of birth defects and miscarriage, increased weight gain, increased allergies, decreased immunity, the list goes on and on.  Its truly frightening.  I don’t want to be eating that crap, if I can avoid it, and I don’t want my son eating that crap.  I want grandchildren one day.

Plus, I know its awful, but I’m not giving up avocados until peak oil makes me.  I do try to avoid buying food, especially produce, that comes from outside the continental US.  Especially if its a food that’s in season here.  I remember last fall, before I had my son, going shopping for apples at the grocery store and being appalled at how many apples there were from South America.  Why?  Apples were in season.  Its not like they weren’t growing in the US at the time.  Anyway, buying local is about more than just the carbon footprint of the food we eat.  The further away food comes from, the greener it is when it is picked so that it gets ripe while it ships.  Fruit picked when its green just doesn’t taste as good, and there are less nutrients in it.  With the cost of food going up like it is, you might as well be focused on getting your money’s worth in taste and nutrition.

To ensure that I’m eating responsibly and healthily, I need to stop eating out so much too.  You really just don’t know what you’re getting when you eat out.  I don’t know if I mentioned eating out in my original responsible eating goals, but I’m mentioning it now because I’ve come to realize what a big deal it is.  It also costs a fortune.  Eating out should be reserved for special occasions, especially if you are a single mom.

Finally, packaging.  This should be a big duh.  It takes energy to make all that packaging, and energy to ship it off to the dump, where it will sit for hundreds of thousands of years.  Not to mention, remember all that crap that I said is in conventionally grown food that causes cancer and weight gain and lowered sperm counts?  Yeah, its in most of that packaging too, and it leaches out into your food.

Now, I’ve got to admit, I don’t buy everything organic.  I don’t buy everything local.  I can’t always afford organic, and I like fresh produce so local fresh produce in the winter is really hard to come by.  But I make an extra effort.  During the summer, it shouldn’t be much of a problem at all.  If you are looking to make some of these efforts yourself, I highly recommend looking into local farmers markets and CSAs.  Check out Local Harvest for a complete directory in your area.

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.

Responsible Eating May 17, 2008

Americans, they say, have no connection to their food anymore.  We go to the store, we buy it, and most of the time its processed crap that we don’t even know whats in it (mostly petroleum products, in case you’re wondering).  We don’t stop to think about where it comes from and everything that goes into producing it.  We buy it, we eat it, we throw the packaging away, and then we don’t think about it again.

There have been many a documentary that have phrased this problem and the implications of it far better than I ever will be able to.  For me, it just comes down to the fact that food is at the base of our hierarchy of needs, and I think its important that we all know how to maintain our base.  I read once of a family who plays a game before each meal in which they stop to recognize everyone responsible for getting their food onto their table.  The checkout kid at the grocery store, the guy who stocked the shelves, the truck driver who delivered the food, the butcher who slaughtered the meat, the guy who packaged the food, the farmer who planted and harvested it, the oil miner who mined the oil that was made into fertilizers for the farm and fuel for the trucks and plastics for the packaging, the chemist who invented the plastics and fertilizers.  They would even go so far as to include the mother who raised the farmer, the teacher who taught the mechanic who maintains the truck, the wife of the owner of the general store where the farmer shops, who helps keep paperwork for the store in order so that it stays up and running .  I thought this was a marvelous idea, and perhaps a game I would play with my son, particularly on Thanksgiving.

Its an amazing way to measure the impact not only of what you eat, but of the value each one of us adds to society through the work that we do.  Most of us don’t think of chemists and teachers as essential to putting food on our tables, but when we play this game we realize that we could very likely starve without the chemists, teachers and countless others that all fit into the vast perpetual motion machine that is a functioning society.  It reminds us that if there weren’t a purpose for a skill or a job, it would probably be eliminated from society (much the way evolution breeds out useless genetic traits).

It also shows us the vast impact of our food across the world.

Like many Americans, for a long time I wanted to ignore the way I eated and the implications it had on the world.  The deepest I wanted to think about food was whether or not it was going to make me fat.  But now I am a mom, and like many other parts of my life, my eating habits just did not seem as acceptable after I had a child.

For one thing, I want to live long enough to see my great grand children, so I want to be as healthy as possible (and that means I need to focus on a lot more than just my weight).  Furthermore, I want my son to have the privelidge of being able to live to see his great grand children, and I’m sure he’s going to want the same thing for his children, so I want to make sure he can give that same gift to his children.

More than this, I want to leave my son with a planet at least as nice as the one I was left with.  Hopefully a better one.  For that reason I am paying more attention to what I eat, and I am going to teach him to do the same.

Finally, food is expensive, and when you trace its sources its not hard to see why.  Food prices go up with gas prices, for example, because it takes gas to ship the food.  Companies aren’t swallowing the increased cost of gas, they’re passing those costs onto the consumer so that their profits don’t change.  Companies always pass increased cost of production on to the consumer so that their profits don’t change.  Always. 

So here are my goals for eating more responsibly.  I will tell you them, and then I will explain them.

1 - Eat less meat

2 - Grow as much of my own food as I can

3 - Eat at home as much as possible

4 - Buy organic when I can afford it

5 - If I can’t afford organic, buy local (naturally, if there’s a local organic food, get it!) or as close to home as you can

6 - Avoid buying foods that come from other countries

7 - Avoid food that comes in excess packaging

I will delve into each of these goals and the reasons behind them in future posts.

Buy less May 10, 2008

Let me tell you all about the buying goals I have been working on since Lent. I was going through some spiritual havoc over the season of Lent, and did a lot of soul searching (Lutherans, unlike Catholics, do not really give something up during Lent - although sometimes I do - its more a time of deep spiritual reflection and devotion) and this is what I came up with. Actually, come Easter time (the end of Lent, for those of you who don’t know) I had more of a skeleton of a plan. I’ve been fleshing it out through trial and error since then, and there’s probably still a lot more fleshing to do.

Anyway, the goal is to buy less. How much less? As much less as I can. My life is crammed with stuff (I’ve mentioned before here that I have a compulsive hoarding problem I’m trying to work on) and its not really doing anything for me except making my life more cluttered and stressed. So in addition to getting rid of the useless stuff responsibly, I’m really focusing on halting the in flow.

This has greater implications than just helping me get a handle on my hoarding problem. Our culture of consumerism is terrible for the environment and the main cause of global warming. All of this stuff we buy and use takes energy to produce, ship, use, and ship to the dump once its thrown away. Not to mention all the other chemicals, toxins, waste, byproducts and other unpleasantries associated with the production, use and disposal of consumer goods. Its in the best interest of our planet and our own health to buy and consume only what we need.

Also, the best way to save money is to not spend it in the first place. Duh, right?

So here are my rules, as they stand. Or should I say my goals.

#1 Buy only things that are consumable - food, personal hygiene products, diapers for Elijah (although I try to use cloth as much as I can), etc, and buy only consumables that you need (healthy, balanced food, only the basics for hygiene). Buy them as cheap and responsibly as you can.

#2 If I need something I don’t have and isn’t a consumable, make it or obtain it for free off of Freecycle or from a friend or family member

#3 When I must buy a non consumable item (for example, new clothes for Elijah, who is growing so fast I can hardly keep him clothed), buy used.

#4 If I must buy new, get it organic and local if possible (or as sustainable as possible). Avoid packaging and excess shipping.

So far I haven’t physically saved a lot of money, instead I’ve paid bills, but that’s equally as important. I can see the savings coming though. Other things I’m doing with money that isn’t being spent include

I started a retirement account. I can get one through my work, if you can, you truly should do the same. If your work doesn’t offer something like that for you, then see about getting involved in a financial institute or something. Hey, I don’t claim to be an expert. Maybe there’s something on Get Rich Slowly. This is why I read that blog.

I started a College Invest account for Elijah. I’d like for him to not have to join the military to go to college, like I did. I’m going to do the best I can to teach him discipline (which was really my biggest problem that prevented me from going to college, and the military fixed it for me), and I will put aside as much money for him as I can afford. Right now its only 25 bucks a month, but as I get more bills paid down, that amount will grow.

I also plan to start giving a set monthly amount to my church, probably something very small, like 20 bucks a month or something. I also let myself join the Sierra Club again. I hope that eventually I will be able to afford to tithe to other charitable organizations as well. I’d love to give some money for the crisis in Myanmar, but they aren’t letting aid through, so I will send them all my prayers instead.

Finally, I want to invest in some green companies. The Sierra Club offers ways to do that, and I’m going to look into it further and let you know what I find.

Now, these rules aren’t set in stone. I take vacations from them sometimes (this weekend, for example, I’m going to Chocolate Fest, and I might spend a bit there on some very un necessary consumables), but having them solid in my memory makes the vacations fewer and smaller. I also have a list of things I want to buy in the future, and I think about them before I buy anything else. For example, I want to put bamboo floors in my new house when I get it, and I want to paint Elijah’s room blue with low or no VOC paint, and then I want a new bed set made of organic cotton and some wool pillows. Next year, I would like to go on my church’s annual trip to India. Those are medium term goals and they help me to keep my eyes on the prize.

The other Lenten plan I made had to do with responsible eating, but I’ll blog on that later.

Green up the purchases you already make tip #3: Green up your online dating April 24, 2008

Okay, so I don’t know if the business practices of this company are any more or less sustainable than Chemistry.com, Match.com, or hotcasualsex.com (I made that last one up, if it really exists I bear no responsibility for whats on there), but I do know that this is a dating site targeted towards green minded people such as ourselves.  Plus, its way cheaper than all those other dating sites.

www.greensingles.com

I have yet to meet anyone off this site, so lets spread the word a little, shall we?

Green Up the Purchases You Already Make Tip #2: Buy Local April 17, 2008

This post isn’t going to be a whole lot of use to those of you who don’t live in the front range region of Colorado.  My only advice to you is to go on the lookout for similar resources where you live.  I have it on good authority there is at least one in Chicago.  For those of you who do live along the front range, you’re going to love this!

Buying local is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint, save you (and a lot of other members in your community) money on gas and shipping, and strengthen the economy right in your own community, where it will benefit you the most. 

For those of you skeptical about the usefulness of buying local, look at it this way:  why should we be buying gas from countries whose populations hate us?  Some of them, even, are at war with us.  Why contribute to their economies when you could be contributing to your own?  Where spending your money will benefit you directly by creating jobs and prosperity in your own community!  A community of employed people is a community with less drugs, crime, trash, and violence.  Its a cleaner, safer, happier community.  Most importantly, it is a community of people paying income taxes, which go to use in public works, maintaining our local and federal law enforcement and military, and the more people paying taxes, the less each individual has to pay in order to generate the same profit for Uncle Sam.  

By getting out into that community and purchasing there, not only do you increase happiness and strengthen the economy, you also meet others in your community and form a tighter bond and friendships with your neighbors.  Now when was the last time you formed a tight bond or a friendship with the people who provide you with goods made overseas and fuel our vehicles for shipping?  That’s what I thought.

So check out these resources for buying locally in the Denver, Boulder, Ft. Collins and Colorado Springs areas, and strengthen your community today!

Colorado Local First is a directory of local businesses.  You pick up copies of directories at some local businesses, area hotels and the Tattered Cover Bookstore LoDo and East Colfax locations.  You can also check out their website, www.coloradolocalfirst.com, which appears to be a work in progress.  You can download printable versions of the directories there.

The Mile High Business Alliance is responsible for Colorado Local First, so give their website a go too!  http://www.milehighbiz.org/

The ReDirect Guide (which, what do you know?! will help you out if you live in Portland, OR or Salt Lake City, UT, as well) is mostly, but not entirely local, and also lists only environmentally friendly, or sustainable, businesses.  There you get a double whammy of green-ness.  Now, I just got ahold of the 2007 issue last weekend, and I must say, it wasn’t totally complete.  I know of a few businesses that should be in there but weren’t.  In any case, it had a lot of stuff I didn’t know about in there, and the 2008 edition is due out on Earth Day (thats next week, if you didn’t know), so I’m hoping it has more in it. http://www.redirectguide.com/

Enjoy your resources, and happy shopping.

 

For the record, I have no beef with the Middle East or South America or any of the other countries where our gas comes from.  Nor do I have a problem with the countries that our imported goods come from.  I’d just rather support my own economy first.  Furthermore, sometimes in order to convince people of the good of an action, you have to sink your arguments down to their level.  Some people wont go for buying locally if you say its good for the environment, but they’re all for it if you say “Why are you buying gas from terrorists?”.  Yes, its awful and racist and I hate that outlook as much as any educated person does, but it is an effective argument to get people to buy local and conserve gas.  Terrible, isn’t it?