Treading Greener

My final post for this half of our project is part reflection, part update on the additional lifestyle commitments I’ve added to my daily actions.  But first of all, I have to excitedly write about the new running shoes I bought!  Purchase justification comes in 3 . . . 2 . . .1 . . . These shoes are necessary as I’ve signed up for a triathlon, and a 24hour relay race across the state of Massachusetts; both events are set to occur at the end of May and early June.  These physical challenges are sponsored by the sedentary lifestyle I’ve adopted between school, work, the weather and a need to feel healthy again.  I need to start training as of yesterday.  My worn, stinky, and deteriorating sneakers must be upgraded to new ones that will last me through race season.  

Here are the sneakers I purchased:

These are Brooks‘ Green Silence.    Yes, they’re pricey, and I really hope they can get me through race season.  I will let you know how they hold up.  In case you don’t click on the link to check out the “eco-innovation” of the shoe, they are made of 75% post-consumer recycled products.  Biodegradable midsole, insole and collar foams, all dyes and colorants are non-toxic, and it’s constructed with half as many parts of other shoes, lessening the amount of water and petroleum it takes to make the shoe.  

Another exciting event in my life is I have gone paperless in my home - well with the exception of toilet paper.  Last week, I counted how many paper napkins, tissues or paper towels I use on a daily basis. I average between 10-15 pieces of paper products per day.  This is not only expensive, but wasteful.  This week I’ve armed myself with Trader Joe’s Super Amazing Kitchen Cloths .  These cloths are quite amazing, so easy to clean and reusable that I forgot about my past paper towel life.  I also keep one at work because my clumsiness does not stop at my front door.  Today I’m armed with a cloth napkin for my face, and one for my nose (hello allergy season, we meet again), which are just cut up dish towels.  These travel cloth napkins are great for work and in case I get a case of the hungries and need to eat at B.Good, which happens quite often.  Overall, this experiment wasn’t too difficult, although it is kind of gross keeping my used cloth face napkins around, but it does feel good to be wasting less.  

This spring/summer I am really looking forward to my produce CSA from Stillman Farms.  Oh, and it’s pretty inexpensive.  For $350 I get a weekly produce box for a growing season that lasts between 16-18 weeks.  I’m splitting this with a good friend, which helps with the initial investment and brings down the cost of produce to approximately $11 per week.  Unbeknownst to my friend, I specifically asked her because she is an amazing cook, and I envision lots of joint delicious meals!  

The consumer changes I’ve made has spurred a lot of dialogue with the many people I interact with daily.  Explaining to friends, family and coworkers why I’m doing the things that I’m doing has been quite significant.  These discussions reiterate what’s important to me, and sharing my new consuming choices has hopefully inspired people to take a second look at their habits.  

Yeah, I'm going there. "Down there."

Since we started this project, I have only made two non-food related purchases: my hiking boots and, upon arriving in Boston during the last torrential downpour, an umbrella made in Pittsburgh of 60% post-consumer materials. I’m pretty proud of the restraint I’ve shown, even keeping my baking needs/desires in check by passing on the purchase of a Bundt pan and instead improvising the ridiculous 7up pound cake you see below.

However, my consumer avoidance must now come to an end. It is now “that time of the month,” and my medicine cabinet is on the empty side. I’m faced with a major consumer choice right now. Am I really prepared to purchase MORE sanitary napkins and tampons? Yeah, I’m gonna go there. If you don’t want to read about my girly business, I’d suggest you move on to another post.

OK, for me, I use about 20 sanitary napkins per menstrual cycle. I think that’s about normal (based on an informal survey of my friends). So, if you assume that most women menstruate 12 times per year, that comes to a total of 240 each year. Using my mother as a yardstick, it is very likely that I will menstruate for at least 40 years (side note: SERIOUSLY?! I hate thinking about this.). So, 240 times 40 is...9600 sanitary napkins in my lifetime. UGH. At $0.25 each, that’s $2400. Why am I crunching these numbers? To show that the choices we make regarding how we manage our danged periods actually have a pretty significant environmental and economic impact. Not only is that a LOT of waste, but sanitary napkins include a wide array of forestry and plastic products. (Check out this cool video by the Discovery Channel to learn more about how pads are made.) Many health researchers also assert that typical menstrual management methods can pose health risks (e.g., chemical exposure, toxic shock syndrome, etc.). So…all of this has me wondering, WHY do we continue to use these products? Why are such wasteful, unhealthy, expensive products so mainstream?

Women had alternate means of dealing with their periods for hundreds of years prior to the invention of the disposable pad in the 1880s – there are definitely other options out there. I have a few friends who use cloth, reusable menstrual pads, but I have a hard time imagining incorporating those into my lifestyle – I don’t think my roommates would appreciate “the bucket” in our bathroom, and I can’t figure out what I’d do at work. (If this is something that interests you/if you’re home more often than I am, check this out. Or this.) I also have several friends who use menstrual cups – they swear by them as the best option when doing field work, and since they are made of medical grade silicone, they have none of the same health risks as other menstrual products. This sounded like it could be a winner for me. And so, with my Urban Ecological Citizenship class in mind…I bought myself a Diva Cup today.

It’s too soon to tell whether or not I’m a permanent convert, but I have already managed the first few hurdles that had me concerned. First of all, I figured out how to put the darned thing in. And take it out. It also appears to be doing what it’s supposed to. I can’t feel it, so that’s good. And I have not yet “sprung a leak.” I’m glad to have a couple of days at home to figure this business out, but I really don’t think this is going to be a big deal. It might actually be MORE convenient than pads or tampons. We’ll have to wait and see.

That's enough on uber personal subjects for this post. But if you have further questions (and care to get specific in the comments), I'm happy to oblige as I hope to (even awkwardly) share this as a learning opportunity for all.

Living the Good LIfe by Coleen O'Connell

My life has not been a charmed life, the kind you have when you were born with a ‘silver spoon in your mouth’ - the saying in my hometown in Minnesota. But in every way, I have had a full and fabulous life up to this point. I had great experiences in high school and college that resulted in successfully launching me into a career in education; I got married and built a homestead from scratch with my husband– a log home made from hand that was a handcrafted marvel that got us a lot of media attention and accolades; then I found a grad school program I loved which transformed my career into one that has lasted for 25 years. I have traveled North America by car, plane, and by school bus, backpacking in the most remote of places, meeting some of the most fascinating common everyday people, and having profound experiences within the natural world. I have accompanied undergraduate students on semester long studies to Scotland, France, and India. I have a mentor who has worked with me to transform my thinking in ways that has given me deep connection with all life – past, present and future.
I have not made a lot of money in my career, but I have been thrifty, frugal, and willing to forgo popular fads in order to do the work I love and still survive financially. I have owned two homes, bought new cars, and traveled for fun to places that I have wanted to experience. I mostly do my shopping at Good Will, Farmers Markets, and hometown stores and I don’t get caught up in needing all the latest gadgets. (I do long for a Cuisinart). I don’t lack for friends – I have a rich and deep tapestry of humans that adorn my life in multiple ways. I buy good food – organic and local whenever possible; I have always driven fuel efficient cars not caring for what is cool or stylish. I am way too busy with the myriad of things that have meaning and value in my life. I don’t lack for a thing – nada, nothing. I can’t imagine needing anything I don’t already have (except of course, that Cuisinart).
So why am I telling you this? Because I want you to know that I am thriving even though I have never once stepped foot in a Walmart. That confession shocked one of my graduate students a few years back when I shared that one of my life goals was to never shop at Walmart. She looked at me horrified and blurted out “But how do you survive?” I stopped and thought about it because not only did I feel that I was surviving very well, I actually felt that I was thriving. Still do.
What is it about the American culture that has us needing oh so many things – not just every month, but every week, and sometimes every day. Why is shopping the past time of choice? And why is buying something for 10 cents less, or several dollars less the reason to drive 45 minutes to the nearest Walmart store to save that two dollars. I hate to shop. I hate to walk around being enticed by unnecessary objects. Now I realize this all would be different for me if I had children – somewhere the simple life goes out the window as children enter the scene... or at least that is what folks tell me and what I witness in my friends who have children. But I ask, does it really have to be this way? Why are we so gullible?
So Walmart is there to offer the best deal on just about anything one could desire –or it create desires where there weren’t any before. Being the political beast that I am, the 2006 documentary “The High Cost of Low Cost” affirmed my decision to boycott Walmart. What I had always known intuitively was now there for the world to watch. They don’t pay living wages, they get most of their stuff from China or other sweat shop pimp countries. They hurt locally owned businesses if not banish them all together. Walmart is one of the wealthiest corporations in the world and they don’t have to care about small towns or main street. They don’t have to care about workers. They care about their bottom line – profit. The movie is an incredible expose of the worst of American business. And most of us have succumbed to its lures. If you haven’t watched it, please find a copy and review it. If you think Walmart is going green, consider it a great case of green wash. If you depend on Walmart for your survival and happiness, I am here to attest that life can be full, rich, meaningful without ever stepping one foot inside one of their stores. I promise you – it’s true.
When our town went to battle a few years back over whether or not to allow a Walmart in our midst, the people giving pro Walmart testimony kept focusing on the fact that they wanted a place to buy underwear without having to drive 45 minutes. A few of us opposing folks decided that a great summer event in the local park would be an “underwear festival”. Imagine it if you can – booths and booths of underwear vendors selling their wares to save our town from the impact of Walmart. Though the festival has never gotten off the ground, I do think, since we defeated the Walmart proposal, that we do owe those folks a chance at some great underwear deals. Stay tuned. We could make history.

I Scream, You Scream...

My greatest vice is ice cream - Haagen Dazs coffee, Ben & Jerry’s Americone Dream, and anything with mint and chocolate.  While hiking through Vermont with my spouse, we stopped at a farm just off of the Appalachian Trail that made and sold rich and creamy maple ice cream and cinnamon ice cream.  My mouth still waters every time I recall that experience.  Since I am not aware of any locally made ice cream, I decided to make my own this week.

Everyone in the family gets in on the action!

As background, last summer I read Michael Pollan’s Food Rules, which has been a source of inspiration for bringing my eating habits into better harmony with my values.  The act of making my own ice cream follows Pollan’s rule #39 “Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself” (Pollan, 2009).  According to Pollan, preparing your own junk food causes you to eat much less of it.  I would add that I cannot get more local than my own kitchen, I effectively eliminated additives and preservatives, I enjoyed the activity with my wife, and I appreciated and savored the treat even more than usual.

We own, but had never used, the human-powered Play & Freeze Ice Cream Maker.  (http://icecreamrevolution.com/)  Ours is a large red jewel-colored, hard plastic ball with an aluminum cup inside that makes one pint of ice cream.  To begin, one side is filled with ice and 1/2 cup of rock salt.  In the other side, ice cream ingredients are added.  We used half and half, sugar, vanilla, and crushed Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies.  (With three little girl scouts in our cul-de-sac, we could not refuse.)  After securing the lid, we rolled the ball back and forth across the floor for ten minutes.  While this was not aerobic exercise, we definitely felt ourselves working a little to move the seven pound ball.  After ten minutes, we stirred the ice cream, drained the water, added more ice, and added another 1/4 cup of rock salt.  Then we rolled the ball for another ten minutes.  When we finished the ice cream was solid around the edges and softer in the center, so we put the ball in the freezer to enjoy after dinner.  The verdict: Tasty!

Pollan is correct that when you make junk food yourself, you eat less of it.  Making the ice cream will be a fun but occasional activity in our house.  Nevertheless, the ingredients we used have a footprint.  While the ice came straight from our freezer, the rock salt package does not list the source.  Our vanilla and organic half and half both came from Wisconsin, the cookies were made in Kentucky, and we purchased the sugar at the bulk store in Charlotte (again, I am not sure of the original source).  But the footprint does not end there.  For example, what was the source of the cookie ingredients?  I’m guessing they did not come from Kentucky.  And how about the packaging waste?  In Charlotte, we can recycle the creamer carton and cap, the cookie box, the rock salt bag, and the vanilla bottle.  The bulk sugar bag will be reused.  We will throw away the plastic sleeves that the cookies came in and the vanilla extract bottle cap.  What is the impact of pouring rock salt water down the drain?  How can our ice cream be more sustainably made?  And, when items are not available in the area, how local is local?

Before

After

References

Pollan, M. (2009). Food rules: An eater’s manual. New York, NY: Penguin Group.

The art of buying less and how that is working out for me so far. . .

When venturing to Wholefoods, I usually purchase some organic bananas, almond milk, and the occasional bag of rice. The rest gets purchased at the farmers market. I am heartbroken that avocados don't have less of a footprint.

I have been bringing food with me to work much more often, pretty much every day.

What has helped me the most in my quest to buy less was my yearly Christmas gift from my grandmother: one glass jar of bulgur wheat and one glass jar of lentils.

My grandmother is Syrian and lived with us while I was in high school. She was very sweet to always make me a lentil dish when everyone else was having lamb.

Anyway, I was thinking that if I could just grow enough lentils and black or heirloom beans, I won't need to go to the store for protein during the summer, which is usually when I run out of grandmas lentils.

I did some research and found I could in fact get some lentils started 2 weeks prior to the frost date and that they would take about 80-110 days before harvest. The articles recommend about 4-8 plants per household member. Black beans can be planted around the same time and grow to about the same height. Their seed yield is a bit higher though. Perhaps I will scale back on the enormous amounts of green beans and peas I usually grow to make room for the lentils and black beans. I still am eating frozen green beans from last year.

It looks like it would be more fruitful for me to fill up the rest of my community garden plot with vegetables than with wheat plants for bulgur wheat. This would require a bit more space to be effective I think. There are local sources of organic wheat and bread so I feel ok with that.

This weekend it is time to make another big batch of veggie burgers. We shall see how that goes.

Another objective I set was to try and study more at home more often. Today it was impossible (I blame my cute kitties and the smell of spring in the air), so I eventually went to the local organic coffee seller and planted myself on a bench. This battle will take more time to win.

A total fail depending on how you look at it is the vacation I will be taking in a week. Lauren and I will be flying to Isla Mujeres in Mexico. We struggled so much with affordability that we forgot about all of the bottled water we would be drinking. On the other hand, we will be in Mexico in the sun, which will give us both a needed rest and allow us the energy to fight more public health problems when we get back.

Lastly, Greg Gerrit is probably the epitome of a buy nothing guy. He has one pair of hiking boots that will last him practically forever and he walks all over the city of Providence with them. He does not have a car and is a champion of local environmental causes. Currently he is organizing an event for March 22 from 1PM-4PM at RISD on the subject of city-wide composting in Providence. Gregs blog is: http://prosperityforri.org/?page_id=106. He is awesome.

Buying Locally Grown in a Humid Continental Climate

Ah, food.  This happens to be my favorite subject.  Approaching this part of the project, I thought it would be a breeze to only eat locally grown and produced food.  I’m only responsible for feeding myself, which allows for greater control and research into the food I’m consuming, and I live in a city with a breadth of residents on the relocalized*  bandwagon that are geared towards empowering restaurants, grocery stores, and winter farmer markets to source locally.  I figured some challenges I may run into include the increased expense of purchasing from a widely perceived boho**, yet yuppie-ish** grocery store that sells a lot of produce and other products from regional farms.  Also, the actual process of cooking itself.  This I will have to learn, and it will take time.  My experience so far has seen the fruition (pun not intended, but it’s staying) of a few assumptions, but also some other things have emerged . . .

One thing I’m psyched about is that I live near that perceived pricey grocery store that turned out to not deflate my wallet.  A few snips into the coupon leaflet proved to be beneficial as well as their clear signage reflecting the origin of each produce item they sell.  The countless free recipe cards next to vegetables that I had not known how to cook were an extra bonus.  Luckily, I acquired a crockpot over the Christmas season that has removed a lot thinking and time out of the food planning equation.   

What I was not prepared for was the surge in root vegetables in my refrigerator's crisper, and how it is entirely possible to get bored with eating parsnips and beets week after week.  Granted, I’ve never met a vegetable I didn’t enjoy sinking my teeth into, but I’m tiring of butternut squash, and how many times can I roast beets before my mouth is permanently stained?  It then dawned on me that I have to face the fact that I live in Massachusetts and what grows here can be limited during certain seasons.  Apparently, I am quite detached to what can be grown in my regional climate during the winter months.  Regional climate includes the bitterly cold, harsh, awful, soul draining and "snowmageddon" winters of New England.  

At this point my crockpot is bored with what is being thrown into it, so I’m learning new cooking techniques to jazz up parsnips.  The cooking and planning time challenge may have temporarily left the table, but it’s back, and most likely will be as new produce pops up with a new growing season upon us.  

Eating locally is connecting me deeper into the bioregional context of what grows and when during the year.  I’m sure that spring, summer and fall will have a new meaning as I taste my way through those months.  It makes sense to eat what’s in season, and closer to where you live simply because it’s fresher and therefore tastes better.  Steve Hancock from NorthStar Farm in Westport, MA echoes this sentiment in a statement he made to RadioBoston during Somerville Winter Farmers’ Market:

“When you can start growing plants that like cold weather, it intensifies the natural sugars  -– the flavors are totally different,”  Hancock said. “Even the textures are different. You get the benefit of having a really sweet carrot or a much sweeter Brussels sprout than if  it were grown in hot weather.” (Mauzy, 2011,March, 3)

I am longing for the days of ripe strawberries, zucchini, and summer squash.  This harsh winter is certainly intensifying my impatience for spring and summer, but in the meantime, anyone have any good recipes for these vegetables pictured below?

*Relocalized = building the resilient, healthy, just, diverse, sustainable, people-powered communities of our future (http://www.relocalizemassachusetts.org/)

**Boho = (derived from Bohemian) somebody who leads an alternative lifestyle, they are not hippies because they can have an extremely wide range of different tastes in music, fashion, art, literature etc they are usually very creative people. they are above all optimists, even if they can be very cynical too(it does make sense...sort of).  http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bohemian

***Yuppie = Informal for (y)oung (U)rban (P)rofessional, or Yup. turned into yuppie in the 1980's. A term used to describe someone who is young, possibly just out of college, and who has a high-paying job and an affluent lifestyle. Can now be used to describe any rich person who is not modest about their financial status. Yuppiedom (yuppie-dum)is a term used to describe an involvement in being a yuppie  (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=yuppie)

Mauzy, D. (Writer). (2011,March, 3). Farm to fork: somerville market provides fresh food all winter long [Radio series episode]. In (Executive producer), Radio Boston. Boston, MA: NPR.

The Last Pineapple

My major chore at the cooperative where I live is as a shopper. One of my housemates and I make a weekly trek to a store and make an attempt to purchase enough staple goods to maintain a household of 11 for a week. As a community we are vegetarian and try our best to be as sustainable as possible. We try to buy from the Harvest Co-op as they are also a cooperative and we try to support other cooperatives particularly in the area. We buy organic if at all possible in our choices and when there is a choice to be made, buy as locally produced as possible. We have at least one share in a produce CSA and sometimes increase that to two shares. One of the housemates bakes vegan bread on a fairly regular basis and for the bread we buy, we try to shop at the Iggy’s bakery here in Cambridge. We are in the process of setting up an account to purchase many items in bulk quantities directly from a sustainably-minded wholesale distributor.

In the past, I had always tried to be a conscientious shopper but have become even more so in the past year and half since I have been doing the shopping for the house. The problems arise when we have items requested that cannot be bought locally produced or organic. We also try to get as much healthy variety as possible and still buy sustainably. Out latest issue has been centered on the prickly, succulent wonders commonly known as pineapples. We realized that it was imported as is most of the fruit we purchase this time of year. We feel like the purchase of fruits and vegetables is particularly important with vegetarian and vegan diets, so we make sure to buy only organic and free-trade. Sometimes shopping for such a large amount of people is difficult with many different people’s complaints and opinions, but we try to take any legitimate concerns into consideration. The first time we heard a complaint about pineapple being imported I explained that it was labeled as free-trade and we were just trying to bring in healthy variety as conscientiously as possible. Nonetheless we did not make any more pineapple purchases for some time. This week we bought another “free-trade” pineapple and the entire house was sent the following group of websites relating to all the issues around the problems with pineapple production in Costa Rica.

http://www.ecoearth.info/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=105544&keybold=soil%20erosion%20crisis
http://laborrightsblog.typepad.com/international_labor_right/2011/01/the-environmental-and-social-cost-of-pineapples-in-costa-rica.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/oct/02/truth-about-pineapple-production
http://www.globalissues.org/article/789/pineapples

Needless to say we will not be purchasing anymore pineapples, at least not unless we know someone is coming back from Hawaii and has a suitcase full of organic ones they’re trying to unload!