Eat Sustainably

25 Ways to Eat Sustainably

Guest Blog:  by EcoKaren

This post was originally published on my blog, ecokaren, last year but with the recent disappointing news about GE Alfalfa being approved by the USDA, I thought I’d re-post this list so that we can remind ourselves how to eat more sustainably. I know many of you are already following these practices but I thought we should re-visit them and see what else we can do.

Summer Fruits from Farmers Market

25 Ways to Eat Sustainably

1. Use the WHOLE vegetable – the stalk, leaves, the whole kit and kaboodle.
2. Get to the root – buy loose vegetables and not the factory ‘boxed’ kinds.
3. Be a farmers’ market regular and get staples – onions, potatoes, herbs, etc. that you always use and need
4. Buy Heirloom – def. of heirloom – crop from seeds that have been passed down for generations, grown in small crops that may restore the health of the soil
5. Stock up – buy in bulk when in season and freeze, pickle or preserve it
6. Get advice – for recipes from farmers
7. Challenge yourself – use up week’s worth of meal.
8. Local is always the priority. If you can’t buy local, buy organic.
9. Buy local eggs – with recent recalls of millions of factory eggs due to Salmonella outbreak, need I say more?
10. Use your basement to keep your hardy vegetables like squash, sweet potatoes, beets, turnips, and rutabagas. They will keep up to six months in temperatures 40∘F  or below. Store them as close to the time they were harvested as possible – preferably unwashed, green tops will attached and packed in sawdust or moist peat moss.

Squash from Market Market
11. Let farm-fresh food delivered – CSA. If you can’t use up one portion, go in on it with a friend of a neighbor.
12. Be packaged conscious when buying food from the supermarket.
13. Google your milk. Not all organic milks are created equal. Check your brand at sustainable.org and opt for antibiotic and rBGH-free (no artificial bovine growth hormones)
14. Use unprocessed grains. White rice is process. Go for brown rice, barley, quinoa or farro. they are healthier for you too. Better yet, go for buckwheat as they can improve soil quality.
15. Soak beans and grains overnight. You’ll cut cooking time and energy usage in half!
16. Read labels. Don’t buy any packaged foods that have more than five ingredients or ingredients you cannot pronounce, nothing artificial, and no cartoons on the package.
17. Freeze organic berries when they are in season. Berries are on top of the organic foods to buy list. Buy them when they are in season and freeze them to have in the winter.
18. Make your own seltzer – I reviewed Soda Stream and we still use the machine. We don’t buy seltzer waters anymore and it is great for keeping soda bottles out of the landfill and  making delicious fruit spritzers.
19. Buy local bread – buy bread from your local bakery or farmers market. It comes without packaging, it will be fresher, and the chances are, it will have fewer ingredients.
    
    

    Parker Rolls
20. Make homemade breadcrumbs and croutons. Why buy packaged ones when you can make them with stale bread so easily?
21. Read PLU codes – any item with PLU codes starting with ’9′ is organic.
22. Become friends with local growers and fishermen so you can find out what’s being picked or caught. You’ll know where your food comes from.
23. Cut out processed corn. THIS is biggie. Avoid buying items with corn or corn-based substances (corn oil, cornstarch, or corn syrup) as ingredients. According to the USDA, at least 85 percent of the corn grown in this country has been genetically modified, meaning the plants were altered to make them more pest resistant.
24. Eat more REAL corn. Ask your farmer if he uses GMO corn seeds (or from Monsanto’s roundup seeds).
25. Wash vegetables submerged in a basin and not under the running water.

To read 25 More Ways to Eat Sustainbly, go to Part 2 of the series posted here.
All Photos: by ecokaren

recycled tp~ what’s that all about?

Did you know that most toilet paper is made from the virgin pulp of old growth trees?  Ecologically valuable forests full of old growth trees are being cut down so that we can have soft and lovely paper to wipe our tushes with.  Not only are ancient trees being destroyed, but massive amounts of chlorine are also used to achieve the pearly white color that we’ve come to expect when buying toilet tissue.

‘Ancient forests are the planet’s old-growth and original forests. The world’s ancient forests maintain environmental systems that are essential for life on Earth. They influence weather by controlling rainfall and evaporation of water from soil. They help stabilize the world’s climate by storing large amounts of carbon that would otherwise contribute to climate change. These forests also are home to around two-thirds of the world’s land-based species of plants and animals.’  This site will educate you on where these forests are and why they are essential to our planet’s health. They also offer ways to get actively involved.
I found this article that lists brands of toilet tissue that have a nice percentage of post consumer recycled content.  Recycled doesn’t mean tough and horrible. We made the switch over a year ago, after learning about this issue and we haven’t missed the bleached white stuff one bit.  The two things to look for when buying eco friendly bathroom tissue are 1) a post consumer recycled content of at least 40% and 2) chlorine free processing, labeled as (pcf or ecf).

Rebloged from: http://blog.ecoetsy.com/2011/02/recycled-tp-whats-that-all-about/html

How Green Is Your Orange Juice

Karen Lee, or EcoKaren published this on her blog
and has kindly made the information available to all of us.
"This might not be news to some of you but it was an eye opener for me. At least the numbers anyway. I mean, I knew my orange juice didn’t just appear in the grocery stores like magic and that it needed to be grown and transported but I didn’t think about the details of how it creates such a huge carbon footprint.

So here is the low down on orange juice.

Did you know…..?

To produce a 64 oz carton of Tropicana orange juice emits 3.75 lb of greenhouse gases?

* 60% Agriculture and Manufacturing ( 58% Fertilizer production and application, 30% Natural Gas, 8% Electricity, and 2% Transportation)
* 22% Distribution
* 15% Packaging
* 3% Use and Disposal

According to TIME and NY Times, PepsiCo who owns Tropicana enlisted Columbia University’s Earth Institute and the environmental auditing firm, Carbon Trust to help assess the carbon footprint of each gallon of Tropicana orange juice.

The study found that the biggest contributor to the carbon footprint isn’t the gas guzzling trucks that deliver these delicious refreshing drinks all over United States but the agricultural and manufacturing practices – fertilizer production and application being the biggest.

Ha! Should have known that.

So what do you do?

Drink organic orange juice! Since there won’t be any fertilizers or pesticides used in growing organic oranges, the carbon footprint would be so much less!

In all fairness though, PepsiCo is trying to be greener since this report. Pepsi is working with Yara International and Outlook Resources, PepsiCo will test low-carbon fertilizers at one of its producer farms in Bradenton, Fla. If successful, the greener fertilizers could lower the carbon footprint of PepsiCo’s citrus growers by as much as 50% and reduce the total carbon footprint of Tropicana orange juice by up to 20%. (TIME)
But until then, I’ll be buying organic orange juice…Or squeeze my own OJ at home. They taste better anyway.
Now…only if I can find organic oranges."