Driving Decisions

C has a job that is pretty far away (maybe 12 miles?). He really hates to drive (especially since last month, when he "divorced" the car, but sometimes they have to get together again). It's hard to bike/bus sometimes because, depending on the shift that he works, he gets out very late.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I can't take the bus or bike to work because I wouldn't make it home in time to meet the kids.

So.... what do we do? A couple of years ago, we sold our second car and bought a scooter. When we both need to "motor" somewhere, the person who needs to go farther takes the scooter so that we can save gas. Of course, this does not ALWAYS work because the scooter can't go over 35, so we have to be able to take slower roads, but in the case of us both going to work on a Tuesday, it works out fine. I drive about 8 miles in the car roundtrip, versus about 24 for C. It also saves money. The gas prices are killing me -- it actually cost over $4.00 to fill up my scooter -- that's insane! (Don't you love that I can complain about a $4.00 fill-up?) But I'm being serious. Filling up the car costs a bundle, so we're really trying not to drive.

How much do you think gas will need to cost for people to cut down on driving? Is the price making you reduce your driving? Do you ever think about how much a trip will cost?

It's an important calculation to make. For example, the other day I needed parmesan cheese (okay... maybe not a total necessity, but spaghetti is just not the same without it.) I can get it at ExpensiveMart for about .60 more than at the regular grocery story. But the grocery store is at least 10 miles round trip. I can walk to ExpensiveMart. Hmmmmm....

Friends

Lately I've been thinking about how wonderful it is to have friends. Grad school has been a really special time for me, because I have more friends now than I have ever had. They're almost all girls, which is also pretty new.

Last year my friends snuck in my apartment while I was on vacation and totally redecorated it. It was the best gift I've ever received, and if I'm ever feeling down or lonely, it's something that I can think of -- they re-did my WHOLE apartment. They bought new sheets! They cleaned the bathroom (oh God...)! It was amazing.

Of course, that's a huge gift. But friends don't have to re-do your apartment to be great friends. My dad forwarded me an article from the New York Times about how to maintain strong friendships. Apparently the secret is to return your friend's calls. Reciprocity is the key to BFF. Some comments on the article mentioned that the study did not look at IM, e-mail, etc. I love e-mail (sort of), but for me, nothing replaces a phone call. Hearing my friend's voice, and the immediacy of the call, the natural flow of the conversation... you just don't get that on the computer.

You've probably also heard about the research that says that people with more friends live longer -- they don't even have to be close friends -- just people that you know and talk to on a regular basis. The more of these contacts a person has, the happier and healthier they are.

What does this have to do with being green?
What's more green than being a friend? I've noticed that my friends and I exude a gentle green peer pressure. No one is really preachy, but we do talk about the issues, and certain green actions are becoming the norm among our group.

I've also noticed that my desire to help the environment and my community has made me reach out in ways I might not otherwise -- I e-mailed the PTA President, I offered to let a neighbor use my recycling bin, I contacted the campus Environmental Group. I was pretty much a slug last semester, but it feels good to reach out.

Clean Coal? - Take Action!

On Monday I reported that Dynegy is building six new coal-fired power plants. They claim that these power plants use "clean coal technology". What the heck is that?

Dynegy plans to complete the Sandy Creek Power Plant in Riesel, Texas (east of Waco) in 2012. Just when you think that the country will be making moves towards more environmentally sound energy sources, more coal-fired plants are being built. The NYTimes reported (April 23) that coal-fired plants are also going up in Europe. In the next five years, "European countries are expected to put into operation about 50 coal-fired plants" and Italy will increase its reliance on coal from 14 to 33 percent. Why is this happening?

Here's my summary:

• There is plenty of coal. It is projected to last for the next 200 years. (of course, we have to blow up mountains to get to it, but that's okay because I don't live near a mountain.)
• Coal is relatively cheap. (Low grade coal, which gives off less energy per ton, is even cheaper.)
• Companies have done some fancy greenwashing, claiming they use "clean coal technology". What's that? Basically it means that less soot and gases (nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide) are emitted into the air. That's good, but it does NOT EFFECT EMISSION OF CARBON DIOXIDE.
• Companies say that in the future they will use carbon capture technology to store the carbon emissions underground. That's nice, but this technology does not exist yet, and when (if?) it does, it will be very expensive to implement. In addition, stored carbon can be dangerous if there is a leak.

We are already in trouble with the current level of emissions, and adding coal-fired plants just makes it worse. Power companies need to invest in cleaner power sources. People everywhere need to work towards more efficient use of power.

If Dynegy goes through with all 6 plants, it will become U.S. Coal-Fired Polluter #1! The increased emissions from this ONE company will make our personal efforts irrelevant. Should we despair? NO! Should we stop taking personal action? Of COURSE not! But the more I read about this, the more I realize that we must make our voices heard.

What can we do?

1. Write to Dynegy and tell them what you think:

Corporate Headquarters

1000 Louisiana Street
Suite 5800
Houston, Texas 77002
713.507.6400

2. If you live in the Houston area, join the protest during the shareholder's meeting:
May 14, Protest outside Dynegy shareholders’ meeting, Wednesday, 9am to 1pm, in Houston, at the Galleria at on 5100 West Alabama, between Post Oak and Sage Road.

3. Join the Sierra Club's National Campaign against Coal-Fired Power Plants:
http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/takeaction/

Thursday Experiment -- Cast Iron Pancakes & Bagless Trash

This Thursday I am reporting on the results of two cutting-edge case studies.

Study 1: The Effect of Cast Iron Skillet on the Shape of Pancakes
Research Question: Is it possible to make pancakes that don't get wrinkled while using a cast iron skillet?
Results: Yes. All the pancakes turned out beautifully. I started with some butter in the pan, but did not need to re-grease as I went along.
Observations: Although this study is limited by the fact that it is a case study, and the small sample size (only 15 pancakes), it seems to indicate that it is possible to get satisfactory pancake production using cast iron. The pancakes also have a high iron content, which may prevent anemia.

Study 2: Trash without Plastic Bags: Aesthetic and Environmental Effects
Research Question: What happens when kitchen trash is put into the trashcan with no plastic liner bag?
Method: Family puts all kitchen trash (food scraps, wrappers, etc.) into small trashcan with no liner.
Results: The subjects noticed a rank odor. When the trash was emptied into the dumpster, the bottom of the trashcan was covered with stinky food particles. Subject had to rinse the trashcan 4 times before it was aesthetically acceptable again. Subject reported feeling like she was "going to hurl" when she emptied the trash.
Observations: Further study is necessary, but it appears that at least in this family, although using no plastic bag may help the environment, it is aesthetically unacceptable. It may also be a boon to the raccoons, who will surely have easier access to their snacks without having to rip open a bag when they go into the dumpster. This is an important area for future research.

Is anybody aware of any other studies about trash? What do the plastic free people do? I don't have a disposal, and I can't compost all my kitchen trash (not enough worms yet), so I have quite a bit of soggy, organic trash. BLECH.

Driving Update

169 car miles this week -- 80 from camping. The rest of the miles were either from driving kids across town to visit MIL or for work (which couldn't be done on bike or scooter).

I'm seeing that it is very difficult to get our weekly mileage much lower. The only way that could reduce it further would be to move closer to my MIL or.... that's really all I can think of. Unfortunately, that's not really going to work because, although I love my MIL, she lives near a bad elementary school. I also prefer living close to town.

image from xtracycle.com

I have thought about getting an xtracycle to make hauling the kids around a little easier, but I'm not sure if it would really cut down on car trips.

What are the main reasons that we drive?

• car pool -- we share with 2 other families, so we only drive every 3 days. If we biked the kids to school, it would not cut out that much mileage. Plus, it would be a big pain. Next year, my daughter will be able to ride this bus so this will not be an issue. If I wake up late, the xtracycle would help get the kids to school without driving, however.
  
• camping -- I'm not in good enough shape to haul the kids and all the gear at least 30 miles.
  
• grocery shopping -- could be done on an xtracycle -- kind of a long ride (10 miles round trip unless I want to go to ExpensiveMart)
• have to pick up large heavy objects and transport them around town. Could be done on xtracycle.
• Bring kids to MIL -- can be done on bus, but takes a long time. Too far to be realistic for xtracycle.
• Going to work in bad weather -- besides the car, the bus is the best option here. Unfortunately, out of the 4 jobs that C and I have, only one can be reached without transferring or walking a long way. All jobs could be reached via bike, but would arrive wet. Hmmmmmm....

Any suggestions?

Earth Day Eve

Tomorrow is Earth Day. Do you have anything special planned?

I keep thinking back to Garbage -- the Revolution Starts at Home. In the movie, a man whose life is basically ruined by the coal mining surrounding him says "think of this when you turn on your lights". He is surrounded by a wasteland. He hears explosions several times a day, which cause his land to crack. There are cracks hundreds of feet deep that just appear in the middle of his land. Families that live near the mine live with polluted air that makes them and their families sick. There is an elementary school directly in the line of a huge lake of toxic waste created by the mining. The man in this segment refuses to sell his land, but his fight against the corporations seems so futile... it's sickening.

How is your energy produced? Chances are that it's coal. More than half of the energy in the US is from coal-powered power plants, which produce HUGE amounts of greenhouse gases.

We need to reduce our reliance on coal and invest in clean energy such as solar and wind. But that is not enough! We must increase efficiency. Some may say that this will cause a loss of jobs. I disagree -- new jobs will be needed in research and development of efficient technology, and quality of life will be improved for all.

Dynegy, a Texas-based company, has plans for six new coal-powered plants. They have been targeted by the Sierra Club for their pollution. According to Sierra Club:

Taken together, Dynegy’s six planned coal-fired power plants would spew an estimated 44 million tons of global warming pollution into the air each year – making them one of the single largest sources of such pollution in the U.S.


One of the single largest sources.....

So what can we do? I suggest that, in honor of Earth Day, we do two things:
1. Join the protest. Go to the Sierra Club website and sign the petitions. Tell your friends.
2. Turn off the lights you're not using. Every time I turn on the lights now, I think of that man in the movie, surrounded by blown-up mountains. He is living a hell on earth so that I can leave the light on in an empty room? That's just wrong.

Who needs toys?

After lashing out against toys and stickers, I had a wonderful toy-free weekend. We took the kids camping, and once again, I was amazed at what kids really like to play with.

Not ONCE did they ask for their toys. They played with sticks, they built "beds" out of pine needles, they went on hikes, they made friends at the playground. We laid on sleeping bags and looked at the stars. We talked about the moon. We sang every song that anyone knew the words to. It was wonderful.

At home I try to be a fairly relaxed person, but I still feel like I am zooming from one thing to another. With all the distractions at home, even when we are all in the house, we can go a long time without actually talking to each other. So it's nice to get away from everything... to get out into nature a little bit ... to look for animals, and just slow down in general. My kids have learned a lot from camping (sometimes they've learned the hard way -- like, don't run around cactus at night) and I find myself learning too as I explain things to them. For now, we are doing car camping because we bring a lot of stuff with us and can't really hike very far with the kids. When they get older, I'd like to try some primitive camping because I think that it might be even more fun -- and the kids are always amazed when we pass primitive campers on the trail.

Thursday Experiment - Okara Granola

It has been really fun to try new things in the journey to greenness. Last week, I learned how to make soy milk at home. It's so easy that I've already made it again. When you make soy milk, you are left with the squished out chopped beans -- if you squeeze them really well to get all the soy milk out, you are left with dry fluffy okara.

There are many recipes for using okara. I was skeptical, but I decided to give okara granola a try. I had dried the raw okara for about 90 minutes in a low oven, then kept it in the refrigerator. Because we put sugar and vanilla in the soy milk before filtering it, our okara has a sort of cookie-like smell which is very nice. My two year old started eating it with a spoon -- "yummy beans mommy". I figured that if she was eating it straight up, then we should start using it.

I googled "okara granola" and found several recipes. My favorite is the one at Zlamushka's spicy kitchen. I chose this recipe because I had all the ingredients and because it did not call for oil, which I thought was interesting. Most granola recipes seem to use a lot of fat. This one used yogurt (weird, huh?)

It was great! In fact, it's better than great! It may be the best granola I've ever had. My kids are eating it. I'm eating it. You would never guess that beans are the main ingredient. Once again, C and I looked at each other in amazement. The only drawback is that it takes a long time to cook (again, about 90 minutes in a low oven). I have two comments on the granola-making:

1. I don't think I needed to cook the raw okara before using it in the granola. Cooking it twice seems like overkill (of course, ours was already cooked before we decided what to do with it, but next time....)

2. I would use more yogurt in the recipe. I like chunkier granola, and the yogurt seemed to be the thing that made the granola stick together.

Try it out -- you'll love it!

Driving Update

Since last week, we've driven 189 miles. Actually, that's not true. I only drove about 10 of those miles. The rest was trips across town to my mother-in-law's house and "business" trips. There were, once again, 4 miles to the elementary school because I overslept and had to drive my son to school.

One of my friends says I sound like a drug-dealer when I put "business". Let's just make it clear -- there is no drug-dealing involved. So, from now on, no quotes. :)

On NPR this morning, I heard that el Presidente said that we should stabilize greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. Time describes this as "revising his stance on global warming." I guess. So he admits there's global warming, but we are only going to cap it in 17 years?! I don't understand why we can't cap it NOW and then work to reduce. As a teacher, I can relate this to teaching in three ways:

1. El Pres. complains that other countries need to do their part. True. But we need to serve as an example. The other kids in the class will follow the example of the cool kids. You don't want to be the last kid in the class pronouncing the "h" in "hola".

2. People rise to high standards and lower themselves to low standards. If your class is a blow-off class, nobody does any work. If your class is demanding, students will rise to meet the expectations.

3. Most people need a test to make themselves study. I'm a big nerd, but without a test, I do nothing. When I'm assessed, I make the changes in my life (studying -- blah) to do well. Companies are not going to do anything until they have to. Yes, that can come from consumer pressure, but that's not happening fast enough. We need to legislate change so we don't leave a terrible environmental legacy for our children (or our golden years!)

Or how about the parenting argument? Imagine this discipline technique.

Mom: Bobby -- you are hurting your sister. Stop hitting her by the time you're 23.
Bobby: Uh... okay.
Suzy: Ow! Ow! (for the next 17 years)

How do you think this is going to turn out? Not well. Actually, that argument is a little off, because Bobby should actually be able to increase his hitting until the age of 23, at which point he has to cap it, then reduce.

(I think I might sound like a crackpot in this post. If so, I'm sorry, and I'll try to sound more normal in the next one... the Thursday Experiment!... it's going to be AWESOME!)

Guardian of the Plastic

Do you ever feel like you are hoarding trash? Sometimes I do. For example, what am I supposed to do with a plastic bottle that held moisturizer? There's no recycling number on it, so I can't recycle it. Maybe I could use it for something else in the future. I keep trying to convince myself it's a fun bath toy, but really all that happens is that the kids squirt water on the floor.

How long do I have to hang on to plastic stuff that I don't want? I feel bad just chunking it in the trash, but that seems to be its destiny.

Also.... stickers. Stickers are the bane of my existence. There is nothing good to be said of them. Kids stick them on the furniture, on the walls, on the windows, on the floor, on their bodies (and then cry when you peel them off). Of course, they can't be recycled. They're just trash. Please stop giving my children trash! (This is directed to the world at large, including WF ... I don't care if the stickers are of dolphins.)

Can you tell I've had a frustrating day? Actually, it hasn't been too bad, but the stickers have been weighing on me lately.

An interesting plastic turning point has occurred this week -- our huge stockpile of plastic bags that we have been using as trash bags came to an end. What are we supposed to put our trash in? I feel like this is a dumb question, and there must be a really obvious answer, but really.... tell me. Here are the options that I can think of:

• paper bags -- but it will get gross and leak
• put the trash in other bags and non-recyclable containers -- this is what we're doing, but it makes a big mess.
• no bag -- C is fond of this option, but I find it icky.

It's true... I have a huge trash aversion (well, who doesn't?). The trash is totally C's department, but since I do most of the throwing of stuff in the trash, I probably get the most exposure to the trashcan. So, what to do?

The average American throws out 4.5 lbs. of trash a day. That means my family would be responsible for 22.5 lbs. of trash (a day!). I think that we're below average, but we still seem to throw out a lot of trash. The worms are helping out, little by little, but they really need to reproduce.

Be Green -- Do Nothing!

In The Tightwad Gazette, Amy Dacyczyn explains that when reporters come to her house, they want to see her doing tightwad things, so they frequently take pictures of her hanging the laundry. She thinks, however, that what is even more important are the things she doesn't do. For example, she doesn't buy fruit snacks (but that doesn't make for a very compelling photo op.)

Another piece of advice in her book is to keep reducing the amounts of stuff that you use until it's not enough. For example, do you really need 1/2 c. of laundry detergent? Or will 3/8 of a cup do? If 3/8 is enough, maybe 1/4 is.... Do you need to cover your whole toothbrush with toothpaste? Or is a "pea-size amount" (like the dentist says) enough? Or even less? My dentist told me that it's the brushing, not the toothpaste, that really matters.

To me, these two pieces of advice go hand in hand. Sometimes, to be green, or to be a tightwad, or to be both, we don't actually have to DO anything. We just don't do something:

• Don't go shopping. (This is an amazing time saver.)
  
• Don't change the sheets every week.
  
• Don't wash the towel every time you use it. You dry off your CLEAN body.
  
• Don't wash your jeans every day. Really. Unless you work outdoors or something, they're just not that dirty. If it doesn't bother you to wait two days, and no one notices, go for three...
  
• Don't go to the store for 1/4 teas. of a mystery spice; just leave it out.
• Don't make meat for dinner -- just eat side dishes. I was a vegetarian for over 10 years, and my favorite meal was Thanksgiving. Not because of the turkey -- blech! -- because of the sides.
• Don't take a shower before bed and when you wake up. Really. How dirty ARE you?
  
• Don't flush the toilet every time you use it. This is gross for some people. But how about this: if you take all your kids into a public restroom, do you flush after each person? Or does everyone pee and then you flush? (This assumes they are little kids and you go in with them. I personally think it's grosser to flush after each person. I just imagine all the bacteria flying into the air.)

Not doing anything can make a real difference. Here's an easy example:

Imagine that you normally change the sheets every 7 days, or 52 times a year.
You get radical, and decide that every 8 days is enough. Now you only wash your sheets 45.625 times a year (let's round to 45, because you leave town and let it go a couple more days.)
That's 7 fewer washes a year, saving 7 loads of water, the energy to heat it (if you're still washing with hot water), the detergent, and the energy to change the sheets.
Laziness pays off! Did it make a real difference? Did that extra day push you over the edge? Probably not.

Changes So Far

I really like it when other bloggers list changes that they have made (like No Impact Man recently did), so I thought I'd make my own list.

So far, we:
1. Started recycling.
2. Use only cloth napkins.
3. Use rags instead of paper towels.
4. Switched to cloth diapers & wipes for baby. **
5. Make our own bread.
6. Stopped using artificial sweetener.
7. Traded in one car for a scooter.
8. Ride bike/scoot instead of drive as much as possible.
9. Went camping over spring break instead of road trip.
10. Print on both sides of paper.
11. Use weird-shaped paper and envelopes for grocery lists and notes.
12. Print all work documents on both sides.
13. Stopped buying laundry detergent -- make our own.
14. Stopped buying liquid body soap -- use bar soap.
15. Bring own bags to grocery store.
16. Bring own bags and containers for bulk.
17. Bring own plates to picnics, etc.
18. Got rid of non-stick pans -- use stainless steel or cast iron. **
19. Turn off lights when not in use.
20. Conserve water in bath tub -- shared baths for kids.
21. Wash clothes in cold water.
22. Hang clothes dry.
23. Bring cup to coffee shop.
24. Use non-disposable coffee filter.
25. Buy fair-trade coffee.
26. Buy organic milk. **
27. Buy as much as possible used.
28. Stopped buying greeting cards -- homemade instead.
29. Reuse wrapping paper and gift bags.
30. Don't buy juice boxes for parties; serve juice with cups.
31. Bring basket of silverware to parties instead of disposable.
32. Bring disposable silverware and extra napkins home so they are not thrown in the trash.
33. Garden
34. Go to the library instead of buying books/videos
35. (I can't believe I forgot this one and had to come back) -- compost with WORMS

That's all I can think of for now. Here are the explanations for the starred items.
**4. Cloth diapers are totally awesome. I feel like a chump that I did not use them for my first two kids. They are inexpensive, they work well, and they have great re-sale value. That said, I could not find a good system for the night. My daughter pees A LOT at night. Even disposable diapers did not hold in the flood. Even a cloth diaper with a disposable doubler. Even two cloth diapers (and then she could barely walk because of all the bulk). The only thing that has worked is pull-ups. So, she wears a pull-up every night. :(
**18. I am afraid to get rid of the last pan because of pancakes. I will try them in cast-iron, but I am afraid they'll stick. Cast-iron is supposed to be naturally non-stick if it is properly seasoned, but that doesn't seem to be working so far.
**26. This took a long time. Organic milk is expensive and my children are milkaholics. BUT we finally made the switch (the increased price of regular milk actually helped.. when the difference was only a dollar, it didn't seem that bad.) I also buy organic yogurt, but I don't buy other organic milk products, which makes me feel hypocritical and bad.

Can you tell I'm suffering from environmental guilt? To be honest, today I'm pretty sick of feeling guilty. Now that I've made the list, I can see that I have made a lot of changes...

Do you suffer from environmental guilt? Do you ever just want to say "to heck with it all!"? What do you tell yourself?

Plastic Waste at Public Events

On Friday, my family went to a festival at the elementary school. A potluck dinner was part of the festival. Knowing this, we brought our own plates, cups and utensils. Bottled water was free at the festival (donated by WF. Why?) We filled up our cups with water from the fountain. That was no problem.

Last time we brought our plates, it was a big mess. This time was an improvement because I brought a plastic bag to put the dirty plates in. All in all, it was pretty easy. Blech factor? Not too bad. It just took a little thinking ahead.

Laundry detergent update:
A couple of weeks ago, I made my own laundry detergent. The results are in -- it works! Actually, C and I think it may be even better than the store-bought stuff. The clothes are clean, and they have an appealing clean (but not chemical) smell.

Thursday Experiment: Soy Milk

We have discovered something totally awesome! Tonight C and I made soy milk and it is:

• super cheap
• super easy
• super delicious
• AND makes no trash!
  

I was inspired by this video on youtube by The Daily English Show. I figure if you can teach someone to make soy milk in a little over 2 minutes, then it can't be too hard. And it's not.

C picked up some bulk organic soy beans at WF. They cost .99 a pound. If you buy a pound and bring your own bag, they only cost .89. A pound of soy beans makes a LOT of soy milk.

Here's the procedure:
1. Soak the beans overnight.
2. Rinse them. Measure 1 cup of beans and 3 cups of water into the blender.
3. Blend like crazy.
4. Put blended beans and water (now, amazingly, white) into the biggest pot you have.
5. Repeat steps 3 & 4 until you have used all your beans or until the pot is about 1/2 full.
6. Cook -- I'm not sure how long. Maybe 10 minutes? Let it boil, but BE CAREFUL because it gets very foamy and will quickly boil over (I know this from experience.) Skim the foam off. The heating step is important because it deactivates some enzyme in the beans that will make your tummy hurt.
7. At this point, I mixed in 1/4 c. sugar and 1/2 teas. vanilla per 2 c. beans b/c I like vanilla soy milk.
8. Pour the hot liquid into a cheese cloth that is inside a colander resting in a bowl. Squish the cheesecloth until the stuff inside (okara) is pretty dry. Set aside the okara for more fancy experimentation.
9. Turn to your husband (or whoever is near) and say "This is amazing!"

I'm hoping that this will cut down our milk budget (the kids can really chug some milk, and it is getting expensive) and on the packaging. We really like soy milk, but hate the packages, which are not recyclable here.

More news about WF Composting
I asked an employee at Whole Foods about the composting. She told me that they have been composting food waste for years, but have just now opened it up to customers. You can compost any food or paper. She told me that they compost at some wildlife refuge and then resell the compost. Just proves that being green can pay.

When are my worms going to start eating? They seem like they're getting ready for prom, the way they eat.

Driving Update & Depressing Plastic

Driving Update
Over the last week, C and I have driven a horrifying 287 miles! GAH! It seems like every week we drive MORE instead of less. Here's the breakdown:
190 miles -- camping trip
3 trips to elementary school - 12 (one of these trips was my fault because I overslept and my son missed the bus. Bad me!)
1 trip to work -- 8 miles (it was raining)
1 family trip to hang out with another family -- 8 miles
C drives to school -- 15 miles (or so)
"business" -- 40 miles (at least)
That leaves 14 miles. My estimates may be off.

I wish that we could drive less. The trips to the school are always in a carpool -- there is no bus service for PreK in the morning. The camping trip was a lot of driving, but there is a limited camping season before it gets too hot. I think camping is important for children, but I think driving is bad -- it's a quandry. I do feel good that we have basically eliminated a lot of the short trips we used to take in the car. I don't drive the car 1/2 mile to the grocery store to pick up something for dinner. I ride my bike or pick it up on the way home from school.

The main reasons that we drove this week were:
1. Camping -- impossible to reach any other way: 190 miles
2. Much faster to drive/need to carry kids or other stuff in car: 48 miles
3. Bad weather: 23 miles
4. Car pool: 8 miles
5. Oversleeping: 4 miles

We did keep to the goal of driving less than 100 miles if you leave out the camping trip, but I'm puzzled as to how to get the mileage down.

Depressing Plastic
I LOVE Beth's Fake Plastic Fish blog. She is so inspiring. She is trying to eliminate plastic from her life and is educating others about the evils of plastic. Her blog and others have had me really thinking about plastic lately.

Here are some fun facts that I have learned:

• All plastic that has been made is still around.

• Plastic doesn't biodegrade -- it just breaks into smaller and smaller pieces.

• There is a huge amount of plastic swirling around in the middle of the ocean (The Great Pacific Garbage Patch).

• Plastic is really hard to avoid.

I ran into this picture of a sea turtle on shipwreckcentral.com. Guess what's around its middle. Yep. Plastic. This picture horrifies me, and I can't help but think about it when I'm at the store.


The more that I read about the issue, the more I can't believe that people aren't more upset about it. I think it's a natural tendency to look away from hard problems. I am mad that when I go to the grocery store I am forced to buy plastic that I don't want -- and then I have to figure out some way to responsibly reuse it or recycle it. And it doesn't even really recycle! Plastic bottles don't become new plastic bottles! They need virgin plastic for that. Plastic bottles become stuff like fleece or park benches... (actually, I am still kind of surprised that fleece is made out of plastic). It's sickening.

BUT! I did have a small moment of plastic happiness today. I saw someone throwing boxes full of plastic bottles into the dumpster, so I ran outside:
(let the freak show begin)
GG: Hi! Are there bottles in those boxes?
Dude: Yeah... mostly plastic ones.
GG: Oh! You don't have to throw them away. We recycle. I'll recycle them for you. (I am such a geek. I cannot believe I am offering to recycle a stranger's trash)
Dude: Yeah, but they're not #1 or #2.
GG: Ecology Action accepts all the numbers.
Dude: They only accept #1 and #2.
GG: Yeah, they used to, but now they take them all. It's new.
Dude: Oh, great, I recycle there anyways.

(And he put the boxes back in his car to take them to the recycling center)

...or maybe he drove around to the other dumpster to throw his trash away in peace.

Pad Thai can save the world

Last summer I read a book which I of course can not remember the title to. The book was about 7 things that we can do to save the planet (or change the world? Something like that.) If you know what book I'm talking about, please send me a comment so I can stop rambling.

Anyway! One of the things was Pad Thai. Huh. How can Pad Thai save the planet? Well, the idea is that we should eat vegetarian meals. According to the Vegetarian Guide, going meatless is the "single most powerful action you can take to save energy and reduce pollution." Wow. I have had my students read an article about this, and most of them think it's hooey. Maybe because it's Texas. I'm not sure. But I have seen this message more and more and the numbers (again, from the above source) seem believable.

• It takes 54 calories of energy to produce 1 calorie of energy in beef. That's insane. (Numbers on this vary, but they're all really high. Some sites even say that if you get all your energy from beef, you pollute more by walking than by using the car. The message here is not that we should drive, but that we should not eat so much meat.)
• Water pollution -- it takes 5214 gallons of water to produce one pound of meat. This is something that I had not really thought of before. You use 5200 gallons in a whole year of showering, so you could save that by giving up one pound of meat.
  
• Land -- meat requires more land than plants. It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat. That's just not efficient.

Never mind animal welfare, smell, worries about contamination, price, etc. It is better for the planet to eat vegetarian as much as possible. It's also less expensive (especially if you only buy happy meat, which has REALLY decreased my meat consumption).

Today I used my beautiful mung bean sprouts to make Pad Thai. (Last week I started the sprouts). They expanded, filling a large yogurt container -- next time I won't use so many beans. So, for 15 cents, I got a ton of organic sprouts and a botany lesson.

I used a Martha Stewart recipe for the pad thai, but it was ridiculously complicated and dirtied a bowl and 4 pots and pans. Crazy. So, I simplified it a little. It was delish! My friend said it was like eating in a restaurant :)

Pad Thai to Save the World

8 oz. rice noodles (maybe use more, b/c we needed more noodles)
1/4 c. sugar
3 T white vinegar
3 T fish sauce
2 T + 1 teas. molasses (it calls for 1 T tamarind paste, but I don't have this lying around. This is a substitution. The 1 teas. is to make the white sugar into brown sugar b/c I ran out of brown)
1/4 teas. ground red pepper
1/2 lb. string beans
1/2 lb. sugar snap peas
2 T canola oil
2 minced shallots
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1 c. fresh mung bean sprouts (use more -- they're so good)
3 scallions, dice green part
chopped roasted peanuts for garnish

Soak noodles in warm water for 20 minutes.
In large skillet or wok, heat oil. Add shallots and garlic & stirfry. Add string beans and snow peas. Stir fry (don't burn garlic!) Add sugar, vinegar, molasses, fish sauce and red pepper. Add noodles and 1/2 c. bean sprouts. Warm everything.

Serve with bean sprout, peanut and scallion garnish.

Serves 4

I was really happy with this recipe. The ingredients cost a total of 6 dollars to feed my whole family, and that's including the fish sauce, which was 2.99 (there's a ton left over). It might cost you less because I bought all the ingredients at WF (but I did use all my own bags, gleaning a 50 cent bag credit.)

Richard Barrow give a similar recipe here.

Whole Foods has started Composting!
I have been jealous of other people who can compost their food waste, and so far my worms are being a little slow in the eating department, but on my visit today I saw that WF in Austin is now composting paper and food waste. Wow.

Where does the compost go? If you know, post a comment.

Image from myrecipes.com

OMG -- My pans are killing me!

Last night C and I watched "Garbage--the Revolution Begins at Home", a film in which a family keeps their garbage for 3 months. The filmmaker also explores the various kinds of pollution that the family (and ANY family) produces and its effects on the environment and other people. The segments on water (in which the water expert says that the rivers in our cities are already past the breaking point) and electricity (in which the filmmaker goes to mining communities in West Virginia) are extremely sad and scary.

During the film, one of the environmental experts talks about the threat of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a toxin that has been found in everybody that they tested. According to the Environmental Working Group, PFOA has been linked to cancer, birth defects, liver damage, and low birth weight. Eight companies that manufacture PFOA have agreed to stop by 2015, and Dupont had to pay a large fine to the EPA for failing to report studies that demonstrated its health risks.

What is PFOA found in? Teflon -- the non-stick coating on your pans. Microwave popcorn bags and other food packaging. Do you have a non-stick pan that has scratches? Guess where the coating is....

I'm pretty horrified, so I'm going to finish getting rid of the non-stick pans in my life. I will replace them with stainless steel or cast iron. The added bonus of cast iron? Prevents anemia :)
Seriously. If you cook in cast iron pans, you get the health benefit of additional iron instead of a scrape of toxic chemicals. I was anemic during one of my pregnancies and the nutritionist recommended that I cook in cast iron. It's also super heavy, so useful for hitting an intruder.

Eat Food Update

This is officially day 7 (last day!) of the Eat Food Challenge. I think that overall, it was not a great success. I had 3 main problems:
1. I ate out a lot this week and am not sure how the food was made. I tried to choose the most "real" option, but I can't be sure.
2. Kid food -- total disaster. It turns out that I have very little control over what my kids eat when they are out of the house.
3. Camping -- we went camping this weekend and I packed very quickly on Friday. I had to pack things that would not take too long to cook on our camp stove and that the kids would eat. I also needed lots of snacks for hikes. I brought plenty of fruit, dried fruit, nuts, stuff for sandwiches... no problem so far. I made hot chocolate mix instead of buying it. BUT... I also got hot dogs, marshmallows, peanut butter and jelly crackers and cheerio snack mix. I was in a big hurry at the store. The hot dogs and marshmallows -- I know they're bad. No excuse there. I've actually tried the "natural" marshmallows sold at Whole Foods and they just seem totally weird tasting to me, not to mention exorbitantly expensive.

PB&J crackers -- all I really wanted was a quick trail snack. My kids love these, but they are bad bad bad. They are wrapped in cellophane, and then all the packages are wrapped again. They are full of weird ingredients, and I noticed that they're not actually PB&J but PB&J "flavored". That's strange. How hard can it be to put PB & J in a cracker? Apparently too hard. Here's the worst: Each serving (6 cracker sandwiches) has 3.5 grams of trans fat. I had no idea. That's the last time I'm buying those crackers.

Cheerio Snack Mix -- in my speed I thought this would be a pretty healthy choice. It has cheerios, chex, pretzels, crackers, etc. I did not get the cheddar flavor b/c I thought it would be too overpowering. THEN I looked at the ingredients. There were many strange ingredients that grandma would not have recognized. And they were very salty. Not very good trail food, considering that we were running low on water by the end of our hike.

So, overall, I am a failure at eating real food. I guess. I tried, but maybe I could have tried harder. What kind of nut buys hot dogs in the middle of an Eat Food Challenge? But just constantly thinking about it made me learn some new things:

1. To eat real food, some planning is necessary.
2. It is better to just make simple snacks rather than buy them. It saves packaging, time, and a lot of weird ingredients. Example:

• don't buy stupid PB&J crackers -- make crackers with PB&J (this is really obvious, especially since I brought PB&J with me on the camping trip!)
• don't buy snack mix -- make "Ensalada de Cereal" (Cereal Salad) or GORP. My kids like Cereal Salad (that's what we call it) -- we just mix up all the last bits of different cereals. Instead of the cheerio snack mix, I could have mixed up some cheerios, some dried fruit, some pretzels, whatever.
  

3. "Healthy" grocery stores can have surprising ingredient lists. Every dessert I looked at in Central Market (a la-di-da version of our regular HEB) had partially hydrogenated oil in the ingredients. Gross.

4. I researched High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) to see what was so bad about it. It sounds pretty bad and has been linked to obesity. The body processes fructose differently than glucose, and it can lead to obesity and insulin resistance (according to some peer-reviewed studies, but not all). I also learned that High Fructose just means that it is higher than regular corn syrup -- not necessarily that it's super high. It's actually only 5% higher than regular table sugar. Hmmm.... One theory about the link to obesity is that HFCS is so cheap that it has led to increased portion sizes.

Also, there is such a thing as organic HFCS. AND, that companies are labeling products with HFCS as "natural" because it's made from corn. Even thought it's been chemically altered. That doesn't sound very natural to me. So watch the labels! Organic does not necessarily mean HFCS-free.

I'll continue watching the info about HFCS, because I'm curious to see just how bad it really is. In the meantime, I try to avoid it as much as possible, which can be really difficult because it seems to be in everything. For example, do you know what the second ingredient in my daughter's chocolate milk at school is? That's right...HFCS.

Real Food Day 4 & Experimental Thursday!

Real Food
Certain things are easy with real food. Dinner. Putting real sugar in my coffee. Making bread. It hasn't required a whole lot of change.

Kid food has been a real bust. What do you do when the neighbors give your kids ice pops? Do you rip them out of their hands (Not real food!)? No way. On Tuesday I packed a lunch for my daughter, but she forgot to bring it to the cafeteria and got the school lunch instead. She did eat her packed stuff at snack time, though.

Breakfast cereal? I basically gave up. Today, however, I woke up late and my son missed the bus, so I decided since he would need to eat a serious breakfast at home, I would make scones for everybody.

One thing that the challenge has made me do this week is not to resort to convenience foods. The other night when I made spaghetti sauce, I didn't have quite enough tomatoes. So, we just ate a less saucy sauce. Today, I did not have the normal blueberries to make the scones, so I decided to get radical :) and chop up some frozen strawberries. They were delicious, in a sort of strawberry shortcake way.

Another problem area has been eating out. I'm just not sure how real the food is. Today I had breakfast at my favorite pancake place, but I know their pancakes come from a mix (they sell it in the front of the store), so I ordered something else. I opted for corn tortillas instead of flour, but I'm not really sure the corn tortillas were any more "pure". With any challenge like this, I figure that trying my best is the point -- stretching my comfort zone a little -- thinking a little more about what I do every day. Should I torture myself and my family or strive for a goal that is so difficult that it is unatainable? I don't think so. I just do the best I can.

Experimental Thursday!!!

My neighbor taught me about the wonders of sprouts, so today I decided to start my own sprouts. I bought 15 cents worth of mung beans in the bulk part of the grocery store, and that is supposed to make a whole jar of sprouts. I'm excited to see how it goes. Here's the process:
1. Soak beans (about 1/4 cup) over night.
2. Put the beans in a jar with holes in the lid. About 3 or 4 times a day, fill the jar with water and then put it upside down so the water drains out. This will rinse off the beans so they don't get funky, and give them some water to grow. Keep this jar in a dark place.
3. If you want thick sprouts, put a weight on them. My neighbor gave me a "pillow", which is a piece of nylon material with rocks sewn inside of it. She puts this on top of the sprouts and has a plastic container with holes in the bottom.

I like this experiment because already I've learned 2 things I never knew about sprouts:
1. They are white because they grow in the dark. If you want to "green" the sprouts, you expose them to the light at the end of the sprouting process.
2. The weight makes the sprouts fatter because they have to be strong and push up on it.

So hopefully in about 5 days (give or take), I'll have a jar of sprouts and I can try making some pad thai. For only 15 cents -- that's my kind of price.

Worms!
The worms arrived today. In a box labeled "live worms". I wonder what the mail carrier thought of that :)

We fixed up the farm and put the worms in. We took a video, but it's not fit for publication right now because it's WAYYY too long. My friend was visiting and she was pretty grossed out, but helped shred the paper. According to the instructions, the worms need 3 days with not too much food to get used to their home, and then we can really get in business.

Driving Update, More CSA, Plastic Bags

I have two updates today. This week, we drove 180 miles. ACH! C, although he is divorced from the car, drove about 170 of them. Over the course of 2 days, he drove 100 miles for business, and then he had to drive an extra 30 to go visit his mother, who is sick. He could not have taken the bus to visit his mother, because he had to bring her lots of food. He could have done the business by bus and walking, but it would have taken several days, instead of one afternoon.

My students debated the advantages and disadvantages of various modes of transportation yesterday. For the bus, they said that the advantage was the price, and that was it. I thought that was interesting, because for me safety is a major reason to take the bus. I feel very secure. My students, however, feel that the bus is not safe because of 1) the type of people that ride the bus, especially late at night and early in the morning and 2) because of unsafe walks home from the bus stop. I am spoiled because I have a bus stop in front of my house and because I do not usually ride a city bus, but a university shuttle. Obviously, Cap Metro needs to work on their PR campaign.

So, as far as the car driving, 180 miles is a huge disappointment, but there was very little we could do about it. Today is the first day in two weeks that I have driven, and it was mainly out of laziness. I feel bad.

CSA
Week 2 of CSA today. The basket contained:
1 bunch spinach
1 bunch lettuce
1 bag mixed greens (with arugula?)
kale (traded for more spinach)
chard (!)
2 green onions
8 asparagus
baby carrots (they are very cute, but there are only about 6, and they are 2" long)
a couple of cauliflower florets

I'm not overwhelmed. We still have lettuce left over from last week. We are going to have to go crazy with some salad. My current feeling about CSA is that it's not worth it for us. In addition, I got a total of 5 plastic bags in my CSA box. Grrr.... Granted, 4 of them are biobags, but I am not currently composting bags, and I would really just rather have naked greens.

Speaking of bags, my friend alerted me that a group called Ban the Bags is calling for a ban on plastic bags in Austin. Yeah! According to their website, it takes 430,000 gallons of oil to produce 100 million plastic bags. Guess how many bags Austin uses in a year? That's right. About 100 million.

A woman quoted on the news said that she was too busy to bring her own bag. How can that be? I'm pretty darn busy. You know how much time it takes me to bring my own bag? None. You know how many times my cloth bag breaks, spilling the stuff onto the sidewalk? Never. Did it take me a few tries to remember to bring the darn things in the store? You betcha. But now it's a habit, and I haven't looked back. Now I'm working on remembering to bring my own bags for bulk stuff. It's just a matter of making it a habit. Her comment just doesn't make sense -- it's like saying you're too busy to wash the dishes, so you should just use plastic. Or too busy to wash towels, so just dry yourself with paper after a shower (Don't get any ideas!).

Experimental Thursday -- Butter
I thought that for Thursday I could make my own organic butter, but I don't really see how it could be worth it. The cheapest organic butter at the store is 4.49 a pound. A pint of organic cream is 2.29. How much butter does a pint make? I don't know. But unless it makes 1/2 a pound (which doesn't seem possible), it's not a better deal. In addition, since the cream that comes in glass containers is even MORE expensive, I would have to buy a plastic container. So it seems better to buy butter that comes packaged in waxed paper and wrapped in a cardboard box. Several bloggers have been making butter, and it seems like fun. But it doesn't seem like a better deal, or a reduction in plastic waste (at least in my case).

If anyone has made butter, let me know what the yield is like. If I'm wrong about the cost, I'd love to give it a try.

April Challenge from Crunchy!

Crunchy Chicken challenges us to make April buy nothing month. The rules are:
1. Buy nothing new, except
2. Food, gardening supplies, underwear, medicines

If you need anything else, buy it used, borrow, or make it.
I'm going to go for it! Anyone else want to join?

Blog organization
In other news, I am going to try to be a little more organized about my posts. On Wednesdays, I will do a driving (car divorce) update. On Thursdays, I will do an experiment (like my detergent experiment last week). I also plan to do a day of activism -- probably letter writing, and a day of getting rid of stuff (I'm thinking GROSS -- Get Rid of Stuff Saturday).

Real Food Day 2 and Coffee

I know everybody wants to see exactly what I eat every day, but I'm going to hold off. Today, I'm going to focus on a previously super artificial food that is really easy to make "real" -- coffee.

I love coffee. 'Nuf said. Burbanmom decided to give up coffee, but then changed her mind. I don't blame her. Yes, it's addictive. Yes, I'm addicted. But I'm okay with that.

So.... how was I messing this up?
Back in the days, I was drinking regular coffee (not free trade, not organic) that I got at the supermarket, not recycling the can I got it in, or buying coffee in a disposable cup from the nearest coffee shop.

No more! Now, I buy organic/free trade coffee, reuse the bag it comes in, and if I buy coffee outside of the house (which is an enormous waste of money, but necessary), I bring my own cup. Starbucks and WF will give a discount for BYOC. I think it's 25 cents at WF, which is pretty darn good.

Actually, this is not totally true, because I haven't bought any coffee in about a year. All my coffee has come to me, free. I can not reveal my sources, but it has been left over, so I guess I'm sort of a freegan! (It's not from the trash, though.)

Creamer
I hate that powdered creamer, but I do love half and half. I used to use fat-free half and half. Then, I decided that I only use a little bit, so why not use the real deal? I switched to regular half and half and finally figured out what it is -- on the fat free package, there are about a million mysterious ingredients. But half and half is half cream, half milk. That makes sense.

If you don't want to buy half and half, you can make it, and then make butter with the extra cream. This could be a fun experiment to try with the kids. Another option is just to use whole milk -- still pretty creamy (since I'm used to skim) and less expensive.

Sweetener
C drinks his coffee black. I wish I could, but I like it a little sweet. I was using Splenda. But after 2 days of sugar, I'm going back. Sugar is good, and not too caloric (again... I don't use that much). This is a strange change considering that I used to make fun of people for using artificial sweeteners, and then I became one of those people. (I blame Weight Watchers. I had great success, but started eating a lot of artificial stuff.)

Day 2 Review
I thought that I could rely on WF for my pastry fix. (I know, I have a serious problem). Did you know that many of their pastries contain seaweed products (I can't remember exactly what they called it on the ingredients...). It really cut down on my choices.

Pretty good day today.
Questionable food: tortilla
Triumph: made my own baguettes! And did not destroy the kitchen in the process. I used the dough cycle on the bread machine, then took the dough out, shaped it into baguettes (actually, into canes) and baked them in the oven. They were awesome. We had spaghetti for dinner (made my own sauce...no Ragu supplement) and, of course, chard.

I wonder what will be in the CSA box tomorrow. Chard? It's almost like Christmas.