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.

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.

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

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.