Which produce should I buy organic???

According to recent data gathered by the government, a list of the best and worst foods to buy non-organic has come out.  Of course, it is best for the environment and for the farmers that you always buy organic, but if your wallet is stretched thin already, this may be a way for you to cut back on your grocery costs without sacrificing your health.  If you go to www.foodnews.org you can print out a grocery guide of the "Dirty Dozen" and the "Clean 15" and there is also an iPhone app for those of us obsessed with our iPhones :) (Search: dirty produce in the App store)
Of course, do your own research to make sure that these findings mesh with your own personal preferences, but it may aid your transition into buying more organic and healthy food!

It's that time again!

Join us on March 27, 2010 at 8:30 pm by turning off your lights for one hour.  This action symbolizes coming together to fight climate change. This can also be a great opportunity to spend time with the ones you love.  Play board games by candlelight, tell stories by an eco-friendly fire or go outside and enjoy the 8:30 pm sky!  For more information: www.earthhour.org

Eat WILD!


Like this image? www.mudstencils.com

Looking for local farms that sell more natural dairy, eggs and meat?  Try www.eatwild.com!  There you can be connected with local farms in your area and even restaurants and stores.  Each of the farms listed follow the criteria set by EatWild.com.  That list can be found here and includes: animals raised in a low-stress, natural environment; streams and other natural water sources are protected from animal impact; animals do not receive hormones or antibiotics and more. The website suggests that you verify that each places meets your criteria (as they are unable to verify each farms claims) but that they are either certified organic or follow organic standards. 

I wrote about "Cafe Surfinista" a while back and I'm back to let everyone know that they have changed their name to "The Green Room Cafe".  They still have all the same delicious smoothies, wraps and sandwiches and even ceviche, guacamole, pico de gallo and a delicious shrimp cocktail on the weekends.  Most of their items are vegetarian or vegan, but there are a few carnivore options as well and most everything is organic and natural.  If you're in Cocoa Beach, check them out for some delicious and healthy food! www.greenroomcafecocoabeach.com

.Real vs. Artificial Christmas Trees

(Our real tree)

If you have eyes, you noticed that we have a real tree and so we might just be a lil biased, but it seems that we are not the only ones.  Earth911.com (click link for their full article) and the book "Green Christmas" are both saying the same thing: real trees are the more eco-friendly choice.  The reason?  93% of real trees are re- or "tree"-cycled each year and "are recycled into mulch and used in landscaping and gardening or chipped and used for playground material, hiking trails, paths and walkways. They can be used for beachfront erosion prevention, lake and river shoreline stabilization and fish and wildlife habitat" according to Earth911.com.  Also, each tree consumes about a ton of CO2 throughout its lifetime and produces enough oxygen for 18 people! 

Of course, the best option would be to buy a potted live tree that can be replanted after the holiday season or for Christmas trees to be grown organically but if your only choice is real or fake....the general consensus is real.

TIP: If you go to a place that sells Christmas trees, the majority of them will let you take the scrap branches for free.  Use these branches to decorate banisters, make wreaths or put a small one in your car to make it smell like Christmas!

If you want to take it a step further, try decorating your tree with LED lights (which are becoming much more affordable by the way) and natural decorations like the popcorn and cranberry garland in the photo below (Click here for how to make the garland).  Talk with family and friends and discuss having an ornament swap or if they have any they no longer use instead of buying new ornaments.  (We raided my mother-in-law's attic!)

We found the next best thing in Cocoa Beach, FL!  If you live here or are in town visiting, you must check out this new, healthy, arty, and cool restaurant!  The food was amazing and organic and there are vegan options available.  Ryan and I had shots of wheat grass to start and I had the organic raspberry iced tea and he had the organic coffee.  We shared a delicious wrap made of freshly made hummus, avocado and fresh veggies with a gluten and wheat free chocolate macadamia cookie for dessert and the entire meal only set us back $17!  The place is filled with interesting art and the menu is filled with delicious smoothies, wraps, sandwiches, salads, soup and on the weekends, they even offer ceviche!  Yummy, I can't wait to go back :)

How cute is this?

While I was at the library today I saw this adorable children's book about recycling.  I thought it was very cute and cleverly written, it definitely made me smile!  There were also useful green tips at the end of the book that are perfect for a child.  Check it out for your child or be the cool aunt/uncle and bring it to your niece or nephew!

                                   Is this:                      

A striking case study of the complexity of industrial metabolism is provided by James Womack and Daniel Jones in their book Lean Thinking, where they trace the origins and pathways of a can of English cola. The can itself is more costly and complicated to manufacture than the beverage. Bauxite is mined in Australia and trucked to a chemical reduction mill where a half-hour process purifies each ton of bauxite into a half ton of aluminum oxide. When enough of that is stockpiled, it is loaded on a giant ore carrier and sent to Sweden or Norway, where hydroelectric dams provide cheap electricity. After a month-long journey across two oceans, it usually sits at the smelter for as long as two months.

The smelter takes two hours to turn each half ton of aluminum oxide into a quarter ton of aluminum metal, in ingots ten meters long. These are cured for two weeks before being shipped to roller mills in Sweden or Germany. There each ingot is heated to nearly nine hundred degrees Fahrenheit and rolled down to a thickness of an eighth of an inch. The resulting sheets are wrapped in ten-ton coils and transported to a warehouse, and then to a cold rolling mill in the same or another country, where they are rolled tenfold thinner, ready for fabrication. The aluminum is then sent to England, where sheets are punched and formed into cans, which are then washed, dried, painted with a base coat, and then painted again with specific product information. The cans are next lacquered, flanged (they are still topless), sprayed inside with a protective coating to prevent the cola from corroding the can, and inspected.

The cans are palletized, forklifted, and warehoused until needed. They are then shipped to the bottler, where they are washed and cleaned once more, then filled with water mixed with flavored syrup, phosphorus, caffeine, and carbon dioxide gas. The sugar is harvested from beet fields in France and undergoes trucking, milling, refining, and shipping. The phosphorus comes from Idaho, where it is excavated from deep open-pit mines�a process that also unearths cadmium and radioactive thorium. Round-the-clock, the mining company uses the same amount of electricity as a city of 100,000 people in order to reduce the phosphate to food-grade quality. The caffeine is shipped from a chemical manufacturer to the syrup manufacturer in England.

The filled cans are sealed with an aluminum “pop-top” lid at the rate of fifteen hundred cans per minute, then inserted into cardboard cartons printed with matching color and promotional schemes. The cartons are made of forest pulp that may have originated anywhere from Sweden or Siberia to the old-growth, virgin forests of British Columbia that are the home of grizzly, wolverines, otters, and eagles. Palletized again, the cans are shipped to a regional distribution warehouse, and shortly thereafter to a supermarket where a typical can is purchased within three days. The consumer buys twelve ounces of the phosphate-tinged, caffeine-impregnated, caramel-flavored sugar water. Drinking the cola takes a few minutes; throwing the can away takes a second. In England, consumers discard 84 percent of all cans, which means that the overall rate of aluminum waste, after counting production losses, is 88 percent. The United States still gets three-fifths of its aluminum from virgin ore, at twenty times the energy intensity of recycled aluminum, and throws away enough aluminum to replace its entire commercial aircraft fleet every three months.

Aussies Ban Plastic Water Bottles

An Australian town votes to ban the sale of water bottles all together over the concern of the environmental impact.  Go Aussies!!  Check out the full story here .

Hungry for Change

Food, Inc. is opening in theaters all over the country this summer and it promises to be a very interesting film!  After watching the trailer at www.takepart.com/foodinc  I am very curious to find out exactly what I don't know about where my food comes from.  According to the website for Food, Inc., food companies are creating more and more mechanized approaches to growing food and raising livestock, often at the expense of the environment and the safety of consumers and farmers.

I believe that it's important to be well educated about where our food comes from and how it is produced. As a civilized society, we need to make sure that the animals raised for food are not treated inhumanely before they get to our plate.  It's also important to eliminate harmful pesticides and other toxins used on food so that it does not make it's way to our dinner tables.  For ways that you can help to solve this problem, you can visit: 10 Simple Ways to Change our Food System

Safer ways to get rid of pesky bugs!

For some reason, bugs LOVE me.  I can sit outside for 5 minutes at dusk and come inside to find myself covered in bites. There even seems to be one greedy mosquito who lives in my bedroom and feasts on an all you can eat Me buffet!  While I was in Thailand last year, I purchased a natural insect repellent that used lemongrass and citronella.  It was very effective and did not eat through my nail polish (dangerous sign) like the DEET spray did.

Nobody enjoys being eaten alive by mosquitoes or other bugs, so here are a few natural solutions that you can try this summer to avoid them!

• Spray Listerine in the doorways and around where you will be sitting outside for a dramatic decrease in mosquitoes
  
• To keep away ants, try a mixture of peppermint and citronella oils.
• For blackflies, cinnamon and tumeric oils should do the trick
• Cockroaches will stay away from citrus oils, especially kaffir lime oil
• Mosquitoes are not huge fans of catnip and thyme
• Ticks abhor lemon eucalyptus oil

Try this natural solutions and let us know how effective they are!  Or, if you know of another trick, let us know! livinglavidaverde@live.com