Are Vegetarians Bad for the Environment? July 14, 2008

I’m always reading about people eating less meat in order to reduce their carbon footprint. These people say that the most important thing you can do to help the environment is to go vegetarian.

For example, Kelly Freston wrote this article last year in the Huffington Post: Vegetarian is the New Prius:

Last month, the United Nations published a report on livestock and the environment with a stunning conclusion: “The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” It turns out that raising animals for food is a primary cause of land degradation, air pollution, water shortage, water pollution, loss of biodiversity, and not least of all, global warming.

Seems logical. But is it really true?

I read a great article recently in the spring edition of Wise Traditions (the Weston A. Price Foundation quarterly journal). The article was written by Matthew J. Rales, who has a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Middlebury College in Vermont. He also recently completed an apprenticeship at Joel Salatin’s grass-based Polyface Farm.

This article is so dense and so brilliantly constructed that I can’t do it justice in one post. So I am going to do a series of posts discussing Matthew Rales’ arguments against vegetarianism as pro-environment.

Let’s start with the assertion that vegetarians make that rainforests are being destroyed by livestock.

“Make no mistake; rainforests are not cleared in any drastic measure by independent farmers who want to graze a few steers. They are cleared by United Nations-supported corporate giants under the guise of feeding the world and alleviating poverty — all for the production of more of their patented seed.”

“A recent article in Business Week reports that Brazil alone grows over 25 million acres of soybeans — all of which are genetically engineered. The Wall Street Journal reports that Monsanto’s stock has tripled in the last year due to Brazil’s demand for Roundup Ready soybeans — a genetically engineered plant that can withstand multiple, frequent applications of toxic herbicide.”

“Our society has been conditioned to support a co-opted environmental movement in the name of a chemical-intensive vegetable bypass industry, at the tragic expense of good health to both man and environment via the qualities of grazing animals and their products — meat and milk for people, manure for the soil — none of which we can afford to lose.”

Why are cows being blamed for the destruction of the rainforest? Farmers who raise cows on pasture do not buy soybeans. They do not buy corn. They feed their animals grass and hay.

Clearly, this argument made by the U.N. that raising animals for food is destroying the environment is fallacious. They are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Rales writes:

“The U.N. points its global finger not at bad management practices like feedlots and confinement dairies, but at the cows themselves; not at Monsanto, but at real farmers, who raise livestock in accordance with nature’s principles — on grass.

The U.N.’s accusations ought to be directed at chemical-intensive, industrial CAFO agriculture.”

Back to Kelly Freston’s article on the Huffington Post. The worst, most misleading part of her article are these two sentences:

Recent years have seen an explosion of environmentally-friendly vegetarian foods. Even chains like Ruby Tuesday, Johnny Rockets, and Burger King offer delicious veggie burgers and supermarket refrigerators are lined with heart-healthy creamy soymilk and tasty veggie deli slices.

Environmentally friendly? Burger King?

Let’s take a look at what’s in a BK Veggie Burger:

Vegetables (Mushrooms, Water Chestnuts, Onions, Carrots, Green Bell Peppers, Red Bell Peppers, Black Olives), Textured Vegetable Protein (Soy Protein Concentrate, Wheat Gluten, Water for Hydration), Egg Whites, Cooked Brown Rice (Water, Brown Rice), Rolled Oats, Corn Oil, Calcium Caseinate, Soy Sauce (Water, Soybeans, Salt, Wheat), Onion Powder, Corn Starch, Salt, Hydrolyzed Corn, Soy, and Wheat Protein, Yeast Extract, Natural Flavors from non-meat sources, Sugar,Soy Protein Isolate, Spices, Garlic Powder, Dextrose, Jalapeño Pepper Powder, Celery Extract.Contains: Soy, Wheat, Milk and Egg. This is NOT a vegan product. The patty is cooked in the microwave.

I bolded all the processed foods that are contained in that single patty.

With that amount of processing, there is a ton of energy that goes into making that patty. Not to mention all the energy and chemical fertilizers that went into growing all those vegetables and soybeans and oats and rice. Oh, and there are egg whites in there, too. So you have to factor in raising chickens and slaughtering them as well. Plus those chickens were fed corn and soybeans.

And where do you think the corn and soybeans come from that were used to make this BK Veggie Burger? Do you think they came from organic farms tended by environmentally-conscious sustainable farmers?

Not likely. They are most likely genetically modified soybeans from industrial farms.

And where a lot of those industrial farms located? Why, in South America. Where the rainforests used to be.

All right, okay, so maybe you can still be a vegetarian and save the planet. You just won’t eat at Burger King. Maybe you’ll just buy those faux deli meats like Freston recommends at the health food store. Like “Smart Bacon”. After all, they are made from soybeans that are not genetically modified. So you’re safe, right?

Not so fast. What’s in Smart Bacon?

Water, soy protein isolate, wheat gluten, soybean oil, textured soy protein concentrate, textured wheat gluten, less than 2% of: natural smoke flavor, natural flavor (from vegetable sources), grill flavor (from sunflower oil), carrageenan, evaporated cane juice, paprika oleoresin (for flavor & color), potassium chloride, sesame oil, spice extractives, fermented rice flour, tapioca dextrin, citric acid, salt.

Again, I’ve bolded the processed foods. Any idea how much processing goes into some of these ingredients?

Take paprika oleoresin. I looked it up on Wikipedia:

Paprika oleoresin (also known as paprika extract) is an oil soluble extract from the fruits of Capsicum Annum Linn (Indian red chillies), and is primarily used as a colouring and/or flavouring in food products. It is composed of capsaicin, the main flavouring compound giving pungency in higher concentrations, and capsanthin and capsorubin, the main colouring compounds (among other carotenoids).[1]

Extraction is performed by percolation with a variety of solvents, primarily hexane, which are removed prior to use.[2]

Hexane? Where does hexane come from? Wikipedia?

Hexane is produced by the refining of crude oil.

Oh, okay, so Smart Bacon is made with hexane, a refined petroleum product. Gee whiz, how can that be good for the environment? I thought we were trying to reduce our dependency on oil.

So I guess Vegetarian is the New Prius, like Kelly Freston said, seeing how the Prius also requires gasoline.

But let’s get back to that Smart Bacon. What else is in there? TSP — textured soy protein. According to Wikipedia, this is how it’s made:

TSP is made by forming a dough from high nitrogen solubility index (NSI) defatted soy flour with water in a screw-type extruder such as the Wenger and heating with or without steam. The dough is extruded through a die into various possible shapes; granules, flakes, chunks, goulash, steakettes (schnitzle), etc., and dried in an oven.

OK so you have to grow the soybeans then dry them then grind them into flour then defat (?) the flour by extruding it and then heat it with or without steam.

Hmm… not sure how much energy is involved in that process but I do now that anything extruded is made in a factory.

Here’s a picture I found of a soy extruder:

You think that thing needs oil, too? Just like the Prius and the Smart Bacon? Or do you think it runs on solar power?

Anyone want to take a guess — which has a lower impact on the environment: a grass-fed farmer selling meat at the farmer’s market or extruded soy patties from a factory?

So who’s destroying the rainforests? Who’s using up the most energy to produce their foods?

Is it the small farmers raising grass-fed cows and those of us who support them by purchasing grass-fed meat and dairy products directly from the farmer?

Or is it multinational corporations like Monsanto and Burger King and Lightlife Foods (makers of Smart Bacon), and all the veggie-burger-eating vegetarians?

Wake up, folks. Just because you are avoiding meat does not mean you are avoiding factory farms.

If you really want to avoid factory farms, support your local farmer.

PS: We’re having cheeseburgers tonight. Grass-fed beef from Organic Pastures Dairy up in Fresno — where the cows are on pasture all year long.

Sources: Burger King, Lightlife Foods, Wise Traditions 2008, Huffington Post, Soy extruder machine

Daily Photo: New Clotheslines April 25, 2008

I finally got some clotheslines rigged up in the backyard. I found some rope at the local hardware store — I just tied it to some trees. Nothing fancy — but it works. They had clothespins at the store, too.

These are Kate’s cloth diapers and cloth wipes. The sun really does bleach out the stains.

Santa Monica Treesavers March 22, 2008

I met these folks today on the street in front of my office. They are trying to save 50 trees in Santa Monica from being ripped out.

Certain people (a few local store owners, from what I gathered) want to rip out perfectly good trees and plant new trees. It’s crazy!

Anyhow, these good folks were out on the street today, collecting names on petitions to fight the destruction of these trees.

The City of Santa Monica plans to destroy or remove over 50 of the beautiful, large-canopy Ficus trees along Second and Fourth Streets

The city wants them replaced with small Ginkgos that though beautiful, actually cast very little shade (most of it after 20 years’ growth). Why? The city claims some of them are too damaged or decayed to be saved. But the majority of these trees are being removed to make those streets more attractive to the shopping public. This weird logic flies in the face of research, surveys and studies showing that dense, large-canopy trees attract shoppers. They make the place nicer, better and healthier for everyone.

Many Santa Monica residents and visitors want to preserve these magnificent stands of large, shade-giving trees in the heart of our town. This site is intended as a clearinghouse for information, and a rallying point for community support. Call your council members! Tell them: Save Our Trees!

Interestingly, one of the main people involved in this is Chris Paine, director of Who Killed the Electric Car?

Chris is also my former boss. Interestingly, my other former boss, at two different companies, Richard Titus, was the producer of that film.

Who Killed the Electric Car? is one of my favorite films of all time. If you haven’t seen it, do so immediately.

I think it’s awesome that they are fighting to save these trees. There is always something we can do to better our own neighborhood. Something small or something big.

And if we can’t think of something we can do — we can support someone else in doing something.

I want to thank you guys, Jerry and Carol and Chris and everyone else — for doing what you can to keep these trees alive.

Here’s your chance to do something good. Go and support them! Sign the petition or donate some cash:

http://treesavers.blogspot.com/

Or blog about them! Spread the word!

PS: This photo was taken with an iPhone. Not bad, eh?

Food Not Lawns March 4, 2008

I got a new book from the library. It’s called “Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard Into a Garden and Your Neighborhood Into a Community”.

Here’s what the author writes about her upbringing:

For the first twenty years of my life I never thought about where my food came from; nor did I question the deeper workings of the food system or society as a whole. Though marginalized by my half-Mexican blood and low-income status, in many ways I was just like any other kid in the suburbs: I struggled to fit in, I fought with my parents, and I ate sugar and industrial meat almost every day.

Public school taught me to obey authority, and that words are more important than actions. Television taught me to buy my way to happiness, and that I should starve myself and keep my opinions to myself so I could find a husband and make babies. My family taught me to tolerate abuse in the name of love, and the mainstream workforce taught me that my time isn’t worth a living wage.

She tells how she rejected her upbringing and moved to San Francisco at age 21, started riding a bicycle, canvassing for Greenpeace, and stopped watching TV.

I can relate! I moved to San Francisco at 18. When I was 24, I worked as a canvasser for an environmental group, raising awareness for curbside recycling.

Some amazing facts from the book (and I am only on page 14!):

The average urban lawn could produce several hundred pounds of food a year.

Today 58 million Americans spend approximately $30 billion every year to maintain more than 23 million acres of lawn. That’s an average of over a third of an acre and $517 each. The same sized plot of land could still have a small lawn for recreation and produce all the vegetables needed to feed a family of six.

The lawns in the United States consume around 270 billion gallons of water a week — enough to water 81 million acres of acres of organic vegetables, all summer long.

Lawns use 10 times as many chemicals per acre as industrial farmland. These pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides run off into our groundwater and evaporate into our air, causing widespread pollution and global warming, and greatly increasing our risk of cancer, heart disease, and birth defects.

The pollution emitted from a power mower in just one hour is equal to the amount from a car being driven 350 miles.

I LOVE this book!!! Those facts are absolutely staggering to me. Doesn’t it seem ridiculous that we have all this wasted land that requires maintenance — and for WHAT? We spend money to maintain lawns, when we could be SAVING money by growing food!

It’s absurd that many people say they can’t afford organic produce. Do you know how easy it is to grow things? I have lettuce, all kinds of herbs, tomatoes (we ate them on our salad last night). And I barely have anything growing yet. Just wait till this summer! (I’ll have to post before and after pictures of the garden.)

You know what else I keep thinking about? Community. When you have a garden that bears fruits and vegetables, you end up giving a lot of them away. It would be so cool to be able to share vegetables with neighbors. Barter for eggs and chicken and milk. Some people could make honey, others goat cheese, others wine.

And we would share seeds — ha ha, Riana and I are already sharing seeds long distance — and she is in France! Sharing seeds and saving them from year to year makes so much sense to me.

It’s the same thing with fermented foods. You share your starters. They proliferate so it makes sense to give them away. And it’s also insurance — if you ever lose a starter, you can just get another one from a friend.

There is something so wonderful about a real community where people share with each other. And something so liberating about not having to buy a huge cart full of food from a supermarket. It’s so freeing to be able to grow your own food in your own backyard.

Plus gardening is so fun and it’s such good exercise. I love being outdoors, soaking up the sun and breathing fresh air. The truth is, there is so little work involved. Organic gardening is a lot less work than maintaining a lawn.

More to come from this book — I have a feeling I am going to learn a lot!

Drying Clothes on the Line February 25, 2008

We are back from vacation and I’m excited about a new idea (okay, an old idea!).

Drying clothes outside on a clothesline.

The bottom line assuming a 5,000-watt unit is 50 cents per hour. And while this might not sound like much, it really adds up over the course of a month. Heat-producing appliances always use surprisingly large amounts of electricity and they’re the first things we should cut back on in an effort to become more environmentally responsible. Most people are surprised to learn that using your clothes dryer for one hour consumes the same amount of electricity as a 100-watt light bulb burning for 50 hours.

(Home Envy)

I’m not saying we won’t ever use the dryer. I’d just like to use it a lot less. I think line-dried clothes smell wonderful. And the sun naturally bleaches stains.

I already spoke to our housekeeper, Carla, about my idea. Since she’s been with us, I’ve made so many changes — switching to all-natural cleaners, using natural detergent, switching to cloth diapers, etc. I hated to tell her that I had another scheme brewing.

She was unfazed. She said, “In my country, we never use the dryer. We always hang our clothes outside.”

I think I’ll order an outdoor clothesline and an indoor one as well — for sweaters and things that you don’t want to hang outside, and for those rare times that it’s raining in southern California.

What We Can Learn From Saving Trash February 15, 2008

I can’t stop thinking about the guy who saved his trash for a year.

I read about him a while back but it didn’t really gel with me until now. I guess because all of this stuff is cumulative. You do one thing and it leads to another and another. It’s actually become a hobby for me now. Okay, not just a hobby. An obsession. (But it’s a good obsession!)

I want to respond to his post on what he learned from saving his trash for a year:

1. The vast vast vast majority of trash comes from food packaging. Packaged food is less nutritious, on the whole, than fresh food. Packaged food, ounce for ounce, is often more expensive than fresh food. I’ve learned that making less trash, by consuming less packaged food actually makes me healthier and wealthier. I’m in the best shape of my life right now and I can see first hand that it is related to changes in my diet that have come from this project.

I have noticed that we have a lot less trash since I have been cooking traditional foods. We stopped eating most packaged foods thanks to Sally Fallon and the WAPF — for health reasons. Avoiding packaged foods also helps the environment.

Some examples:

I used to buy yogurt. Now I make filmjolk and kefir. Just add milk and leave it on the counter. No more plastic yogurt containers.

I used to buy iced tea and soda. Now I make kombucha and beet kvass. No more cans and bottles. I’m also starting to make kefir soda pop (more on that in a future post).

I used to buy most of our vegetables from the grocery store. Now I buy most of it at the farmer’s market. They fill a plastic bin, which I carry home with me and then bring it back the following week. There are no plastic bags on any of the produce.

I’ve been making pickles, sauerkraut, and mayonnaise from scratch, reusing glass jars. I am going to learn how to make ketchup, salsa, naturally fermented soy sauce, and mustard. (By the way, ALL of these recipes are in Sally Fallon’s cookbook, “Nourishing Traditions”.)

Seth still likes fancy Italian mineral water. I’m looking into buying one of those seltzer makers. However, he is drinking a lot less since we started drinking kombucha.

We are also still buying distiled water. Soon we will buy a water filtration system and eliminate the need for this.

I still have to buy milk in plastic jugs. That is the way they come from Organic Pastures. It would be nice if they could someday go to a delivery service with reusable glass containers. Maybe I will write a letter to them to ask about the feasibility of this.

We are using less paper towels. A cloth rag works fine.

2. When I ask people to put prepared food in my own containers it disrupts their flow and makes them think. Some people like this. They enjoy the momentary distraction from monotony and the novelty of the experience. Others get pissed off. It makes they have to pay attention, it takes more energy. I don’t know what to do with this information yet I just know I’ve learned this.

I have noticed this, too, when I bring my cloth bags to stores like Target. I usually get a whiff of frustration. I’ve noticed it even when I don’t have a cloth bag and just tell them I don’t need a bag. They usually look at me like I’m crazy and try to foist a bag on me anyway.

I had to actually INSIST that I did not want a bag recently at Office Max. The guy REALLY wanted me to have that bag — even though I kept telling him I didn’t want one. “I’m trying to save the planet!” I said.

I have also had to stop people at Whole Foods from putting paper bags on my wine bottles so they don’t break in the cloth bags. “It’s fine!” I say, giving them back their bags. “I’ll be careful. I’m not going very far.”

3. Saving trash leads to increased consciousness of what I consume. I cannot purchase a single thing without wondering about all of the energy that went into manufacturing it, the resources use to ship, how far its component parts traveled until it was assembled, how far it then traveled to get to the store where I purchased it, the thousands of miles it may travel before finding its ultimate home in a pile of other unwanted manufactured souls.

I am thinking about this, too. If I have to buy foods and other products that come in packages, I would rather buy things that come in packages that can be composted.

Example: Buying detergent that comes in cardboard boxes (they can be composted) instead of plastic containers. This is an easy switch!

Another example: When I buy meat from Whole Foods it often (not always) comes wrapped in compostable paper. Unlike at Trader Joe’s where it is wrapped in plastic.

Another example: I am using my egg crates to start seeds. I can reuse them for this more than once — or compost them.

4. Recycling sucks. There, I said it. Of course recycling is a powerful first step in becoming more aware of what one consumes and it’s better to recreate something out of something than it is to gather up more raw materials to make something new. That said, recycling still sucks. It takes enormous amounts of energy and clean water to produce plastic bottles and containers, glass bottles and jars and cans of all kinds. It take enormous amounts of energy to collect these items at curbsides and ship them to recycling facilities. It take enormous energy to recycle items and ship them somewhere to be remanufactured. Almost all recyclable materials come from food or health and beauty products – both unnecessary items we have grown addicted to in our modern world. Less recycling also means fresher food. Health and beauty products is another conversation and I’m not sure we’re all ready for it yet :o)

I’m ready for it!

I stopped wearing deodorant. Corn starch (which comes in a cellulose bag) works GREAT!

Many of you know of my “no poo” experiment. I have been using Terressentials hair wash but after one of my readers (thanks, Rachel) suggested trying a little baking soda mixed with bentonite clay (I got some from Mountain Rose Herbs), I find that it works great on my hair. I’ve been using a little vinegar in my rinse.

I’ve stopped using moisturizer on my face; I use coconut oil now.

I’ve stopped using makeup (never really used much anyway — I put a little powder on on occasion). I just can’t be bothered.

I’ve stopped using tampons and now use the Diva cup and a natural sea sponge. Cloth pads and the Japanese toilet seat are next. (Shhh don’t tell Seth about the Japanese toilet seat.)

I’ve stopped using disposable diapers and now use cloth. Cloth wipes are next.

As for the recycling issue, I agree! If we can avoid buying these packaged foods and other products in the first place, that is the ideal scenario.

5. It doesn’t take much to make a big difference. If I can do this, someone else can do this. If two people reduce their consumption radically, 4 people can do it to, so can 8 people, 16 people, 32 people, and so on. Change is much easier and much more readily available than most of us are taught to think and lead to believe.

This is so true! It’s all the little things that add up. And if we all try to do little things, it will add up to making a big difference!

6. Trash sucks. 100 years ago most of the trash we produce now did not even exist. It did not even exist. Now it is at the center of a worldwide economic system that is lopsidedly built upon mass consumption to create huge profits for the few at the physical and environmental expense of the many many many. This makes me sad.

It makes me sad, too. Let’s change it!!!! If we stop buying it, they will have to stop selling it. The power really is in our hands.

7. Changing is fun, much more fun than it is stressful.

I agree!

People keep telling me that they are impressed that I am doing all of this stuff.

The truth: I can’t help it! It’s so much fun. It’s actually addictive.

8. Cleaning out food packaging takes time and is necessary to get rid of odors and to ensure bugs and rodents are not attracted to it.

I’d rather reuse glass jars and stick in the dishwasher. Or compost paper. I hate buying anything in plastic.

I also want to say this:

Blogging and the internet has really spurred me on in this endeavor. I have learned so much from people online — all the wonderful people on the Discussing NT Yahoo list and from blogs like Save Your Trash and These Days in French Life (just to name a couple).

Thanks, everyone. Let’s keep encouraging each other!

The Guy Who Saved His Trash For a Year February 15, 2008

This guy saved his trash for a whole year. He even brought back 16 days’ worth of trash from a trip to Hawaii.

He is an inspiration to me.

I know, it seems wacky. But global warming is happening, folks. If you haven’t seen An Inconvenient Truth, please watch it. It will change your life.

And if you did see it and haven’t yet changed your life, maybe there are some simple things you can start doing to make a difference.

Recycling some of your trash is good — but it’s not enough.

You don’t have to save your trash for a year. But maybe you can start by composting.

Or start using cloth grocery bags. And don’t just use them at the grocery store — use them at Target and the drug store and the mall.

Switch to cloth diapers. And cloth wipes! (I’m making some now.)

Use cloth rags in the kitchen instead of paper towels.

Get some reusable take-out containers.

Stop using toxic chemicals on your lawn. Go organic!

Or a reusable coffee cup for that Starbucks latte you get every day.

Make kombucha at home instead of drinking soft drinks.

Boycott food from factory farms and eat only pasture-raised, grass-fed beef and dairy. (Animal feedlots and factory farms are one of the biggest causes of methane gas which causes global warming.)

Buy a paper shredder and compost your junk mail.

Buy a Japanese toilet seat or bidet so you can use less toilet paper.

Get a Diva cup or a natural sea sponge and/or some Glad Rags or other reusable menstrual pads.

Stop taking the newspaper (read it online).

Use a pooper scooper to pick up animal waste — instead of plastic bags.

Stop buying chemical household cleaners and make your own or use an environmentally friendly brand.

Limit the number of packaged foods you buy.

Maybe just one little thing.

Remember, it’s not for you. It’s for your children. For your grandchildren. And for their children and grandchildren.

Because if we don’t change our ways drastically, there won’t be a world for them to enjoy.

I just read the other day that polar bears are about to be extinct.

You can save them. We can do it together.

Maybe you could just do one little thing. Maybe you could start today.

Why Make Your Own Cleaning Products? February 3, 2008

Seth doesn’t understand why I want to make my own cleaning products.

There’s a number of reasons why.

First of all, it’s better for the environment. Most commercial cleaning products are harmful to our planet.

Their also harmful to us. Why use harsh petrochemical-based cleaners that are full of toxins when there are alternatives?

Another reason is that it saves oil. That’s right, oil.

“If every household in the U.S. replaced just one bottle of 50 oz. ultra petroleum based liquid laundry detergent with our 50 oz. ultra vegetable based product, we could save 113,000 barrels of oil, enough to heat and cool 6,500 U.S. homes for a year!”

(According to a Seventh Generation laundry detergent page on Drugstore.com)

Did you know that there was oil in your cleaning products? I didn’t.

I guess some people say they don’t want to make the switch to green cleaners because it’s too expensive. Well, you can throw that argument out the window by learning how to make your own.

It’s not hard, and the savings are substantial.

Here’s the Price Breakdown per Load:

Arm & Hammer - 23 cents per load.
All Small & Mighty - 24 cents a load.
Purex Free & Clean - 24 cents per load.
Gain Original - 30 cents per load.
Cheer Color Guard Free & Gentle - 39 cents per load.
Tide with Downy - 43 cents per load.
Dreft - 45 cents per load.
Original Tide - 46 cents per load.
Seventh Generation - 34 cents per load.

AND…

Homemade powder or liquid - 1-2 cents per load.

(Source)

How much money are we saving? Well, with all our regular laundry plus cloth diapers, we do about 6 loads a week. That’s 312 loads per year.

Here’s our savings per year:

Seventh Generation (34 cents/load) - $106.08
Homemade detergent (1.5 cents per load) - $3.75
Savings - $102.33

And that’s just for laundry detergent. I’m no longer buying Windex, dishwashing detergent, dishwashing liquid, Fantastik, Swiffer (that stuff costs a fortune), Comet, etc. We are using a combination of white vinegar, water, washing soda, Borax, and citric acid for all of the above.

Sure, you still have to make it — but how hard is it to mix up a couple of things? And I’d rather save money on cleaning products — that’s money I can use for more important things, like raw milk and grass-fed beef.

Here are some recipes for laundry detergent:

Homemade Laundry Detergent Recipe

Here’s an even easier recipe for a powder (the one above is a liquid).

How to Reduce Global Warming: Compost! January 20, 2008

Here is the number one thing you can start doing today for the environment:

Start composting!

I was just listening to one of my favorite shows on the Lime channel on Sirius Radio. It’s called The Organic Gardeners.

They had a guy on the show this morning named Joe Lamp’l of JoeGardener.com.

Wow — he is amazing. One of the things they talked about was this:

Over 60% of the trash that goes into landfills is compostable.

and

Landfills are the number one cause of greenhouse gas emissions.

Isn’t that staggering? I had no idea! That means if we all started composting, we would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60%. Holy moley!

Are you composting? If not, why not?

I wasn’t doing it because I thought it was too much trouble. I didn’t have a compost bin set up. And it was easier just to throw things in the trash. And a lot of stuff went down the garbage disposal. Which just clogged it up. It’s funny because whenever the plumber comes to snake the drain, the always tell you not to put stuff down there.

Composting is a simple thing we can all do to help the environment.

How to get started with composting:

1. Find a bucket or a big bowl.
2. Start putting scraps in there. Vegetable and fruit scraps, coffee grounds, tea bags, egg shells and the like. (What not to compost)
3. When it fills up, throw it onto a compost heap, bin or worm trays.
4. If you don’t have any of those things, just go dig a hole in your yard and bury it. You don’t have to bury it very deep. I just barely cover mine with dirt. You can pour scraps all over your garden beds this way.
5. Also be sure to add leaves and grass clippings to your piles.

Add some worms to your soil if you don’t have any. You can get worms at most gardening supply stores. If you feed the worms with scraps, they will multiply. You will know if you have worms by just digging into your dirt with a shovel — you should see them wiggling around in there.

I have worms in my dirt and I will tell you they eat fast! I buried a large bucketful of scraps in mid-December. A few weeks later, I went to check it and guess what? All the scraps were gone!

If you don’t have a yard, you can compost in an an apartment using worm trays or a Bokashi bucket. Then you can use your compost for your houseplants.

What? You don’t have any houseplants? Get some! Houseplants are so good for you — they increase oxygen indoors and actually reduce toxins.

Joe Gardener says you can use a paper shredder to make compostable material out of your junk mail. How cool is that? And what better use for all that paper? Give it to the worms!

King Corn December 14, 2007

Guess what came in my mailbox today? My very own DVD copy of “King Corn”. I ordered a copy from their website, since I missed it in the theater.

I’m watching it now.

It’s BRILLIANT! Horrifying. But brilliant.

They actually make high fructose corn syrup at home. Did you know that high fructose corn syrup is inedible industrial corn soaked in battery acid?

Let me repeat that:

high fructose corn syrup is inedible industrial corn soaked in battery acid

Why in the world are we eating this? It’s in lots and lots of processed foods, drinks, and fast foods.

There is only one reason we eat it. Because it makes money for the chemical companies.

Did you know that drinking ONE soda a day doubles your risk of type II diabetes?

Why are we feeding corn to cows? Cows that are meant to eat grass and hay? They are not meant to eat corn and they get very sick when we feed them corn. Which is why they are pumped with antibiotics.

What the hell has happened to our country? Our farmers don’t eat their own corn or the milk that comes from their cows. This shit is inedible. INEDIBLE.

And we are ruining the land. Monocropping destroys the land.

Why are large chemical corporations controlling our food supply?

How in the hell did that happen? And why are we letting this happen?

Everyone in America should watch this movie. People need to wake up before it is too late.

It’s time to wake up and do whatever we can to support local, independent farms who sell directly to the public.

Here’s the trailer:

Here’s the website where you can order your copy of the DVD:

http://www.kingcorn.net/

The Story of Stuff December 5, 2007

This is truly eye-opening and inspiring:

The Story of Stuff

So much so, in fact, that — I’ll admit it — I cried a little bit at the end.

It’s just so OBVIOUS! And so sad. That treadmill we are all on. Work, watch TV, consume.
But at the same time, it offers hope. A way out.

Actually I think this is better than An Inconvenient Truth. I’m not knocking An Inconvenient Truth. That movie did impact me.

I’m now using cloth diapers, buying my produce from a local organic farm CSA program, and thinking about getting my car converted to a plug-in electric (actually that one I owe to Who Killed the Electric Car?).

And the further down the rabbit hole I go, the more inspired I get to make even bigger changes. A place in the country with a cow and some chickens. And alternative energy sources. Maybe homeschooling. Definitely organic vegetable gardens.

Who needs TV when there’s chickens to feed and butter and cheese to be made?

Speaking of TV, this reminds me of that PBS show I loved. It was a reality show on PBS that came out in 2002 called Frontier House. It was such a good show. The story of a few real American families who were chosen to live in 1883 on the frontier.

What struck me most about that show was, as hard as life was, many of the people missed their frontier days after it was over. They wanted to go back.

As I get older, I find that less really is more and there is such beauty in simplicity. For relaxation, I enjoy reading and cooking and going for walks and breathing clean air and taking a nice bath. I can’t remember the last time I was in a shopping mall. And there is less and less on TV that appeals to me.

Anyway, watch The Story of Stuff. It takes 20 minutes. And it could change your life.