The Green Book

I'm glad I borrowed this book from my local library instead of purchasing it (even though it is printed on 100% recycled paper). While the idea behind The Green Book by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen is both noble and well-intentioned, the format leaves the reader feeling bogged down by the dozens of somewhat meaningless statistics that are strewn throughout the book. Each chapter is divided into three chapters. "The Big Picture" gives an overview of the chapter topic, such as the home, work, entertainment, health and beauty, etc. "The Simple Steps" in each chapter are the three actions that will, as the authors point out in every chapter, "give you the biggest impact with the least amount of effort." The remainder of each chapter consists of "The Little Things", which are simply more ideas for reducing your impact on the earth. There are many good tips throughout the book--although more than a few will seem obvious to anyone who is even slightly environmentally-conscious--but the information the authors are trying to impart to the reader is obscured by the often mind-boggling environmental statistics. For example, in chapter four, "Schools", there is a "Little Thing" about pens. According to the authors, refillable pens are preferable to disposable pens, which are often thrown away instead of recycled and can contain environmentally damaging chemicals--a good point. They then attempt to drive the point home by stating that the 1.6 billion pens that Americans discard every year, if placed end to end, would stretch more than 150,000 miles, which would be the same as traveling across the Pacific Ocean from LA to Tokyo more than 25 times (page 45). Unless the reader frequently flies from LA to Tokyo on business, this statistic is not going to mean anything; what's more, he or she will probably spend more time wondering what that many pens placed end to end would actually look like than internalizing the idea that one should buy refillable pens instead of disposable.

But it doesn’t end with the far-out facts. At the end of each chapter there is an environmental quip from celebrities such as Martha Stewart, Tiki Barber, and Justin Timberlake. Now, don’t get me wrong: it’s nice to know that there are ridiculously wealthy actors, musicians, and athletes who also have a conscience and realize that the earth does not exist merely for their own pleasure. That being said, it’s obviously a lot easier to be eco-friendly when you have an unlimited budget for such things as sustainable clothing, organic food, hybrid cars, and gigantic homes heated by solar energy. While, on the one hand, it makes sense to include testimonials from famous people in order to get ordinary citizens to become more eco-conscious—marketing firms use this strategy all the time—some of their examples are a little hard to follow. My favorite “yeah, right” testimonial is by Jennifer Anniston. I have nothing against Jenn—I would even say that I like her. Jenn unplugs electronics when they’re not being used to save energy and drives a Prius. She also takes three minute showers. Yes, I said three minutes. Not only does she take three-minute showers, but during that short time, she brushes her teeth. In the shower. You’re probably wondering “How can she take a three-minute shower and still be so gorgeous?” I’ll tell you how: all she is doing is washing her body (and brushing her teeth). She is not washing or conditioning her hair. She is not shaving her legs. She is taking three-minute showers because she is having her hair washed, conditioned, and styled and her legs (and probably her bikini area too) waxed at a salon (let’s just hope that it’s an eco-friendly salon). The average woman, however, cannot afford and/or does not have the time to go to a salon every day (or even every other day) to have our hair washed and our legs waxed. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t strive to take shorter showers to save water; everyone could probably shave two or three minutes off the length of their daily shower just by hurrying up a bit. I’m just putting that three-minute shower (and teeth-brushing) into perspective.

Overall, the book’s message is a good one: everyone can—and should—try to do more to make the earth a cleaner and safer place to live. If you can ignore the inane statistics and take the celebrity testimonials with a grain of salt, then you may learn a tip or two about living greener. Just one small piece of advice: get it from the library. You probably won’t be reading it twice.

Think spring (or summer)--join a CSA!

No, a CSA is not someone who will prepare your taxes, nor is it a string of genetic code or an acronym for a top-secret government agency, although it is an acronym. CSA stands for community supported agriculture, and is defined by the USDA as “a new idea in farming, one that has been gaining momentum since its introduction to the United States … where consumers interested in safe food and farmers seeking stable markets for their crops joined together in economic partnerships.” While I don’t think the idea is necessarily new—people were buying from local farmers long before mega-supermarkets came into existence—I do believe that many people are not aware that CSAs exist in their communities or of the benefits that participating in a CSA brings to everyone involved. For an average cost of $350 - $550 (usually paid in the winter), consumers receive a share of a farm or cooperative's crops, most often in the form of weekly farm boxes, from late spring until early fall. The farmers benefit by receiving funds to start their crops when they need it (late winter and early spring), and consumers benefit by receiving fresh, locally grown produce, eggs, meat, and other products throughout the warmer months, usually for a lesser price than they would pay at the grocery store for inferior foods. Many CSAs also offer volunteer opportunities and "farm experiences", both of which are great for families. Moreover, CSAs foster strong community ties by bringing together local people and local businesses.

Not sure where to find a CSA near you? A good place to start is Local Harvest, a website dedicated to bringing together communities and farmers all over the US. If you live in Massachusetts, be sure to check out NOFA's site for a list of CSAs in our state. This was how I located my CSA at Colchester Neighborhood Farm in Plympton. For more information about CSAs, visit the CSA section of the USDA website. And don't despair if you live in the city--many CSAs deliver farm boxes to predetermined locations in cities across the country.

One last note--if you want to participate in a CSA this year, the time to join is now: many farms sell out of shares well before the first signs of spring. For me, one of the best parts of belonging to a CSA is the knowledge that I will be spending this summer eating fresh, nutritious, locally grown produce, eggs, and meat and supporting local farmers while others who didn't do their homework will be forced to be content with what they find on the supermarket shelves. I already feel sorry for them.

Kate
The Ordinary Organic

Think your kids won't eat organic? Think again.

Believe it or not, there are ways to get kids to eat healthier foods besides hiding broccoli puree in their pancakes. With so many organic products available in grocery stores today, the chances are good that many of your kids’ favorite conventional snacks can be replaced with organic (or, at least, all-natural) products. It goes without saying that every child needs to eat a balanced diet of vegetables, fruits, dairy, grains, and meats. But equally as important is reducing the number of artificial colors and sweetners, refined sugars, partially hydrogenated oils, preservatives, and GMO’s that kids are ingesting on a daily basis. And it’s easier than you think.

Here are a few of my (and my kids’) favorite organic and all-natural foods:

Stonyfield Farm yogurt – my family loves them all: the six ounce low- or nonfat yougurt cups (Chocolate or Caramel Underground and Key Lime Pie are a couple of our favorites), the yogurt smoothies, and especially the YoKids Squeezers—portable yogurt tubes that can be frozen for an extra-cool treat. Their website also has fun facts and activities that will simultaneously entertain and eductate your kids.

Newman’s Own Organics – I admit it: I am addicted to Newman O’s, Paul Newman’s organic version of the Oreo (have I mentioned that before?) And there are so many more Newman’s Own Organic products to love: lemonade, salsa, microwave popcorn, chocolate bars, coffee (which, I am quite happy to say, comes in K-cups for you fellow Keurig brewer owners). And they’re all available at your local grocery store at prices that won’t drain your debit card.

Nature’s Path—What kid doesn’t like Pop Tarts? But most kids don’t know that some of the ingredients in Kellogg’s Pop Tarts—such as artificial flavors, high fructose corn syrup, and hydrogenated cottonseed oil—aren’t good for them; they just know they taste good. What moms and dads need to know is that there’s an organic alternative to Pop Tarts that taste just as good—some might even say better. Nature’s Path Organic Toaster Pastries are available in 12 frosted and unfrosted flavors from the traditional (Chocolate, Brown Sugar Maple Cinnamon, Strawberry, Blueberry, Raspberry, and Apple Cinnamon) to the not-so-traditional (Wildberry Acai and Cherry Pomegran). Nature’s Path also makes crackers, cookies, cereal (Gorilla Munch is a big hit in our house—think organic Kix) and granola bars.

Trader Joe’s “Midnight Moo” organic chocolate syrup – to say my son is a huge fan of chocolate milk would be quite an understatement, so I was thrilled to find this organic version of Hershey’s Syrup. Not just for chocolate milk, this syrup is equally good in ice cream sundaes.

If your kids are the type that are interested in where food comes from and will not immediately be turned off by the “healthy” aspect of organic foods (my kids, especially my six-year old daughter, actually think eating organic things is cool), be sure to include them when choosing snacks and other food items. On the other hand, if your kids equate “healthy” with “yuck” and won’t even look at it, you could always try the Jessica Seinfeld approach and put your Newman O’s in a cookie jar, disposing of the packaging so that they won’t know the difference. Or, being the parents and the ones who know what’s best for your children (so we say—our kids might not necessarily agree), you may elect to simply buy the organic foods instead of the conventional ones and tell your family, “These are better for you. If you want (insert food here), then this is what you may have.” Of course, I’m being mostly facetious here, but the point is to get your family eating healthier food. How you arrive at that point is up to you.

Kate
The Ordinary Organic

Give your cooking a makeover!

I was talking with my husband one day while browsing Amazon for titles of organic baking cookbooks. I commented on what I found to be a surprising lack of books on the topic, adding that maybe this was a niche that needed filling (perhaps by me?) "The reason there aren't any organic baking books is because there's no need for them," my husband explained patiently. "You don't need a recipe to make organic food--you just need organic ingredients. Any recipe can be organic." I sulked for a moment, not wanting to give up so soon on my newly discovered road to authorship, but I knew what he said made perfect sense. I had been preparing my favorite recipes organically (mostly) for a few months now, without the aid of any special cookbooks. There is virtually no recipe that can't be made "organic" simply by substituting organic ingredients for the conventional ones. Okay, I suppose that the recipes found in The Twinkies Cookbook: an Inventive and Unexpected Recipe Collection from Hostess can not be made organic no matter how hard one tries (I do not even want to know what is in a "Twinkie Burrito"), but any other recipe calling for normal ingredients can be converted easily. In fact, recipes for baked goods--cookies, bread, brownies, cakes--are great candidates for organic makeovers because organic butter, flour, sugar, eggs, chocolate, oats, dried fruit, and other common baking ingredients are readily available. For example, I recently made the infamous Neiman-Marcus cookies using organic ingredients with the exception of the vanilla and the pecans (a word of caution here: if you make these cookies, you probably only want to make half of the recipe, unless you are not like me and you have the will power not to eat all of the 144 cookies the full recipe makes. As it was, I got 90 cookies out of the half recipe and yes, I ate most of them). Substituting organic ingredients for their conventional counterparts guarantees a healthier dish; not so much from a fat-and-calorie standpoint, although there is some debate about whether the fats in organic foods are better for you than those in non-organic foods, but more from a what-I'm-eating-will-not-harm-my-body standpoint. And as I've mentioned before, they usually taste better, especially when it comes to organic produce.

Eating organic does not have to be difficult; in fact, it can be as easy as making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or your grandmother's macaroni and cheese. Give your favorite recipe an organic makeover, and I'm sure your family (and your body) will thank you.

GO PATS! (Sorry, I couldn't help myself--we're all a little Patriots-crazed here in New England these days.)

Kate
The Ordinary Organic

Companies with a Conscience

With so many companies today claiming to care about the environment and the health of their consumers, it's hard to know who really means it. The best way to find out which businesses are really making an effort to go green and support sustainable living is to do your research. Check out the website of the company making the claims: does it list (in detail) exactly what steps it is taking to ensure the safety or sustainability of its products? Does it disclose all the ingredients in each of its products? If you email the company to ask a question about its products or manufacturing practices, do you get a specific response to your query (or any response at all)? Another way to find out if a company is really as stoic as it markets itself to be is to Google the name of the business; if there have been any news stories, complaints or feedback (good or bad) about a company's business ethics, they are highly likely to show up here.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have spent a lot of time attempting to determine who's telling the truth when it comes to companies that are truly making an effort to go green. Although I have suffered several let-downs by companies that I was certain (or at least hoping) were not just feeding me a line, in some cases I found myself surprised and encouraged by what I discovered. I'm sure--okay, I really hope--there are hundreds of businesses out there that are doing more than their part to help protect the environment, but here are a few of the ones I've been most impressed with thus far:

Burt's Bees - they are really busting their bee-hinds (sorry) to ensure that products labeled "natural" are just that. Check out the section "Burt's Bill" for more information. And, of course, their products are awesome (especially their Lip Shimmers).

Aveda - aside from their commitment to reduce their carbon footprint by using wind energy to power their manufacturing plant in Minnesota, Aveda discloses all of the ingredients in each and every one of their products. Their customer service team was also quick and thorough when responding to my email query as to why they use a certain ingredient in one of their shampoo products as well as what the source of the ingredient is.

Pottery Barn - they might seem like an unlikely candidate for this list, but stick with me. Pottery Barn is pledging to include a minimum of 5% organic cotton in at least half the sheet sets it offers (they also carry sheets which are made from 100% organic cotton). The idea is that using even minimal amounts of organic cotton will increase demand for and lower the cost of growing the organic cotton--exactly the type of mentality we all should adopt when it comes to organics. And while Pottery Barn may not exactly be famous for bargain basement pricing, their organic sheet sets are selling for considerably less than those I found on many other websites.

This list is by no means complete. I could easily add others: Ecover, Equal Exchange, Seventh Generation, just to name a few. But it's late, and the kids will most likely be up before the sun, eager to start another day, so I will have to continue this thread at another time. If anyone out there has their own favorite organic or eco-friendly products, don't be shy--share them with the rest of us!

Kate

The Ordinary Organic

Information Overload?

No matter how interesting or intriguing a subject may be, too much information about any topic can be overwhelming. Not only are we likely to develop a headache from trying to absorb and comprehend as many facts as possible, but chances are that some sources will directly contradict others, making it difficult (if not impossible) for the seeker of the information to discern between truth and myth. My desire to know all there is to know about organic foods and eco-friendly products has prompted me to borrow no fewer than a dozen books from my local library. In fact, I’ve been to the library so often in the past few weeks that when the librarian sees me walking towards the circulation desk, she smiles and immediately goes to the ‘holds’ shelf to gather the most recent books waiting to be added to my impressively lengthy list of checked-out volumes (if there is a limit on the number of books a library patron can have checked out at one time, I am sure that I am rapidly approaching that number). And being no stranger to academic research and conflicting theories, I was fully expecting a fair amount of head-butting between texts. I had decided at the outset that I would assemble my data, pick out the parts that made sense to me, and go from there. My one hope was that I wouldn’t become discouraged and overwhelmed, either by an overload of scientific jargon or by inflexible demands that I throw away everything I own, tear down the toxic dump otherwise known as my house, and start living off the land.

To my immense surprise (and relief), all of the books I have consulted thus far have offered nothing but some gentle advice, a fair amount of common sense, and a great deal of information that is astonishingly consistent. Even the books written or edited by people from different countries—most often the U.S. and Britain—agree on virtually everything, from recipes for concocting all-purpose cleaning products from vinegar and baking soda to the best tasting heirloom tomatoes to the detrimental effects genetically-modified crops have globally on both the environment and the survival of small farms. What started out as intellectual research quickly became pleasure reading: books bearing titles such as The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food vie for space on my bedside table with Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love, a rather bizarre yet engrossing novel called The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami and, of course, Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Knowing that I only have until next Tuesday to read freely without guilt—after which I will still probably be reading just as much even though I should be focusing my brain power on French vocabulary and verb conjugation—I have been cramming my brain with far more information about organic and eco-friendly products than it can possibly ever hope to retain. But that’s okay, because despite the overload of information, I get it. I understand what it takes to grow vegetables without the use of chemicals—it’s not rocket science. People were growing food this way long before rockets were invented, just as they were keeping their houses clean using little more than, well, vinegar and baking soda. And while it might seem like a waste of time to read a slew of books that all say pretty much the same thing, for me, just the opposite is true. I find it reassuring to know that no matter which text I consult, the facts remain the same, and I am free to enjoy the anecdotes or personal experiences of the author (which are often more informative than the facts themselves). Being a life-long lover of reading and books in general, there is no greater satisfaction than to finish a book feeling enlightened and entertained, and the books I have recently read on organic and eco-friendly living have not disappointed me.

If you are interested in finding out more about organic and eco-friendly living, I urge you to check out your local library before heading to the bookstore—you’ll save yourself some cash (unless you’re like me and never remember to return the books by their due dates even though the library sends out friendly email reminders in advance. Hey, maybe that’s why the librarian smiles when she sees me come in; she’s thinking “Hey, there’s the girl who bought us five new books last month with all her late fees. With all those books she has checked out now, we should be able to buy a new set of encyclopedias!”) Oh, and you’ll save some trees, too—not that I’m a treehugger or anything.

Kate
The Ordinary Organic

Living Like a King(solver)

I'm not usually one of those people who believes that "everything happens for a reason"--at least, not in the guidance-from-above sense. Yet on the very same day I wrote about localvores and how the idea of self-enforced food restriction wasn't something I was ever likely to try, I began reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle thinking it was a book about eating organic foods. As it turns out, the book chronicles the cross-country relocation of the author and her family from Arizona to Virginia and their decision to eat only locally grown and produced foods for at least one year. Within twenty-four hours, I was devising plans in my head to convert my entire back yard into vegetable beds and contemplating which breed of heritage chickens would be the best type to raise as egg layers. However, I still have that nagging problem of not having access to locally grown and milled flour, not to mention two of my other necessities for life: sugar and coffee. And while I could probably get by for a few months without fresh berries, cantaloupe, and cucumbers, my four- and six-year-old children would not be quite as content to wait for the appropriate seasons for the afore-mentioned to arrive (are you kidding? They can't even wait the fifteen seconds it takes to walk from the toy store to the car before they demand to open it NOW). From what I've read thus far, I've already deduced that I do not possess even one tenth of the patience or self-control that the author and her family seem to exert almost effortlessly when it comes to eating only foods that are in season locally--not in Florida or California or Mexico. I know those blueberries in the grocery store were picked weeks ago and then sat in boxes in trucks or on trains for days, and that blueberries really are not meant to withstand all that travel and still look as fresh as the day they were picked. In the case of conventionally grown berries, the fact that they do look freshly picked should signal to us that these blueberries are packing more than antioxidants. And even the organically grown berries (which are not usually quite as pretty nor do they last as long), although they may be physically chemical-free, are still using up a lot of precious fossil fuels to get from point A to our refrigerators. But my kids really love them, and I hate to deny them the pleasure of eating something as enjoyable (not to mention healthy) as blueberries, especially when I know the reason "they're not really in season right now" would be falling on youthfully deaf ears. Suddenly, eating organic is not as simple as going to Hannaford's and loading my grocery cart with organically grown produce (like I did last week--and I was so proud of myself, too.)

One item I have decided against eating out of season from now on, though, is the tomato. For years, I have been simultaneously disappointed and outraged each time I've ordered a caprese salad in a restaurant, even in a really fantastic restaurant, and the tomatoes have been pale, mealy, and bitter--disappointed because the tomato tastes terrible, and outraged that the restaurant had been so foolish as to have purchased such poor quality produce. Now I understand who the true fool in the scenario is: the same fool who, on a trip to Maine just this past weekend, ordered a pizza with pesto and tomatoes. As soon as the pizza was set down in front of me and I looked at the chunks of barely pink fruits with crystallized flesh sitting in watery puddles on top of the cheese, I thought "Why did I order this? Tomatoes don't grow in Maine in the middle of January." Then and there, I decided I would not eat another fresh tomato until I could pick it myself out of my garden, purchase it from a local farmer, or take it out of my farm box this coming summer. It's not much, but it's a start.

Whether it be the result of divine intervention or pure coincidence, it seems obvious that Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is the perfect book for me to be reading at this point in my quest for information and guidance on organic living. Although I have read barely a hundred pages of the Kingsolvers' story, I have already begun to understand what is likely to be the most important lesson I will learn from their localvore experience: in order to live like kings, we should strive to eat like the Kingsolvers.

Kate
The Ordinary Organic