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Secrets of a Package-hating Locavore to Survive the Winter

jen — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 17:55:14 +0000

Eating local is easy to do in the summer with the bounty of fruits and vegetables available, but here are some ways to extend the harvest to last throughout the winter.

Freeze. Keep a bag or container in the freezer and throw in veggie scraps- like carrot tops, kale and broccoli stalks, tomato and onion ends, herbs etc. When the bag is full, cook up a big pot of stock by boiling the vegetables in a few quarts of water until they are colorless. Strain and divide broth in small jars or ice cube trays and freeze to use in cooking throughout the winter. Fruits and berries freeze very well. And fresh produce like broccoli and green beans can also be steamed lightly and blanched in ice water and frozen to be enjoyed on a chilly day when fresh produce is not around.

Ferment. Any produce can be fermented (pickled): cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, even fruits like apples. Pickled produce can be used as a condiment or side dish or yummy snack. Fermented foods were once part of human’s diet and served an important function to add beneficial bacteria to our guts. Nowadays all our food is pasteurized and these great enzymes are killed and our digestive tracts are not replenished with the healthy flora it needs. Eating some fermented foods like sauerkraut and pickles can really make a difference in your digestive health! This is my favorite website to learn more how to ferment at home:http://www.wildfermentation.com/index.php

Can. When the backyard garden is dripping with juicy tomatoes (and other produce), instead of letting them rot on the ground, you can seal in their goodness in glass mason jars and make your own vitamin-packed homemade sauces and soups all winter. Buying a canning kit will pay for itself when you don’t have to buy expensive store-bought canned foods. There are loads of videos and how-tos on canning on You Tube and blogs.

Dehydrate. Dried fruits are expensive in the store but easy to make at home. You can buy a dehydrator, and if you eat a lot of dried fruit, it will pay for itself as well…or you can use the summer sun to dry fruits for free! I don’ have a lot of personal experience with dehydrating foods, but now that my daughter decided she loves dried fruit in her school lunch, I am going to explore it. Here is a good site I found <http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/how-to-dehydrate-foods-without-a-dehydrator.htm>. I am inspired by my friends who have home dehydrators, and one friend who made this awesome cold frame for solar dehydrating.

So don’t let this summer pass without preserving some of it’s fresh abundance. This is what our fore bearers did to survive the winter- and it’s a great thing we can do to survive our future. Instead of over-packaged, highly transported foods, we can create our own self-sustaining pantries and save that trip to the store!

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From Our Frontyards to Their Backyards.

jen — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 18:52:43 +0000

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the millions of tiny little problems and ordeals of your life to the point that sometimes you become stunted and cease to function properly? Sometimes I feel that way about the problems of the world- the societal, environmental, economic problems we face. And then, as is true in my personal life, something comes along that not only fixes one problem, but melts away all the other problems too. That’s how I felt when I recently heard Anna Baptiste from the Ironbound Community Corp. speak about the big problems going on in her neighborhood in nearby Newark, NJ- and how people in my neighborhood were part of the cause (and thereby can be part of the solution).

Like most inner cities, Newark’s Ironbound is an Environmental Injustice community- meaning it is a low income neighborhood that bears more than its share of environmental burdens. To paint the picture, the Ironbound is an area that covers approximately four square miles and is home to only 50,000 people, and over 10 grade schools- and yet also contains the state’s largest incinerator, sewage treatment plant, 4 garbage transfer stations, 10 scrap metal yards, 5 recycling facilities, 3 demolition recycling facilities, 1 waste yard, and 1 food waste facility. But when I heard Anna speak, she was there to talk to people in my neighborhood about the incinerator- because this is where the trash from 22 towns in Essex County (including mine), New York City (where many in my community commute to and leave trash behind from wasteful lunch etc.), and 11 trash transfer stations goes.

Three to Four-hundred diesel trucks line up idling their engines everyday, 24 hours a day, 6 days a week in front of people’s homes and children’s schools, waiting to dump tons of trash from the surrounding areas right in this small community’s front yard. Alongside the pollution from these hundreds of trucks per day, the burning of the trash puts out tons of ash with particulates, dioxins, hydrochloric acid, mercury, cadmium and lead all spewing into the air that is directly breathed by the closest residents- and eventually breathed by anyone downwind.

Now, I am a person who used to suffer horribly from allergies. I felt tired, itchy, moody and miserable a good deal of the time. Maybe that is why this issue of having such polluting nightmares so close to where children are learning and playing enrages me so. I know what it feels like to have to go to school feeling physically awful- or being groggy from medication. And growing up in a community that is deemed a dumping ground has to have more than just a physical effect on these young people in the Ironbound. Where there is a higher than average rate of asthma, autism, ADD, cancer, and obesity it only makes sense that hand in hand with that is a higher than average rate of low school performance, poverty, and violence. And to think that one of the root causes of this is the burning of my trash makes me not want to throw away so much as a gum wrapper.

But of course, sometimes I do have a gum wrapper to throw away- and kitty litter, and broken furniture, and …. it’s pretty inevitable that as a human being I am going to create waste. But how much can I avoid creating is what I choose to focus on rather than beating myself up for every bit that I create. I really don’t want to be a supporter of a giant incinerator that makes a ton of money only for a few, but harms so many- and if I were to put barrels and barrels of trash on my curb every week, that is what I would be doing. I want to support life and communities and happy healthy children. This is why I refuse disposable cups, utensils, and tableware, never buy overly-packaged items, recycle every bit I can and compost all of my food waste, fix what breaks instead of chucking, and buy second-hand to keep things from going to the incinerator. I put my garbage can on the curb about once a month from my household of two. It really feels good to know that I am doing the best I can for people living not-so-far from me.

And what are the multitude of problems this can solve? Less garbage means less trucks, less pollution, less illness, eventually more room for green space which can lead to revitalized communities and health, better school performance, less poverty, less violence, and in my community, less tax dollars going to the business of burning trash, less money spent on health care programs for the poor, and less crime. To name just a few.

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Road Trips Don’t Have to be Trashy

jen — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:45:26 +0000

It’s Road Trip Season! I am a greenie, but I do love my road trips. Here’s how I roll to keep my travels as eco as possible:

1. Take the most fuel efficient vehicle possible, and pack it full of passengers (maybe even rent an electric or hybrid car if you don’t own one. You can even save money factoring in the gas savings.) Make sure those tires are inflated properly and drive prudently to also save on fuel. And never idle when stopped for more than 3 minutes!

2. Use those baby shades to keep the car cool for everyone (they don’t have to be just for babies!)

3. Pack a cooler with ice and large bottles filled with tap water. Bring along a filter pitcher or filtered water bottle to fill up from water fountains in rest stops along the way.

4. Prepare your own convenience foods instead of buying overly packaged junk. Make healthy sandwiches, and fill containers full of snacks like crackers, nuts, trail mix and other foods bought in big bags or in bulk.

5. If your road trip is long, find stops along the way where there are grocery stores and farmers markets instead of gas station convenience stores and fast food restaurants. You can replenish your cooler of healthy foods just as easy.

6. Don’t use disposable one-time use things at all: like cameras, utensils, coffee cups, straws. Challenge yourself to see how many reusable things you can bring from home- and bring back with you to use again, instead of tossing out.

6. Use rechargeable batteries in things like the video camera, flashlights, radios, and any other electronics you bring. Don’t forget the charger for either the car or when at the hotel or other overnight destination.

7. Plan your trip efficiently so you can stay at hotels close to your daily destinations. Map out your trip to keep driving to a minimum.

8. When at rest stops, go easy on the paper towels. For some reason when people are away from home they become paper towel obsessed and take 3 to 4 sheets to dry their fingertips. I’ve seen this a zillion times and it’s incredibly wasteful. I dare say- drip dry if you can, or at least just use one paper towel!

There is no reason why we can’t keep our green practices on the road. Enjoy the great outdoors this summer without trashing them!

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Drains to Rivers! OMG!

jen — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 21:00:00 +0000

“Dump No Waste. Drains to River.” I’ve seen this stamped on sewers my whole life and never thought much about it. But on my recent walks around town I have been noticing the sewers brimming with debris–plastic bottles, bags, straws, wrappers- all kinds of garbage. And that’s when the reality really hit me: Drains to River! So I did some investigating to learn more about our sewer systems.

In our area we have what’s called Combined Sewer Outfalls. This is a system where stormwater-runoff along with wastewater and sewage from industry, domestic, and commercial sources goes into a tunnel that dumps into another tunnel that is supposed to take the collection back to a sewage treatment facility to be processed by the public works. The problem is that these tunnels also lead to our waterways in the opposite direction, so that in wet weather when the receptor tunnel fills, the back-up dumps directly into local bodies of water. So yes, raw sewage, trash in the sewers, oil and grease from the street- all of it- goes right into rivers, streams, and oceans. Sigh

Today on my walk I saw the sewers were not overflowing with trash as much as they were last week, and my heart sank as I realized it’s been raining so heavily that all the garbage has been washed down the drains and into our waterways. This is how our water supplies become as polluted as sewers (or one of the ways) and the massive plastic islands out at sea are formed, and how the petro-chemicals that comprise all that plastic gets released into our water and builds up in sea life.

You might think: Well, I don’t litter, so this isn’t my trash. But I am afraid it very well may be. Trash gets out of hand easily—you may accidentally leave a water bottle at a park, or it may blow out of your recycling bin when it’s on the curb. As long as we use as much plastic as we as a society do, it will be hard to contain the debris. So I propose a plan to stop this madness. Stop using unnecessary plastic (I call this stupid-plastic) like throwaway beverage bottles, utensils, straws, and plates, shopping bags, overly-packaged products like Lunchables, and an overabundance of household and personal care products. And the second thing I propose is adopting a sewer.

Pick a sewer grate near your home—maybe there is even one right outside your door. Check on that sewer grate frequently and pick up any trash that accumulates. We know it’s not your job, and it certainly may not be your trash, but it is your river and ocean. And it should not be treated like a sewer.

The next thing I envision is bundles of panty-hose filled with hair trimmings (like they used in the Gulf Oil Spill) to collect the motor oil and greasy runoff from automobiles from getting into the sewers….but baby steps I guess.

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Girl Eats Plants and Thrives! Can You?

jen — Tue, 17 May 2011 22:03:53 +0000

In my blog posts, I often suggest moving toward a plant-based, vegan diet as a way of living healthier, and treating our planet and animal friends better. But I don’t do a lot of suggesting how to do this I realized. The reason is, going vegan for me was a very natural and almost automatic choice when I was 15 because I had always been a big animal lover. I started out by stopping to eat mammals, then birds, then fish, then mollusks- and eggs and dairy somewhere in between there. This whole process maybe took three years, but it took me many years more to evolve to the whole-foods-based, quality, creative cuisine that I now thrive on (ridding myself of allergies, common illnesses, skin conditions, and cycles of weight gain.)

A lot of my diet evolution had to do with simply growing older and developing into more refined tastes, and acquiring more skills in the kitchen. That’s my personal experience, but everyone is different. Some people are great cooks and transitioning to cooking only plants is very easy for them. Some people go cold-turkey (or cold-Tofurkey if you will) and cut out all animal products immediately. Some really struggle with the adjustment. So I decided to ask someone with more experience in the area for tips. Dianne Wenz, a certified holistic health counselor who specializes in plant-based diet nutrition and helps many people optimize their health through simple dietary and lifestyle changes, answered these general questions about transitioning to a plant-based diet.

1. If people are worried about not getting enough protein on an all plant-based diet, what do you say to them?

Unfortunately we live in a protein obsessed society. The idea that we need to get protein from meat is a myth. Most Americans eat a lot more protein from animal-based sources than they actually need, and this can lead to many health problems such as heart disease, diabetes cancer.
Obtaining protein from plant-based sources is ideal because they don’t contain the cholesterol and fat that can be found meat and dairy sources, and eating too many plants doesn’t come with the same health risks that eating too many animal products does. Protein is abundant in plants. Foods like beans, soy, nuts and grains are all high in protein, but it can also be found in vegetables. 100 calories of broccoli has more protein than 100 calories of beef! To determine the amount of protein you need, multiply your weight by .36. The number you get is the amount of protein in grams that you need in a day. Chances are you are eating protein than you realize.

2. Is a vegan diet safe for everyone?

Yes, veganism is safe for everyone. In fact, a plant-based diet is really the key to ideal health. Plant based foods are full of all of minerals and vitamins we need to stay healthy. Plants contain things our bodies need for optimal health, such as fiber and phytonutrients, that can’t be found in animal-based foods.

3. What are three tips you can offer someone getting started on a vegan diet?

1. Don’t be afraid to try new foods. People eating the Standard American Diet often tend to get stuck in a food rut and they rarely eat anything new. Most vegans are more open minded and eat wider variety of foods than omnivores. Once you remove the meat and dairy products from your plate, you’re actually opening yourself up to a whole new world of eating.
2. Don’t rely on processed foods and mock meats. Processed foods are okay every once in a while, but eating whole foods – vegetables, fruits and grains – is the best way to go for optimum health.
3. Surround yourself with supportive people. Not everyone will want to support your new diet and lifestyle. Be patient with them, but also look for like-minded people to spend time with. There are many vegan groups on Meetup.com and there are quite a lot of vegan communities online, such as ThePPK (Post Punk Kitchen).

4. You help many people make healthier dietary transitions. What do you find are people’s biggest obstacles? And what do you suggest for them to help them overcome them?

I often work with people who want to change everything at once and know everything there is to know immediately. This is an easy way to overwhelm yourself and cause burnout. I always suggest taking things slowly. Add more plants into your diet and slowly remove meat, dairy and cheese. Crowd the old foods out by adding new foods. Don’t beat yourself up for making mistakes. Life is a learning process and change takes time.

Dianne Wenz offers individual health and nutrition coaching to people of all ages, and also runs workshops, group programs and cooking classes. She has a passion for food and cooking, and can usually be found in the kitchen whipping up a delicious vegan meal. In addition to health counseling, Dianne runs a local vegan meetup group called Montclair Vegans. She can be found blogging about food, nutrition and health at www.veggiegirl.com

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It’s Earth Day and I’m Not Pussyfooting Around!

jen — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:09:11 +0000

This Friday April 22 is Earth Day and surely you are seeing messages galore on ways to be better to the Earth. Even mainstream commercial product endorsements slip in an eco-message these days. And I say, that’s great (except for the greenwashing ads that really are toxic products falsely made to appear green). But anything that inspires you to be eco-conscious is meaningful and worthwhile -and above all, necessary.

So this Earth Day I am going BIG. I want to talk about- and hopefully inspire- what big actions a person can take that I think have the most far-reaching affects. One encompassing change that trickles down and benefits many tertiary issues. Sometimes it’s hard to choose exactly what to focus on, or decide what will have the most positive impact. So here are my suggestions for the top three “In-a-Nutshell Actions” that anyone who puts their heart and minds to it can do:

1. Transition to a plant-based diet. The benefits of this are unending but here are some:

decrease in the biggest climate-change causing gas, methane. Methane is released from the millions of tons of animal waste from livestock all over the world.
cleaner water. The sludge from animal waste and the waste from slaughter houses gets washed into waterways and destroys their ecosystems. This waste also has a high concentration of antibiotics from the massive use of drugs used in animal agriculture.
no saturated fats (which are only found in animal products) makes for a healthier human population, which in turn makes for a healthier planet. When people eat healthier they require less medication and become more active and inspired to make the world around them healthier.

2. Compost food scraps. Again, the benefits of this go further than you may think:

when heavy, wet food waste is diverted from the trash, the amount of garbage that gets put on the curb is markedly decreased.
when less trash is put on the curb, less fuel is needed to haul the trash, and burn it.
when composted food scraps are mixed with yard waste, a nutrient rich soil is made that can be returned to the earth. These nutrients are wasted when they go to a landfill or incinerator and the planet’s soil becomes depleted of these nutrients that grow our food and thereby nourish our bodies. So depleted soil = depleted bodies. We need to put those nutrients back!
after composting food scraps, minimizing purchases of highly packaged items, and recycling materials that can be recycled, you will find you do not need big trash bags. You may even find you can use empty bags from other products to use as trash bags instead of purchasing plastic trash bags. What a savings on plastic waste that is! And any plastic that is avoided leads to cleaner air and water ways.

3. Meditate. Huh, how is that good for the environment?
meditation brings about a sense of calm and peace. This feeling is soul-filling and joyous. When our souls are filled we stop seeking ways to become fulfilled through shopping or overeating or other forms of excessive consumption that are bad for us and bad for the planet. It sounds simplistic, but meditating and finding that sense of calm is a cure-all that benefits self, society, and the whole planet. It’s hard work, but if it were easy, we’d already be in a perfect world, now wouldn’t we?

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Women’s Health = Planet’s Health

jen — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 21:02:02 +0000

Ladies, did you know the feminine care products (pads and tampons) you use can be greatly affecting your health? I didn’t. I personally switched from using a major commercial brand of pad and tampons to using non-disposables to decrease the amount of waste I was putting into the incinerator every month, but I did not know my switch could have such health benefits as well. After a few months I noticed a major change in my period. I was having less cramping and much lighter days. I didn’t think much about this until I saw a demonstration at a health products trade show comparing traditional pads and tampons to an organic cotton brand. The first demo took a typical pad and burned it. It fumed and melted and became a hard and black mass. This is because it is mostly made of plastic and that’s what happens when you burn plastic. When the organic cotton pad was burned it turned brown and fell away into ashes- like you’d expect a natural fiber to do.

The next demo was a tampon. A traditional and organic cotton tampon was pulled apart and dragged across a piece of black felt. The traditional tampon left behind a smear of white fibers. The organic cotton tampon stayed together better. But the point was that the fibers left behind from the traditional tampon are chlorine-laden and plastic-based and that is what gets left in your body after removing a traditional tampon! If any fibers are left in your body, better they are organic cotton and bleached with only peroxide.

So could it have been that the chlorine chemicals and plastic fibers from the traditional brands I used to use caused excessive cramping and bleeding for me? It is interesting that such a transformation occurred soon after I completely switched products. But in any case, I feel a lot better knowing these chemicals are not entering my body, causing any other unknown damage. So once again, my efforts to live more green were rewarded by increased health and peace of mind. And ladies (and gents who may actually be reading this), how we treat our bodies will translate to how we treat the planet. So be GOOD to yourself!

These are my favorite products: Maxim Organic Cotton, No Applicator Tampons and Pads Lunapads: Reusable Pads and The Moon Cup all available at Go Lightly.

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This is What I Call the New Homesteading

jen — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 17:45:22 +0000

Yesterday I was putting up groceries after a trip to a local Asian market and I was struck by how differently I now shop from how I used to. Everything I buy now is an ingredient, not a product. I buy flour and sugar instead of packaged cookies, fresh vegetables instead of frozen, dried legumes, nuts, and grains in bulk instead of pre-made or canned.

Even for my personal care products, I buy ingredients instead of products. And a lot of what I buy for personal care are the same ingredients I buy for cooking. This has seriously streamlined things—and saved me a bundle of money. Here’s what I do now (I’ve bolded the ingredients to make it easy for you to gather a list if you are so inclined):

Instead of moisturizers with dubious chemical ingredients, I keep it simple so I know what is going onto my skin (and thereby into my body): Coconut Oil, Shea butter, Coco Butter, and Olive Oil are all I use. Sometimes I mix these ingredients, sometimes I use them straight. Coconut oil is my favorite for a facial moisturizer. It does not leave a greasy residue and it’s an excellent detox for skin. For my day cream I mix it with a natural sunscreen, for a night cream I thicken it with olive oil (or grapeseed, sesame, or almond oils) and add Vitamin C crystals for antioxidant power.

Witch hazel with a few drops of tea tree oil (you can experiment with how much tea tree is right for your skin) is a brilliant and cheap astringent.

I never run out of toothpaste anymore since I make my own for pennies a pop: 2 oz. calcium carbonate (available at hardware stores), 1 oz. baking soda, pinch of stevia (for sweetness), vegetable glycerin, and 5-6 drops peppermint, cinnamon, lemon or clove essential oil. Combine dry ingredients and oils in a jar with enough glycerin to make a paste. Put on your brush with a little spoon or spatula.

Commercial anti-perspirants are not good for you or the planet. They are very heavily packaged and put heavy metals into your body. Plus, perspiring is a natural way for your body to rid itself of toxins–it’s a good thing; you shouldn’t fight it. I keep baking soda in a small dish and scent it with essential oils to suit my mood or the season. I use a damp deodorant crystal to apply the baking soda to my underarms- but you can use anything like a cotton pad or your hands. Also, some witch hazel scented with a few drops of essential oil of your choice in a spray bottle is a great spray-on deodorant.

Kill germs, not your skin, with DIY hand sanitizer. A batch of cinnamon, clove, lemon, clary sage, and rosemary oil in a base of aloe gel will keep those germs away. Germs cannot become resistant to essential oils because the proprieties of the plants the oils come from change from crop to crop. It’s a dangerous thing to use commercial antibacterial products because they are creating Supergerms that are getting harder and harder to fight.

A simple castile soap is all I use for handwashing. I especially like that I can add essential oils, like cinnamon or tea tree, for safe germ-killing. This can also be used for shampoo and shaving.

My medicine cabinet looks more like an apothecary’s cupboard. I am always adding to my collection of essential oils and use them in various ways: gentian violet for cuts, eucalyptus oil in a vaporizer for colds, lemon oil with white vinegar for cleaning, peppermint oil for pest control.

When available, fresh herbs such as peppermint, rosemary, and chamomile are wonderful for making tea infusions. Why buy a product when you can just dry (or use fresh) the flowers and leaves for practically free (if you grow them yourself they are free!). Simply steep a few teaspoons in hot water, strain and drink for an unsettled tummy (peppermint), to fight insomnia (chamomile), and even ward off effects of radioactive exposure (rosemary). Also a very important plant in our house is nettles. We make a tea from fresh nettles and use it for wet compresses to treat itchy rashes like eczema. Be careful of the stings from the nettle plant- it hurts a bit, but if you can tolerate it- rub on your rash and it is beneficial! (The pain is intense but does pass shortly).

Once you gather a supply of these ingredients, collect empty jars and bottles of various sizes and get to mixing up batches of products for almost anything you need.