So here I am in again, in bed, feeling crummy.  I am so ready for the major cold snap to be over. And who ever heard of a back to back cold?  Could it be a sinus infection?  Urg. I could have been at the barn.  I could be eating fabulous food in my friends hot tub.  But no.  Here i am. Feeling sorry for myself.

So to help that, I think I will just make a hot toddie instead of hot chocolate, as I heard once that they help cure a cold. I doubt it, but at least I will get some good sleep tonight.

In case you've never had one:

• Juice of one lemon (juice it by hand and hope for lemon chunks)
• Two tablespoons of honey (locally produced if possible)
• A double shot of good whisky (a malt if possible)
  
  Pour in boiling water, mix with a spoon.. voila... bed time.

Off to make a hot toddie, but of course..  jb

A paper bag. (Or a single packing peanut.) Maybe 2 of the most un-eco things on the planet, but honestly? Have you ever seen a cat who wasn't in love with crawling into paper bags? Cut a hole in one end and stick your finger through, and you have a friend for life.

-Heather... off to tousle with Snackalicious...

So, I bought a Prius.

For whatever reason, this makes me feel like a middle-aged mom. While I love the fact that I only have to put gas in it about every 5 weeks, I haven't gotten attached to it enough to name it yet. Trixie (my biodiesel Benz) - she got her name in the first week I had her. Mr. NoName Prius, on the other hand, has been around for nearly 3 months now, and I still have no idea what to call him/her.

Thoughts?

Still - I get a full tax CREDIT - not even a write off - so I can't complain.

-Heather... off to stare at my Prius and pray for naming inspiration...

My friend, Kris, is a fashion maven.  Fortunately (for me), we have really similar body types (I covet her flat belly, and she sort of wants my thighs, but in general, we're pretty close).

This works very much in my favor (not so much in Kris's) since I benefit from her fashion sense in several ways:

1. I get her hand-me downs.
2. I let her "dress" me before big events.  I get to spend all my time playing with my makeup (which I'd rather do), while she runs into her clown-car-feeling closet and just keeps coming out with more and better variations on the theme "little black dress with cleavage"
3. She's now helping me shop

All in all, I think that -  if Kris is involved - I'm all for throwing a Biter swap party.

I'm sure SOMEONE wants my old college sweatshirts and those black leather pants from London...

-Heather... off to give thanks for good friends with better taste...

It feels like about two months ago it started snowing and icing and being dark and yuck, and it hasn't let up yet.  I started complaining to someone here and they were like, "what did you not understand about moving to Montana? Have you looked at a map?"   And true, we are pretty far north, in the Canadian Rocky range.

But for some reason when I was more in the countryside of Montana, the winters weren't as rough. Now I realize that is because of all the valleys and mountains, there are different climate systems just 50 minutes apart.  I was in the more moderate one, it turns out.

This snow and negative 20s crap combined with having no garage, and I definitely raised my hand to test out today's tip reco's.  Once again I had to kowtow to vinegar... cheap and eco-friendly and has a zillion uses.  It was my fave for keeping ice from forming.  (Note:  it doesn't not keep snow for landing on it though!  But I hate scrapping ice off b/c the scrapers are never straight across and so all you get are these little ribbon-like tracks after many minutes of standing there, freezing, just trying to get to work.)

 Yeah, I am about over winter.  But I guess I should be lucky we got one.... thanks to Global Warming some places have been wearing short-sleeve tops that used to have white winters.  Speaking of Global Warming, here's a tip:  buy five people you know a copy of an Inconvenient Truth.  It is really powerful and even the staunches of conservatives won't be able to say "it's just a warming trend, happens all the time."

Off to, yup, de-ice.  Wait, I don't have to.  I sprayed water and vinegar on my car last night.  I rule.  - Jen

I love seaweed. I love it in sushi rolls. I love it fried, Chinese style. I love to crumble it on rice. I love it as a sesame-dressed salad. I love walking on the beach and finding those bubbles in the seaweed that washes up and jumping on them to make them pop.

All in all, as a kid from Montana who didn't spend a whole host of time near an ocean until I was an adult, I gotta say, I got a crazy affinity for eating the stuff.

-Heather... off to dream of the day when SF has lunch-time sushi delivery in Potrero...

A few months back, I had a hideous cold. HORRIFIC, really. Full blown head explosion.

So I had an appointment with my acupuncturist that first snotty day, and she performed "cupping" on me. If you don't know what it is, I won't go into detail. Suffice to say, it involves suction and fire and at the end, you are bruised and look like you've been beaten within an inch of your life.

Apparently, the cupping was meant to suck out all the evil and speed up my cold so that it would move through more quickly. And apparently, it worked, since the cold was COMPLETELY gone in 2 days.

However, I don't think I can give credit to the cupping for the fact that I managed to make it through a date that night.

Nope, I hate to admit it, but I have to give that credit to a certain unnamed evil cold medication.

Yes, I know, I know, it's bad. I shoulda stayed home and drank more fluids. I shoulda let the cold run its course instead of having a cocktail and late night makeout session with a guy 9 years younger than me. But it was a hot date. I couldn't help myself.

Besides, Jen told me to, so really, it's her fault.

-Heather... off to celebrate the fact that I have had one 3-day cold in the past 3 years...

Are you the type that has to load your own dishwasher because no one else will understand how to place your glasses so close to one another and not get chipped, or because you are slightly embarrassed that your silverware needs to point UP so that the crude sliding down doesn't get lodged on the part where we put our mouths?

I can say "ye" to the first, not the second. 

I can also say that unless someone has been sick and eating off my plates, I always air dry.  I mean really, do we all not have enough plates and things to get us by for a half day while it dries?  Plus, I love the idea of saving money just for having patience.  (Patience really is a virtue, just not one of mine, which is why I am glad this is like a reward system for practicing patience.)

The dishwasher vs. handwashing debate brings out many more (only slightly) interesting discussions, but last we researched it, dishwashers on the air-dry cycle used less water and energy than handwashing.  That was enough for me.

Oh, and I have to say, the best dishwashing detergent I have ever used (and I have used it now in 3 different dishwashers)?  Ecover - the little bricks. They rock.

What are you dishwasher OCD secrets?

Off to try to understand how to run a "half load" on my new energy star dishwasher. - Jen

Still, sometimes I feel like my attempts at living a balanced, green life are doing about as much good as tilting at windmills. Mostly, I feel that way when taking out my recycling. Even though there is 4 times as much recycling as garbage, I can't help but wonder how the hell I could use so much STUFF?

Ah well, windmill by windmill, I guess...

-Heather... off to crack an organic bottle of beer that I will have to recycle tomorrow...

On New Year's Eve I had my MT BFF over (this Montana Best Friend Forever to all you POA - that is Peeps Opposed to Acronyms).  We had this litte ceremony - releasing our intentions for the New Year to the universe by writing them down, reading them, and then placing them in these little red envelopes before dropping them in my fireplace.  Well of course ambiance is very important for such rituals, and I had about 30 candles lit around the living room and joined dining room.  One of my candles got excited and spoofed on my brand new rug.  So I think I am going to switch to dripless beeswax. Which are actually better for the environment IMHO than soy, if not GMO-free soy.  The end.

Off to Google how to get candle wax off of carpets .. Jen

True. Ask my mom. And then ask her about how I used to get Vegetable Shakes, Prune Juice Popsicles, and blame her for my current sweet tooth.  Kidding. She is responsible for my amazing immune system since my little baby bod was pummeled with goodness from the day I was born until I got old enough to spend the night with friends and gobble up all their white bread and sugared-cereal. At least now I have learned to balance out my sweet-tooth, and I still like oat-y cereals.

Oh, and I still like eating raw oatmeal, btw. Is that weird? Off to pour myself a bowl now with honey, as I am trying to kick the "yellow stuff"

- Jen

So I'm watching the Golden Globes as I type this, and I hate to admit it, but I want all those clothes. I'm sorry, I do. I'm going to eco-hell, I know, but I do. I'm a nasty consumerist nightmare heathen, but I do. I want it want it want it.  I do.

Um, if I give up milk for a month, can I feel better about buying new shoes? Pretty please?

-Heather... off to root for a bunch of movies I haven't yet seen...

It just does. I've been brushing in, up, and around it for years, and I can say from all sides of the equation that depression just, categorically, sucks.

But there is hope - as I get older, I find myself getting more and more adept at managing both my highs and my lows. In the middle of a roiling "I love the world so much I can't breathe!!!" high, I generally know to expect a bit of a corresponding crash, so I plan accordingly and prepare for the gray times.

And when the gray is provided by the weather, I know to plan outdoor activities and make sure I don't spend too much time alone. (It's no accident I live in the part of SF that has the best weather...) I do more yoga, drink less wine (shocking, I know)... all in all, I come up with a formula to help me to deal.

Might not be fool-proof, but it does keep me off the little pink pills...

-Heather... off to make weekly dinner dates...

But there is one catch to my wholehearted appreciation of the sign: I love TV.

Oooooh I love it love it love it. Really, I do. I wish I could be all high-minded and proper and do my intellect a service and make you all realize that really - underneath my pop-culture obsessiveness - I'm a reasonably intelligent girl... but the fact is, I love TV.

Whether fearing for Charlie's drug addiction on "Lost" or salivating over the gentlemen (um, er) of Prison Break or getting religiously sucked in to absolutely ANYTHING that HBO confers on us (can I just say a little "AMEN" for HBO bringing us all back to quality programming?)... I'm a sucker for TV dramas. And here's the thing - they've gotten really, really good after a multi-year death march through a desert of shitty reality TV.

So it is with great pain that I adopt one of my New Year's Resolutions: to cut my TV consumption in half. It's not that I watched so much, or that it's draining my brain (I mean, really - where else would I have learned about the length of time it takes a blowfly to hatch if Gil Grissom hadn't told me?)... It's just that I assume that there is a bigger world out there to explore, and since I spend my days staring at a screen of one sort, it occurs to me that perhaps I should spend more of my evenings interacting with real human beings.

Still, I don't know how I will break it to Sheriff Bullock that we are splitting up. He's gonna be crushed.

-Heather... off to make a list of things to do with all my newfound time...

First of all, I just love the name.  It is like, "here I am, take action! Green me up, BiteMan!"  Or something like that.

Second of all, I am one of those people that have all the best intentions, but come on, I am not going to spend my spare seconds measuring out vinegar and finding bottles to mix up my own cleaning concoctions.  So instead I buy the expensive organic cleaning at our local Co-op, and just chalk up the price premium to a donation.  But not any longer!  I am loving this one, folks.  (Sorry, just had this weird flash like I was talking to a live audience about our favorite eco-product discoveries.  Something like a Kelly Rippa Meets QVC Meets Green.)

Anyway, that last thought is probably an indication that the altitude on this flight means I should pass on the second cocktail.  Before I sign off, do I need a "third of all?"  I think so, since 3 is a great number.  Okay, so Third of All - you will save tons of money with this, and your cleaning products can smell the way you like, since you can add your own scents.

Sorry about the info-mercial here, but great ideas deserve great press.  (So hopefully Good HouseKeeping will cover you all soon! ;-)  Oh what the hell, off to order another cocktail - Jen

Honestly - things like clean water shortages, icebergs breaking off the size of 13 football fields, and seafood might be "extinct" by 2048 do scare the chinook out of me.

But the GOOD thing is that all the fish we need to save are the big ones -- the same ones who are top predators and whose bodies are now loaded up with mercury and other contaminants.

And while on the topic, can I give a shout out for local shrimp? Many people don't know that even if regulated as "sustainable" many shimpies come from Asia and Central America. Oh and the ones that don't.. the nasty nets. That whole issue of bycatch (including cute turtles and dolphins) being up to 5 - 12 times as wild shrimp that are caught. Well, luckily I just don't like bottom feeders and so that is one cross I don't bear.

Speaking of bearing, check out this chick's catch of the day!

(This is not me. Just thought I'd make ya look.)

Off to eat my left-over salmon I got from the Co-op last night -- it is bright pink, wild caught, and well, damn tasty. - Jen

But our intrepid Distribution Manager (aka: The Bite's #1 Fan, always taking cards everywhere he goes, evangelizing for the cause) didn't think that he wanted to go the route of the little magic pills. He figured that - before he just went on a medication for the rest of his life - he'd see if he couldn't manage the problem himself.

So our fearless Distribution Manager (aka: the Guy Who Often Brought Donuts to the Secretaries at the School) decided to take matters into his own hands. He'd always been a worker-outer, so he didn't need to change much there. But he did decide to eat steel cut oats for breakfast each and every morning, religiously. And he gave up his beloved donuts, ice cream and McD's quarter pounders.

Six months later, our will-power-laden Distribution Manager (aka: my dad, who donates his work for free to the Bite) went to get his cholesterol checked again. We all waited for the results, anxious about the possibility that this would be something to plague him for his life.

60 points. He lost like 60 cholesterol points in 6 months.

All with a bowl of oatmeal and a little smarts.

-Heather... off to wonder how my own cholesterol is doing after a week in France...

You want to know the best way to cut carbons where they count?

Take the MyFootprint.org quiz which will tell you how many planets we would need if the rest of the world's population lived as you do, then do the analysis to see where you racked up the most points (this cool tool lets you know how). 

Share your score with other Biters, here. (Come on, I will tell you my score if you tell us yours!  Mine is 4.6 Planets.  I need to cut down on air travel for the biggest impact to my score. But I can't, so I will make sure to buy offsets for those flights instead.)

Off to talk to Billy at Native Energy about getting some offsets for all of us at the Bite - and even our subscribers, just for signing up... Jen

PS:  we were interviewed on a TreeHugger radio spot for exactly this notion... some of our compadres have some interesting thoughts on cutting carbons and New Year's resolutions in general...

TreeHugger Radio 14: New Year’s Edition

As we step into double-0 seven, TreeHugger Radio has asked some of the brightest stars in the green blogosphere about their resolutions for the New Year. We queried Heather Stephenson and Jen Boulden, creators of Ideal Bite; consultant and brainy green hottie Summer Rayne Oakes; Ben Jervey, founder of The Big Green Apple; designer, architecture student, and Inhabitat creator Jill Fehrenbacher; green business guru Joel Makower; and TreeHugger writer Jacob Gordon. Resolutions range from reading more books to eating less meat, from pushing green design to watching Wal-Mart. ::TreeHugger Radio (listen)

When we first started the Bite, during interviews, Jen and I were often asked "Which one of you is more green?"

The answer was always one of my wicked little pleasures in the workday.  Although Jen is greener than I am - hands down - at the time, I was living in Brooklyn.  In NY, I took public transit everywhere, and if I needed organic milk, well, I could just walk to my little corner deli and get all the organic goodies I wanted.  Meanwhile, Jen was living in a small town in Montana, an hour's drive from the closest co-op.  Thus her trip to get HER organic milk packed a somewhat bigger footprint.

So for one glorious moment, I could feel smug and green and good for the planet (until Jen would remind me and the interviewer that she was a vegetarian, which pretty much trumps the eco-impact of my daily diet in one swift play).

Still - it's a scary stat, and one worth noting: when we talk about the carbon output of the foods you eat - the embodied energy of your grocery choices - a full HALF of the fuel used to get that strawberry to your table comes from your own drive to the store.

So pack it in, kids.  Load up not only the car, but also the fridge (which works better when full anyway).

-Heather... off to feel guilty as I toss out the rotting produce I forget to eat before I headed to Europe...

2 am in Paris, scheduling this blog, and while that may seem a little late to be up, truly, I live the life of a bat while here - nocturnal hunting and eating, radar signal communications in clubs and over glasses of wine...

Quite the different scene to my early-to-bed life over the Christmas holiday in San Diego, where I spent hours on end, staring at my 6-month-old nephew, Quinn, imagining the world he will inhabit (and - for whatever reason - picturing him becoming a rock star and letting me be the cool aunt who comes backstage after the show.  Don't judge me - I have no idea where these visions come from).

But really, what world WILL he inhabit?  And what role will he/you/I play in it?

I'd like to think that by the time Quinn is a rockstar, not only will we have solved the problem of climate change, but I will also be able to speak French.  Seeing how completely, utterly, painfully shy I am about even trying (yes, me - shy about French, for whatever reason), I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

And in the meantime, we should probably read our kids some books on healthy living.

-Heather... off to pack for a marathon flight sequence tomorrow...

As many of you know, I have been a veg head since I was 11  (same age Darryl Hannah went veg, I found out. ;-).

However, I am a huge lover of dairy -- especially yogurt and cheese.  And because dairy didn't "use to have a head" it made it more palatable.

But did you see today's tip cocktail fact?  Can you imagine having your nipples squeezed THAT many times to just produce one gallon? urg.

PLUS, the enviro hardship of all the animals packed in, producing. 

Last year I gave up milk, since it really is senseless for adult human mammals to be drinking other mammals milk, especially when you can get all the vits & mins from more natural sources.  (And btw, SILK makes a killer coffee "creamer"- drinking it now in fact with my Jim's Organic Coffee... totally a great way to start the day.)  But I also just ate cage-free eggs.  With organic cheese.  So animals were totally involved in my breaky... but how much can I go without, without feeling like I am missing out?

I will definitely TRY to eat less cheese in 2007 (also because I need to drop a few).  And I am trying to get a chicken coop built on the back of my garage, heated by solar panels, so that would be cool.

Sorry for the rambling.. I just haven't wrapped my head around where to draw the line with eating food that animals produced.  Thoughts?

Off to ride my horse who told me she enjoys our time together and the organic carrots I always bring her... ;-) - Jen

You know, at the Bite we try to give you a fresh, sometimes funny perspective and dialog into what we call "light green living" (ie: keep it real, treehuggers - no one is perfect.)

And there are certainly enough enviro non profs that will give you sample letters to Senators and such, but the team really felt that this issue was such a no brainer, that stodgy big utility companies really needed a wakeup call, and maybe a letter coming from you - not generated by an automated email system, will start to get the message heard.

Here's to a powerful, green, prosperous, balanced and alt-energy filled 2007! - Jen

SAMPLE LETTER:

To Whom It May Concern,

I recently learned about green power through an Ideal Bite Daily Tip. Some energy providers offer options such as solar and wind power to their subscribers. My question to you is, do you have plans to make these kinds of options available locally?

You're probably aware that conventional power plants (such as coal) are responsible for more air pollution than any other source in the US. An EPA study released in 2004 concluded that 22,000 deaths could be prevented each year if more utilities took advantage of available new technologies in place of coal.

From a financial standpoint, it seems like it would make sense for utility companies as well - just consider that some of the nation's largest companies (like FedEx Kinko's, HSBC Bank and Kohl's) are already purchasing green power. More businesses (and residential customers like me) are sure to follow.

Please let me know if plans are in the works!

Eagerly awaiting your response,

[Your John Hancock]