Lo and behold, a little research paid off, and fact is... it IS better to "go before you go."
Of course, don't be stupid - bladder infections... all pain and antibiotics - aren't so great for the environment either. So don't hold it unnecessarily. But on that DC to NYC or LA to SF run...
Spend your pennies before you fly.
-Heather... off to buy a plane ticket...
What did it take to lead me on the path to an insomnia cure?
A year off, actually. I was lucky enough, a few years ago, to have a whole year off. No obligations. No work. No apartment, even. And - most importantly - no alarms.
Once I had some time to let myself truly SLEEP, I learned what normal sleep meant for me. After years of professing "Oh - I only need about 5 or 6 hours a night..." I learned that my body really wants about 8 hours and 15 minutes. Sometimes a little less, but certainly not 6 hours...
Ever since that year, I've slept better. Sure, I still struggle at times and go through stressed-out periods where sleep is elusive. In those times, I reach for my all-natural options, breathe deeply, do some shoulder stands, and thank the stars for a gift of a year that taught me how it felt to experience life with a clear head and a good night's rest.
-Heather... off to prep for bed...
I'm sorry - actually, I'm not sorry - I will never be the person who gets his nosh on with a bag of baby carrots and a dipping bowl of baba ghanoush. OK, once in a while, maybe, but all the while I'll be trying to fool my taste buds into believing that what I'm actually consuming are extra-buttered popcorn and Mentos.
I'm way more into salt than I am into sugar. My favorite snacks list includes jerky (I'm jonesing for some of the fake kind as I write this), sauerkraut, salted pistachios, sunflower seeds, and I'm the only person I know who salts his French fries, every time. I know high sodium intake's bad for you, but I drink six glasses of water per day...so it balances out, right?
Admittedly, you can do amazing things with really healthy, simple ingredients - witness the vegetarian masterpieces at Café Gratitude, Chez Panisse or Greens Restaurant here in the Bay Area - but if I didn't think it would kill me, I'd totally go for a strict snack food diet, of which chips would undoubtedly be a major food group (with four or so recommended daily servings).
My favorites? Got to be the Kettle Chips. If you've never tried them, and can trust the opinion of a crazed wishes-he-could-survive-off-junk-food-person like me, go for the (non-organic) Cheddar Beer and Sea Salt & Vinegar and the new organic Krinkle Cut Salt & Black Pepper. If you are of sound mind and have taste buds, you will like them.
-Toshio... off to enjoy a bag of Cheddar Beer Kettle Chips...
So I sit here, staring, wondering what on earth to write.
Because here's the deal: the term - when applied to my rampant, insatiable love of all things cosmetic - is just too apt. I can't really think of a better way to describe it. Close friends know that I'm the first to admit that I have a slight makeup addiction. Don't even get me started on bathing products...
I guess this is all just a long-winded way of saying that my cosmetic-whoreness just gets worse and worse each day, as more and more amazing eco-finds come across our desks. Larenim, Dr. H, Lavera, Borlind, Alima... it's all just beautiful and fun and juicy.
So play away.
-Heather... off to pick out a lipgloss for the day...
Well, it took some convincing for me to use the cold cycle. I just love clean clothing, and I get dirty quite often (think: riding clothes!).
But I did a test with two slightly smelly turtlenecks that I wore riding. They weren't uber dirty, mind you. But after I did this test I smelled the pits. And I couldn't tell a difference. So I am converted. Chalk one up for the still-very-clean cold cycle. BTW, I used ECOVER detergent and pre-wash stain gel thingy with bristle top in case you are curious. ;-)
Off to fold and chat with Nashie - Jen
YAY! I made it through a tough MT-winter.
To celebrate my new edition to the lawn was not furniture but instead (drum roll please) - a CHICKEN COOP! It was built green because I used scraps of siding that I found in my garage when above-mentioned-gutting. And I will put a small solar panel to power the heat lamp that will be on inside at night and next winter.
Pics of the chicks: http://www.idealbite.com/photogallery/photo_category/C10/
I am sure you will be hearing more about them!
Off to play with Henguin... she's my favorite. - Jen
But kudzu is lovely in Japan and in other parts of Asia - where it's from. It grows normally, with little attention, thriving without overtaking, in the climate where it's a native, instead of here in the US, where it should never have been introduced.
Xeriscaping encompases a lot of different elements - you want to plan a garden according to its aspect. You want to ensure that you have lowered water usage through innovative irrigation methods...
But the best thing you can do is to plant true natives - those plants that WANT to thrive in your local climate.
Here at Ideal Bite, we can tell you a lot of things about how to be more green. But we can't tell you what plants to plant in your garden. Because fact is, the answer will be dramatically different if you are in Syracuse than it will be if you're in San Antonio...
Check out the links in today's tip to see plant ideas for your region in the meantime...
-Heather... off to write a check to Vote Solar, after attending a great fundraiser for the nonprofit tonight...
My biggest temptations were fast food burgers (TV commercials make them out to be way more appealing than they actually are) and exotic foods I just wanted to be able to say I'd tried. You know, to impress future employers, dates, etc.
One day while on vacation in Quebec, I went into a restaurant and in broken French ordered escargot. The restaurant wasn't great and neither were the snails - though I've since had some really great escargot, in Paris - but it made me realize there are certain things I don't have a problem with killing (which was surprising to me, since just a few years before I would've reached for a picket sign if someone so much as complained about having an snails in their garden).
At the same time, I do have a problem with conventional pesticides, which, as mentioned in today's tip, rarely actually reach the target pest. When they do, there's usually still quite a bit of poison left over. So, the 'cides are allowed to eke into groundwater or are accidentally consumed by birds, pets, or little kids.
As far as I'm concerned, eat all the escargot you want, but steer clear of unhealthy chemicals. And for all the snail lovers out there, try planting naturally repellant plant species - never have I seen a snail creeping around the thyme bush in my mom's garden.
-Toshio... off to see if there are any French take-out joints in town...
All in all, it was the perfect move in nearly every way.
But while I came here for the proximity to things I love, I think I am staying for the composting.
See, SF has citywide composting - we all get to save all food scraps and give them over in green recycling bins to be composted and used in city gardens and projects.
For whatever reason, this simple fact makes garbage day so much easier...
-Heather... off to compost some celery tops...
One of the things I learned is that apparently, here in the US if you CAN pave it in, you do. Nearly every place I have seen has lovely, small, backyard city yard... paved within an inch of it's sad, little backyard life.
Years ago, I volunteered at Earth Pledge - a nonprofit organization devoted to sustainability in New York City. One of their main initiatives focuses on green roofs (my personal obsession and the reason I got into sustainability in the first place) - the building of rooftop gardens directly on the rooftops of buildings in the city. Me? I loved the idea because greenroofs can lower the overall heat index of a city, reduce the need for air conditioning in the top floors of the buildings that have them, and provide city habitats for pollinators. Add to that the creation of ambient spaces in the middle of cities desperately in need of green areas, and greenroofs feel like a no-brainer to me.
But one of the main reasons cities need green roof initiatives is that they offset all of this pavement we seem to be so desperately attached to. We've paved our cities with such determination, our stormwater systems often can't handle the rains - forcing water that should be feeding plant life to flood our water systems, often to the point of sending sewage into our streams, rivers and bays.
Needless to say, the second I actually DO find a place to buy, I'm ripping up any concrete I find in any garden space. Permeable pavers and flow-through systems? Fine. But give me some dirt to dig in any day.
-Heather... off to continue my house hunt...
More than half the tips we publish come from Biter tip submissions. Imagine our surprise when one of our readers wrote in and suggested this tip. Hmmmm... how come we didn't think of that?
Self-promotion aside - your personal email sig is a solid place to remind people to take a bite out of our climate crisis. Go through the Tip Library and grab any tip (CFL lights, junk mail, giving up meat one day a week...) and throw it in your sig file. Rotate them in and out. Slowly, but surely, everyone in your circle will get the message, and we'll green the world.
-Heather... off to try to find some of those hilarious sig file comments I used to save...
It couldn't be that hard, right? My roommate of one month had done it with zero problems whatsoever, so I didn't bother to call mom for instructions. Wanting to get my money's worth, I put as many clothes as would fit into two of the washers, tossing in detergent and a little prayer. Pressed some buttons, heard something that sounded like water rush inside the machines and thought I was set. Once that was done, I went straight to the dorm kitchen, figuring I deserved a beer for getting that far.
45 minutes later, I returned to the laundry room and opened the first washer. Everything looked normal, so I tossed the load into a dryer and set it to 60 minutes. But then...tragedy. I went back to the other washer and opened the door, and my jaw dropped. The open door revealed not my clothes, but clothes that looked kinda like mine - if I were a person who only wore light pink. Nobody told me you needed to separate whites from your previously unwashed garment-dyed maroon hoodie.
So, shortly after my first experience washing clothes came my first experience bleaching them. Unfortunately, not even bleach could get my favorite boxers back to their former white, and so I was stuck wearing pink boxers. (A secret until now, since I'd never wear them on a Friday or Saturday night or at any other time when there was a slight chance of someone besides my roommate seeing me in 'em.) Moral of story: separate with care, and avoid bleach. Take it from me: preemptive action's your best bet, since even the harshest of bleaches probably won't get your favorite boxers back to a non-embarrassing color.
-Toshio... off to separate the laundry...
These days, I'm just not a huge juice lover. But every so often, enjoying a lovely "flash-pasturized" or fresh-squeezed juice drink in some single serve bottle, I wonder: what is best for the planet? Is it the same thing that is best for ME? Should I go for the organic, single-serve bottle, or throw my lot in with the multi-person, reconstituted cardboard version?
Hmmm. Sounds like a good tip topic.
-Heather... off to rework the editorial calendar...
Of course, somehow, I often find myself unshowered at 4 pm, after a day of laptop-ing from 6 AM onward (where I generally realize I haven't eaten or brushed my teeth)...
Those days, I tend to spend my bathroom time truly BATHING (terribly un-eco of me)... taking time out, relaxing, breathing, taking a pause to halt my day and reconnect with what matters. And what I realize in those precious, steam-filled moments is that my best enviro tip ideas percolate while I marinate, so I tend to view it as a net positive eco-experience.
Give it a try - take a bath, and see what great ideas rise in the steam and bubbles.
-Heather... off to contemplate a recent comment by a friend: "The can is to men as a bath is to women..."
I will admit something that I probably shouldn't: I cry when I see animals being hurt, but not humans.
Now that is off my chest, I will confess something else: I never had a crush on the zoo keeper as the tip said. Heather was just in a snarky mood and wanted to pretend that I like men that shovel shitakes.
Here's the rub: zoos do give children an experience with extreme forms of nature, and therefore hopefully an appreciation for it. But my god I do hate the look in the apes' eyes as they sit behind the glass. They are so FREAKING smart and we have them caged like a gold fish? I even shed a little tear for fish in small bowls too.
So I don't know ... where would a kid from the Bronx be able to see nature if not a zoo? And would it be fair to take that away from them? BITERS sound off.. I really don't know where I stand on this. Thanks for your thoughts. - JB
Ha! I would LOVE to see The Cricket carting around the cat or the whole herd of my six new baby chickens. And although I do think I am slightly crazy, I am not officially crazy and so therefore will not pursue this wild little notion.
And in general, I bet this tip won't be adopted as readily as say changing out your lights and replacing with CFLs. Just a hunch.
OKAY officially conducting a poll: are ANY BITERS going to do this tip? Maybe it is good to get people thinking about alt transportation, though, right?
Off to think about The Cricket mushing... aww... that WOULD be cute. JB
In a Gawker-inspired fit of inspiration, I've decided that occasionally, I'll write an ongoing blog version that just lays out all the ways I mess up in my green life. Since the "no one's perfect, but we're all getting a little better every day" mantra runs throughout our entire worldview here at the Bite, I think it's only fair that I/we occasionally confess. Welcome to Part 1 of True Confessions: The One About the Trash Bags.
So here's the deal. I LOVE the Real Simple trash cans. Love 'em. Bought 3 (compost, trash, recycling). The recycling one is HUGE (since our Biter team often hangs at my house, we go through a lot of kombucha bottles and Amy's pizza boxes...). And yes, I DO use old plastic grocery bags to line the one I use for trash. But as for lining the recycling bin???
I got completely suckered into buying the lovely Real Simple trashcan liners for the big recycling one. Nothing else seems to fit as well. I make myself feel a little better by re-using the same liner as long as possible (I dump the recycling contents into the bin and then put the liner back into the can for about 3 "rounds"), but still. Seems a little stupid to buy something just to throw it away... However, try as I might, I can't handle not lining the can, because it starts to smell bad, and I'm too lazy to wash out the whole thing thoroughly each week. I suck.
-Heather... of to contemplate what I need to give up to make up for my trash liner fetish...
I eat like hell these days. Honestly - I'm trying to be vegetarian at least half the week (it's an eco thing, and no small feat for a girl raised on red meat all her life). But with almost no time to cook, let alone chop a salad, I find myself eating a lot of bread and rice and tofu and vegetarian, over-packaged takeout... and while it feels great to be eating lower on the food chain, I can't say that my health, my vitamin intake (or my thighs, for that matter), are exactly benefitting from the whole thing.
So, I've been trying to have at least a serving of Amazing Grass Superfoods each day, so that I can at least feel like I'm getting some of what I need, since I find it so much harder to be well-rounded on the days I live on microwaved tamales and Clif Bars...
-Heather... off to have my daily dose...
Not sure why, but I've always loved that story. Maybe our green version is Princess and the Organic Pea. I could at least afford one of those. However, eco mattresses just seem too high of a premium. I mean, I spend 30% more for organic food, no problem. I spent $2K more for the popular diesel version of the Jetta so I could run bio-diesel. I invested a few hundred bucks in a pretty piece of eco-wood for my kitchen bar. But come on, more than a 100% price premium for a mattress seems egregious. (I think the least expensive option is about $1500, including shipping. And last I looked, you could get a decent non-eco mattress for about $750.) However, when you calculate what % of your life you spend in bed, you think, "well, maybe it is worth it." And I am coming around to that. I am.
I wonder if I could find my eco-prince charming by getting one, and the moment he laid down his pretty head on the mattress he would get hungry for an organic pea, and then I would know...
Jumping off my high mattress pile now... JB
Once again, I have a pile of drycleaning that has been building up for like 6 months. God, but I hate the whole thing. As of late, I honestly just don't buy things if they can't be washed at home, in the washing machine.
Of course, now that I have a big ole bag of cleaning that I need to take into a perc-free service, I am feeling a bit nervous - maybe I should take it in in stages just in case something happens to the cleaners? (I tend to have really bad luck with cleaners...)
-Heather... off to throw a load of laundry in the machine (wet cleaning, thank you very much)...
Today's tip is one of those no-brainers, so it seems a bit superfluous to blog about it. Go to your bank sites and sign up for paperless statements. The end.
Let's talk about more fun (green) things instead:
Mercury is in retrograde. Has been for a bit. Apparently, when Merc is retro, travel and communication and technology are impaired (so THIS is why my computer is crashing) and people you used to know long ago crawl out of the woodwork (so THIS is why I am getting emails from ex-boyfriends and phone calls from old bosses).
I've been drinking store-bought kombucha like a crazy woman. I don't know if I'm healthier, but I'm certainly more poor, and have been drinking less wine.
I've decided I no longer want to marry either Mark Morford OR Gavin Newsom. Leo DiCaprio, however, seems to get eco-hotter every day.
OK, so the mercury thing didn't really have anything to do with being green. Sustainable fish, anyone?
-Heather... off to sunny happy hour... to drink something OTHER than kombucha this time...
Why is that? I get that they are powerful and could do damage to you if they wanted, but seriously, you'd be hard pressed to find an evil horse. And if you did, I'd guarantee that it became that way due to an evil human.
Anyway, Miss Lou and I are doing well.... she and I are getting ready for the spring eventing season. TG for riding... it is my yoga. I would be a very pissy person without my horse (and wine / cheese / frequent snacks / fulfilling work).
A friend just wrote in about the tip... looks pretty cool.
"Hey Jen - just got the idealbite today about natural horse care - I don't know if I mentioned before but I have two 1200 lb "kids" here on the farm - I don't know if you've tried the My Horse N' Me products but I really like them - the Juniper Fly Repellent is great as is the Carrot Cake Shampoo - here's their website: http://www.myhorsenme.com/ - Carolyn "
Off to look at pictures of My Pretty Pony... she's being featured in a magazine soon and I have the proofs!! Jen
PHOTO ALBUMS
