Greenify Your Fourth Of July

By Jillian Polaski
Filed Under Conscious Commerce, Green Living | 1 Comment

Fourth of July is upon us once again. Who doesn’t like getting together with friends and family, firing up the old grill, enjoying some BBQ, and watching the fireworks after the sun goes down? Picnics, parties, beer to drink, games to be played…good times.

Maybe you’d even like the Fourth Of July reverie, along with that three-day weekend, to last forever. Well, sadly much of the plastic dishware and decorations from the July 4th will do just that…in a landfill. Bummer. Since foregoing your annual patriotic grillfest is simply not an option, here are some easy things that you can do this Fourth of July to lessen your impact on America The Beautiful. Continue reading Greenify Your Fourth Of July…

Posted on July 1, 2008 |

Superfood News: Goji Berries

By Seth Braun
Filed Under Green Living | 2 Comments

Superfoods

A superfood is anything that delivers the power of several foods in one package. They contain significantly higher levels of vitamins, minerals and other beneficial substances than regular healthy food. We all need a little kick once in a while and superfoods are much better at filling in the gaps in our diet than vitamin supplements. Whether it is for aiding detoxification, replenishing reserves, improving immune system, increasing sex drive or generating energy, superfoods make up for the loss of quality (nutrients and vitality) in the commercial food supply.

Goji Berries

Also known as Lycium Barbarum, Chinese wolfberry, or go qui zi, are reknowned as a “supertonic” herb in the Chinese medicinal system. As a supertonic, there are few people that would not benefit from wolfberry as it benefits all of the following systems…

Eyesight
Goji contain zeaxanthin, which the inner eye absorbs readily, helping prevent degenerative disease of the eye.
Longevity
Goji has long been considered a longevity food in Chinese herbal medicine. It appears that polysaccharides are the cause. Poly-what? Goji berries are sweet in part because of unique types of carbohydrates (polysaccharides) that boost the body’s anti-aging and stress management ability.
Energy Levels
Goji nourish the blood and build reserve strength. From an eastern perspective, it tonifies the liver and kidney and replenishes vital essence. From the western perspective, goji contain all 8 essential amino acids and a total of 18 amino acids, making them a rare complete protein fruit. Goji contain up to 21 minerals, high concentrations of vitamin C, B vitamins, vitamin E, and antioxidants (mostly red-pigment caratenoids) as well as essential fatty acids.
Immune System
The presence of 5 distinct polysaccharides has been shown to improve immune function, strengthening the thymus while increasing “killer T cells.”
Healthy Skin
Beautiful skin is sustained by goji. In January 2005, Phytomedicine Magazine stated that goji “display an interesting array of antioxidant and anti-apoptotic (anti cell death) properties, which may be beneficial for human skin.”
Blood Sugar Levels
People with blood sugar issues such as Type II Diabetes and Syndrome X can benefit greatly from goji as well. Continue reading Superfood News: Goji Berries…

Posted on June 27, 2008 |

Ready, Get Set, To-Go Ware

By Jenn Breckenridge
Filed Under Green Living | Leave a Comment

Stephanie Bernstein went to get some ice cream with her sister. They went to a little ice cream shop in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was 1997. They both ordered scoops in a bowl, no cone, and when they were served Stephanie got confused. Did they ask for the ice cream to go? Um, no. Why was the ice cream in a plastic bowl with a plastic spoon? To her deep disappointment, her local ice cream shop, along with so many other ice cream shops, coffee shops, and small restaurants around the country were starting to replace reusable dishware with paper and plastic single use containers. That day an idea was born.

A lot of university students carried their coffee mugs everywhere, mainly for the discount they received from the coffee shops around town, but also for the positive environmental impact. Stephanie wondered, what if we all just carried everything around that we’d need in a day-what would that look like?

Seven years later, in Northern California, Stephanie sold her first set of utensils in their own handwoven carrying case. They were a hit. Her first generation To-Go Ware sets feature bamboo utensils in cloth carriers woven by a women’s cooperative of Burmese refugees called WEAVE. The women of WEAVE are able to care for their children and their homes, while also creating income for themselves and their families.

The second generation of To-Go Ware was launched earlier this month. These sleek sets have a firmer case made of recycled compressed plastic bags. The bags are collected by ragpickers in India and formed into the colorful polymer by CONSERVE, a recycling and waste management organization. CONSERVE’s collection efforts help to clean the polluted streets of New Delhi while employing hundreds of people in need of work. Continue reading Ready, Get Set, To-Go Ware…

Posted on June 20, 2008 |

Conscious Living TV: Green Your Clean

By Jenn Breckenridge
Filed Under Green Living, eCo TV | 1 Comment

In this episode, Conscious Living TV first takes us on a frightening tour of conventional household cleaners, showing us what not to use and why. Then Bianca gives us the scoop on toxin free alternatives that we can find at our local hardware store, supermarket, or health food store. If you’re still using toxic chemicals to clean your home, this show could be the tipping point for you…

Ready to green your clean? Try out some of these eco smart cleaners…
- Biokleen offers a variety of super concentrated cleaners and detergents that really work
- Seventh Generation features cleaning products free of dyes and fragrances, as well as 100% recycled household paper products
- Try some biodegradable sponges and absorbent reusable towels by Twist
- Method and Greenworks can be found in almost any Target or supermarket, so no matter where you live in the country, there’s always a healthier choice for cleaning your home
Posted on June 18, 2008 |

Earth Cinema Circle: Netflix For Eco Geeks

By Jenn Breckenridge
Filed Under Green Living, News & Reviews | 1 Comment

When I first heard of this “environmental cinema club,” it sounded so out-of-date. A book club, a wine club, a DVD club…this was for the Angela Lansbury type, for someone who belongs to the not-busy-with-anything-except-my-rose-garden sort of club. As it turned out, I had Earth Cinema Circle pegged all wrong. It’s like Netflix for eco geeks, well, sort of…ECC curates eight films into 2 DVD’s and sends them your way every other month for twenty-two bucks, including shipping. These DVD’s are a combination of full length features and shorts. The hook is that most of them you’d never get to see without being a member of Earth Cinema Circle. And you get the bonus of carbon neutral shipping and 100% recycled packaging.

In just one rotation of films, I discovered earthships via the Garbage Warrior, deepened my fledgling understanding of biodynamic farming, fell in love with whales, and watched the most delightful cartoon about a man named Fred who folds the modern world origami-style into a wild expanse of nature. The films are insightful, edgy, and educational and just perfect for the nature lover, activist, eco-geek, teacher or cinemaphile in all-strike that-so many of us.

Some of the ECC films are mind-blowing, some mediocre, but all of them are packed with incredible information and inspiration about the world we live in. The beauty of having so many films in each shipment is that you can easily skip to the next one, like I did with The True Cost Of Food…and Ed Begley, Jr.’s intros (sorry Ed-I still love all the great work you do!) The ECC collections are yours to keep, so if you fall in love with a film, like I did with Garbage Warrior, you can host a screening at your house or pass them on to your enviro junkie friends.

If you’re a busy person who cares about the planet and you just can’t make it through your copy of Silent Spring after a long hard day at work, then Earth Cinema Circle might just be the perfect match…

Posted on June 13, 2008 |

Top 5 Easiest Ways To Save The Planet

By Jenn Breckenridge
Filed Under Green Living | 3 Comments

1 CARPOOL by Wolf

Sharing a trip with one other person immediately cuts the emissions in half by taking a car off the road. On average a carpool saves 527.8 gallons of gasoline and 4.536 tons of CO2 each year. The average family purchases 1,143 gallons of gas per year.

2 EAT LESS MEAT by DAVEC

Raising meat for food (livestock) is an environmental disaster, contributing more to global warming than transportation, using up 30% of the Earth’s land (yes, that’s right, 30% of the entire land mass of the Earth is used directly or indirectly in livestock production), contributing to significant water pollution, using up tons of energy and water for raising and transporting livestock, etc. For example, it takes 2500 gallons of water to produce 1 lb of meat. The average American eats 185 lbs of meat per year, meaning 462,500 gallons of water can be saved by moving to a vegetarian diet!

3 TUNE YOUR CAR REGULARLY by Argam

Keep your engine tuned properly. Checking spark plugs, oxygen sensors, air filters, hoses and belts are a few examples of maintenance that can save a vehicle owner up to 165 gallons of gas per year, resulting in potential savings of over $600.

4 ELIMINATE JUNK MAIL by karlbach
- Junk mail destroys 100 million trees a year — the equivalent of deforesting all of Rocky Mountain National Park every four months.
- Largely due to deforestation, junk mail manufacturing creates as much greenhouse gas emissions annually as 3.7 million cars.
- Every year, Americans receive 848 pieces of junk mail per household — 44% of which ends up unopened in a landfill
Also, more than half of unsolicited mail is discarded unread or unopened; the response rate is less than 2%. And junk mail creates 4 million tons of unnecessary waste per year! Calculating the weight of the junk mail trash from EPA data, it works out to 13.4% of 1276 lbs per household! So that’s 170 pounds of trash per household per year.

5 DON’T WATER YOUR LAWN EVERY DAY by Ghengis

The amount of water used by a sprinkler in one hour is equal to the daily water needs of a family of four! The average sprinkler will use in excess of 240 gallons of water per hour. If the average person sprinkles every day for a half hour and reduced that to once a week, one could save 37,560 gallons a year!! This is huge!

These Top 5 Creative Solutions were chosen by the folks at CreativeCitizen.com, the freshly launched collaborative website for community-proposed eco tips.

Posted on June 12, 2008 |

Great Green Father’s Day Gifts

By Jenn Breckenridge
Filed Under Green Living, Sustainable Style | Leave a Comment

Father’s Day 2008 is indeed upon us. Yes, again. Why not get your Dad something this year that’s better for the planet than say, another set of golf tees or that three-dimensional trout plaque that your Mom will make him hang in the garage anyway? (Disclaimer: An eco-friendly Father’s Day gift is a simply a suggestion and absolutely not intended to offend any child who’s purchased that trout plaque for Father’s Day in the past or plans to in the near future.) Anywho, here are the top eco gifts for Dad from eConscious Market… Continue reading Great Green Father’s Day Gifts…

Posted on June 10, 2008 |

The Mother (Earth) Ship Has Landed

By Jenn Breckenridge
Filed Under Green Living | 2 Comments

Michael Reynolds is a wild recipe of a man: three parts rebel, two parts contractor, one part inventor, one part child, a dash of magician, and a whole mess a’ genius. He is known to some as one of the most brilliant green architects of our generation and now, due to new documentary film by Oliver Hodge, to some Mike’s known simply as the “Garbage Warrior.” Continue reading The Mother (Earth) Ship Has Landed…

Posted on June 5, 2008 |

Field To Fork: The Story Of Food Miles

By Joshua Rosenthal, M.S.
Filed Under Green Living, The Big Picture | 2 Comments

Personal food choices have an impact on our bodies and on our environment. Every single meal we eat is made up of food that requires significant amounts of energy to reach our plate. The journey our food takes is much longer than most realize. We refer to this journey as food miles - the distance food travels from field to plate. The higher the mileage, the less cool the food.

Food travels further these days because large corporate grocery stores have centralized methods for distributing food. In some cases, a crop of cherries may travel across the country to be packaged and then sent back close to where the cherries were originally grown. In other situations, stores fly in food from all over the world to ensure they have fresh produce, whatever the season. This practice causes us to have organic bananas from Peru, kiwis from New Zealand, and avocados from Mexico at any time of year.

In my own area, my food coop sells organic apples from Washington State right next to apples grown locally and they both cost about the same. Locally produced, seasonal foods cut energy use and therefore leave a smaller impact. They are much much better for the environment and for local economies.

Then there’s the matter of meat. To eat or not to eat, that is the question. Cattle require huge amounts of water. Giving up just two pounds of beef a year will save more water than if you stopped showering for a year. When is Al Gore going to start talking about this? Continue reading Field To Fork: The Story Of Food Miles…

Posted on June 3, 2008 |

Farewell My Subaru…It’s A Fine Life Without Petroleum

By Jenn Breckenridge
Filed Under Green Living, eCo TV | 3 Comments

Okay, this may be one of the coolest people I’ve come across in a minute. Have you seen Into The Wild? Liked it? Well, America, meet Doug Fine. Some of you may already be familiar with him, through his humorous NPR spots or his articles in the Washington Post, Wired, or Outside. He wrote a book back in 2004 called Not Really An Alaskan Mountain Man where he breaks down the hilarity of “broken down snowmachines, heavy dead whales, frozen pipes, angry moose and disorientation in a bear-packed wilderness.”

His most recent book is called Farewell, My Subaru where Doug recounts another set of hilarious misadventures in greener, locally-sourced living. Now, he’s surviving on a ranch in rural New Mexico with his pregnant wife where he attempts to live fossil fuel free, cultivate vegetables, and raise livestock. The funny part is mainly due to the fact that, previous to establishing the Funky Butte Ranch, Doug had no previous electrical, mechanical or farming skills. He’s making his own biodiesel, catching his own water, and producing plenty of electricity for his bumpin’ stereo system and his many modern appliances. Check this man out-he’s on fire!

Posted on May 28, 2008 |

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