Dirty Planet, Clean Hippie

No, not that kind of commitment. I have committed to only shopping at the Trader Joe’s or farmer’s market for a month for my grocery shopping.  It’s a small step, I agree, but a necessary one.  This is not just because I am but a low-wage grad student and TJs/farmer’s market are usually inexpensive, but also because I can find a large variety of high quality foods at these places.  That the same old pasta I have been eating any day, in my book.  I am also going to try to reduce eating out because I know I can’t control where restaurants get their food, and I don’t know where it is coming from (and also partly because I am a low-wage grad student, truth be told).  Here are a few of the reasons I have made this commitment:

Fresh fruits and vegetables: farmers at the market are literally begging me to try their strawberries. The peas, onions, tomatoes and any other vegetable they have are out of this world good.

A variety of cultural foods: by cultural I mean Asian, Indian, Mexican, Latin American, etc foods that are prepared closer to home for TJ’s.  I am an International Studies major, so this appeals to me personally.

An expansion of my food horizon: so, I have been eating like your typical grad student for the past 10 months or so because I have believed that this is what I can afford: pastas, macaroni, cereal and the staple of ramen noodles.  That sounds very healthy, right? No? You’re right.  Part of this whole switching to the TJ’s/farmer’s market is because I can get a variety of foods for a cheaper cost than at conventional grocery stores.

I’m not telling you about the TJ’s/farmer’s market plan to get onto a high horse of any kind, but because the plan is furthering two reasons why I wanted to start up this blog in the first place: to be more healthy on the cheap.  If you don’t have a TJ’s then I suggest you lobby for one near your hometown. Short of that, try to take advantage of a local farmer’s market, where food is (usually) more flavorful and nutrient-rich than in supermarkets (where often, but not always, food is trucked in from miles and miles away).

As of today, I have gone two weeks with no visit to the supermarket.  As I run out of the usual household supplies, it will probably be more difficult for me to avoid them.  Until then, I will keep trucking along with the plan, update accordingly, and make new recipes to go along with my new habit. Let me know if you have any other suggestions.

Okay, so I guess I should quantify that, but it was the first thing I thought when I popped one in my mouth today. I picked up a bag at Trader Joe’s, because I’d seen them at Whole Paycheck before. Of course the TJ had a better price, so I gave it a try, because I need something to snack on at my job.

Anyway, these are delectable little goodies, and I will definitely be picking up more. They have the texture of a potato chip or a cheeto, but are actually baked peas. I got the original flavor, which is lightly salted. I could have eaten the whole bag if it hadn’t been dinner time.

This isn’t exactly environmental news, but if you’re looking for a healthy snack that mimics the old school chips and crackers, here it is. I will try to get back with more eco-news, at least more than I have been offering recently.

Just passing on a reference to a website with some fantastic eco-friendly buys.  Everything is chic, and there is a wide variety of products you can buy while contributing to sustainability.  Delight.com is a great source for gifts and practical items for your home in office.  I am thinking I will get my mom’s Mother’s Day gift from Delight, as they have such cute plants

So today hasn’t been the best Earth Day for me, because of various reasons related to the towing industry.  But also because a climate change denier decided to post on my site (under Al Gore Has a New Video, if you’d like to see it).  I’m going to let it stand because the truth is that there are people who deny climate change is happening, or deny that humans have had anything to do with it.  That’s fine.  At this point, the issue is almost like politics, religion, morality (not quite on that large of a personal scale, but similar nonetheless) or any of the big issues that you want to name.  This is because I could talk until my nose bleeds and they will keep their point of view.  By the same token, they could talk until their nose bleeds and I will keep my same point of view.

This particular denier points to “An Inconvenient Truth” as having graphics from the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” to prove the point.  I don’t know about that.  I do know that a lot of issues have come up with Al Gore’s slideshow.  Fine.  If you don’t want to believe Al Gore, that’s fine.  But I think before dismissing climate change altogether, you should take a look at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

I was going to save this for another post, one that’s not so high and mighty (a la yesterday’s post), but I’ll go ahead and tell you about the IPCC.  It is composed of representatives from countries who are members of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), which are basically any members of the United Nations who wish to participate (130 out of the 193 countries today).  Its goal was to provide objective data regarding climate change to government policy makers.  Independent scientists evaluated any climate change information (peer reviewed) they could get their hands on.  Wikipedia tells me that in the past six years, 2500 scientists have contributed, with 800 contributing authors and 450 lead authors.  These people are from all over the world; there is no North American bias to this information, and the IPCC took pains to ensure that.  Further, the presence of government representatives in reviewing the reports - repeatedly - has ensured that no one agenda defines the outcome of the reports.

There have been some criticisms of the IPCC reports.  Some have claimed that scientists expect supporting data to be there for various hypotheses, and so they “make” it be there.  Others claim that the IPCC is too conservative, not placing enough emphasis on the dangers and the realities.

I don’t want everyone to get into a tizzy about this.  Honestly.  So what if the IPCC is seeing things that aren’t there? What if they are underplaying the dangers - warming, storms, extreme weather, etc? Then we play to the middle.  Does that hurt anybody?  If we reduce carbon, maybe people could breathe a little better in Los Angeles or Beijing? If we stop eating so much meat, maybe we wouldn’t have as many problems with heart disease (although to be fair, processed foods contribute to that)? And I realize that there are other, large, problems we need to solve (AIDS, poverty, war, other diseases, inequality of wealth distribution between the global “north” and “south,” and a lot of other things I can’t list here).  But climate change can also exacerbate these problems (poverty, health issues, famine, conflicts).

Obviously, I’ve already been converted.  You don’t have to listen to me. But before you throw away climate change because you don’t like Al Gore or you think people are wack-jobs, take a look at the IPCC’s Summary for Policy Makers.  It’s simplified and has a lot of graphs (which helped me out).  After that, if you think they were just trying to get a certain predetermined answer, that’s fine.  But if you come and talk to me about it, just know I probably won’t change my mind. Just like you probably won’t change yours.

Mother Jones today did a much better job addressing the nuclear power issue than I did in Judith Lewis’ The Nuclear Option. It takes a serious look at the issue, using the science that I didn’t research. Hopefully this gives you a more accurate picture than my little piece.

Earth Day is tomorrow, so I thought I’d give a little rundown on the history of the day itself. I think I might be missing all those Earth Day activities from my childhood - you know “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” and all that - and also miss when the environment seemed a little bit simpler.

The first Earth Day was on April 22, 1970. It was announced by Senator Gaylord Nelson (no, not Gaylord Focker), from Wisconsin, as a teach-in to generate awareness for he environmental degradation witnessed in the US during the 1960s. The emphasis was on grassroots participation. Because Senator Nelson was an environmental activist, he could bring attention to this cause on a national scale. But not all representatives at the national level shared his views (okay, maybe Richard Nixon on some level), so grassroots efforts were key.

Since 1970, some have criticized Earth Day as outliving its usefulness, and making light of environmental concerns. I can see this in part because of the 1990s (?) trend of using it mainly to teach children about how the environment works and to maybe teach them about recycling. But the children must be taught, and otherwise there is no direct reminder to teach them these things outside of the occasional science class.

Furthermore, as environmental issues grow in importance today, with green living, IPCC reports, the EU taking strong action and awareness growing across the earth as to the effects of climate change, Earth Day can hearken back to that original feeling of grassroots participation. Instead of merely being a venue to teach kids about the earth, let’s take Earth Day and use it to educate people of all ages about how their daily personal decisions impact the earth - either negatively or positively. Michael Pollan did a wonderful piece in the New York Times this weekend about reasons Why we should Bother?

If the spirit of Earth Day is grassroots participation in lieu of a unified national leadership, then we should honor that spirit. I don’t mean to sound all hippie, because my reasoning is entirely capitalistic. If we participate, change our lifestyle in some manner, we send a message. If we stop eating beef, or at least reduce it, we send a message to cattle growers not to have so many cows. This stops not only the mistreatment of cows, but also the methane they produce, water they use (in thousands of gallons) and general degradation of the earth that comes from factory farms. If we decide to turn our lights off, get energy efficient electronics and appliances and turn down our heat, we send a message to the coal or natural gas companies that we want something new (and not “clean coal”). If we buy hybrid cars - even if they are SUV hybrids - we send a message to automakers that we want more fuel efficiency, not less and not the same levels as before.  If we buy organic cotton and fabrics, clothing companies will respond in kind and produce more of what we want. The same goes for all kinds of organic products (although with pricing increases, I know this is becoming more difficult. Believe me, I know - I went to Whole Foods this weekend). This is the beauty of capitalism - supply and demand. If we demand new energy technology to slow climate change, people will be working on those energies. If we demand, the suppliers will respond. Because it doesn’t pay to produce things no one wants. And if we don’t want the old things, they will have to make new ones.

This doesn’t quite work with the government. Representatives have their hands intertwined with lobbyists, and most often those aren’t environmental lobbies (no money, right?). But if we send a message with our lifestyle, representatives will have no choice to sit up and listen. Because we vote with our dollars, but at the same time, we also go to election polls every once in a while. If it is one thing a politician respects, it’s a vote, because otherwise he or she will be out of business.

So keep up with Earth Day. Educate yourself. Make changes that you can. Vote with your dollars. Vote in elections. Because you are the grassroots.

Just a little clip about the other way I’m helping my mouth feel extra clean - a toothbrush made from recycled plastic, from Recycline.  I picked one of these up at Trader Joe’s (of course!), but not at the same time as my Tom’s of Maine toothpaste.  I have heard that Target is going to pick them up, or is experimenting by selling them in a few stores.  Hopefully, they will catch on!

Recycline produces the Preserve line of recycled products, from kitchen ware to toothpicks to razors.  They have an agreement with Stonyfield Farm to recycle their old yogurt cups to produce most of what goes into the Preserve products.  Sounds like a good thing to me, and the hippie can continue to be clean while depleting a little more of her carbon footprint.

My review is that even though the Preserve toothbrush doesn’t have all the bells and whistles from the commercials you see on tv (extra-scrubbing-hard-to-reach-get-down-into-the-grooves-of-your-teeth type things), it is a really functional toothbrush.  What’s even better is that if you order them online, they will stagger your toothbrushes so you can order four over a period of a year or year and a half, depending on how often you want a new brush.  And what is probably best is that if you request, Recycline will send you an stamped envelope to send back the toothbrush once you’re done, so they can recycle it again! I thought about giving these out as small presents (to my closest loved ones), but then I thought they might think I was saying their teeth are bad.  So I’ll save that and let them buy their own.

So, in accordance with all this hippie business, I’ve been seeking out “natural” products. In other words, products whose ingredients I can actually pronounce. I think I first read about Tom’s of Maine in a Today Show article online, of all places. I didn’t really think much about it until I actually looked at the back of my toothpaste, and it contained a lot things I could not pronounce, plus artificial sweeteners. I get it, I like myself a minty fresh breath as much as the next person. But sweeteners in my toothpaste? Doesn’t that just add on to the dessert(s) I am almost certainly going to ingest after my morning tooth brushing? I know, it’s probably negligible in daily brushing, but those things add up. ‘

So when I was at Trader Joe’s one time, I picked up a tube. The price was comparable to other toothpastes (unlike a lot of other “green” products), and I thought that was because I bought it at Trader Joe’s. Upon perusing Tom’s website, though, I found that not only were prices always comparable, no matter where you buy it, but also that they do a lot of other green things than just produce natural toothpaste. More on that later.

Anyway, I picked up the “spearmint” flavor because they didn’t seem to have “cool mint” or “wintergreen” like my usual conglomerate toothpaste brand. Alas. I didn’t figure the taste of Tom’s would be as potent as the normal stuff, but mint is most amenable to my tastes, so I couldn’t forgo that taste because of habit. When I got home, I still had about 1/4 of my old toothpaste left, so I finished that. And then on with the experiment. I have to be honest, it doesn’t really taste like anything. Because it doesn’t really taste like anything, and I’m used to toothpaste tasting like I have just crushed a sprig of mint in my mouth, it kind of tasted bad. Until I got used to it. Let me reiterate, I got used to it not really tasting like anything and so it doesn’t taste bad. It just doesn’t taste like anything.

Other than that, it leaves my breath fresh and clean, and I can pronounce all of the ingredients. Tom’s has options that don’t have flouride, as it is a very controversial ingredient. But I couldn’t let go of all those dentist commercials and brushing tutorials from my childhood, so I got the kind with flouride. It seems rather important, in my mind. Tom’s has the added bonus of an entire line of health products, including deodorant (now even hippies wear deodorant), soap, floss, mouthwash,

If anyone saw Al’s An Inconvenient Truth, then they know that he’s no robot. And while I think he sometimes resorts to scare tactics (all with good intention) to get his point across, the science is sound. It says something that he won the Nobel Peace Prize in cohesion with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, which I’ll talk more about later). And so he’s made a new video urging people to become socially active on this issue. But still, what can I do?

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/243

This morning, I left CNN on in the background while I was getting ready and they brought up a story about Bisphenol-A (BPA).  While the story didn’t go into much detail, if CNN is reporting on it (finally) then you know something’s up.  Kind of like the economy.

Anyway, my beloved Canada is apparently going to label BPA as toxic.  I was under the impression that it was only really dangerous in hard plastics, but apparently they are including the average plastic bottles as well as canned foods.

By the way, I don’t think I explained BPA very well.  It seemingly mimics estrogen when it gets distorted (morphs) when used.  This isn’t a good thing, as seemingly your body can regulate its own estrogen (unless you have a hormone deficiency, but that’s a whole ‘nother thing), whether you are a female or male.  In women (or shall I say girls), it can cause the early onset of puberty, and in men it can cause feminine features (think: boobs).  In either gender it can cause weight gain (like that associated with taking birth control pills).  I’m not an expert, but this is what I gather from what I’ve read.

So if you’re inclined, just do yourself a favor and stay away from the hard plastics.  And if you’re a mother, you might want to look into glass or BPA-free baby bottles, just in case (BPA could also potentially lead to cancer).