Next time you need a shower curtain, choose fabric rather than plastic. Fabric shower curtains are easier to wash and reuse, and don't emit toxic fumes like PVC curtains do.
Photo: Flickr user kissyface under Creative Commons
The difference between bleached and unbleached flour in the final product (and cost) is negligible, but by purchasing the unbleached version you will eliminate chemicals and toxins from your food and our environment. Using chlorine, bromates, and peroxides in processing our food seems crazy, doesn’t it? Especially when there is a better alternative sitting right next to the bleached flour on the store shelf.
I have two teenage boys. In their perfect world, they would eat pizza every single day. Happily, I have perfected a method of making homemade pizza – with homemade dough – that eliminates the takeout boxes (and the takeout expense) without taking up too much time. Sorry, Domino’s! By par “baking” a batch of pizza dough and then freezing the ready-to-assemble rounds, pizza is perfect for the last minute dinner emergencies that seem to happen with regularity around here. Kind of like Boboli pizza crust, but without the plastic packaging. This pizza dough recipe makes about a dozen individual sized pizza rounds (8-10″ diameter) when rolled out thinly. It takes about 15 minutes to mix the dough in my KitchenAid mixer and just under half an hour to prepare 12 rounds. My family will eat about 6 of those in one sitting, so I generally do a double** batch of dough – with that we can have pizza the same day I make the rounds, plus put enough dough in the freezer for three more pizza nights. For roughly an hour’s worth of work, I’m set for four different meals – all I have to do to pull it...
With the devastating images coming out of Japan following the deadly earthquake and tsunami, it’s a fair question. Would you be ready in case of such a disaster? Like many people living on the Ring of Fire, we found ourselves faced with the threat of a tsunami last night. We’re on high ground here, so we weren’t in imminent danger from the tsunami, but there were other possibilities. Damage to our harbors would impede the delivery of goods via barge. An interruption of fuel deliveries would mean the island’s electric plants wouldn’t be able to run (no, Hawaii’s energy plan isn’t the greenest). Water supplies could be impacted for people on municipal water services. Thankfully, the damage on the Big Island was minimal in the grand scheme of things and none of these came to pass. But I did spend some time last night assessing our situation. While we do depend on city water, we’ve recently added a 55 gallon water catchment barrel and gutters, so we had a fair amount of water at our disposal. Even so, I filled containers with another 10 gallons just to be safe. We have two methods for cooking if our electric stove...
If you’d like to add a fruit tree or berries to your yard or garden, you still have time to consider bare root in many regions. A bare root plant comes just like it sounds – with its roots bare, rather than planted in a pot full of soil. Trees and shrubs are available in bare root form during the late winter, when the plant is dormant and has no leaves. Generally speaking, purchasing bare root plants offers a larger selection for buyers. The potted fruit trees and berries you’ll find at nurseries later in the year are often the varieties that didn’t sell during bare root season. Consider a standard sized fruit tree if you’re looking for a tree that will also provide shade. Semi-dwarf trees are medium sized and can work in suburban yards. City dwellers who have very limited space might consider a dwarf fruit variety planted in a large planter or half-barrel. Mail order companies and some quasi-nurseries (like those at home improvement stores) sell their bare root plants wrapped in burlap or plastic. If you pick up a tree or shrub at your local nursery (not a big box store), you’ll choose your plant...
McDonald’s has added oatmeal to its breakfast menu. Terrific! Who hasn’t been time pinched at breakfast time and looking for a nice healthy option? Not so fast. McDonald’s isn’t doing you (or the environment) any favors with their oatmeal. It’s got chemicals, it’s got disposable packaging. It’s not sustainable by any means, nor is it healthy as they’d have you believe. Mark Bittman took McDonald’s to task the other day, saying that: A more accurate description than “100% natural whole-grain oats,” “plump raisins,” “sweet cranberries” and “crisp fresh apples” would be “oats, sugar, sweetened dried fruit, cream and 11 weird ingredients you would never keep in your kitchen.” The kicker? (McDonald’s oatmeal) contains more sugar than a Snickers bar and only 10 fewer calories than a McDonald’s cheeseburger… So much for oatmeal being healthy! Making oatmeal is not hard. It is, in fact, very easy. But let me make it even easier. With this oatmeal hack, all you need to do is boil water. No recipe, no measuring. It’s healthier than Mickey D’s and less wasteful than the little packets of instant oatmeal, and you can tuck it into your purse for a breakfast on the run. Oatmeal in...
One of my sons is a P,B & J hound so I’ve got to keep jam and jelly in the house. The trouble is, almost every single brand of jelly that my grocery store carries is made with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). I don’t like that. One local brand does use sugar instead of HFCS and there are organic options, but sheesh, it’s expensive! More than five bucks for slightly more than a cup of jam? This is why I’ve been making my own jam and jelly for years. I know that some of you are suffering through snow flurries and blizzards right now, but what better way to spend a snow day than to whip up a batch of jelly? Making freezer jam or jelly is so easy. Truly. And get this: you don’t even need to have fresh fruit to make jelly. The freezer or juice aisle of your grocery store is your ticket to HFCS-free jelly in the middle of winter. Look for ready-to-serve 100% juice in the drink aisle (you may have to seek out a natural food store) or a frozen concentrate (Welch’s is one brand that offers 100% juice). It may not...
When you’re cooking on the stove top you can cut your cooking time and/or energy use by up to 75 percent just by using a tight fitting lid says Richard Ehrlich, author of The Green Kitchen. Boiling water? Warming soup? Put a lid on it! I use a lid on almost everything I cook to save energy, but it also helps to save time – and who couldn’t use more of that?
One of the primary reasons I garden is to fill my pantry with canned fruits and vegetables that are (almost*) free of bpa and pesticides. Of all the different things I preserve, tomatoes are far and away the most-used ingredients in my household; it seems I’m constantly pulling a jar of some sort of tomato product or another out of the pantry. In previous years, it’s been pints and quarts that I put up from our big California garden. I ran out of the canned goods I brought with me when we moved some time ago and I’m reduced to buying canned tomatoes – it’s killing me. (And yes, the movers DID think I was nuts. But I needed the jars; why not bring them full?) As the time for planting a garden nears, I’m gearing up to once again fill my pantry with tomatoes from the garden. In the past, I’ve planted as many as 40 tomato plants in a season and always had plenty for me as well as lots to share, but my space wasn’t nearly as limited. Here on this small lot where (ironically) full sun is scarce, there’s not room to wantonly plant excess....
The Internet is abuzz with news of Oprah and 378 Harpo staffers who went vegan for a week. Reading the reactions of people who took the challenge was interesting. It sounds as though many of the participants found the change beneficial to their well being, but while I’m all about supporting dietary restrictions (I’m gluten free these days) and respecting choices, I was disappointed to read through the menus suggested by Kathy Freston, author of the New York Times bestseller, The Veganist: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World. Her book was the catalyst for this week long experiment and just to get people started on vegan living, she offered Oprah’s viewers three weeks worth of vegan menus. In my mind, vegan sounds like a perfectly sustainable diet. Broccoli. Whole grains. Beans. Salads. Sprouts grown right on your counter top.The Change the World part of the book’s title certainly sounds as though the author wants to make a difference and that going vegan could be a real boon to the environment. And certainly, there are plenty of arguments about the positive impact a meatless diet can have on the planet.
As more people become aware of the human impact on this earth (and ironically, on our own health) the idea of living a more sustainable, self-sufficient life is gaining ground. But. It’s one thing to think, “Hey, I’d love to be more self-sufficient!” and quite another to implement a lifestyle change that might require learning a new set of skills or two. Attainable Sustainable is about bridging the gap between wanting change and making it happen without becoming overwhelmed. Nobody’s saying you have to go get a tractor and a cow. As far as this site is concerned, sustainability is about eliminating excess and living lightly on the world. It’s about learning to generate food in a smart manner, whether that’s raising your own, joining a local CSA, or frequenting your local farmers markets. It’s about leaving the consumerism model behind and embracing the concept of re-purposing and reusing what we have. It’s discovering – one step at a time – how to make changes in your life to support a sustainable lifestyle. If you’re interested in making some positive changes in the way you live in this world, I hope you’ll stick around!
