Green Living

In 1621, the pilgrims at Plymouth celebrated the ending of a successful growing season with a harvest feast, an event that is generally considered the “First Thanksgiving.” They were joined by several Native Americans who had taught the pilgrims how to harvest foods and survive the harsh winter. The feast included foods locally grown and produced by the pilgrims such as duck, lobster, swan, native berries, boiled pumpkin, squash and a variety of other vegetables.

Jean Leon Gerome Ferris's iconic painting depicts the first Thanksgiving celebration.

Today’s modern Thanksgiving celebration is a far cry from that first harvest feast where the settlers farmed, hunted, and gathered everything they consumed. Today’s traditional feast is a far more industrialized affair, comprised of pre-packaged foods that likely travel hundreds of miles before it ends up on your table.  In fact, it’s estimated that most of the foods consumed in the U.S. travel more than 1500 miles before being sold to consumers. The ability to shop a season-less global food market may be convenient but our incessant appetites and rapidly expanding food chain is taking its (hefty) toll on the environment primarily because of the immense transportation impacts. We have long forgotten what it’s like to eat as prescribed by Mother Nature, as those very first settlers did.

That’s why this year we’re challenging you to a 100-mile eco Thanksgiving! The traditional holiday for giving thanks presents the perfect opportunity to get back in touch with the original roots of the harvest celebration and make your meal local. That means everything you use to prepare your feast should originate within…you guessed it, 100 miles!

For some, preparing such a feast solely from local ingredients may sound daunting but pulling off a 100-mile Thanksgiving is far easier than you think; you just have to know where to look.

Find a Local Bird

The Turkey

Believe it or not, the traditional Thanksgiving bird is raised in most of the lower 48 states, which means most of us can find a local turkey from a farm within 100 miles. Check out Heritage Foods USA or Local Harvest’s Turkey Search.

Use Locally-Grown Produce

Locally-Grown Produce

If you live in New England or Washington, delicious, juicy apples can be purchased from a local apple farm. You can find fresh potatoes if you happen to live in Idaho or leafy greens (think lettuce, arugula, cabbage, etc.) in New Mexico and citrus fruits in Arizona and Florida. Research local produce that’s available near you and incorporate it into your meal. The Natural Resources Defense Council offers an Eat Local search, where you can determine what’s fresh near you depending on the season.

Dairy Products

From milk to cheese and ice cream to top the pie, dairy products can be found at local dairy farms located in most states. Not sure what farms are within 100 miles of you? There are a handful of national dairy chains (such as Winder Farms) or you can contact your local dairy council who can refer you to farms in your area.

The Booze

Wine that perfectly complements dark turkey meat will be easy to find if you’re within 100 miles of Napa Valley. For the rest of us, getting our hands on local spirits may be a bit more challenging but certainly not impossible. DrinkLocalWine.com offers a plethora of info on regional wines throughout the country and the Brewers Association can locate microbreweries in your area. To make your Thanksgiving booze even greener, try finding local organic spirits.

Purchase Local Organic Spirits

The Stuffing

Instead of purchasing this traditional Thanksgiving side dish from the prepackaged box, try making a homemade vegetable stuffing using produce found at a local farmers market. There are more than 4800 farmers’ markets operating throughout the continental United States and chances are, there’s one near you. Local Harvest allows you to easily search for farmers’ markets in your area by zip code.

With few exceptions, everything you need to make your Thanksgiving feast (or acceptable alternatives) can be found within a 100-mile radius. Such exceptions generally include spices and coffee, which for many are fundamental to the quintessential Thanksgiving feast. The November holiday was instated to literally give thanks and celebrate blessings but its true meaning is often overshadowed by the impending and often expected feast that accompanies it. The idea behind the 100-mile Thanksgiving is to prepare and enjoy the celebratory meal while significantly reducing your carbon footprint. We encourage you to try new, scrumptious dishes entirely composed of local ingredients. Your 100-mile feast doesn’t have to be a traditional Thanksgiving – it just has to be one that you can enjoy in the company of your family and friends.

Are you planning a 100-mile Thanksgiving? We want to hear from you! Share your ideas, tips, and tasty recipes using only locally-produced foods in our comment section! We’ll post some of our favorites on our blog. Can’t wait to hear from you!

October 31 will be upon us in just a few short weeks and children across the country are gearing up for one of their favorite holidays (second only to birthdays).  In the midst of decorating your home and finding the perfect costumes, take a moment to ponder how what you’re doing is impacting the environment.  And while you’re at it, try implementing the tips below to help you have a green and festive Halloween.

Fair Trade Gold Coins

Candy – For the little trick-or-treaters who come knocking on your door, pass out eco-friendly that’s healthier than its conventional counterparts.  For example, Endangered Species Chocolate offers all-natural Halloween treats and donates 10% of their net profits to help support endangered species and habitats.  You’ll also find a great selection of natural candy at Natural Candy Store or you can get fair trade gold coins from the Global Exchange Fair Trade online store.

Costumes – Instead of purchasing a cheaply-made costume you’ll throw away after just one use, get creative and make a costume out of what you already have around the house – think cardboard, scrap fabric, towels, accessories and whatever else you can find.  Or try swamping costumes with friends and neighbors (remember FreeCycle?), so everyone gets a new costume without throwing anything away.

Decorations – Instead of using throwaway paper decorations, make and purchase décor that can be used for years to come.  Use rechargeable batteries for decorations that require batteries and try making your own!  Make sure you use non-toxic paints and fabric made from organic cotton.  If DIY isn’t your style, Etsy is a great place to find eco-friendly, handmade Halloween decorations.

Reusable Halloween Decorations

Pumpkins – No Halloween is complete without (organic) pumpkins!  But instead of letting them rot on your doorstep, put every part to good use.  The seeds are delicious when roasted and you can even make homemade pumpkin pie or pumpkin soup (pie pumpkins work the best).  Cut up the remaining pieces to use in your compost bin.

Trick-Or-Treating – Don’t drive the kids around and wait in the car every time they ring a doorbell; you’ll only waste gas and further contribute to carbon emissions.  Instead, walk door-to-door in a dense neighborhood.

Did you know the average American woman spends a staggering $449,127 on beauty throughout her lifetime (according to Newsweek.com)?  Think about how often you purchase the latest and greatest beauty product – it probably adds up to quite a bit of packaging and waste, not to mention money spent.  In addition, many of the beauty products on the market are made with artificial ingredients and manufactured through harmful processes.  Sound gloomy?  Take heart!  We’ve compiled four (easy) ways to greenify your daily beauty routine along with a handful of lush products and brands that can help you along the way.

Reduce waste by using reusable travel containers for all your beauty products.

Take Note of Product Packaging
Just like virtually everything else you’ll find on store shelves, pay attention to the packaging of a particular product; is it made of recycled materials or utilize packaging that’s produced through eco-friendly processes?  On a similar note, while travel sizes of your favorite products are convenient, buying new ones every time you head out of town is extremely wasteful.  Instead, purchase reusable travel bottles that you can refill.

What’s Dimethylaminopropylamine?
Never heard of it?  What about cocamidopropyl?  These are just a few (of the many) synthetic ingredients you’ll find in a myriad of shampoos, hand soaps and other cosmetics.  It’s a safe bet that if you can’t pronounce it, you may want to think twice about putting it on your body.

L'Occitane's Verbana shampoo is comprised of organic verbana extract, floral water and a vegetable-based foaming agent.

Go Au Naturale
These days you don’t have to shop exclusive specialty shops to get affordable yet luxurious organic and all-natural products.  More and more major retailers are offering them, such as Victoria’s Secret’s new organic line or the increasingly popular Burt’s Bees.  A few of my favorite natural products include The Body Shop’s soap bars (which contain only palm oil from sustainable sources) and L’Occitane’s Verbana shampoo and conditioner.   Many of these retailers also support eco-friendly and socially responsible practices.

Opt for Homemade
Make your own beauty products!  Using items you probably have around the house, you can create your own products that work just as good (if not better) than those found in the store.  For example, used teabags can help reduce eye puffiness or rubbing pineapple rinds can help exfoliate and brighten skin.  Vinegar soothes sunburns while olive oil mixed with an avocado is the perfect treatment for dry, damaged hair.

Getting organized and going green can be synonymous with each other. When we’re organized, we know what we have and what we need to buy. The less we bring into our homes, the fewer resources we’re using, and the less clutter we end up living with. Here are a few tips to giving your home a green organizational make over.

• Plug a jumble of cords into a single power strip. You’ll eliminate an eyesore and conserve energy. Research show that 5 to 13 percent of a home’s energy usage go to “vampire” appliances, things like computers, TVs and air conditioners, which use electricity when they’re plugged in but turned off.

• Designate a single reusable water bottle for each family member. You’ll reduce the pile of plastic in landfills as well as the number of empty bottles cluttering your home.

• Switch to a multiuse green cleaner instead of single-job product. You’ll lessen you family’s exposure to chemicals and save space by not having a plethora of products in your cabinets.

• Take stock in you kitchen, arrange your pantry like a grocery store so you don’t waste or duplicate what you have. Keep canned goods in one area, pasta in another and so on.

• Know what’s in your closet so you don’t buy yet another pair of the same jeans. Donate items that you don’t want and recycle stained T-shirts and other unwearables as cleaning rags. Listing items on Freecycle is great because it can be the fastest way to move stuff out and get it into the hands of someone else who can use it.

5 Everyday Ways to Maintain Order

• Before you start purchasing organizing containers you need to REDUCE and possibly even REUSE your items. Once you reduce, take a quick inventory of the empty containers you already have before you run off to the store to buy new ones. Use household items for storage… shoeboxes, wooden crates, baskets, and empty jars can store anything from memorabilia to paperwork to office supplies to doggie treats.

• Keep a shopping bag in your closet for items you want to donate. If you know you won’t wear it anymore, immediately put it in the bag

• Cut down on paper waste by printing documents only when necessary. Instead of storing paper files, keep digital versions on your computer

• Open mail daily so you’re never faced with a towering stack of bills. The average American household receives an estimated 850 pieces of junk mail every year — enough, as we all know, to cover our kitchen tables several times over. If you’re sick of all that junk mail, opt out. To get rid of junk mail from companies offering “prescreened” or “preapproved” loans or credit, visit Optoutprescreen.

• Unpack everything and put it where it belongs each time you bring shopping bag into the house. Try and always use a reusable shopping bag so you’re forced to empty it each time you want to use it again.

Enjoy your newly decluttered dwelling!

A successful organic garden most often starts with successful soil and the nourishing materials you add to your garden beds. However, most people don’t know that the most nourishing materials can come from their own home and yard.

Since spring is when we start pulling weeds, planting and mowing the lawn, I thought it would be the perfect time to talk about composting. You can do it right in your back yard, or if you live in a city, start a composting bin in your freezer then bring those ingredients to your local community garden, (as long as they have composting).

• Here’s what you do:

Composting can be complicated, or it can be as easy as you want it to be.  All you really need to get started are scraps and a place to put them. I’ve known people who have started big piles of scraps in their back yard, others who have built composting bins and in my case, roommates who have lugged frozen buckets to the community garden weekly. There are many composting styles you can follow, but it’s best to find one that works best for you, your lifestyle and one that won’t “stink” up the neighborhood or apartment.

• What to put into a pile:

Fruits, veggies, coffee grinds, tea bags (tags and staples removed), newspapers (no shinny ads), plant trimmings, leaves, grass clippings, eggshells and a whole host of other items. For a more complex list visit Earth911.

• What to leave out:

Meat, oil, and dairy products, which don’t break down quickly, smell bad and attract unwanted pest. Avoid weeds that have gone to seed because they’ll produce more weeds. In the Southeast your pile will compost year round, but it will do so more quickly in the warmer months.

• How it all works:

Tiny microorganisms need four things to break down organic material into rich, brown, crumbly, dirt. They are: oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and moisture. Carbon comes from leaves, straw, wood; nitrogen comes from scraps such as grass and coffee grinds; you need about two to three times more brown material that green material in your pile. Because composting is an aerobic process, the microorganisms need oxygen to do their job. So you must always make sure there are air holes in your pile and turn your bin regularly. Turn the pile with a pitchfork to make sure air gets into the center of the pile.  Lastly, the pile should be kept about as moist as a wrung-out sponge, which keeps the microorganisms alive without killing them.

• What to expect:

Compost is finished when it smells good, looks good and feels like nice, dark rich earth. The scraps that you added should be unrecognizable. If you do nothing to your pile but add scraps, it will stink and take a much longer time to become rich earth. If you actively work on your pile, turn it and keep it moist, it should take a month or so to finish its process.

• When it’s complete:

Once the compost it complete, sprinkle a little on the soil surface before you plant anything. You’re invigorating the soil! A layer of compost benefits your veggie garden, flowers and lawn.

Composting gives you the opportunity to recycle and reuse garbage that you generate in your home and is nature’s way of recycling organic materials into rich soil. It improves sandy or clay soil, enhances water retention so you water less, (big eco plus), and feeds plants so they grow organically and strong. Once you start composting you’ll be hooked.

Here are 10 great sites with composting tips, advice and awesome ideas:

• EcoFriends, eco-friendly daily organic dump compost.

• Build a compost box in your apartment with simple instructions from Planet Green.

• Make your own compost from instructions at GreenYour.

• Rot ‘n’ Roll over at Grist.

• Build your own compost tumbler with instructions at Treehugger.

• A great resource from WebEcoist on smart composting tips for urban gardeners and apartment dwellers.

• Interesting read from Earth First on prisons that have gone green with organic farming, composting and recycling.

• Manage organic material from your home with great tips from Earth911.

• GenGreen has awesome articles on Biodiversity.

• Care2 Will help you build a healthy heap.

St. Patrick’s Day hasn’t really been celebrated as a “green” holiday, associated with helping the environment, but there are a few things you can do to “green” it up this year.

One cool way is to ensure your celebratory drinks are green and bought from local and or organic sources. First, look for a local brewery, and based on your geography, choose east coast or west coast brews. Tons of smaller breweries have adopted green brewing customs and just like locally produced food, local breweries have a smaller carbon footprint because of the shorter distance it travels from the brewery to your mouth.

Once you’ve located the ideal brewery based on your tastes and location, see if they offer organic or even vegan brews. The organic hops and grains will be toxin free, which is better for the planet and your body and the vegan beers will be free of trace animal parts, like fish-bladder bits, commonly used to clarify beers without filtration.

Another thing to pay attention to is packaging. Is it made from recycled materials? And if you want to take it one green step further, visit a local brewery and buy beer in reusable pint glasses. But if you must use non-glass cups, the International Papercup Company sells awesome ecotainers that are made from wood-fiber paper and coated in a corn-based polylactic acid resin instead of a petrochemical plastic. This allows the cups to be compostable and biodegradable. Either way, be sure you reduce your waste, reuse what you can, and recycle the rest!

• Planet Green has a great selection of beer companies that will help you get started with greening your beer. All of those companies listed are working to lighten their carbon footprint.

• If you’re planning a day out for revelry with friends or family, take as few cars as possible. Better yet, walk so you won’t have to contend with choosing a designated driver and you’ll burn some calories at the same time too.

• If your city hosts a St. Patrick’s Day parade, find out if green birdseed can be tossed instead of paper confetti. This will cut down on the amount of litter in the streets that could end up in water supplies and natural habitats. It also cuts down on the energy needed for sanitation clean up.

• Add some variety to your St. Patrick’s Day meal! Go green with your food coloring but I’m not just talking about adding some coloring. Try one of The Daily Green has traditional Irish dishes made with organic and locally sourced ingredients!

Have a safe and happy St. Patties Day. Let me know how the parties and beer drinking goes in our comment section.

I leave you with a famous Irish quote “May you never forget what is worth remembering or remember what is best forgotten”.

Edward L. Glaeser an economics professor at Harvard recently stated thaht people who want a much smaller carbon footprint should live in high-density cities, where travel is less necessary and living quarters are more confined.

In central city areas, residents emit less carbon than their suburban opposites. In New York and San Francisco, the average urban family expels more than two tons less carbon annually because it drives less. In Nashville, the city-suburb carbon gap due to driving is more than three tons. After all, density is the defining characteristic of cities. All that closeness means that people need to travel shorter distances, and that shows up clearly in certain data.

To read  the full article in the The New York Times, click here. It’s worth the read.

For many wine purist and environmentalist, the decline of traditional corks to screw tops signals societal doom and ecological issues. Wine makers worldwide are embracing this alternative to corks. From 300 million screw-top bottles in 2003 to some 2 billion in 2007, the trend is evident.

However, as plastic corks and screw tops increasingly become the norm something incredibly abnormal is taking place. The world’s cork forests are being sacrificed according to environmentalists worldwide. This is not just a financial problem for cork farmers, but also an ecological one. Cork production is sustainable. Only the bark is shaved off the tree, thus cork trees can be used again and again and prove to be an excellent habitat for animals.

For centuries winemakers have sealed bottles with cork, which usually comes from trees in Portugal, North Africa and Spain. Tradition has it that the cork helps wine age, but many experts dispute that. Studies show that between 2 and 7 percent of all wine sealed with natural cork ends up becoming “corked.”It can happen to any wine, regardless of price. It doesn’t make any difference what kind of wine it is, where it’s from or who makes it. “Corked” wine is caused by the presence of a chemical compound called TCA (2,4,6-trichloroanisole), which is formed from the chlorine beach used in the cork manufacturing process. It causes the wine to taste and smell like wet cardboard.

Aluminum-alloy screw tops can provide a tighter seal, preventing tiny amounts of air from seeping in and changing the wine. They also help control cost. A bottler spends 15 cents on each closure, while cork can cost 50 cents per bottle.

For years, twist-off caps have been associated with “cheap” wines. So when a $50 bottle of Burgundy comes with a screw top, people do a double take. Today, great wines from Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, even France and the U.S. are topped with twist-offs.Are there enough cork trees in the world to be used in the consumption of wine bottles around the globe? Cork trees can only be used every ten years, with the increasing wine consumption among the world, maybe it’s time we change the material traditionally used.

I know screw caps are a leap from the traditional cork that’s been jammed into the wine bottle for years. But screw caps are created with tin or aluminum, which are both recyclable after use.

What do you think? Should we screw ‘em, or accept them. Leave your thoughts in our comment section.

Many people are working very hard these days in their efforts to live “greener.” They bring their eco cloth bags to the market; they use energy efficient light bulbs and are altering their habits in ways that seem simple and appropriate for their daily routines. Although these are all great green efforts, I happen to think that with more readily available simple green ideas, opinions, and solutions, people will be even more inclined to take their efforts one eco-step further.

A couple of weeks ago I sent out this question, (to some of my favorite top green sites and green guru’s on the web), asking them, “If you had one suggestion, tip, recommendation, or solution for someone fairly new to the green movement, what would it be?”

I received some incredibly insightful, creative and informative tips, thoughts and ideas. I want to thank all those who participated. I hope their ideas inspire you to live a greener, more eco-conscious life for you, your family and planet Earth. Please feel free to leave your suggestions, tips and ideas in our comment section. We would love to hear what you have to say too.

Here’s what the Greenies had to say:

“Buy more products in bulk at the grocery store – Not only are you saving money in the long-term (some studies show up to $200 a year in savings), but you’re cutting car emissions and gas use on extra trips to the market and reducing the amount of packaging you throw away. This is most ideal for products with longer shelf lives (condiments, canned food, pasta), but bread, dairy and meat can be frozen to extend their life.”-Trey Granger, Earth911

“One suggestion: I would like for people to start seeing the world as a whole system rather then just concentrating on their own backyards. Everything we do affects other people besides ourselves, and if we keep that in mind in our everyday life I think we will be better off as a people and a planet. Think globally, act locally.”-David, Founder of The Good Human

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