Green Shopping

Green Shopping

    If you really want to have some solutions in spray bottles from a factory that makes them, there are now a number of companies that can accommodate you while also providing earth friendly products. If you can't find these products in your area you can order them online. Buying them that way will reduce your carbon foot print and probably save you money, if you shop carefully and comparatively. Many companies now offer free shipping and you will want to shop around for these. Medications for your feline or canine friends are much cheaper to buy online than from your vet. Pet 360 is one such supplier.
https://www.pet360.com/login?referrer=%2Fmyaccount%2Forders%2F7132504
    Some companies, like Shaklee, offer you the possibility to become a distributor in your area. The company not only offers natural and nontoxic cleaning substances but also has weight, nutrition and beauty formulas.
http://www.shaklee.com/us/en/
    Seventh Generation has all kinds of cleaners including hand soap, baby and bathroom wipes. They do also offer disposable diapers, which I don't approve of as they have an extremely detrimental effect on the environment, but at least these are not as bad as the popular brands.
http://shop.seventhgeneration.com/all-products/
    Another company worth looking at is Simple Green. Sam's club and Home Depot sell these products. Simple Green offers detailed documentation on all their products. Their focus is on supplying cleaning products of all different kinds.
http://simplegreen.com/products/
    Another very important aspect of green shopping is reading lables! A lot has changed very recently when it comes to food labeling. Here's a nice graphic containing a lot of information about  the codes on food lables.

    The latest change is from an emphasis on fat content to the calorie count. The past, wrong headed idea that fat produces fat on the body has been replaced by the greater insight that it is calorie intake which is important. The body is a highly developed factory that transforms the food we eat into fuel. Sugar is transformed into fat and most processed foods are overloaded with sugar, which is actually a preservative. By adding so much sugar to our food manufacturers have arrested our taste development to the extent that we are all essentially five year olds when it comes to eating. Recent research shows that people who eat a lot of processed foods are addicted to sugar, now considered to be as addictive as heroin. This is why it is so difficult to make the change to better quality, nutritious food.
    One complaint that people have is that nutritious food is so expensive. What they fail to consider is that they will need to eat much less good food. It's false economy! It's similar to thinking calorie intake is reduced by drinking ten diet sodas as opposed to three regular - these are both processed foods, by the way. It would be so much better to drink water, which becomes very  satisfying once the habit has been developed and your taste has developed.
    Soft plastic is another product to avoid. It is toxic and causes severe hormone changes, especially in men. So it's not only a waste of money to buy water in soft plastic bottles it's also a health hazard. Plastic causes direct toxicity as in mercury, lead and cadmium. It contains carcinogens and leads to endocrine disruption which can cause cancer, birth defects, developmental problems and disruption to the immune system. Even the plastic bags used by most grocery stores are dangerous to your health. Buy some canvas bags and ask your grocer to zero the scale before weighing your produce. Find a butcher who will cut and paper wrap your meat for you. Even your shower curtains are a health hazard. Try to avoid all Styrene and PVC products.

Lemons around the House

Lemons around the House

"Lemon flower, very pretty, and the scent is sweet, but the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat!"

    Not so fast! I have a friend who eats WHOLE lemons! Yes, the skin, pith, seeds and ALL! I'm not suggesting we follow her lead, although Meyer lemons are very sweet and might be worth a try! I love lemon curd and make it often. I save the lemon skins, as well as other citrus skins, and candy them to use in baking and confections see my blog Cooking with Ilse for the recipe. You can also give sugar a lovely, citrus aroma by adding citrus peel. Of course there's also lovely, refreshing lemonade! Then there are the health benefits of lemons: they boost the immune system, are antiviral and antibacterial. They are a digestive aid and help you loose weight. They contain bioflavonoids, vitamin C, calcium, amongst other healthy substances and they fight infection.
    Enough about uses for lemons as food, which you may know a lot about already! Today I want to tell you about all the other uses there are for lemons. Lemons are great for cleaning your microwave and other greasy messes! Lemons will clean your tea kettle or coffee pot and refresh your cutting boards. Use lemons to polish chrome, copper and your stainless steel sink.
    You can use lemons to remove freckles and other dark spots and as a skin mask. You can also use lemon juice to rinse shampoo residue from your hair, making it shine. So you see cooking is not the only thing you can do with lemons!

Renew and Reuse

    I think it's such a shame to throw things away.  I often rescue items I see discarded on the street. My little dog, Jakob, feels the same way, proving that our canine companions do become like us! A while ago, when returning from a walk, Jakob saw a large, plush animal on the corner. He marched up to it and started pulling it backwards up the street even though it's two or three times his size! "Shall I carry that for you?" I asked. He gave me a look of utter disdain - you could almost see his little arms on his hips and hear him say, "well, yeah, you've got thumbs and you walk upright!" Having been severely reprimanded by Mr Dog I picked up the stuffed animal and carried it home. Its only defect was a ripped seam here and there, which I repaired. Now it's Jakob's favourite bed! It started out in the kitchen, but I kept mistaking it for Jakob so now it's in the hallway! Because it looks like a blood hound I call it Olf, short for olfactory. :) Olf has now changed pronouns and he's a beloved member of our household. Here's a picture of Jakob nestled happily in Olf's arms:

 
    Another item I rescued from rejection was a lovely rocking chair. It was a bit rickety. One of the dowels in the back had broken and the front support on the left arm was wrecked so the whole thing was in bad shape. I shoved it back together, but when anyone sat in it at all forcefully it fell apart again. When I went to the local wood supply shop the supercilious guy behind the counter told me not to bother fixing it as it was just a machine shopped piece of junk. As I only had a piece of dowel to show him I didn't know how he could reach this conclusion! I gathered my courage and my wits and persisted in my demands. Eventually I ended up with a piece of dowel of the proper diameter and another, larger chunk of dowel that I planned on shaping for the left arm.
    I took these home and, with a sharp pen knife, began whittling the support for the arm. It took some well spent time while watching TV before I had a piece that looked close to the right arm's support,  then I sanded it until it was smooth. Next I had to cut the dowel for the back support to size (the smart Alec at the shop refused to do it!) I didn't realise how hard it would be to get all the back struts into place at once and reassemble the back, much less did I have any knowledge of a sensible way to do this, and it took a lot of sweat, tears and cursing before I had them all glued into place. When I'd done that I had to replace the strut for the left arm along with its single partner, which was much easier. I left the glue to harden then replaced and tightened the various screws holding the chair together.
    The next job was to wash the chair three times with Murphy's oil soap, a great wood cleaner. This washing revealed a very pretty chair under the years of dirt.  I then let the chair dry and sanded it. I love sanding wood as it makes it feel smooth, like a little baby's bottom, as you gradually reduce the sand paper to a very fine grit. When that job was finished I stained it with some golden oak, my favourite stain. I let the stain dry,  smoothed on some carnuba wax and polished it. Now I have a lovely, comfortable rocking chair that everyone admires. No one seems to notice that the arm struts don't match exactly, nor that the replaced dowel in the back is of a better quality wood than the others. More than any of that I love this chair! It reminds me of the adventure we went on together and all the things I learned from it as I gave it a new and better life than it would have had in a landfill.  I added some flowery cushions to make it more comfy! Here are two pictures with and without the cushions:

 

Shopping Righteously!

    Shopping is an activity I hate! I know girls are supposed to love it, but it's not my cup of tea!  It's so tiring and I inevitably end up in the throes of buyer's remorse, even with something I wanted and like! I'm so happy to have the internet to go online and see what's available, what I want, find the best price and the place to get it! Not only does this save my nerves it also saves my energy and reduces my carbon foot print when I don't drive a car from shop to shop.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_footprint
    The only shopping I enjoy is walking over to my local farmer's markets. I'm outside (my favourite place to be), I can people watch, see the lovely produce that's grown locally and meet the farmers who grow it. Recently I bought a huge avocado weighing about a pound from a stall over at the Inner Sunset Farmers' Market. It was the sweetest, meatiest avocado ever! It had the thinnest skin and the tiniest stone! It fed me for two days and I was really sorry to swallow the last morsel. I love that it was grown locally. The only bad thing is that, as the seller told me, the harvest only lasts for a few weeks. Now I'll have to wait until next year and hope we have a better rain season than we had this year, as there were fewer avocados due to a lack of rain. Here's a great list of local farmer's markets in San Francisco. Go online to find a list in your area: 
http://togetherinfood.wordpress.com/s-f-farmers-markets-the-full-list/
    Here's another excellent resource for fresh and locally grown food that can be delivered to your door:
    http://www.farmfreshtoyou.com/index.php?cmd=homedelivery
    When you go shopping for vegetables it's a good idea to bring your own cloth bags. You can often buy these for a few dollars at some of the supermarkets, but it's even better to run up some from old sheets, pillow cases or discarded kitchen towels. Ask the check out person to weigh the bag before weighing your veggies so that you're not paying extra. Most of the assistants know how to zero the weighing scales with the bag before adding your vegetables to the scale. I know living in San Francisco gives me an advantage in a lot of these approaches, but it only takes one person to start a new trend so do what you can in your area. The more often you ask, the closer you get to a new way of doing things.
    Using your own bags reduces the amount of plastic bags that end up polluting the air, your local land fill and the ocean. It also puts a dent in the big business of plastic and reduces the pollution these create. You can rejoice in the reduced carbon foot print your efforts are creating. If you'd like to you can go here to calculate your personal carbon effect on the planet: 
http://www.nature.org/greenliving/carboncalculator/
    Don't be surprised at your number! I don't have a car, never fly and do a great many things to reduce my effect, yet my carbon foot print is still a lot higher than I'd like.
    While riding on the bus today I met a guy who likes shopping! So it's not necessarily a girly thing to do and my dislike doesn't make me weird, only different. By the way this guy was very straight and not gay as many of you might think of a San Franciscan guy! Have fun, shop righteously and save our planet!

Littering & Garbage

    This morning I saw a piece about a drive to clean up California on KPIX caption news. It only ran by once so I went online and did some research for about an hour, but found nothing. I did find this link

http://www.greenecoservices.com/taxpayer-cost-of-litter-in-san-francisco-35-8-million/

which gives a lot of interesting information on the subject and cost of littering in San Francisco. I don't have time to do any more hunting for this news as it takes away from the time I like to spend cleaning up my neighbourhood, something I do constantly! So much garbage is disposed of carelessly and no one seems to understand that a lot of it ends up in the Pacific gyre.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch 
   
The gyre covers an area as large as the United States and ninety feet deep! Much of this garbage is plastic bags, bottles and wrapping, estimated to be around 20 pounds of debris for every square mile. All of this is dangerous. Animals get tangled in it and die. Its shelf life and toxicity lasts for hundreds of years. I tried to educate someone on this subject recently, where we are only a few miles from the Pacific. They looked at me as if I were mad and said, 'it's just on the street!' To which I answered, 'have you heard of the wind?' I hope they got the point! Filter cigarette butts are another hazard. They're toxic and fish eat them thinking they are food. If the fish aren't poisoned the filters cause great damage to their innards and kill them anyway. The tobacco is, of course, also a toxin which is easily absorbed through their skin. Trillions of cigarette butts are discarded yearly, especially since indoor smoking bans have gone into effect.

http://www.cigarettelitter.org/index.asp?pagename=un

    No matter how carefully garbage is disposed of there is far too much of it. I have nightmares about the whole planet turning into one great garbage heap. Cateura, Paraguay is one huge garbage heap or landfill with people living on and around it. They sift through all this refuse daily to sell it, use it in some way and to find food for themselves. They have developed a very inventive way to use the discarded tin and other substances by making musical instruments like violins. They have formed an Orchestra using these instruments which performed last August in Washington DC at the Kennedy Center. A documentary called Landfill Harmonic is set to be released in 2014.

http://www.iadb.org/en/news/announcements/2013-08-14/orchestra-of-recycled-instruments-of-cateura-paraguay,10547.html
   
This is an excellent example of reusing and repurposing garbage. Our throw away society has encouraged us all to think garbage just vanishes or that someone else will deal with it. We each need to pay a visit to a landfill to see how much we are throwing into our garbage cans. We all need to start using reusable canvas bags for our vegetables and for our shopping in general. We also need to start considering how we can reuse and repurpose before we thoughtlessly discard.
    We need to stop using throw away diapers which contribute a huge amount to the landfill and take 500 years to decompose. Kitty litter turns into cement when it dries. Your cat also inhales particles from the litter and ingests the same when cleaning paws etc. The best choice is environmentally friendly litter and reusable diapers. Keep in mind that throw away diapers and hardening kitty litter are designed to line the pockets of big business. Advertising encourages us to believe manufacturers are making our lives easier, which may be true in the short term, but it does nothing for the future of our children nor for our cats and it makes big business very rich while emptying our wallets. 

http://www.livestrong.com/article/149890-environmental-impact-of-disposable-diapers/

http://www.greenlivingonline.com/article/bad-kitty-litter-bad

    These are just a few, small examples of the effect of garbage and littering on our environment. There are many more that will occur to you as you look around and consider this problem. It's one that requires all our attention and needs our actions to reduce the negative effect on our planet. Thanks for paying attention, reducing your waste and, picking up all the discarded items you see and doing your bit to make our world better.

Using vinegar around the house!

I can't tell you how happy I am with the vinegar and dawn mix that I use around the house. I use it constantly. I just scrubbed the top of one of the  wooden elements in my tiny kitchen. The area I scrubbed is used to make coffee, is on the edge of the space where the salt is situated and right next to the cooker. The whole whole space gets covered in grease, coffee and salt. It very quickly becomes a horrible mess, which one does not want to clean. That is a thing of the past in my kitchen because a quick spray of the dawn/vinegar mixture and a gently scrub with my micro fiber cloth soon erases the mess! All this is achieved without the noxious fumes associated with commercial cleaners. A friend recently complained that the smell of vinegar was objectionable and I pointed out that, while objectionable, at least it was not dangerous to the lungs and that the smell very soon dissipates leaving a nice, clean smelling atmosphere. Why do people object to the nice, earth friendly smell of vinegar and think nothing of gaily spraying noxious fumes all about their environment?
    The other household help I use regularly is borax! I tip a quarter of a cup or so of borax down my kitchen sink outlet, the bath outlet and into the wc every week. I live in an apartment building on the lower floor and was plagued regularly with a blockage of my kitchen sink, especially at the week end. Since I've been applying the Borax solution I've had no blockages!
In addition my wc looks and smells lovely and the bath runs freely. You can usually find Borax in the laundry soap section of your local super market. If it's not there ask to have it supplied. You can also add a quarter cup to your washing with water in the softener section of your washing machine. It makes your washing lovely and soft!
    Vinegar is a great helper about the house. If you have a silly, little, anxious pooch (as I have!) who sometimes pees or poops around the house you can use vinegar to spray on the area without fear of pollution. Leave it to sit for a few minutes then give it a good scrub. It will not only clean the area, but also eradicate the smell and eliminate any ecoli that may have been deposited.  You can also use the trusty dawn/vinegar solution if you feel the area needs a good cleaning!
     I'm using a vinegar/water solution at this moment to clean the base of a couple of frying pans. They're soaking in the sink as I write and will be ready soon for a scrubbing and sprucing of their bases. Yes, you may have to spray on some dawn/vinegar solution and take some time and elbow grease to clean them, if you're as lazy as I am about this task, but you will be happy with the finished product - and you will not have polluted the earth or the air!!
    Please don't imagine that I have shares or any other interest in Dawn! It is simply the most grease cutting and gentle dish washing solution available. It is always used on those poor animals that get covered in oil after some disaster. It cuts through the oil on feathers and fur without being aggressive on the poor critters skin. You can even use it to wash your hair! The same is true of Borax: it is strong, but gentle, as is vinegar. Of course the chemical companies will not say this and they will tell you that these other solutions are much too weak to suit your needs! You may find they are quicker, because they are so much more aggressive, but a little, patient soaking makes all the difference and you will not have damaged our environment by adjusting to this method of cleaning. You will also have taught yourself patience and healed your spirit a little by walking away and waiting until later to achieve your ends.   

What''s been happening - why I've been away!

Well!!! I feel terribly guilty and quite sad for having neglected my blog for so long! I'm back now and hope no new catastrophes will occur.

Here's what happened since I last posted: 'flu, bronchitis, pneumonia; took in a tiny, elderly foster dog (Jasper) nearly dead from starvation and had to feed him a teaspoon at a time from my hand until he started eating; next I fell off a ladder and cracked three ribs. Foster dog, Jasper, was just about back on his feet when he was bitten by a malamute, had to have eleven stitches in his tiny neck, then contracted an ear infection from blood in his ear and pneumonia from inhaling blood. I spent so much time at the vet's I started to feel like we lived there!
    Next I tripped on a broken concrete slab and damaged my knee so badly I could barely walk. Then Jasper was diagnosed with a heart murmur and decided he didn't want to eat properly, so now I'm back to coaxing him to eat twice a day! I also have give him meds three times a day. Since then I've been spending much of my time worrying about how to feed him and how to pay his vet bills.  So now you know my story! I hope things will be better this next year! I will certainly now be better at working on this blog!