More about laundry... line drying

For all of the laundry that I do, I have been slow at embracing the drying rack.  First, I only had one, it was rickety (the dog chewed one of the legs) and I could never get one entire load on the rack.  It was just easier to move everything from the washer into the dryer, press start and walk away.  And leave it there until the next opportune moment to deal with the pile of (now wrinkled) clothes.  Usually what would happen would be that I wouldn't have time to fold the clothes between loads and end up with 2-3 large baskets full of laundry to fold.  I hate folding wrinkled clothes. So, I just hated folding clothes since they were always wrinkled.  This is why I like diaper laundry... no wrinkles and no folding.   Don't get me wrong, I was (and still am to the extent that time allows) a bit neurotic with folding laundry.  I like it to be well folded (E will tell you happily about the time I bought a flip-fold) and I am especially funny about my sheets.  My mother always ironed our sheets (and I think starched them a bit) and I always did, even in college. I am an ace at folding even fitted sheets...  As I said, I was somewhat neurotic about it.  I love crisp, wrinkle free sheets. However, with 3 kids, 2 dogs and a host of things to do, laundry never gets the attention it needs and ironing sheets and  the flip-fold went out when child #2 was born.

The choice to cloth diaper was one I made for two reasons: helping the environment and our budget.  My friend M line-dried her BumGenius diapers and they always looked a lot better than mine.  Of course, line drying was better for both the environment and our budget (albeit just a little on our budget).  Apparently your average electric dryer consumes 875 kilowatt hours a year or assuming you do about 148 loads of laundry a year, it releases about 350 pounds of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere. I should double that number...  Aside from the stand alone freezer, it is the home appliance that has the greatest carbon dioxide output. Obviously limiting its use would help lower my carbon footprint and reduce greenhouse emissions.

And so inspired by my friend M, I took the plunge. I bought another drying rack and started finding sunny places to dry the diapers. They did look better and when I realized the puppy wasn't going to play with the rack outside and was going to leave my laundry alone, I started drying everything.  I have plenty of space in the laundry room for when it rains, and so for the past several weeks, I have been completely neglecting my dryer.  At this point it only gets used for emergencies (ie: someone's special doggie is soaked and bedtime is in 15 minutes).

The best part about line drying is the sheets.  I strung up a cord between two trees in my backyard and hang the sheets to dry.  They dry almost wrinkle free and they are nice and crisp, almost as if I had ironed and starched them.  The same can be said for tablecloths and cloth napkins (which with 3 kids, get washed ALOT). Most of the clothes also dry wrinkle free and crisply and I fold them as I pluck them off the rack. I am not sure if this saves time or not, but I probably won't have 3 baskets of wrinkled clothing waiting to be folded anymore and I enjoy laundry so much more than before.

The one downside would be towels.  As much as I like crisp sheets, I don't really embrace sand-paper towels... some have said the feeling was invigorating in the morning.  True, I guess, but it must be a feeling that has to grow on me.  I have noticed that the higher quality towels dry better and with a bit of shaking and wringing they soften up considerably.  So, I will work on the towels and my first purchase once I move will be an umbrella drying rack. Let me know if you have any tricks for softening line dried towels.

Fish...

I am a sea food lover.  Until I got married and moved around the country, I never lived more than 2 hours away from the sea and usually, it was less than 1/2 hour.  I love fresh water fish and salt water fish as well a host of other sea foods... lobster, clams, mussels, crab, shrimp, crayfish. I will eat it cooked in a number of ways and I love it raw or "cooked" in acid, such as lemon juice- ceviche style.   We try to eat fish at least once a week in our house. I believe it is an excellent source of protein and evidence shows that the Omega-3 fatty acids they provide are key to our health. I think a varied diet of whole, natural foods is essential for good health. 

Eating fish, however, does have its complications.  Which is better for the environment? Wild Caught or Farm-Raised?  What fish are high in mercury or PCBs? Sometimes it is easier not to buy fish than to sit there at the fish counter and debate which you should take home for dinner.

The problem with farm-raised fish.

Due to over fishing, certain fish populations have declined. Raising fish for consumption seemed like a great idea, fish would be available for consumption without endangering the wild populations.  However, farm-raised fish face similar health problems that cattle in CAFOs (feedlots) do.  CAFOs are Confined Animal Feeding Operations, and essentially, fish farms are just aquatic version of this.  Farm raised fish are fed a diet of pellets that are not nutritionally equivelant to their natural wild diets.  Furthermore, the fish do not have room to move about freely and because of their close proximity to each other, they are more prone to diseases... so farmed raised fish are administered preventative antibiotics. By weight, farmed raised salmon, for example, has the highest amount of antibiotics administered than any other livestock.  What is more, the fish pellets fed to the fish are made of wild caught fish (thankfully not corn!) but farm raising fish does nothing to stop overfishing since it takes almost 3 tons of fish to make 1 ton of farmed salmon.   The biggest environmental concern is the escape of these farm raised fish, many of whom have been genetically modified to grow faster, into the ocean where they compete with wild fish for the same resources. Another concern is that of the toxic waste that is produced by these "farms".

The Problem with Wild Caught fish:

A study published in Science in November of 2006 state that by the year 2048 the population of all species of seafood could collapse to a tenth of their record highs.  This is extremely concerning.  Overfishing plays a  large role in the decline of the fish populations, but so does loss of habitat, pollution and the loss of filtering water vegetation.  What is encouraging is that when sustainable practices are employed, the fisheries seem to rebound.  So, it as important as avoiding PCBs and Mercury to buy fish that have been fished/harvested sustainably or from populations that are not declining.

So which fish are the best?  Since one of the benefits of eating fish is I consulted a few websites that I will list at the bottom of this blog and came up with this list.  All the fish below fall into the "low mercury" category and is safe to consume 2-3 times a week. Also, they are harvested or fished in a sustainable manner. The number next to the fish's name is the content of Omega 3's for each 3.5 ounce of fish:

• Mackerel- 2.6 (Not King Mackerel)
  
• Wild Caught Salmon- 1.5
  
• Herring- 1.7
  
• Sardinnes- (canned OK)- 1.5
  
• Freshwater trout- (2.o for lake, .6 for brook, rainbow, etc)
  
• Whitefish (lake)- 1.5
• Anchovies-1.4

I don't mean to imply that other fish are not good for you, there are many that have low mercury levels and despite being lower in Omega 3's, they still have some as well as a whole host of nutrients.  This was just a list I came up with to make my shopping easier.

The Green guide has several articles as well as a printable guide, but it does not list the Omega 3's.

http://www.thegreenguide.com/gg/pdf/fishpicks0607.pdf

I found the Omega 3 information in a reader's digest article:

http://www.rd.com/living-healthy/omega-3-rich-fish/article16092.html

Delicious Organics has a longer article regarding Farm Raised and Wild Caught:

http://www.deliciousorganics.com/controversies/wildvsfarmfish.htm 

Books, Cows and Corn

As you all have probably noticed, I have taken a break from blogging, because I didn't have too much to write about, I was busy reading and getting ready to move.  In this blog, I want to address what I have been reading.  I belong to two book clubs and have read many books I would recommend... but I have also done some reading on the side. In this blog entry, I want to talk about two books I found fascinating and would recommend to anyone who is interested to know about food, its origins, its role in the ecology of the planet and its impact on our health. 

Most of you know that with two children who can't tolerate milk or soy,  for me to buy processed foods is virtually impossible.  I never really thought I bought much that was processed to begin with!  Being faced with making so much from scratch I started to wonder about food and its impact on our health.  Of course, its obvious from previous posts that I am also concerned about our environment... so reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, was a natural step.

First, I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  In her book, Barbara Kingslover chronicles her year eating locally and growing and raising as much of her own food as possible.  Being an excellent writer (she has written several fiction books such as The Poisonwood Bible, Bean Trees, and Pigs in Heaven), she writes about her year with humor and adds quite a bit of information while keeping it easy to read and understand. Her chapter on raising turkeys so that they reproduce naturally (an act no longer left to turkeys on even most organic farms) had me laughing out loud.  Mostly, she made me want to go to the farmer's market and cook. From her I learned how to make mozzarella cheese, a skill I regrettably don't get to practice much considering the milk allergies that my children have! One day, perhaps 15 years from now, when Eric has retired from the army and we have settled down somewhere, I hope to be able to do the same; grow and raise my own food.

From Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I jumped to Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food, which is an excellent cookbook that teaches you not only how to cook, but how to do so while eating locally and respecting the seasonality of food.  I highly recommend it. In it there are some simple and delicious recipes, but the book is more about the food and how to prepare it properly than it is a list of recipes.  Alice Waters is the chef at Chez Panisse, a California restaurant that is often regarded as a pioneer in the slow food (local, sustainable, etc) movement. Here is a link to their website, if you are interested:

 http://www.chezpanisse.com/pgglance.html

Most recently, I have read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma.  In the book, Michael Pollan examines the dilemma that we, as omnivores face.  Unlike most animals such as the cow, the lion or the koala who have a highly specialized diet and can eat only one kind of food (grass, meat/prey, eucalyptus leaves, etc), we have to choose what to eat everyday from a huge selection of foods.  In a time when most food is grown on an industrial scale and packaged and sold to us, do we know what we are eating? What we are eating (organic, local, fast food, low carb, etc) Is it all that healthy for us and the planet?  In the book he goes about making 4 meals, one fast food, one he calls "industrial organic", one that is locally farmed and raised and one that he hunted and gathered. There is an amazing number of facts mixed with philosophical and political discussion. One huge shock to me was in his first chapter on the corn industry. (And yes, industry is the right word). After reading the book, you will never look at food in the supermarket in the same way, and yet I didn't think it came off soapbox-ish.  Perhaps, it is because he may be preaching to the converted (I admit I am); you probably would not pick up this book if you are the CEO of McDonalds or General Mills... but I really found his book interesting without feeling that he was hitting me over the head with the phrase "Eat local, Eat Organic".

 In The Omnivores Dilemma, M. Pollan is mostly concerned with the big picture, but he just published another book, In Defense of Food, An Eater's Manifesto (that is currently checked out at the library so I have not yet read it) in which he discusses what it is we should eat considering the world we currently live in.  He asserts that as Americans we are have no national cuisine that helps us navigate our food choices and therefore we are prone to following many fad diets and eating in ways that are not healthy for us.  We have moved away from food to food science...  I am intrigued, having read The Omnivores Dilemma, and so I will probably check it out as soon as I am able to.

I really wanted Eric to read these books, but he had his share of reading for school to do and is admittedly not the bookworm that I am, so I heard about this PBS documentary, King Corn, which focuses on the corn industry and interviews Michael Pollan. I imagined that he might be more interested if he saw the documentary.  I would recommend it to anyone, its 90 minutes long and available at Blockbusters in the new release section.  I imagine Netflicks has it as well.

Here are some facts I gathered- hopefully I got them straight...

1. 70% of antibiotic use in the US is used on corn (grain) fed cows in CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations... AKA Feedlots).  Basically, if we didn't slaughter the beef at 18 months or so, they wouldn't live another 6 with the type of diet that they are being fed.  Cows were meant to eat grass and their stomachs and rumens don't handle corn  or grain well.  Without the antibiotics they would get something called Acidosis, which would eventually kill them. And you wonder why we have so much more drug-resistant bacteria....

2. Because the cows are being corn fed, their meat is higher in saturated fat than grass fed beef.  Also it is considerably lower in Omega-3 fatty acids.  The rise of corn/grain fed beef has led to an imbalance of Omega-3 vs Omega-6 fatty acids. Both are essential fatty acids, but the imbalance can lead to a host of health issues such as high cholesterol, weight gain and the myriad of issues surrounding that. The concept of the feedlot is to limit their movements and give them unlimited access to high carbohydrate corn to fatten them up fast for slaughter... but the meat that is produced in such a manner is inferior to pasture raised animals. And you know the phrase..."you are what you eat".

3. Additionally, eating corn and grain causes the acid in their rumens to rise. Cows usually have a neutral pH level in their rumens, so that when they are slaughtered, any of the intestinal bacteria that may end up on the meat is easily handled by our more acidic stomach acids.  Now that most beef is grain fed, intestinal bacteria like E.Coli have flourished and can handle living in a higher pH and our stomach acids can't kill them... hence E.Coli outbreaks.

There are so many other issues with grain-fed Feedlot beef such as issues of animal welfare and environmental concerns regarding waste.  I don't remember the specific number but it was something like one feedlot produces as much waste as a city of 1.7 million people in a year.  It could be 1.7 billion people...  

If this subject intrigues you, I would encourage you to read Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver's books. I found them interesting and well written.  Here are their websites and one for the documentary King Corn, if you would like to investigate further.

http://www.michaelpollan.com/

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/kingcorn/cows.html

http://www.kingsolver.com/home/index.asp

A more eco-friendly birthday party

Last weekend we had Caroline's birthday and we decided to do it at the local nature center. They have a large barn and the staff runs a nature walk and crafts. It was perfect- Caroline loves being outside and doing crafts. I didn't have to have a whole bunch of kids running around my house and someone was entertaining them.  Seeing as it was at a nature center, I really wanted to make this party eco-friendly.  Eric made bread for PB&J sandwiches, we added some fruits and veggies for a lunch and he also made a cake  (soy and milk free so Claire could partake).  We brought cloth tablecloths, our own silver and used biodegradable plates.  To decorate, I had some potted Gerber Daisies and found biodegradable balloons. That last was an accidental find- who knew they made biodegradable balloons?

Anyway, the only trash we had from the party were some half-eaten pieces of cake and 10 flattened juices boxes and one gift wrap. Most of the girls brought gifts in gift bags, which we always regift. The rest I either washed or composted. 

  The best, though, was the party bags I made for each girl. I found a great pink dragonfly print (with sparkles) at Joann's Fabrics and I made the treat bags.  The girls really enjoyed them and each mom said that they would reuse them again.  They were super easy to make.  I bought 1 1/2 yards of 45 inch wide fabric- that was enough for 16 bags. (We didn't need that many, but I wanted to have some extra if someone showed up with a younger sibling or had not RSVPed).

This is what I did:

1. I folded the fabric length wise and cut down the middle, so I had 2 pieces of fabric 1 1/2 yards long, about 22.5 inches wide.

2. I them hemmed along the long sides of each fabric. I made sure the hem was wide enough to accommodate a ribbon for the draw-string. My hem was about 3/4 inch wide.

3. I then folded the hems together and then cut 6-7 inch wide bags. To make sure they were all the same size, I folded (the already folded) fabric in half the other way, keeping the hemmed sides together but bringing together the end pieces. I cut along this fold, and then folded each section in the same way and cut along that fold...

4. Once all my bags were cut, I sewed down each side starting at the hem, leaving room at the top for the drawstring.

The whole process took me about half an hour.  Here are some pictures of the bags...

One pictures the first section, where I hemmed along each length and the other is of the

 finished bags...

Another BPA article

Though I have written about BPA before, I thought I'd post a link to an article that my mother in law sent me. 

http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0050200&ct=1

I do like the Thermos sippy cups, though they leak a little bit.  I will probably get a Klean Kantene soon and I will review compare the two.

Making Dresses for the girls

At last- a non-f00d, non-eco topic...

I have a new hobby... though I guess it was an old hobby that I fell in love with again. I have sewn as long as I can remember... I made Barbie dresses and dresses for my dolls.  When I got married, I made curtains and bedspreads.  I even tried once or twice to make a dress for Caroline. I had a machine that had a terrible problem with the bobbins... so I didn't sew as much.  When I got a new machine (an Elna 3500) several years ago (thanks to a birthday present from my aunt), I sewed more, but stuck with household items.

Lately, I was making nursing covers. And I was making one for my friend Sarah who was having her fourth child. When shopping for fabrics I found the Apples and Pears fabric and I felt I had to make something more than her nursing cover with it.  I didn't need any more curtains, so I decided to make dresses for the girls.  Claire's was first, it is tiered so it spins (she loves "spinning dresses" and she was with me when I found the fabric.  Caroline's came next. Since she was turning seven, I decided to make a more grown-up dress, and copied one she already had. Then I made pants and a skirt for Claire and Emma and appliqued t-shirts (the same friend Sarah being my inspiration) to match.  At this point, we were discussing flower girl dresses for my brother's  upcoming wedding. His fiancee had a beautiful, simple flower girl dress in mind. Ready to order, I hesitated... I could make the dress. And so I volunteered... I found a pattern, and made a practice dress for Emma. It was too big in the bodice and she hated it. (Despite the fact that she isn't even 1 1/2 yet- she has shown an obvious preference for more colorful and bold fabrics).  So, I made the last apple and pear dress in the same pattern as the flower girl dress, changing the bodice to a size 12 months and keeping the skirt in the size 24 months. And it is almost perfect.  She loves it... Caroline and Claire love theirs as well.  The best part- Caroline is outside sewing with a real needle, trying to make a skirt for her American doll.  Maybe in 10 years, we'll be making her prom dress together.

Here are some pics...

Matching pants and skirt with appliqued t-shirts...

The too big flower girl dress...

Same dress with the sash... she really did not like it!

The girls in their "matching" dresses... 

Emma's apples and pears dress. Same dress as the flower girl dress.. just different fabric!!

What is "green"? What works? What is just marketing? Where to find the answers

Have you noticed that many new hair products have "Sodium Lauryl Sulfate- Free" or "Paraben-Free" written on their bottles?  Now that Clorox has come out with its Green line, do you wonder whether to try these or other "green" products rather than use your old standby Tylex or Pine-sol? There are so  new many "eco" or "green" products out there that it is hard to figure out what is better, worth paying a bit more or whether to stick with what you know.  What threatens the environment and/or  poses a risk to you or your family's health and what is just marketing? I was and still am asking myself these questions and I came across a few resources I thought I'd write about.

I looked up Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and Parabens on Wikipedia, and they didn't seem all to concerned. They acknowledged that there is controversy, but their articles weren't at all as in depth as the ones regarding the Bisphenol-A and Pthalates.  So I dug a little deeper.  I bought a book, checked one out of the library and found a couple of websites.  I won't reiterate everything I have read since it would take me about 500 pages. I will recommend the books:

Raising Baby Green, The Earth Friendly Guide to Pregnancy, Childbirth and Baby Care by Alan Greene, M.D.

This book I recommend you borrow from the library or a friend.  It is simple and easily read, but it doesn't offer much in depth discussion of the topics.  It lists good ideas of how to live "green" but seems more focused on what you can do rather than on the why.  Why was one of my first words... I like to know why!! 

GreenGreenerGreenest- A Practical Guide to Making Eco-Smart Choices a Part of Your Life by Lori Bongiorno.

This is a nice little book that is handy as a guide, it is printed on 100% Recycled Paper and printed with vegetable based ink.  I would recommend buying it as it does outline the problems and then  it lists the green, greener and greenest choices. It is small and could fit in a purse.  It is much better suited to someone who wants to understand the issues. Yet, its just under 300 pages, so a lot of it is condensed.  Still it gives a nice overview of the issues and good discussion on what you can do.

A great website is by National Geographic. It is called the www.GreenGuide.com.  This site has real science and is run by a reputed and known company.

This site had the best answer to my question about personal care products.  Both books discussed at different length the increase risk of cancer associated with the chemicals in these products, but not in any detail.  What I found at the greenguide.com is that while Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and parabens could potentially be cancerous, the real issues deal with formaldyhide and polyethelynes.  Sodium Lauryl Sulfates is grouped with the later and these compounds are can become contaminated with 1,4 dioxane which has caused liver cancer in mice.  Some other ingredients, such as diethanolamine and triethanolamine, can react with nitrites (preservatives) inside the shampoo bottle to form carcinogenic nitrosamines, which can be absorbed through the skin.  The list goes on and I would rather you check out the website than retype what is already well explained.

Another website that is good is called Skin Deep: www.cosmeticdatabase.com. There you can see how your personal care products rate in terms of safety and sometimes read reviews.

A third website you may be interested is by CHEC's HealtheHouse.  www.checnet.org/HealtheHouse/myehome/index.asp  You can take an online test and it will give you an analysis of the state (healthy or not) of your home.

My thought is this:  If I keep myself reasonably educated, I can make better decisions for my family.  When I buy any product more than once, I consider it an endorsement of the practices that the company selling the product employs.  So when I buy local, organic or something that is "eco", I do it for myself and my family, but I also think of a way to buy interest in the future. I am endorsing that company's way of doing things and voting against large companies who look only at the bottom line. 

Seventh Generation is a great company who develops ecologically responsible products. They also have a great webpage you should check out.

On the back of the Seventh Generation Dishwashing liquid they say that if:

"Every household in the U.S. replaced just one bottle of 25 oz petroleum based dishwashing liquid with our (Seventh Generation's) vegetable based product, we could save 81,000 barrels of oil, enough to heat and cool 4,600 U.S. homes for a year!"

I like this approach.  I can't afford to install solar panels, I still need to drive places, clean my house, etc so I try to do as much in the rest of my life to offset my carbon footprint and reduce my contribution to pollution and waste. If a product is non-toxic, biodegradable and can help offset my carbon footprint, I'll pay the roughly 50 cents more.  The more "natural" shampoos/ soaps are also more expensive, but precisely because they are I try to waste less. This helps offset their higher costs but also reminds me of how "expensive" household and personal care items often are.  Conventional items may be cheaper on the wallet, but for the most part have a higher environmental and health cost. 

So do I have any recommendations?  I haven't done any major product testing, but here are a few things I have tried and liked.

For household items:  I like Seventh Generations' stuff, but I haven't used Clorox yet.  Since Seventh Generation's company was founded on the principle of providing non-toxic and biodegradable products, like to support them by rather than Procter and Gamble (sorry Tom).

Also, I like Method's bathroom scrub (it comes in a cool bottle with a great sponge) and their toilet bowl cleaner.

For the laundry, I like soapnuts, and also Seventh Generation's laundry detergent.

For personal care:

Aside from Dr. Bronner's soap (now even available at Target) and vegetable based loosed soaps found at Wegmans' and a lot of natural foods stores,  I haven't yet hit the jackpot.  I really like the soaps, but I haven't yet found a shampoo/ conditioner that works for my hair... which is short, straight and fine, nothing too crazy! I am toying with trying the kids shampoo! If anyone knows of one that works well, please let me know.  

For the kids, I have found California Baby, which is great for Emma since not only does it not contain any of the chemicals listed above, but it is soy, gluten and dairy free.  Since she loves to suck on her wash cloth, she isn't getting any of those in her system and hurting her and also keeping us up at night. So far we have tried the baby wash/ shampoo and a cream that works wonders.

What next?  I would like to switch to biodegradable trash bags and freezer storage bags. If not biodegradable, at least made with recycled materials and without harmful chemicals. A post to come!  I will let you know what I find. So far I can't really afford the biobags at $5 for 12... but I am sure there will be some options sooner rather than later!