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Here’s an ingenious way to turn trash into something useful. Guess where this beautiful pond is located?
Yup … this beautiful pond is in the trunk of an old car.
Last year this same neighbour grew a productive garden in the back of an old truck.
Happy Friday!
Contrary to what your mother might have told you, you do not have to eat meat every day to get enough protein in your diet. In fact there is plenty of protein in non-animal food products to keep you healthy… just ask any vegan and they will tell you it is possible to live meat free. For example 1 cup of walnuts has the same amount of protein as a chicken drumstick; and 1 cup of quiona has a little more protein than 1/4 pound of lean ground beef.*
But Meat Free Mondays isn’t asking us to all become vegan. It is simply asking us to cut our meat consumption by about 14% to help lessen the impact that we have on our environment … and that fits beautifully with the low crap diet.
This movement is growing quickly. A Google search for “meat free Monday” returns over 20 million hits. Even Sir Paul McCartney has, not surprisingly, joined the movement and if you visit supportMFM.org you can watch Sir Paul strumming his guitar and singing a little song to get everyone in the spirit: “Meat free Monday… It’s a fun day… And its happ’nin …All around the world.”
Making Mondays meat free makes a lot of sense. To learn more watch the video below, or click here to watch on You Tube.
*Nutrition Facts Source: Dunne, Lavon J., Nutritional Almanac Fifth Edition, 2002 McGraw-Hill
BYOB has taken on a whole new meaning.
My local organic store, Sunnyside Market, carries quite a few things in bulk … including dish soap. And they are quite delighted when you bring your own container … or in this case, bottle.
My last plastic bottle of dish soap had a big crack in it, so it had to go to recycling.
I went looking through my cupboards for a suitable replacement and discovered this cleaned out glass olive oil bottle.
I should tell you that I am a bit of a glass bottle hoarder … meaning I have a hard time sending any glass bottle to recycling if I think there is a remote possibility that it may one day come in handy.
I remember cleaning out this bottle and if you have ever tried to clean out an olive oil bottle you will understand my pain because it takes a lot of hot water and dish soap to get that bottle oil free. I remember asking myself if my efforts, along with the extra hot water and soap were worth it.
Today I was feeling kind of smug … yes my efforts were absolutely worth it.
The great thing about reusing an olive oil bottle is that it has a ‘spout’ attachment that slows down the speed that liquid pours out. This little feature makes it quite suitable for refilling with dish soap … and the bottle looks much prettier than plastic.
A British study on the nutritional value of organic foods was released yesterday. (source National Post: “No nutritional value added in organics: study.” Thur. July 31, 2009 http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1842708)
The study concluded that “Organically produced foods have no more nutritional value than conventionally grown products and consumers who pay a premium for organic foods are doing so based on perception, not fact” [my emphasis]
Are they daft?
Do they think that people who purchase organic food are daft?
I purchase organic products because I care about my health and the health of my planet.
I purchase organic products because of what it doesn’t contain . I personally do not want to eat residue from pesticides such as:
- Iprodione*. A known carcinogen used in the conventional production of almonds, Iprodione is also a potential ground water contaminant and suspected endocrine disruptor.
- o-Phenylphenol*. A known carcinogen used in the conventional productions of apples, o-Phenylphenol is also a developmental or reproductive toxin and a suspected endocrine disruptor.
- Chlorothalonil*, a known carcinogen used in the conventional production of tomatoes, that also has the potential to be a ground water contaminant.
By purchasing organic products I support biodiversity, environmental stewardship, clean water, clean air, safe work environments for farm workers, preservation of heirloom plants, soil nutrition, small-scale family farms, ethical treatment of animals, sustainable agriculture and the list goes on.
Purchasing organic isn’t about better nutrition.
Purchasing organic is a non-selfish way of saying “I care.”
*Information sourced from PAN Pesticide Database http://www.pesticideinfo.org and What’s on my food? http://www.whatsonmyfood.org/index.jsp. Retrieved July 31, 2009.
I still have a couple of weeks to go before I finish my 30 day No-Food-Purchased-In-Plastic experiment and I’m in a pretty good rhythm with my purchasing habits. There are a couple of products that I have run out of and not replaced because it isn’t convenient. Its really just a matter of getting myself organized with some clean empty jars kept handy with my cloth bags. That will be my project for this week.
I’m only doing this experiment for 30 days and it only applies to the food that I purchase.
Can you imagine going a whole year without purchasing anything except the absolute necessities? Well, believe it or not, Jen, Grant and Rhyannon did just that http://cleanbinproject.com/theproject/and the great part is they documented their year and are in the process of packaging it into a film. You can see the trailer here: http://cleanbinproject.com/the-film/
And over across the ‘pond’, Mrs Green and family have been “making our world a cleaner place” by reducing their household waste and blogging about it at MyZeroWaste.com. Each week they weigh how much garbage they send to the land fill and over the course of a year have compiled an awesome repository of information about reducing, reusing and recycling.
These are just two examples of wonderful people taking responsibility for their personal consumption by embracing a low crap lifestyle.
Low Crap Diet is about so much more than just what you eat. When you get real about what you eat, you begin to truly understand how everything affects everything else. The only way to create change in this world is to challenge our own habits, assumptions and “normalized behaviours”.
So whether you want to lose weight, heal disease, live longer or run a marathon, embracing a low crap diet is a great place to start.
The 1st Annual Buy-No-Food-In-Plastic Day has come and gone and I’ve heard some great stories from friends and family about how their plastic awareness was ignited.
The best story comes from someone I won’t name … She tells me she was having lunch with a coworker at a food court and enthusiastically talking about it being the 1st Annual Buy-No-Food-In-Plastic Day. As she was speaking she suddenly noticed that her food court food had been served in Styrofoam containers … oops …
When she sheepishly told me the story I cheered! Hooray! That tells me that the 1st Annual Buy-No-Food-In-Plastic Day succeeded in raising both her and her coworker’s plastic-awareness. Plastic is so integrated into daily life that we hardly even notice.
They then discussed how they could have easily brought down reusable plates and cutlery from the office kitchen.
Maybe next week they will.
It doesn’t matter if you succeeded in going 24 hours without purchasing plastic or not. What matters is that you became a little more plastic-aware.
Congratulations!
Since there are so many new readers this week, I thought I’d give you a quick catch-up on what’s going on at LowCrapDiet.com and then we’ll talk about ketchup.
Low Crap Diet is about cutting ‘crap food’ out of our diet … improve our health; improve the health of the earth.
Lately I’ve been cranky about plastic and other throw away packaging. In fact I became so frustrated with all the low crap food in high crap packaging that I decided to try a 30 day buy-no-food-in-plastic experiment. Feeling a little lonely in my experiment, I invited you to join me by declaring Friday, July 17, 2009 to be the first annual “Buy No Food in Plastic” day. (Better start getting organized … Friday is only two days away.)
Now that you are all caught up, here’s the promised ‘ketchup’ bit.
I’ve always wondered why “returnable glass bottles” didn’t catch on for more products. It’s a brilliantly sustainable system. When I purchase milk in a glass bottle, I pay a ‘deposit’ on the bottle as incentive to bring it back to the store so it can be refilled. When I return the bottle the deposit is refunded. It works for milk and pop and there is no reason it couldn’t work for other consumable products.
I’d like to see the following products in returnable glass bottles:
- yogurt
- feta cheese
- olives
- cooking oil
- vinegar
- mayonnaise
- nut butters
- stewed tomatoes
- bar-b-que sauce
- spices
- honey
- juice
- ice cream
- ketchup
I think you get the picture and you can probably add other products that you regularly purchase.
The ability to purchase ketchup in a refillable glass bottle would remove a huge amount of ketchup’s crap-factor.
A marketing guru blogger guy named Seth came onto my radar a few months ago when I was setting up Low Crap Diet.
Recently Seth wrote about his birthday wish, asking people to “… start a project, launch an idea …” … create a “Make a difference day.”
Today Seth’s post challenged me to go farther: “Go ahead, do something impossible.”
I like challenges.
I am in the midst of an impossible challenge.
I have a birthday coming up.
I want to make a difference.
In fact, I know you want to make a difference too, so I’m answering Seth’s birthday wish with a birthday wish of my own.
On Friday July 17, my birthday, I invite you to take part in the first annual No-Food-Purchased-In-Plastic Day
The purpose of No-Food-Purchased-In-Plastic Day is to raise our ‘plastic-awareness’, especially in the area of food packaging.
Did you know that:
- plastic never goes away.
- not all plastic is recyclable.
- not all recyclable plastic is recycled.
- plastic leaches toxins into our bodies, our water, our air, and our earth creating havoc in ways we are only just beginning to understand.
My 30 day experiment is teaching me that it is difficult to avoid food with plastic packaging. But I am learning that it is possible to drastically cut down on how much plastic garbage I generate.
Here’s just a few ideas of how you can participate:
1. Pay attention to how your favourite foods are packaged. (Do you really need your sandwich wrapped if you are going to eat it right away?)
2. When you do purchase food wrapped in plastic, be sure to reuse or recycle the packaging.
3. Bring your own knife, fork and coffee cup (BYOKFCC)
4. Bring your own reusable bags (BYORB)
5. Whenever possible purchase plastic-free-food (PFF)
Can you go 24 hours purchasing only plastic-free-food? Leave a comment and let me know your ideas and thoughts.
Stay tuned for more details … and Happy Birthday Seth!
1. It is 100% non-biodegradable.
2. Once created, plastic will never go away.
3. It leaches toxins into food, water and air.
4. It is collecting in our oceans and on our shores.
5. It breaks down into tiny bits that get eaten by fish. If you eat fish you may be eating tiny bits of plastic.
6. Not all plastic is recyclable and not all recyclable plastic is recycled.
7. Chemicals used in plastic disrupt hormones.
8. Chemicals used in plastic cause cancer.
9. It interferes with physical development in babies and children.
10. It is everywhere.
Its crazy that we spend thousands of dollars to eradicate dandelions from our parks, yet simply accept that plastic is a necessary evil.
Two days in and already challenged!
My shopping list yesterday was short. All I needed was a couple of oranges, broccoli and vanilla extract.
Organic oranges were easy as they are sold by the piece.
Broccoli was more of a challenge. Much of the fresh produce sold at the neighbourhood organic market is packed in plastic bags to preserve its freshness. At the big-box-grocer across the street, organic broccoli is bundled together, three stems at a time, secured with a plastic elastic that has an attached plastic label.
Slightly perplexed I started pacing back and forth between the organic broccoli and the non-organic broccoli. Even the non-organic broccoli was bundled with an elastic band!
[Note to self: research if elastic bands contain any type of plastics.]
Nope, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t purchase the non-organic broccoli. Not after writing June 22nd’s post introducing the What’s On My Food database. Broccoli is one of those products that contains large amounts of pesticide residue. Even organic broccoli does not arrive at the table pesticide-residue free.
I decided to purchase two stems of organic broccoli, but not before I pulled the stems out from the confines of the plastic elastic thingy. I think that was slightly bending the rules …
I looked for vanilla extract at the organic produce store. Unfortunately both brands they carried had plastic security things shrink-wrappped around the plastic lids.
Back to the big-box-grocer. No organic vanilla extract there. They had artificial vanilla extract in plastic bottles … blah. Fortunately they also had a house brand real vanilla extract in a glass bottle and there wasn’t any shrink wrapping security thing around the plastic lid.
Yup… a plastic lid.
Annoyed, I purchased the house brand vanilla extract rationalizing that at least I could reuse the bottle and its plastic lid. Slight bend of the rules number two …
About mid day I met up with some friends for lunch. Afterwards we thought it would be nice to pick-up a coffee and go sit by the water. Great idea, except that I didn’t have my travel mug with me. No problem. I really could use a second coffee mug to keep in the car for just such occasions.
At the big-box coffee shop I refused to purchase a cheapo plastic travel mug. There was one choice of a stainless steel travel mug … that would be the stainless steel travel mug with a plastic handle and plastic lid.
Rolling my eyes and complaining bitterly to my friends, I paid for my $30 take out coffee with … yup you guessed it … plastic … I didn’t have enough cash with me.
Its going to be a long month.
