Organic foods on a budget

A friend of mine and I recently had a conversation about shopping for natural and organic foods, with the end result that she really wants to incorporate more of these foods into her menu and shopping list. I offered to go with her the next time both of our families need to do our grocery shopping. I remember how challenging it can be to take the leap. I started learning about shopping this way over 12 years ago, and am still learning about some ingredients, and each time I have moved into a new community it takes some time to settle in to find the best and cheapest places to buy the things my family actually eats. So, while I am offering her the support to kick off this new way of shopping, I thought I would also start providing some tips here to anyone interested in reading them. I will try to make it as easy as I can.

The first thing you may be wondering about, in this economy, and especially if job losses or reductions have touched your family personally, is how can I afford to shop organic? I mean, aren't they more expensive than conventionally grown and produced foods? You may have a point there, to an extent, but it is possible to buy organic and natural foods on a budget.

Here are a few things I do:

• Shop sales and use coupons. Of course, this is probably obvious and applies whether you are shopping green or not. I don't waste much time searching for coupons, because it does seem green coupons can be more difficult to find, since they are often from smaller companies than the "big brands." Sale shopping is huge for me, however. I have a few hard, fast rules about how much to pay for certain items. For example, a box of cereal should never cost more than about $3.50 and preferably $3 or under. This probably sounds challenging for organic cereal, but I have been doing this for the past several years by stocking up when it's on sale, and if I run out between sales I rely on the organic cereals section at Wal-Mart.
• Look at the end date of sales. Many times I have been about to stock up on a "really good deal" until I looked at the ending date of the sale price and found it to be 2-3 months into the future. Conversely, if the ending date is within the next week or two (before my next shopping trip), I will go almost overboard. I might buy up to 5 or 6 of the same kind of cereal or snack crackers if it is a good enough deal and it is about to expire. If the up-front cost of this is extra high, I will delay my next shopping trip by at least a few days to a week or more from our "normal" schedule and make do with whatever we have on hand (which is usually enough).
• Shop the outside perimeter of the store. Fresh whole foods are cheaper than packaged and processed goods, and in most cases healthier for your family. Think about what is on the outside edges of every grocery store: milk, meat, fruits and vegetables, bakery breads. Buy more of these and less of the more expensive boxed or frozen meals.
  
• Learn your local stores. Find the best and cheapest place to buy each of the things you eat most often. Rotate your shopping trips for maximum efficiency of your time and to save gas. For example, one week you may go to one store followed by another store the alternating weeks and buy enough for two weeks at each store you visit (so you're not tempted to buy that same product for the higher price between visits to the store where you identified it to be cheaper). Also, if you can, reduce the number of trips to the stores furthest from your home. In our case, we only go to Wal-Mart to buy the items we have identified as cheapest there only once a month or less frequently. You'll drive less, which will save you gas money as well as reduce your carbon footprint.
• Prioritize if you can't buy all organics. Organic Consumers Association recommends selecting the foods your family eats (or drinks) most of and making those organic to get the biggest "bang for your buck." Sarah Bratnober, communications director at the Organic Valley Family of Farms, advises following the 80/20 rule so that 80 percent of the benefits come from 20 percent of the purchases. In our home, we purchase all organic fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables, but choose to save money on non-organic fruit and vegetable juices, as long as they are 100% juice without added artificial ingredients (check the ingredients list because I have noticed some that say 100% juice but do include other ingredients I wasn't happy with--they can probably do this thanks to rounding, say if the juice had less than 0.5% other ingredients.
• Learn the most important fruits and vegetables to buy organic. This is another way to prioritize your purchases if you can't do it all. The U.S. Department of Agriculture tests produce for pesticide residue. The Organic Center, a non-profit group in Boulder, Colo., analyzed the USDA data and found that some fruits and vegetables typically have higher residue levels than others. Find out about the fruits and vegetables your family eats most. If they are on the lists in the middle of this article, switch those to organic. Not on the list? You may be ok saving money on that item. You can see a more detailed analysis of several fruits and vegetables here.
  
• Economize. Dilute your 100% juice 50-50 with water. Mix chocolate milk with 1/2 white milk. This will both give you and your kids less sugar and calories for the same amount of liquid, as well as saving you money. You may be surprised by how sweet it still is after diluting it down. I have been doing this for so long I don't even enjoy drinking full-strength juice any more. I have noticed that different types of juices taste best with slightly different proportions of juice to water. Occasionally, I even like to drink a tall glass of water with little more than a splash of juice for flavor. Also in this category: buy in bulk quantities, but only if you will actually finish it before it needs to be thrown away.
• Get a filter if you don't like the taste of your tap water. The costs (financial as well as environmental) of buying bottled water are not worth it. Buy a good water filtration pitcher or mount-on-the-faucet filter (like Brita or Pur) instead. Have your water tested or ask for results of required tests from your local municipal water provider to find out if filtering is necessary where taste is not an issue but you are concerned about contaminants.

Sorry this got longer than I planned, but hopefully you can get something helpful out of it. Now that you know it can be done on a budget, click on the top left to follow this blog and receive my future posts on why you should buy organic foods and how to start making the switch.

Girl Who Silenced the UN For 5 Minutes

Severn Suzuki, in a speech from 1992.

Homemade wipes

Whether it's to save money or to have better control over what comes into contact with your little one's bum, you might want to make your own wipes, that can be used not only for baby wipes, but also for washing hands, cleaning up messes in the car, etc.

Following is the recipe I have been using for over 5 years now. At the time, I was a preferred customer (PC) for Melaleuca and used a recipe of Melaleuca products that I got from a book my friend gave me. Even though I no longer shop Melaleuca regularly (and don't get the PC discount), I am still using the same recipe because I really like it and it is worth it to me even though I am paying full retail price.

SOLUTION INGREDIENTS:
1 Capful Sol-U-Mel (Cleaner/Cleaning booster based on tea-tree oil)*
1/2 Capful Renu Bath Oil
1/4 Capful Tough & Tender (Multi-purpose cleaner concentrate), not diluted
Approx 2-3 cups of warm water

** NOTE: When I get the Jumbo (or Double) roll (whatever it's called), I learned that I have to add 2 capfuls of the Sol-U-Mel in order to have the batch not go moldy before I get through them all. With the standard rolls the single capful is sufficient.

(You can get information on the Melaleuca products from the Product Store here. To order, you have to create a customer account, which I did through a friend of mine initially. Not sure if you can just create one online only, but let me know if you need help with that.)

ALTERNATE SOLUTION INGREDIENTS:
I recently researched other ways to make wipes because I ran out of my ingredients and couldn't get the discount price through Melaleuca any more. I ended up deciding to go ahead and order at full price, because I read in some of them that they get musty smelling or moldy before the end of the roll with some of the other recipes. I didn't want to have to perfect a new recipe after having used the above solution for so long. In case you would rather use other ingredients, here is an alternate recipe for the solution:

Basically, you need:
** soap (may be Dr. Bronner's pure castille soap, natural baby body wash, etc.)
** oil (found various essential oils being used for their various properties, including lavender oil, chamomile oil, tea tree oil, calendula oil, etc.)
** disinfecting agent (saw some using colloidal silver, of course tea tree oil can do this, etc.)

Here and here are links to a couple of sites with recipes that look good. I have not tried these and you will probably have to experiment when you first start, depending on how fast you go through wipes, etc. It did take me a few times to get my recipe down--which was why I didn't want to learn all over again. Be sure to scroll down to the comments on the second one, as one of the replies also has a good sample recipe.

If you know your oils and natural disinfectants, feel free to experiment according to the above "generic" recipe or by adapting recipes at the above blogs and post your results in the comments below.

OTHER ITEMS NEEDED:
** Bounty Select-a-Size paper towels (I would prefer to use recycled fiber paper towels, but in my experience they are not strong enough when wet. I like Select-a-Size because the wipes are the perfect size and not wastefully huge.)
** Small hand saw, electric knife or sharp knife (to cut through the paper towel roll, whatever works)
** Cylinder-shaped wipes dispenser (Buy wipes once and either throw them away if you don't like the chemicals in them, or use them and then keep the container. I have used the same dispenser for over 5 years.)

MAKING THE WIPES:
1. Pour the solution ingredients into the wipes dispenser. Add water. I haven't measured the amount in years (estimated above), but I can tell you it measures up to about 1/4 (for "normal" roll) to 1/3 (for "double" roll) of the container I use. Doesn't matter if it's a little too much (see below).
2. Cut a regular paper towel roll in half through the center. (I use a small hand saw.)
3. Remove the cardboard center.
4. Put the paper towels into the solution, rough side down. If you use a Jumbo Roll, you might have to squeeze the sides in to make it fit, but it will fit.
5. Put the cover on the dispenser and turn the dispenser upside down into the sink so any excess liquid can drain out after all towels are damp.
6. Use the wipes from the center of the roll outwards for diaper changes, washing hands when you aren't near a sink, sudden messes in the car or otherwise away from home, etc.

Cutting-edge landfill in Rapid City, SD??

Now, you might expect a "cutting-edge" landfill, one voluntarily diverting 50-55% of the garbage entering its facility out of the landfill and with a goal to get to 100% diversion through various means, to be located in Portland, OR, or San Francisco, CA (#1 and #2, respectively in a Popular Science ranking of 50 US cities in 2008). This week I organized a homeschool tour of the local landfill in Rapid City, SD and learned a lot that made me proud to live here.

Several of the steps they take to reduce the amount of trash entering the landfill:

• Encourage consumer-level recycling by making it as easy as possible to recycle. This includes providing blue mixed-recyclable containers for metals, plastics and glass and 3 dumping stations throughout the city for mixed-recyclables as well as corrugated cardboard, newspapers and yard waste.
• Increase business recycling through education programs and outreach to local businesses.
• Statewide law already bans yard waste in landfills and Rapid City ordinance prohibits yard waste going into residential and commercial bins. This yard waste collected separately is composted at the Rapid City landfill and the compost is sold for about $25 per pick-up load or $1 per barrel.
• Composting the trash itself using a process of mixing sewage sludge and solids with the garbage and composting until it becomes usable compost. They are the only facility of this type in the United States and this is part of what makes this a "cutting-edge" facility. I will write more on this process in a separate post and link to it here when it is complete.
• Diverting usable working appliances and electronics at the gate as much as possible and encouraging those to be dropped off at local thrift stores or nonprofit organizations instead.

Through these measures, the Rapid City landfill is currently able to keep 50-55% of its waste out of the landfill. Considering the industry standard is about 20-25% diversion,* (except in California where the Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989 mandated 50% diversion which was finally achieved in 2006, when 52% of their trash was diverted and the IWMA goals finally met), I thought this was pretty impressive.

The Rapid City landfill has set its sights high, with a goal to divert 100% of the waste out of the landfill. One of the projects they hope to add is waste-to-energy technology to generate electricity from waste (that could then be sold as another income source). They also hope to improve the recycling rate at collection points, continue to encourage usable electronics and appliances to be donated rather than dumped, and encourage outside recycling of items that cannot be recycled through their facility (such as computers and similar electronics that may contain hazardous waste but that often have salvageable, recyclable parts also).

The Rapid City Solid Waste home page links to a brochure that was put together by South Dakota Democracy in Action that lists resources, both local and national, for recycling and donating items so we can all help them achieve their goal.

The Rapid City landfill does not receive any tax dollars. Instead, all operations are supported through utility bills and sales of recyclable items and compost.

* NOTE: The 20-25% figure was quoted to me by the tour operator at the landfill. I tried to find confirmation of this from a web search, and found numbers on various sites ranging from 27% to 44%. Most of them did not provide the source of their data. If anyone knows of a site where I could get a current number, please post in comments below and I will update this post to reflect that.

Our President's First Week

Now that the Inauguration is nearly a week behind us, can we PLEASE stop calling Obama the "First Black President"? And we don't need any more of this debate about whether he's the first "Black" President or the first "Mixed" President, do we? I mean really. Couldn't his rise and his election have been used to show that we as a country are finally entering an era BEYOND race? That's what I hoped for early in the race, as it started to seem like his rise was possible.

In fact, early on, no one talked about Obama as a "black" candidate. He was simply one of several candidates entering the presidential race. Even as he started achieving some early success, he still seemed to be an American candidate, capable of representing a new America that had finally moved beyond racial identity and division. That's what filled me with hope in the early days more than the fact that a "black" candidate could rise up--but that we could finally speak about characteristics (like intellect, charisma, and eloquence) of a person of color, without prefacing it with a mention of their racial identity.

Suddenly, Obama had the Democratic nomination and he became the "First Black Candidate" and later the "First Black President." Certainly he is that, but everyone knows that without endless discussions about it on every talk show in the world. The more we talk about him as a "Black President"--or even worse as a "President for Black America" the more we continue to remain divided. Surely, if Obama doesn't simply become the "American President" and soon, we will have missed a monumental opportunity for everyone to realize that race and ethnicity, finally, do not matter as much as we think they do.

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Fun "Do You Know Green?" game

I stumbled on this "test your green" quiz site recently and thought it was really well done and a lot of fun. You get to answer questions about certain environmental choices to see whether you know the best green option. At the end there is also a "lightning round" in which you have to identify as many green (or not) items/actions as possible in 20 seconds.

The only downside: the website was made by "cotton" or "Cotton Incorporated"--basically the cotton industry. I didn't find any answers that I thought were inaccurate, but they just happen to leave out that conventional cotton is not very green, to say the least.

According to an Organic Cotton Briefing Kit from Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA), "Conventionally grown cotton uses more insecticides than any other single crop and epitomizes the worst effects of chemically dependent agriculture. Each year cotton producers around the world use nearly $2.6 billion worth of pesticides--more than 10% of the world's pesticides and nearly 25% of the world's insecticides."

With that in mind, go ahead and test your knowledge and maybe even glean a few green tidbits--but when it comes time to buying cotton, try to shop for organic, or buy second-hand. Here are some examples of Organic cotton clothing, Organic cotton towels, Organic cotton bedding, even an Organic cotton yoga mat and more from Gaiam.

"Greenest" Christmas trees???

I have been thinking a lot this year about the environmental impacts of the Holidays (for me Christmas and New Year's). Strings of LED lights were on sale at KMart after Thanksgiving (buy one get one, $9.99 each regular price) so I got two strings of LED lights that say they use about 70% less electricity than conventional lights for just $10.

As for the tree itself, I have been thinking a lot about the what type of tree would be the greenest Christmas tree. I have done a little casual research (mostly reviewing a couple of blog posts about environmental impacts of certain types of Christmas trees, including some comments from readers), but mostly this is based on my opinion, such as it is. Here is my list, from best to worst for environmentally friendly "green" (or NOT) Christmas trees:

• Potted live evergreen tree (your favorite type), planted in your yard, neighborhood park, or other community space some time after the Holiday season ends. This seems to me the greenest Christmas tree option, as each year you would be adding another tree that can grow to maturity and absorb carbon throughout its lifetime. According to this site, mature (45-50 years old) conifers (evergreen trees) can absorb a range of 30.8 pounds of carbon per year to 106.3 pounds per year, depending on the species (and apparently, whom you talk to). Retired Christmas trees also have the ability to absorb carbon year-round, unlike their counterparts that prefer to get naked in the winter. After doing this for 10 years, the trees you have planted could be removing 308 to 1063 pounds of carbon per year from the atmosphere. This article has some good information to help you get your potted tree to survive the transplant into the ground.
  
• Potted live evergreen tree, kept in its pot year-round. Keeping a Christmas tree in a pot will prevent it from growing to full-size and getting too big for your living room. After the Holiday season ends, you can move the tree in its pot to your yard. This option is relatively green compared to those below. However, since young trees (1-5 years old) can only absorb 2.2 to 5.5 pounds of carbon per year, and you are only adding one tree for its lifetime (rather than 1 per year) it is significantly less environmentally friendly than the first option. Since you are forcing the tree to stay small, it would probably continue absorbing this lesser amount of carbon each year.
• Christmas tree from a Christmas tree farm. Cut trees do not have the environmental advantages of live trees. You are, after all, cutting down the Christmas tree and ending its future carbon absorption before it reaches maturity and peak capacity to absorb carbon. On the other hand, these trees are planted specifically for the Christmas tree market, and wouldn't have grown (or absorbed carbon) at all but for the growers who planted them for sale. According to this Christmas tree farm in New Hampshire, a typical tree is planted on their farm as a 4 to 5 year old transplant and grows an additional 10-15 years prior to being ready to cut for a household Christmas tree. Going to a Christmas tree farm that allows you to choose and cut your own tree would be a greener option than buying one already cut, as you can be certain that no trees were needlessly cut down only to end up on a compost pile, or worse--in a landfill.
• Buying a second-hand artificial tree from a thrift store or yard sale. This is not the greenest option, by any means, but it does prevent a plastic (petroleum-based), resource-intensive, and probably not even remotely biodegradable tree from ending up in the landfill and doesn't contribute to the demand for new artificial trees to be made (usually in China) and shipped, hauled by 18-wheelers, etc. to get to your store and into your living room. Their durability and the fact that you can use them every year for many years make this a slightly more environmentally friendly option than a cut wild tree. Eventual disposal, however, is quite problematic, and no real green option exists (can't be recycled, unfortunately, even though they are plastic.
• Cutting a live tree from "nature." I'm not sure if this is even still possible anywhere. I know some families used to have this type of tradition where they would go out "somewhere" (This was never something we did, so I wouldn't even have a clue about where this would even be legal or possible to do!), find the perfect Christmas tree living in its natural environment and chop it down. Since no trees are being re-planted to replace the trees in this type of setting, this option contributes to deforestation and a net reduction in the number of trees absorbing carbon dioxide. No one who cares about the environment should consider this an option. One possible benefit, mentioned here, is that thinning trees from natural growth forests (like national parks) may help thin the forest and reduce the risk of forest fires.
  
• A brand new artificial tree. Some claim that buying an artificial tree is a greener option than a real tree because they can use it from year to year and don't have to kill a tree. However, when you consider the resources (petroleum and others) that go into making it, shipping it overseas and across the country, real trees win my environmental vote. Add on to that the problems of disposal if it ever needs to be replaced (or, as is probably most often the case, the family wants a larger or fuller or different type of tree, even though the first is still perfectly full and lush looking). Hopefully, anyone who does eventually upgrade their tree is bringing them to their local thrift store or consignment shop for some of the rest of us to buy, rather than throwing them away.