Manifesto

In anticipation of a burst of writing, I re-designed the blog a bit.  It's tidier and easier to navigate I think.

Up at the top you'll see a new tab, "Manifesto of a Green Girl."  It's kind of a rough draft - I'll probably be adding to it & editing it throughout the life of this blog.  Feel free to comment on it, & let me know if it's missing anything important that you'd like to know my stance on.

I outlined a list of article topics that should see me through several months, and I've started researching my first few subjects.  I'm not sure how long it will take to write these first few, as they're going to take quite a bit of studying and some product testing on my part, but I'm hoping to have the first one up around the end of next week!  I'm excited and anxious - I feel like I'm back in school, putting this much effort into my writing.

In the meantime, if you're new here feel free to browse the archives - almost all of the past articles are ones that I wrote for my previous employer when I was their Sustainability Coordinator.  Comments are still open on all of them, and I welcome any questions or ideas you might have.

Book Review: Food Rules

Michael Pollan, bestselling author of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto and The Omnivore's Dilemma, has published what is called a "definitive compendium of food wisdom."  Food Rules is a short, easy-to-understand guide to eating real food and avoiding over-processed "food-like substances."

Pollan's mantra of "Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants." was established after the extensive research he did for his previous books.  He found that all the science and techno-babble about the nutritional value of food could be simplified down to its core: real food is what's important.  Not the additives, the preservatives, the artificial, the pre-packaged - real food.  This philosophy is reiterated again and again, with rules such as "Avoid food products that have ingredients that a third-grader cannot pronounce," and "It's not [real] food if it's called by the same name in every language (Big Mac, Pringles, Cheetos, etc.)"

The book not only discusses what to eat, but also how to eat.  Pollan discusses the problem with "Western" food culture in the introduction, and breaks down the way we eat as one of the key issues alongside what we eat.  Common sense wisdoms such as "Stop eating before you're full" and "Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it" encourage readers to pay attention to how they're eating to avoid overindulgence.

Pollan's previous works cover some of the same material, but go into much more detail regarding the science and statistics behind the reasons for avoiding processed foods.  Food Rules is, in essence, the simplified version.  Some of the 'rules' were written by Pollan, but in the introduction he discusses his process for this book, talking to not only nutritionists, doctors, and food scientists but also folklorists, anthropologists, mothers and grandmothers, looking for insight into what rules, ideas, wisdoms, and sayings about food are not only truthful, but have survived the tests of time and culture.  The result is a common sense, simple to follow guide for eating healthfully.

(If you'd like to borrow my copy of the book, feel free to ask!  It's also on sale on Amazon.com for $5 - less than half the cover price.)

A Journey of a Thousand Miles...

Excerpt from Living Green: A Practical Guide to Simple Sustainability by Greg Horn.

I invite you to join the millions who are part of the sustainability revolution and take that first, simple step…

Eating organic: For each 1 percent increase in organic food consumption in the US alone, pesticide and herbicide use is reduced by over 10 million pounds per year.  Organic food also tastes better and is far healthier than conventional food.  And it is probably available at the same store you are shopping in today.

Going carbon zero: For about $99 per year through nonprofit carbon offset companies, you can offset your entire carbon footprint with that organization’s contributions to renewable power, energy efficiency, and reforestation projects.

Recycling: The average person in the US produces 1,609 pounds of waste each year.  Recycling can cut that waste stream by up to 75%.  If each of us recycled just paper, glass, and metal, we would save 162 million tons of material from entering American landfills each year.  And recycling the enormous amounts of plastics we use each day can save even more.

Denying disposables: “Disposable” is literally a dirty word.  If we all just used a glass instead of a water bottle and a coffee mug instead of a Styrofoam cup, we would save 244 billion bottles and cups made from petrochemical-based plastics from entering the US waste stream each year, and save money at the same time.

Switching to natural personal care: Using natural personal care has a double benefit – keeping toxic chemicals off your body and then keeping them out of the environment after they wash off.  Remember, if you wouldn’t eat it, you should put it on your body.



Using natural lawn care: The average suburban lawn uses six times the hazardous chemicals per acre than conventional farming.  And you kids and pets play on that lawn.  If just 10 percent of us switched to natural lawn care, over half a billion pounds of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides would be prevented from entering the environment… and our kids’ bodies.

Cleaning green: Those household chemicals that you have to lock up from children are obviously hazardous to your health.  Collectively, we dump 32 million pounds of toxic chemistry down our drains each day, just from household cleaning chemicals.  That doesn’t count what goes into our indoor air.  Switching to green alternatives keeps these chemicals out of our bodies and out of our water supply.

Filtering your tap water: Filtering your tap water to remove chlorine and fluoride provides pure, clean, great-tasting water at a fraction of the cost or environmental impact of expensive and wasteful bottled water that costs more per gallon than gasoline.  The payback on a $60 water filter takes only a few weeks for most households.  As an added benefit, there is no plastic bottle to leach harmful phthalates (an endocrine disruptor that acts like estrogen in the body) into your water.

Increasing energy efficiency: Energy and fuel efficiency can dramatically reduce use of fossil fuels.  Insulate your home, turn off your lights, and consider fuel efficiency next time you buy a car.  There are many easy ways to manage your energy use, and the investment in efficiency pays off rapidly in lower fuel and energy costs.

Staying informed: Knowledge empowers informed action.  Subscribe to one of the many green magazines or visit any of the variety of environmental websites to stay informed on sustainability developments, resources, tips and tools.