Hello new web group!

Below is my new web group for weeks 8-14

Adventures with Haley

Let's go green with Emily

Sarra's notes in nature

Hi there blog buddies!

:)

Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 5: Weekly Review and Final Reflection

 My goal this week was to have 2 full meals that were fully local.  I certainly made that goal.   To the right is one of my meals. It is an egg, chicken sausage and purple potatoes. We were just gonna have eggs and the potatoes but then we discovered that the chicken sausages were local and they LOOKED SO GOOD!.

I had another fully local meal and many that were left-overs or just incorporated a lot of the food I had around that was local.



Cole brought up Joel's Hydroponics system in a comment to a past post so I thought I'd post a photo.  Currently, as you can CLEARLY see, he is just growing lettuce. We have now harvested and eaten a good 1/3rd and that leaves some room for him to start growing something new.  I'm not sure what he will try.  




When I think about challenges, I'm grateful we did this assignment in the fall rather than the dead of winter. There have been great foods to eat so having my local meals has been very doable. The challenges were more with the toppings. Things like pepper, salt, butter and other spices.  Fresh spices were pretty easy, but I did use some of what I had and knew would make something flavorful.  I still managed to get some local spices and created flavorful meals. I looked to local before using my standbys.

As winter goes on I think it will be harder to find the local food. I'm going to keep trying however. I would love to know what is out there that I'm just not thinking of yet. I want to keep finding ways to do what I feel is the right thing. I also have enjoyed learning a little more about the possibly of sustaining more locally. During this project the Co-op had their member owners meeting and i learned about a huge project to challenge some great minds and pull together information on what land in Minnesota is available to grow on, how is the soil, and what can be grown realistically in the climate and on that land.  They have put together a pretty complete diet. I learned that Hazel nuts grow here... I didn't know that.

I feel benefited in my awareness of eating local food. I really want to eat more local and like how voting with my dollars makes me feel. I enjoy buying from the guy who busted his chops to grow decent veggies when I buy at farmers markets and I like to see a high number on the "local purchases" on my Whole Foods receipt.  I feel like I'm supporting people who are trying to do a good job and provide a good product. The money goes through less hands and I'm saving miles of travel and that saves fuel as well as gives me fresher food.  I like that. I do enough to screw up the planet, it is nice to make some adjustments and lifting even a little burden and demand on her.

I also learned that I really like root veggies in chicken soup!

What did I learn?  That with some effort, this wasn't as hard as I thought it might be. I think I surprised myself at how good it felt.

For others looking to make a lifestyle change, I highly recommend sitting down ans making some sort of plan. Thinking through what you perceive the tough parts might be before you start so you can see success before the roadblocks, if they even come up.  For me in this situation it was thinking about where my local options were, could I get there and when would I go, what would I be making out of my local goodies.

I have one more thing that I'd like to share...

As I was thinking about my week and the local meals I have been eating I had a really cool realization... This week, as most people who have been anywhere near me know, Robert Kenner, Director of Food, Inc. was here presenting at UMD.  Duluth Grill was one of the sponsors for this event. Tom, the owner, offered to host a dinner for Robert before hand. The dinner was 100% gluten free and they focused on local. First of all, they have gardens on Duluth Grill's property, in the owners front yard and they also source as much as they can local.   Almost everything was local.  Tho Belgian chocolate that covered the local cherry was not local. I know there were a few other things, but I honestly can not recall.

Below are the pictures of most of the food.

This was our salad. The raspberry dressing is sweetened with local honey.

This was our main course. The roast is a local bison pot-roast, Minnesota wild rice. The food in front is squash, apples and all sorts of amazing flavors.

They serve something close to this for their Sunday Special.

I'm really NOT trying to torture you. I SWEAR I'm getting to my larger point.

This summer when I was first working on choosing sponsors for the Kenner event, I asked Duluth Grill to be a part of it. I never thought that, that decision would be influencing 20 people, months later, on one night to come together and all be eating a local meal. So much fun to have that unexpected bonus.

So, what do you say? Sunday, Duluth Grill... FIELD TRIP! :)

Eye Opener: Environmental Working Group

This was very interesting.
I had to go through almost all of the things I have in my house to find something that this list had information for.

Finally I grabbed a hair product that I occasionally use  from Bumble Bumble called Defrizz. It scored a zero.

The ingredients are  Cyclomethicone, Dimethiconol. I am going to some searching to see WHAT these are. my quick first look found that some part of it can be used for gastroenterology issues. So, I guess it is used in the product Gas X.  A HUGE weight off my shoulders... nothing worse then when your hair gets the vapors!   It looks like Dimethiconol may be an emulsifier.

I'm a little confused about the produce information. The panel to the right has NO bars or scores where it talks about the ratings.  However, then towards the bottom of the section it lists...

Other HIGH concerns: Persistence and bioaccumulation
Other MODERATE concerns: Organ system toxicity (non-reproductive)
Other LOW concerns: Ecotoxicology, Data gaps

I'm not so excited about the Bioaccumulation piece.  Perhaps more information will give me some clues.
So, I guess I don't feel totally confident with this rating. I feel like i need more information before I can really feel GOOD about the zero. To be fair, they say they have limited information.


I did also looked at my Nature's Gate Autumn Breeze Deodorant Stick that I recently purchased.
This got a rating of 4 which is moderate.  This product also has limited information available.
I see that the first ingredient is propylene glycol. This ingredient isn't really thrilling to me. This website

http://antiagingchoices.com/harmful_ingredients/propylene_glycol.htm
And I'm not sure how much validity this cite has yet.

and this page on the site we are using for this assignment.
have concerning things to say about absorption and skin irritation.
The print on the deodorant ingredients list is REALLY small and I couldn't read it at the store... I may look for another deodorant.

I'm curious... did anyone find a GOOD rated deodorant??

I threw my Paul Mitchell Shampoo One in there... a kind I used to use. That as a 5 and also "limited data". That seems to be a common thing. I wonder if that have complete data on anything or if it is a weasel word they use to cover themselves legally.

It is really frustrating finding things that are safe. It is also frustrating that many of the products I use are not in their data base at all.   I don't know how the process works to get products in the database... an agreement with the company? Popularity? For the ones that are not in there that I use, many of them are smaller companies that I feel more confident of than many of the big ones. I have looked at the ingredients in them when I got them and did some comparison of "bad chemicals" lists and they were OK.

Very interesting to examine what we are putting on our skin and what it does as it enters our bodies.