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Hi there blog buddies!

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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.

  

Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 4: Weekly Update

My eco-chic goal for the week was to eat one complete local meal this week.

Here is my meal.  

I had a squash, purple potatoes, chicken and cucumbers. All purchased at the farmers market or at whole foods from a local chicken farm. 

Shopping at the farmers market has made the food part of this pretty easy. 

The struggle I have is finding toppings that are local. So, all my FOOD is local, but not the toppings. The butter for the potatoes, the vinegar for the cucumbers. The Indian spices WERE local when I got them IN India. 

When I need to replace these things I would like to look for more local spices and other things I use as toppings.  I eat very little dairy so making my own butter isn't an option. Wonder if I can make butter out of goats milk?

The wonderful thing is that I have eaten meals that were almost all local just because I have the food around, or have left overs.   I really have enjoyed looking at my plate and seeing that at almost every meal I'm eating SOMETHING local.  I have loved my food and feel good about it. Buying at the farmers market has been cheaper for most things. Also, I get food I don't find at the grocery store so I'm adding to my variety of veggies as well.

I also purchased some hand lotion that was made locally too that is really nice. It had all natural ingredients like honey, beeswax, Shea Butter, jojoba oil. The beeswax is from the makers farm that is in Duluth. BONUS.

What I learned was the kind of obvious fact that, as you start getting local food in the house, becoming a little more aware of local food, it makes it easier to just integrate it into more than just that one meal. 

My goal for next week?

Let's go for two meals that are fully local.  

Now that I've noticed that I've been integrating more local food in other meals. I will keep track of how many meals I am including local food in when I eat at home. 

I haven't been all that creative with my goal, I guess, but it's working and making a positive difference. 

Shelby's Button

Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 3: Weekly Update

My goal was to eat commit to one local meal a week.  I did achieve my one meal and more.  I did have one local meal. The only part that was not local was the balsamic vinaigrette I used for dressing on my salad, the salt, pepper and basil spices.  Last week we had fresh local basil but were out of it.

The challenges were thinking ahead to have a local dressing or maybe put some other local something on the salad that would have substituted. Also, the salt and pepper got used without thinking about it.  We could have used some additional veggies to take the place of that perhaps?

Getting the food was pretty easy. However, this week the farmers market didn't have any meat so we had to buy our local meat from Whole Foods instead. Still local.  We had chicken soup last week and I was hoping to get some mutton/goat meat.

Here is our meal!

Yup, even the water is local! 

It's even possible that the water glass, aka old spaghetti sauce jar, came from a local source as well. 

The salad are greens that Joel grew in his apartment 6 blocks away in his hydroponics system. 

We didn't get too creative this week on our meal from last week, but last weeks was SO GOOD!  This week wasn't quite as flavorful. Perhaps because the chicken was a little but more plump?

Here are the recipes... 

The first soup 

Potato and Leek Chicken Soup

1) Make Chicken Broth.  (I will include this process recipe in a later post)

2) Add Vegetables, etc.

Ingredients:
4 Leeks
1 Onion
6 Potatoes
1/2 cup rutabaga
1 cup carrot
1 tablespoon Ginger
1 cup fresh basil
Salt and Pepper to taste (approx 4 tablespoons salt, suggestion)

3) Simmer on low for at least 1 hour

The soup pictured above

Chicken and Turnips

1) Make Chicken Broth

2)  Add Vegetables, etc (and extra chicken, if wanted)

Ingredients:
Approx 6 quart pot
1 Large Turnip - (2 cups)
4 medium Potatoes
2 cups Carrot - cut in medium to small pieces
3 leeks
1 Onion
Salt and Pepper to taste (approx 4 tablespoons salt, suggestion)
Pinch of Basil

3) Simmer on low for at least 1 hour

This was my main, local meal focus.  We had left overs so I have been eating soup at other meals.  I also got various other veggies that I have been having for other meals and snacks too like purple potatoes, red pepper, kohlrabi, apples, broccoli, and red pepper.  

It has been fun to integrate more foods in more meals. It feels good. And, it tastes fantastic!  

I will continue with my goal as is. Not that I don't want to engage in new challenges but I have a lot going on the next few weeks, I don't want to over stress by trying to add additional local required meals, and I want to just let this be more of a new habit that is settling in. 

Score Your Diet...

I chose to do the "score your diet" option for our EYE OPENER this week.

You can experience this took for yourself by clicking here.

Score your diet takes into account various foods that you eat, how often, if they are organic, etc. and gives you a score in 3 categories, health, environmental impact and animal welfare.

My scores were as folllows

Health Score     86
Environmental Score      -17
Animal Welfare score     -5

this left me with a final score of 64

The scoring levels were...
60 =  excellent
15-59 = good
15 or less = Uh, oh, you need help.

As far as the type of food that scored the highest is fruits and veggies a "grand total" of 38 each.
Why was this my highest?  I make an effort to eat fruits and veggies.  I would like to add more variety in fruit. I eat more bananas than anything else.  I also try to have veggies as or as part of snacks and meals. I put that I eat 14 servings a week.  I believe that is true.  I know that some weeks it is well above that and some it is below. And, honestly, I am probably not as familiar with a serving size as I should be.   At 14 a week I feel so sad that, this is it.   I have read studies that suggest 9-12 servings a day and here is an article from Harvard School of Public Heath that says 5-13 per day.  I have heard doctors who study nutrition say 13 should be the norm especially if you are eating foods that have traveled and are growing in depleted soil. I am making an effort to eat local as well as organically grown veggies from farmers who are treating their soil well.

I appreciate that they took potatoes and iceberg lettuce out of the vegetables category. It adds validity to the test for me.

My lowest score went to sweets. A -9.  My other lowest were my meat consumption of a grand total of -6 for all 3 types. Most weeks I don't eat beef and I rarely eat pork but I wanted to add them.  Sweets....  not at my high point and where I want to be right now. Looking over my history, however, I'm doing pretty good.

I was thinking as I was trying to calculate my sweet intake.  My sweets look very different than they did years ago. My Bavarian cream doughnut and mocha would have counted as 2 sweets many years ago when  I ate them for breakfast all too often. Now my sweets on rare occasion are a gluten free muffin, and more often than that, these little candies that I found that contain only honey, mint and cocoa.

They are AMAZING!  Categorizing them as 1 and the doughnut as 1 are not exactly an equal point when I think about it.

My environmental score was -17.
My fruit and veggie consumption are the highest score in that column. To improve that, I would guess eating veggies and fruits as local as I can get would help reduce the negative impact.    Continue to eat meat that has been grown in good and appropriate conditions is important to keep that number down.  I am surprised to see whole grains have a minimal impact on the environment in this scale.  So, perhaps I could add some quality grains more often.  Cutting the little dairy out I do it would also reduce the number... depending on what I replaced it with, of course.

I find it interesting that candy category has no environmental impact.  I totally recognize that there is no way to quantify that with all it's variables on a specific quiz. It could just leave some to the wrong conclusion if they didn't understand the issues correctly.... "Eat pastries for planet earth!"  :)

So, what does this all mean to me?
It is good to put thought into my food. I do this a lot due to a gluten sensitivity and other food considerations so food doesn't pass my lips without some thought. This is a good reminder to me that I want to be taking a better look at the food I eat and figure out how to incorporate more fruits and veggies with greater ease, especially with time spent at school.

I hope that I am accurate with my estimates. I would like to do some tracking of what and the sizes to ensure that I'm really where I think I am at.

I really like that it looks at our impact on the environment and on animals. It is nice to have that included to see where I might be able to change things. It is also interesting that there is no PERFECT, non impacting way to eat.  According to this if you eat fruits and veggies, as is best, you have an impact on the environment. It would be interesting if it took composting into consideration as well, just to add another piece of the puzzle.

It was a good, mind provoking exercise.