Filed under: garden
My gardening knowledge is close to nil. While my mom had a garden when I was growing up, I never paid much attention to it, aside from the chores that she assigned me. Furthermore, my track record with plants is not too good; I killed an aloe plant that my mom gave me in high school (it ended up freezing during the winter when I placed it too close to the winder) and when I tried again with another aloe plant this past year, it’s health started failing and I ended up leaving it behind when I moved. I’ve since learned that you’re supposed to cut down the roots, not just change the soil, when you repot the plants, so if I had done that, the plant probably would have been OK.
Undaunted, I’ve decided that I’m going to try again. I’m going to leave aloe alone for the time being. Herbs are supposed to be one of the best investments you can make for a kitchen garden, so I decided to start with those. I talked with my mom, and she agreed to give me cuttings of her herbs the next time I visit her. I got a couple herbs from the farmer’s market that she doesn’t have. When I go to visit, she’ll take cuttings from these for her garden.
Lemon Thyme
Greek Oregano
Here’s to not killing these plants. *Crosses fingers*
Also, after I read something on the net about how easy it was to grow garlic, I decided to give it a try. Of course, garlic is supposed to be planted in October but the winters are mild here in North Carolina, so based on what I’ve read, it may or may not work. I just used cloves from the garlic I got from the grocery store.
Garlic- I don’t know what kind.
Obviously, it doesn’t look like anything right now. I think it’s supposed to start sprouting in the spring, so I’ll know then if it worked or not. Also, if they do sprout, I’ll have to transplant to a larger container. I used this little basket because it’s all I had at the moment.
I will be using this blog to track the progress of my gardening endeavors in the future.
Filed under: food
My new priorities when choosing food to buy and eat are: 1) it tastes good/I like it, 2) it’s unprocessed, 3) it’s organic and/or local (this one’s often a toss up), and 4) it’s cheap. I’m trying to move away from the nutritionism mentality (which is kind of hard since you still hear about fears about calories and carbohydrates and fats everywhere).
*As the staples in my pantry have run out, I’ve replaced them with organic versions and less processed versions if applicable. For example, I’ve replaced white sugar with evaporated cane juice, regular salt with sea salt, garlic powder with fresh garlic, margarine with butter, and so forth. I’ve stocked up beans, rice, whole wheat flour, and polenta in small quantities to serve as a based for most meals. I’ve gotten rid of all the prepared meals and nearly all the ready made mixes.
*I’ve started tracking the amount of food I buy in order to make it easier to stock up in the future, buy in bulk without over buying, and plan for gardening.
*I’ve started doing more cooking and reduced the amount of eating out that I do.
*Most of my meals now consist of some combination of rice, beans, bread, polenta, fruits, vegetables, eggs, and milk with assorted sauces and spices.
*I’ve learned how to cook with dried beans, tofu, and eggplant. I’ve also learned how to make yogurt and I’ve started baking bread with my new bread maker.
Future goals:
*Try new foods, particularly various grains, various greens, and various root vegetables
*Try different varieties of foods.
*Find alternatives to prepared foods that I’m fond of: Ghiradelli’s brownie mix, Bisquick, Zatarain’s Cajun rice mixes, Stoffer’s veggie lasagna, and Jyoti’s canned dishes.
*Set up a root cellar.
*Develop list of staples and keep kitchen stocked with them
*Continue to explore new recipes.
*Integrate pasture raised meat into my diet.
*Learn food storage techniques, particularly dehydrating and canning.
*Get better at meal planning and big batch cooking
*Learn how to make tortillas, naan, pita, and crackers from scratch.
*Learn how to make tofu.
*Learn how to make cheese and butter from scratch.
*Learn how to make tomato sauce and salsa
*Learn how to make mayonnaise
*Become involved in the Slow Food movement (which is devoted to many of the guidelines Pollan advocates), build relationships with local farmers, and possibly join a CSA.
*Learn how to hunt and butcher
*Learn how to forage (and try foraged foods)
*Learn how to garden
Filed under: food
I’ve used Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma as guides in my endeavor to improve my eating habits. In these books, Pollan investigates our current food system in the US and why it’s so broken. He links together the major environmental, economic, and health problems that we face to this food system and suggests that a lot of these problems could be solved if we opted out of it as much as we could. One of the big takeaway points for me is that Pollan points out that humans have thrived on a variety of diets throughout the history of the world, but the so called modern Western diet- consisting of highly processed and manufactured foods with lots of sugars, refined carbohydrates, fats, salts, and assorted chemicals- is the only one that has resulted in the devastating package of diet related diseases, obesity, diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease, that we are faced with today.
Luckily, I haven’t developed any of these dietary diseases yet (though technically I am obese) but I’ve long struggled with my weight throughout my life and have had issues with food in general, but this past year, I’ve managed to lose about 50 pounds without even trying. Of course, there are a lot of things going on in my life this year that could have contributed to this weight loss, but I have noticed that I’ve been eating less (or, rather, the proper amount instead of overeating) and I have been able to start addressing how my psyche handles food and where my deep-seated problems lay.
Here are the guidelines which Pollan laid out in In Defense of Food, that I’ve been trying to follow:
*Don’t Eat Anything Your Great Grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.: Pollan uses the example of that gogurt stuff, which I’ve never been tempted to try, actually. I think the point is to prefer traditional foods over the newer manufactured food products, or at least to be skeptical of new innovations rather than just blindly latching on to them when they hit the market. And I assume that Pollan means a sort of generic great grandmother, because I’m fairly certain that none of my great grandmothers would recognize tofu, among other traditional foods.
*Avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable, c) more than five in number, or d) that include high fructose corn syrup: All these are indicators of highly processed foods. This guideline leads me to choose regular version of foods rather than low fat or low carb or low calorie versions (which add a lot of chemicals in order to take these things out).
*Avoid products that make health claims: I think what Pollan here is saying is not to completely ignore nutrition research but avoid getting obsessed with it. The studies used for various health claims are often tenuous and usually sponsored by corporations in order to market processed foods. It’s been my experience that refusing to get caught up in the field of nutrition, removes a lot of anxiety and guilt from eating; that lowering of stress levels alone should markedly improve one’s health.
*Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle: Produce, deli, dairy, and bakery departments, which is where the true variety of food is located, tend to be located on the periphery of grocery stores, while processed foods, which basically consist of the same corn, wheat and soy byproducts arranged in different shapes, textures, and flavors, tend to be grouped in the middle. Of course, baking goods and whole grains are also found in the center of the store, as well as things like frozen produce, while sodas are sometimes found in the back, but the spirit of this guideline is sound.
*Get out of the supermarket whenever possible: I’ve made a concerted effort to start going to the farmer’s market more regularly, and I’ve started getting eggs, bread, honey, meat, most of my produce, and some other assorted foods from the farmer’s market. I’ve found that the there’s more of a community atmosphere and gives me less of that guilty feeling I usually get when I shop. I hope to continue to find local sources for the other foods I buy, particularly dairy products. I’ve also considered joining a CSA, and may do so in the future.
*Eat mostly plants, especially leaves: I found it a little odd, after discussing at length how it’s possible to thrive on a variety of diets and how nutrition science cannot be relied on as much as tradition in guiding our eating choices, that he would include a guideline this specific. Much of his support of this advice is based on the latest Omega 3/Omega 6 research, and Pollan just spent a couple hundred pages arguing that getting caught up in the latest nutrition research is unhealthy. That being said, I have cut back my consumption of meat and added more beans, grains, and fruits and vegetables to my diet largely for economic reasons. It’s also worth noting that meat production in the US, soon to be around the world, is very unsustainable. For that reason alone, it is a good idea for all of us to cut back on meat. As far as dark leafy greens go, they are known to be nutrient dense so eating more of them would probably be good.
*You are what what you eat eats too: This rather complicated sentence basically means that the quality of the meat one eats is affected by the way the animal is raised. In other words, it makes a huge difference whether meat is pasture raised or produced through conventional means, and there is mounting evidence that pasture raised meat is significantly better in a number of ways.
*If you have the space, buy a freezer: The reason Pollan gives for this is that a stand alone freezer makes it more convenient and more economical to keep to an organic local diet. For example, one can purchase a large quantity of pasture raised meat from a farmer that may live far away and only butcher animals in the fall. Or one can purchase large quantities of produce from the farmer’s market when it’s in season and continue to enjoy it out of season. A stand alone freezer would also be useful for CSA subscribers for the same reason. It’s not feasible for me to buy a stand alone freezer at the moment, but I’ve checked out various models and I was surprised to find that they cost significantly less than regular refrigerators and are far more energy efficient. So, a stand alone freezer is on my wish list for the time when I should buy my own property and settle down.
*Eat like an omnivore: In other words, variety is the spice of life. I tend to be a picky eater, but I’m making an effort to expand my palette and to try new varieties of foods that I haven’t liked in the past just to give them another chance. Many booths at the farmers market offer samples of produce which is a good opportunity to try new things. I’m also making an effort to try new recipes and cooking techniques.
*Eat well grown food from healthy soils: This guideline speaks to the benefits of organic agriculture, and I have started switching from conventional to organic foods.
*Eat wild foods when you can: Again Pollan relies heavily on nutrition research that states that wild foods contain more micronutrients than their domesticated counterparts. Aside from that, one advantage to wild foods is that they don’t cost anything, beyond the effort it takes to gather them. The caveat is that many are wild plants and animals are endangered and others are poisonous, so some education is needed before adding wild foods to my diet. With my present knowledge, I’m afraid that I’d end up doing a lot of damage to the environment or myself if I tried to gather any wild foods, but I would like to learn how to forage and hunt and so forth in the future.
*Be the kind of person who takes supplements: I’ve been taking a multivitamin since I took a nutrition class in college, actually. While the benefits of taking multivitamins or any other supplements are not conclusive, there is some evidence that people who take supplements are healthier than those who don’t. It’s thought that this is because people who take supplements tend to take better care of their health, i.e. exercise regularly, make regular doctor’s appointments, and choose whole grains and produce over junk food. I think this is more of a class issue than anything. The logic behind my taking a multivitamin is to fill in the gaps in my diet and if any vitamin is consumed in excess, it is simply excreted. That goes for other supplements, as long as they are water soluble; for fat soluble vitamins, there is a risk overdosing, so its important to be careful.
*Eat more like the French, or the Italians or the Japanese or the Indians or the Greeks: In other words, consult traditional food cultures for guidance. One of the problems with the American diet, as Pollan points out, is that America’s food culture has not yet been given the test of time. He argues that that is one of the reasons why the American diet gives us so much trouble. The science of nutrition is still in its infancy, so aside from a few pointers, it is in no real shape to provide solid guidance about what food we should be eating. An antidote to that is to hold on to or rediscover our own ethnic food cultures or consult the food cultures of others. I’ve started doing some reading about various cuisines and so forth, but what I think I really need to do is to learn from my mom’s cousins, who still cook in the traditional German and Irish fashion.
*Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism: This goes hand in hand with the first bullet point on this list. Pollan also advocates skepticism with regards to traditional foods prepared in nontraditional ways, e.g., soy, traditionally been prepared as tofu, tempeh, and soy sauce, etc, now being used as a source of vegetable oil.
*Don’t look for the magic bullet in the traditional diet: This speaks to curbing the obsession with nutritionism. We should not be looking for miracle foods. It’s a varied diet that leads to health, not a particular food that can save us all. This also goes hand in hand with the bullet above that advises avoiding health claims.
*Have a glass of wine with dinner: Again Pollan cites nutrition research that indicates the benefits of a moderate amount of wine. I don’t like the taste of alcohol, so I’m not likely to adopt this guideline.
*Pay more, eat less: Pollan points out that we Americans spend about 10% of our budget on food and about 20% of our budget on health care, whereas it’s the exact opposite in other developed countries. He suggests that if it’s within one’s means to spend more, it’s worth the extra money to buy organic and to support local farmers rather than agribusiness. It’s better to eschew fast food for a home cooked meal. Basically, we in the US have been so focused on cheap food, that we’ve completely devalued the quality of food. I know that in my own life that has resulted in overeating, driven by the search for satisfaction but never finding it in the cheap foods available. I’ve started to reverse that and focus more on the quality rather than the price, and I’ve found that I don’t over eat any more and I actually finish each meal fully satisfied.
*Eat meals: This guideline speaks to the idea of food as a part of culture. Pollan suggests being more mindful of what we eat and how we eat it. No more mindless snacking. This is pretty hard for me, but I’ve been working on meal planning and so forth.
*Do all your eating at a table: Heh. I don’t have any furniture, so this one is kind of hard. Pollan’s point is that it’s important to take a break and to eat away from the work space and especially not in the car. I tend to eat while I’m working on the computer, and I’m likely to eat in the car if it’s more efficient to do so. I see his point, but I’m not likely to do this one in the near future.
*Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does: In other words, all the food for sale at the gas station convenience store is crap. In addition, interstates usually only tell you whether an exit has a gas station, fast food, or casual dining restaurant, so if you don’t plan ahead, you will miss out on everything else. This is something that I’ve really got to work on. I’ve found two resources on the web so far: The Eat Well Guide, which lets you type in your route and gives you a map with the healthy stores and restaurants and farmer’s markets etc along your route, and Healthy Highways, which compiles a guide of health food stores around the country. Investing in a good cooler and filling it with good food will also help solve the dilemma of eating on the road.
*Try not to eat alone: Heh. I eat by myself most of the time. But Pollan’s point is that there’s a social aspect to eating, which is a fair point.
*Consult your gut: In other words, pay attention to whether you are hungry, not hungry, or full and eat accordingly. The human body is pretty good at providing cues about hunger (thus maintaining homeostasis), but the food industry does everything it can to distract one from noticing these cues from portion sizes to advertising to adding excess salt, fat and sugar. It’s important to make a concerted effort to ignore these distractions in order to get in touch with our bodies again.
*Eat slowly: In other words, really savor the food you eat and how what you eat connects you to the environment. I am completely guilty of mindless fast eating in the past, and I’m now trying to pay more attention to each bite I take and really focus on enjoying the act of eating.
*Cook, and if you can, plant a garden: Cooking from scratch is cheaper that buying ready made foods and eschew the preservatives and other chemicals that ready made foods often contain. Home made meals are also fresher than anything store bought. Nevertheless, ARGH, I hate cooking. I have started doing it anyway and am working on expanding my repertoire. Eating food from one’s own garden means that there is no mystery about how the food was raised. I’m also starting to garden a little, which is a bit of a challenge, since I know so little about it and I’m loathe to buy a lot of gardening equipment that I will have to take with me from apartment to apartment for the next couple of years.
Addendum:
*You can eat anything you want, but only on special occasions: This is actually not a guideline Pollan included in his book, but I’ve paraphrased it from a talk that he gave at Google in last March. Cultures around the world, including American culture, include food as part of celebrations, whether it’s the major holidays, life events like birthdays, or other special occasions. These are typically the only occasions when certain special foods are eaten, and typically more food is eaten than usual. What this means to me is to focus more on enjoying the celebration rather than worrying about the rules outlined above. When being invited to dinner as a guest, I should enjoy the meal and the company and not worry about where my host has obtained the ingredients for the meal. When going out to eat with friends for fast food, I should realize that an occasional meal of this kind is OK and try to find the best choice on the menu that I can. I’ve also interpreted this guideline to mean that I can have dessert once a week and only once a week, on Sundays, but I can choose anything I want for that dessert and have as much of it as I want.
Long time, no post. That’s mostly because of real life busy-ness; since the last time I’ve posted, I’ve moved out of my apartment and into a townhouse with 2 other girls. The price (less than half of what I was paying previously) makes the move totally worth it, though on the minus side, my roommates are not nearly as eco-conscious as I am.
If it were up to me, I would turn the heat way down to 55 (part of the rental agreement involves not turning it off entirely), while my roommates had it set to 72. I was sneaky though, and before they came back after going away for Christmas and New Year’s I turned it down to 65. Hopefully, they won’t notice and we can can save some energy and some money.
Since I share a bathroom with one roommate, I’m not able to conserve water by not flushing if it’s “mellow.” My roommates also have to habit of leaving fans and lights on after they are done using them. I’ve walked downstairs in the morning quite a few times to find all the lights on; I think I finally understand what my father must have felt all those times he scolded me for wasting energy when I was little. I’ve also tried to keep track of my utility use, but that is difficult because I can only average the usage rates and it’s difficult to tease apart who’s using how much. On the first electricity bill, the average kwhr usage was higher than the amount I used before I started paying so much attention to my energy usage. Of course I shouldn’t make too many comparisons, because so many factors are different. Here’s to hoping that I’ll have a positive influence and our utility usages will drop eventually.
Many more posts to come soon, I hope, including posts about food, Christmas, and gardening.
Filed under: Uncategorized
*Using handkerchiefs instead of kleenex: Looking at my trash, I realized that a significant portion of of what I threw away was kleenex. Years ago, when I first started playing the flute, my mom gave me a stack of handkerchiefs to use for cleaning. I had only ever used 2 of them and the rest were still good as new. Considering that kleenex-for-blowing-your-nose was a deliberate marketing ploy to sell more tissues, I decided that there was no reason to continue buying kleenex for that purpose. Now, hygiene is a valid concern, but since I usually blow my nose a few times on a tissue before throwing it away, I figure it’s no different to use one handkerchief a day and then toss it in with the laundry. Your mileage may vary.
*Using reusable bags instead of disposable ones: I learned from my mom the many, many purposes of shopping bags: trash, packing, sorting, storage, etc. But even with all the repurposing, my stash of shopping bags threatened to engulf my apartment. So I decided to embrace the reusable shopping bag. Because reusable shopping bags are in now, everyone and their cousing is selling them. Don’t buy them unless your heart is set on the design. I had a tote bag gathering dust in the back of my closet; my mom has over a dozen at her own home. Tote bags are one of the most common freebies available at fairs, conventions, and conferences. Chances are some one you know has a couple to spare or you will have an opportunity to pick up one for free soon. If you’re into crochet, you can even make a reusable tote out of plastic bags. And don’t forget that you can also reuse produce bags if they’re still in good shape.
*Reducing Electricity Usage: I started doing all the things my dad always scolded me for not doing, like turning off the lights when I’m not using them. I also refrained from using heat and air conditioning unless I absolutely needed to, opting for layers and and fans instead (It helps that I live in a temperate climate). Instead of using the dryer to dry my clothes, I hung them up to dry; now, I had to dry my clothes inside, because my apartment complex doesn’t allow residents to dry outside, so it’s not as nice as it could be, but it still works. After reading about vampire electronics, I left little used appliances like my microwave unplugged unless I needed it. All my electronics were already hooked up to one surge protector, so it was easy to switch that off when I go out of the house.
*Reducing Water Usage: I’m an avid fan of long showers, so this was a little difficult for me, but I tried to keep my showers as short as possible. I also adopted a “military shower,” that is, turning the water off when soaping up. I scrap my dirty dishes and pop them straight into the dishwasher instead of rinsing. Finally, I started following the “if it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down.” Not for everyone, but it works for me.
Filed under: Cleaning, clothing, community, energy, food, health and hygiene, household supplies, medicine, personal audit, pets, politics, shopping, transportation, travel, walmart, water
Here is a breakdown of my personal habits and commonly used items at the start of the year, before I decided to change. This is just to see where I was starting this journey from and to later use as a frame of reference to see how far I’ve come.
*Health and Hygiene
-Deodorant
-Acne pads
-Blistex
-Toothbrush
-Toothpaste
-Floss
-Mouthwash strips
-Body soap
-Shampoo
-Diaper rash cream
-Hydrocortisone
-Neosporin
-Liquid Bandage
-Sunscreen
-Bug spray
-Kleenex
-Foot lotion
-Tampons and pads
-Q-tips
-Vaseline
-Rubbing alcohol
-Hydrogen peroxide
-Handiwipes
-Toothwipes
*Hair Dying Supplies:
-Henna
-Disposable gloves
-Paper neckband
*Medications:
-Visine
-Dayquil
-Coldeeze
-Airborne
-Multivitamin
-Naproxen
-Nuvaring
Cleaning Supplies:
-Disposable floor mops pads
-Febreeze
-Plug in air freshener
-Spray air freshener
-Laundry stain stick
-Laundry spot cleaner
-Laundry detergent
-Disposable Lint brush
-Dish washer detergent
-Paper towels
-Toilet paper
-Toilet cleaner
-All purpose cleaner
-Windex
-Disposable dusters
Cat Supplies
-Anti chew spray
-Cat toothpaste
-Cat litter
-Cat food
-Cat treats
Office Supplies
-Canned Air
-Cleaning Wipes for computer
-Printer ink
-Staples
-Paper Clips
-Thumb tacks
-Pens/pencils
-Envelopes
-Paper
-Paste
-Labels
-Scotch tape
-Duct tape
-Packing tape
Misc Household Supplies
-Light bulbs
-Headphones
-Batteries
Kitchen Supplies
-Napkins
-Plastic baggies
-Saran wrap
-Tin foil
Utility Use
-Water: my water’s not metered, so I’m not sure exactly how much water I’ve used in the past, but according to the USGS, the average American uses 80-100 gal/day.
-Electricity: According to my utility bill, I averaged using 9 kwhr/day.
Note: I don’t have a washer and dryer so I use a laundry mat (1 load/week), so my utility bill and water use don’t reflect that.
Clothes
I’m most comfortable in t-shirts and jeans, so that’s usually what I ended up wearing day in and day out, except when circumstances dictate otherwise. Most of my clothes come from Walmart; my fancier clothes I bought in places like Lane Bryant or department stores. Shoes-wise, I’ve got sneakers, Crocs (Birkenstock before), flats and heels. And a pair of combat boots.
Travel and Transportation
I’ve got a Toyota Corolla, which has about the best mileage around for a regular car. On average, I drive around 10-20 miles per day to get to work/school and I get about 25 miles/gal in town, 37 miles/gal on the interstates. I’m an avid traveler, both by car and by plane (though that’s been curtailed a lot due to the post 9/11 restrictions). I’d say that I use approximately 1 gal a day to account for the occasional longer trip.
Habitation
Growing up, my family lived in various houses in various suburbs. In high school and college, I lived in the dorms, and since graduating, I’ve lived in apartments, also in the suburbs. My ability to make changes to my apartment is naturally very limited and my choice of a new apartment tends to be dictated by location and price, not sustainable building or maintenance practices.
Waste Production
I’ve done the basic reduce, reuse, recycle thing since it became in vogue in the early 90s. I’ve also practiced re-purposing, though not as much as my mother, grandmother, or great grandmother. Like everyone else in my family, I suffer from a tendency to be a pack rat, acquiring things (particularly freebies) I turn out not to need and which later need to be disposed of.
Again, I didn’t calculate the amount of trash that I was producing, but according to the Clean Air Council, the average American produces
4.39 pounds of trash/day.
Food
I hate to cook, so I’ve relied on packaged foods, easy mixes, fast food, and take out as much as possible. I’ve also usually opted for low fat and low calorie versions. I’m a regular old omnivore; I tried on numerous occasions to give up meat, but discovered that I loved it too much to do so. On the brighter side, I think I’ve probably consumed slightly less soda and junk food and slightly more fruits and vegetables than the average American, though that’s not saying much.
Health
(As of January of this year) I’ve got a BMI of 40, which falls into the obese (cut off is 30), though fortunately, I’ve never looked like I weighed as much as I do. I’ve never had any major health problems, though my blood pressure and blood glucose level are borderline.
Shopping
I hate shopping with a passion, but when I do, I usually go to Walmart as a default. In general, I’ve tended to prefer big name stores to smaller ones, and aside from the big purchase items, primarily used price and then quality to guide purchasing decisions.
Community
I have moved around a fair amount in my life and I anticipating making several more moves before settling down (maybe), and for this reason, I’ve tended not to feel a real connection with the communities that I’m a part of (with the exception of high school and college, which are by nature transient). As a result, I’ve been shamefully uninformed about local politics and the communities I’ve lived in in general.
Filed under: general
Having decided to take action, I next had to decide what actions to take. Since I’m currently a student and so a) have little money, and b) live a semi-nomadic lifestyle, renting apartments and moving every couple of years, what ever changes I made, at least to begin with, had to be economical ones that didn’t increase the amount of possessions I would have to take with me when I moved. Also, I soon realized how quickly one could become overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information, some of it conflicting, available about sustainable living. Becoming overwhelmed was not what I had in mind when I started this endeavor. So I started small and started slow.
Here are some general guidelines that I’ve developed for myself. I believe they will be helpful for anyone who is trying to “go green:”
*Start small and start slow. Focus on one aspect of your life at a time, with small changes that can have a large impact. For instance, first make changes to your eating habits cleaning and your use of electricity; worry about things like sustainable vacations only after you’ve made changes to your everyday life. Also, look for changes you can make without having to buy anything or require a small initial investment that will save you a great deal of money in the long run; you’re likely to find that these changes are the easiest to implement.
*Look for changes you can make that are beneficial in more than one way. For instance, make choices that not only have an environmental benefit, but an economic one and/or a medical one as well. Since I hate shopping, I look for choices that also reduce the number of items on my shopping list. I also prefer to spend as little time cleaning as possible, so one of my priorities has been to replace disposable items, such as kleenex, napkins, q-tips, acne pads, and feminine hygiene products, with reusable ones. This reduces the waste I produce (environmental benefit), the amount of money spent on household items (economic benefit), the number of products I routinely need to buy (less shopping), and the number of times I need to empty my trash (less cleaning).
*Do what’s best for you in your circumstances, and be sure to take other people’s suggestions (including mine) in context. As a single, young woman living in an apartment, for instance, my priorities and the changes I can feasibly make are different than a family living in their own home. Everyone happens to have certain items “just lying around the house,” but they may be different from household to household. Finally, everyone values certain aspects of their lives differently, so making a certain change for one person may be no big deal, while for another it may represent a considerable sacrifice. Extract what advice you can use and don’t be affronted if advice given is inapplicable to you.
*Think critically about what you read. In particular, pay attention to the source of the information. It’s good advice in any situation, but there is a huge amount of information out there about environmental issues and sustainability and some of it conflicts. Also, the green movement touches on many political issues, and politics can obscure objectivity. Finally, the green movement has now attracted the attention of the major corporations, so there is an ever growing number of products on sale that are marketed towards environmentally minded people. Some of these products are indeed very useful. The utility of others, like this soy couch from Crate and Barrel, are dubious at best.
Above all, “going green” means gaining an awareness of yourself and society that is greater than you may be used to. It means thinking very carefully about why you do what you do and what is really important to you. In a way, it’s much like finally waking up after sleepwalking all your life. In the end, I believe that people make the best decisions they can, based on their options and their knowledge about those options. Seek to expand your options and learn what you can and the rest will follow.
As I said in my last post, despite a strong sense of frugality that my parents instilled in me and the few a “green” practices that they taught me, I had little inclination or skills to really change my middle class American lifestyle. Nevertheless, my discontentment with the negative consequences this lifestyle on the world around me.
This past winter I finally reached the tipping point. I had broken my arm in the fall and it took about 3 months for it to heal. Several weeks, more or less, I spent housebound not doing anything of importance and several more weeks I spent awkwardly trying to go about my daily business with only one functioning arm. I think it’s all that extra time I had to think and the frustration and sense of uselessness I was feeling more than anything that made me receptive to the spirit of the burgeoning green movement. While dealing with my broken arm, life seemed to me very overwhelming, on a personal level as well as a general one. In times of stress, one of the most effective coping mechanisms is to take action; even if said action has no effect on curbing the stressors, being proactive gives an individual a sense of control over his or her circumstances. I decided that if I could do nothing else, either about my injury or the problems of the world at large, I could exert some positive control over the lifestyle choices I made. If nothing else, at least it would make me feel better.
In addition, I came to realize, as Michael Pollan explains in his essay Why Bother, that my actions resonated with everyone that I interacted with. Many of the habits that I am now trying to change I had adopted because they were the habits of my parents and/or the people around me. It should follow that my new habits should influence others to consider changing their own for the better. As the old saying goes, “if you’re not part of the solution; you’re part of the problem,” or as they say in Red Mars (paraphrasing) some one has to start living this new life in order for it to come into being. It feels good to be on the right path.
My parents are Baby Boomers, but, as far as I know, they were never “granola crunchy hippie” types. They did, however, incorporate several practices into their lifestyle that are today seen as “green.” My parents always emphasized frugality and living below one’s means. Part of that frugality manifested as energy consciousness; when I was little, I remember the constant scolding whenever I left a room with the lights on, left the door to the house open when the heat or AC was on, left the water running when I wasn’t using it, or wanted the heat turned up in the winter (my parents kept the house at 55 on winter nights). We always bought the cars with the best mileage possible and, when I learned to drive, my parents taught me what are known today as hypermiling techniques. We shopped at thrift stores and garage sales, particularly when I was very little. We always reused and re-purposed (and recycled, when that came in vogue) old possessions, and then tried to donate them if we couldn’t. My mom shopped at farm stands and bought fresh off the boat seafood when ever she could; she avoided highly processed foods and used herbs and sometimes vegetables from her kitchen garden. For the most part, however, we had the same habits, shopped in the same stores, used the same products, and made the same choices as the majority of other middle class families in America. We never questioned these choices which were rarely based on environmental values; even our emphasis on frugality was more about saving money than conserving resources.
Striking out on my own, I, by and large, adopted that same lifestyle. I was actually a bit worse, because I rejected several of the green practices that my parents did teach me. I hate cooking and shopping so I opted for packaged meals rather making my own and I spent as little time as I could thinking about the items that I bought. I left the lights on and the water running occasionally for convenience and kept the heat at a more hospitable temperature in the winter. Of course, I was concerned about the laundry list of problems I had learned about in school like global warming, overpopulation, resource depletion, waste accumulation, extinctions and habitat degradation, and poverty and hunger in the Third World. But, as I said above, I hate cooking and shopping. I had little interest in gardening. My grandmother taught me to knit, but I resisted learning too much about handicrafts, seeing them as an attempt to pigeon hole me in the traditionally girlly domestic sphere. I never learned much about building things or other traditionally masculine crafts either. All in all, I was so involved in my studies, work, and various hobbies to have much time for anything else. While I was concerned about the environmental crisis that the world faces and felt an underlying discontentment with the live I was living, I had no inclination, nor the knowledge or skills to do anything about it.
Filed under: general
The title of my blog was inspired by Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars Trilogy. The trilogy depicts in depth the fictitious future colonization and terraforming of Mars. In the novels, the characters often evoke the concept of aerophany, the appearance or manifestation of Mars, a Mars that they create. All the mistakes made throughout the entire human existence on Earth serves as lessons that will help create a new enlightened society, whose people are in tune with their environment and each other. Of course, the reality turns out not to be so simple and the colonists prove not to be as enlightened as they’d like to be. Nevertheless, they still struggle to realize their vision of what Mars can be.
