Filed under: Environmental Issues, Gardening, Getting By on Less, Going Green; How and Why...
You’re probably wondering right now if this is Re-Nest you’re reading. Wait, what?Have we suddenly upped and thrown our morals to the wind? Isn’t Re-Nest supposed to be about conscious and responsible living and design at home? Don’t we believe that the choices we make—what we use, what we buy— have an impact on the planet? Aren’t we for reuse and against throwawyism? Yes, yes, and yes—which is exactly why sustainability is boring and merely ‘consuming less’ misses the point.
We’ve all heard the hot button words: green, eco-friendly, sustainable, recycled, upcycled, reclaimed, reused, non-toxic, all-natural… the list goes on. And I’m the first to admit that Re-Nest writers, myself included, use these descriptors all the time as a way of defining what is “good” and what is “bad” in this nebulous green world we’re trying to create for ourselves. (See? I did it again.)
But to be honest, I’m growing tired of my reliance on these words to define what is important. Because while these descriptors can be incredibly useful and informative, more often than not they’re excuses for bad design, condescending judgement and behavior (hence the top photo), or blatant greenwashing.
Are there ways we can “tweak” our thinking on this? I think so.
Note: I’m not saying we should abandon the old views entirely, but rather expand those views to include some of the broader new views in our understanding of what it means to, well, be green.
Old View: Don’t be a consumer.
New View: Buy fewer things of higher quality that you’ll value more.
It’s not about not consuming; it’s about mindful consuming. Bruce Sterling, the founder of the Veridian Design Movement (or “bright green environmentalism”) wrote in his last Veridian note that “it’s not bad to own fine things that you like. What you need are things that you GENUINELY like. Things that you cherish, that enhance your existence in the world. The rest is dross.”
Old View: Live minimally and frugally.
New View: Practice appropriatism.
As Frank Chimero writes, “Add things until it starts sucking, take things away until it stops getting better.” It shouldn’t simply be about consuming less; instead, we should ask ourselves ‘What is better?’ and ‘What is appropriate?’ and we should celebrate both thrift and aspiration.
Old View: Sustainable, recycled, upcycled.
New View: Heirloom, repairable, upgradable.
Justin McGuirk in this article for The Guardian says, rightly so, that the wordsustainable is not an adjective you would use to describe something you love. “To sustain something is to keep it alive, pure and simple. It’s more of a duty than a passion,” he writes, that “suggests the flatlining of human ambition.” If sustainability is an aesthetic predominantly defined by brown, recycled wood and cardboard products, then it will ultimately fail to interest the majority of the population. Encourage design that appeals to people’s sense of aesthetic, not just to their sense of duty. The best green design should be able to improve your life and the planet without sacrificing style and comfort.
Old View: Reduce, reuse, recycle.
New View: Be against throwawayism.
Learn to love and take care of your stuff. Buy well and buy once. Get “radically improved everyday things,” as Bruce Sterling says. The objects you use the most should be the highest quality you can afford.
Filed under: Environmental Issues, Getting By on Less, Going Green; How and Why...
Estimates are that up to 15% of the toothpaste and other things we use in tubes are thrown in the landfill. Why? Because we do not squeeze the last bit out.
In your kitchen and in most restaurant kitchens, about 8 to 10% of the food in ketchup bottles and tubes are thrown away. Or when we scrap the bowl when baking or cooking, we do not get it all out.
What to about it? Get a pair of scissors for the bathroom and some slim spatulas for the kitchen.
I am partial to silicone spatulas, they work really well as they are very flexible, are safe to use in heat and last way longer than rubber ones.
Cut that tube of toothpaste or hair conditioner, use what you need, put the tube in a Zip-loc and use it all up.
Better for your wallet and the earth!
Filed under: In The Kitchen with Millie- How To's
Serves 4
2 pounds large shrimp
1 pound rice linguine
2 Tablespoons coconut oil
1 teaspoons minced garlic
3 Tablespoons rice vinegar
¼ cup honey
1 dash white pepper
1 bunch scallions
2 Tablespoons nam pla
2 Tablespoons Bragg’s Amino Acid
½ cup coconut milk
½ cup peanuts
1 head broccoli – cut in floweret’s
3 carrots- matchstick cut
½ head Chinese cabbage- sliced thin
3 whole limes
1 Tablespoon ketchup
¼ teaspoon red curry paste – or to taste
¼ teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1) Cook rice noodles al dente. Rinse and drain well.
2) Prep vegetables and have everything ready beside the stove.
3) Stir garlic and coconut oil in pot. Add curry paste and stir well. Cook 2-3 minutes. Add ketchup, vinegar, nam pla. Simmer a few minutes, remove from heat and add sesame oil and set aside.
4) Heat coconut oil and add carrots, cook until al dente, add cabbage and stir fry until wilted, add broccoli and continue to toss until broccoli is bright green.
5) Remove veggies and cook shrimp until bright pink.
4) Toss all veggies in sauce, add pasta and shrimp. Add fresh lime juice of two limes, add scallions.
Filed under: Food and it's Impact on Our Health, Gluten, Soy and Lactose Free Recipes, In The Kitchen with Millie- How To's
This dish a a perfect example. I love Thai food, but with it’s emphasis on rice it is carb heavy. As rice is a gluten free grain, it is ok to eat occasionally. The way to handle that is ANY time you eat more carbs than usual, balance it with adding more fat. This allows the body to take in the carbs slower so that it does not spike the blood sugar so drastically.
Example; Cannot resist that slice of bread while waiting for your dinner at a restaurant? Slather the bread generously with butter.
The Fluffiest Coconut Rice
From Bon Appetite
Ingredients
- 2 cups jasmine rice
- 1 cup coconut cream
- 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
Rinse rice in a large bowl with cool water until water runs clear. Drain rice.
- Combine rice, coconut cream, sugar, salt, and 2 cups water in a medium saucepan. Bring just to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar, then cover and reduce heat to low. (Alternatively, cook rice in an electric rice steamer.) Cook until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed, 40–45 minutes. Fluff rice with a fork; cover and let sit for 20 minutes.
CNN ran this article this morning;
Child slavery and chocolate: All too easy to find
In “Chocolate’s Child Slaves,” CNN’s David McKenzie travels into the heart of the Ivory Coast to investigate children working in the cocoa fields. (Premieres Friday January 20, 8 p.m. GMT, 9 CET on CNN International.)
By David McKenzie and Brent Swails, CNN
Daloa, Ivory Coast (CNN) – Chocolate’s billion-dollar industry starts with workers like Abdul. He squats with a gang of a dozen harvesters on an Ivory Coast farm.
Abdul holds the yellow cocoa pod lengthwise and gives it two quick cracks, snapping it open to reveal milky white cocoa beans. He dumps the beans on a growing pile.
Abdul is 10 years old, a three-year veteran of the job.
He has never tasted chocolate.
During the course of an investigation for CNN’s Freedom Project initiative – an investigation that went deep into the cocoa fields of Ivory Coast – a team of CNN journalists found that child labor, trafficking and slavery are rife in an industry that produces some of the world’s best-known brands.
It was not supposed to be this way.
After a series of news reports surfaced in 2001 about gross violations in the cocoa industry, lawmakers in the United States put immense pressure on the industry to change.
“We felt like the public ought to know about it, and we ought to take some action to try to stop it,” said Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, who, together with Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, spearheaded the response. “How many people in America know that all this chocolate they are eating – candies and all of those wonderful chocolates – is being produced by terrible child labor?”
More about the Harkin-Engel Protocol
But after intense lobbying by the cocoa industry, lawmakers weren’t able to push through a law. What they got was a voluntary protocol, signed by the heads of the chocolate industry, to stop the worst forms of child labor “as a matter of urgency.” One of the key goals was to certify the cocoa trade as child-labor free.
“It was meant to achieve the end of child slave labor in cocoa fields,” Engel said.
It didn’t.
UNICEF estimates that nearly a half-million children work on farms across Ivory Coast, which produces nearly 40% of the world’s supply of cocoa. The agency says hundreds of thousands of children, many of them trafficked across borders, are engaged in the worst forms of child labor.
A recent study by Tulane University says the industry’s efforts to stop child labor are “uneven” and “incomplete” and that 97% of Ivory Coast’s farmers had not been reached. But the industry’s main representative in the country disagrees with the assessment.
“I think the situation has improved exponentially,” said Rabola Kagohi, country director for the International Cocoa Initiative, the chocolate industry’s answer to fighting child labor and trafficking. “Today, the message is physically getting through.”
Kagohi works out of a basement office with one other permanent employee.
“There are some results,” he said. “I wish that you had spoken to some planters.”
None of the farmers CNN spoke to in the heart of the cocoa production region said they had ever been reached by the International Cocoa Initiative, the government or chocolate companies about child trafficking.More……
How Can You Help?
Bu voting when you shop, with your choices. There are two options that I found easy to use; And here are a few websites to check on the brand you are choosing while shopping;
Filed under: Food and it's Impact on Our Health, In The Kitchen with Millie- How To's | Tags: diabetes, eating low fat, Paula Deen
Paula Deen — the queen of high-calorie, Southern cooking — is about to come clean and confess that she can’t eat her own dishes anymore because she has diabetes.
The Georgia-born chef — a Food Network star who has written five best-selling cookbooks — has been trying to keep her condition a secret, even after the National Enquirer reported in April that she has Type 2 diabetes, which is often associated with fatty foods and obesity.
Sources say Deen, 64, who never addressed the diabetes question, has worked out a multimillion-dollar deal to be the spokeswoman for a pharmaceutical company and endorse the drug she is taking. To Read More…
Paula Deen is criticized for cooking high fat, high sugar cuisine. Barbara Walters asked her, “You tell kids to have cheesecake for breakfast. You tell them to have chocolate cake and meatloaf for lunch. And French fries. Doesn’t it bother you that you’re adding to this?”
“Maybe she’ll retire “Paula’s Brunch Burger,” which features a fried egg and bacon atop a burger served between glazed doughnuts instead of a bun”.
Millie; The statement here that her high fat, high sugar cuisine is the problem is only half right. I went to her site and perused through about 20 recipes and what I found was recipes with no fat in them, not one recipe called for butter, many called for vegetable oil. Most recipes had a very high percentage of carbohydrates. Hey Paula; did you give any thought to simply LOSING WEIGHT and changing your diet?
And THAT is the problem with her food- Not the fact that her food is high fat, it’s that it’s the he wrong fats and too many carbs, too much emphasis on desserts.
BUT the bigger problem here is this woman’s decision to make money off of having diabetes! Her decision to partner with a pharmaceutical company instead of learning what great nutrition is mirrors most peoples attitude about their health nowadays..take a pill, that’ll take care of it.
WAKE UP AMERICA- Diabetes is completely preventable and totally treatable by SIMPLY CHANGING YOUR DIET. That’s right- control your carb intake, stop eating grains, add way more high quality fats and proteins to your diet…and you’ll get well. This is Not information that your doctor, or the pharmaceutical companies want you to know. Read this article about a young man I met last year who had just been diagnosed with diabetes. The advise Mayo Clinic gave him is absolutely criminal.
Read these posts to learn more;
Grain Based Diets Better for Everyone
What We have Been Taught About Nutrition HAs Been a Big Fat Lie
Filed under: Food and it's Impact on Our Health, In The Kitchen with Millie- How To's, Non-Toxic Choices
Storage Tip: Use an Enamel Coffee Pot for Olive Oil
The enemies of olive oil are air and sunlight which cause oxidation and loss of flavor. There are many ways to protect your olive oil, but the most popular is to store your oil in a tinted bottle with a spout.
Here is why you do not want to do this;
Notice they say that “The enemies of olive oil are air and sunlight”. That should read the enemy of any oil is oxygen and light. When vegetable oils are removed from the foods they came in originally they immediately, upon exposure to oxygen begin to be rendered rancid. Not one day later, not 3 weeks later, immediately! when each fat molecule in non-saturated fats are exposed they are then rancid, These oils should be used in extreme moderation, as a very small part of our fat intake, and they should never be heated. Ever. When heated they are highly carcinogenic.
Personally, I rarely eat vegetable oils because when rancid (always) or heated they contribute to heart disease. I get these type of fats from the foods they came in, by eating them whole; olives, nuts, avocadoes, green leafy vegetables.
BUT, if you are going to buy olive oil, follow these guidelines;
- Buy only organic, virgin.
- Buy in a small amount, in a dark bottle, from a store which has a fast turnover.
- Keep MOST of it in the freezer, if you use it quickly keep it in the refrigerator tightly closed, in the dark.
- Use no more than a Tablespoon or so a week and always use fresh, never heated in salad dressings and mayonnaise.
- Again; never cook with it.
For more info- Why You Should Be Cooking with Saturated Fats
Filed under: Getting By on Less, Going Green; How and Why..., Non-Toxic Choices, Skin Care | Tags: all natural skin care, skin care, skin care cleanser
I find soap too drying for my face, cleansers are pricy and a lot of the time if they are gentle enough they don’t clean effectively. Several years ago when my daughter, Rachel, became an esthetician we began looking at the products on the market that were all natural, supposedly. We found many to have parabens, even the ones from the health food store. So I used my knowledge as a Chef and my background in herbal medicine to study the traditional oils and ingredients in cleansers. I learned to formulate and them started experimenting. I came up with this cleanser; it is inexpensive to make, works really well as an exfoliate, cleanser and has essential oils that nourish the skin. After I began using it I found it so effective that I stopped using glycolics and other exfoliates. I will also tell you how to do a great facial at home for almost no money.
WONDERFUL CLEANSER
3 cup water
2 cups baking soda
1/2 teaspoon almond oil
2 drops lavender essential oil
1 ½ cup honey
1 Tbsp. Dr. Bonners Almond liquid soap
2 teaspoon glycerin
1 teaspoon Vitamin C
1 teaspoon Salicylic acid – you can crush up aspirin for this or buy it through a formulation site.
3 Tablespoons Xanthan gum
On low heat, combine water, honey, almond, Dr. Bonners, oils. Remove from heat and let cool about a minute. Add honey. Whisk. While whisking, add ascorbic acid and salicylic acid. Whisk slowly, do not inhale powders. Now add baking soda, a little at a time, it will thicken this mix a tad. Add xanthan gum a tablespoon at a time to thicken. Let sit a few minutes, adjust thickness. I like it to be kind of thick, like a hair conditioner. Apply to the skin like a soap and rinse off with tepid water.
You will notice your skin feels incredibly clean, soft with no tightness or dryness. The honey is a humectant, a good moisturizer and an natural preservative.
FACAIL MASK
This mask with make your skin feel as great as any high percentage glycolic peel and it helps even out skin tone by fading the brown splotches some of us get.
Make a paste out of baking soda and lemon juice. Apply to your face and leave on for about 3 or 4 minutes the first time. This is a fairly strong fruit acid so use for short periods at first, you will feel it burn at first. Use Rose Oil to sooth the skin after washing it off. Ultimately use it about once a week and your skin will get used to it. Hold a towel under your chin as you are doing this as it tends to dry out. You can use half of the lemon to re-moisten it if needed.
Deodorant- I don’t use it all the time, as eating clean means every low amount of body odor. But I found that very few all natural deodorants actually worked. Finally, two years ago I found Weleda’s Citrus Deodorant and it works!! Loved it. BUT at $16.00 for 3.4 ounces I was loath to re-buy it. So, I looked at the ingredients and made it myself.
CITRUS DEODORANT
Buy one bottle of grain alcohol. Buy one small bottle of lemon oil, organic.
I used the Weleda bottle and mixed my own, using 3 1/4 ounces of alcohol and added 1/4 teaspoon of oil, shake well, spray on and enjoy.
Filed under: Food and it's Impact on Our Health, Non-Toxic Choices, Nourishment
We have bumper stickers that tell us to be AWARE of cancer and to “Save the Ta-Ta’s”. We have pink packaging on food. We are asked to run marathons FOR cancer research. We have woman REMOVING Their breasts because they MIGHT get cancer.
Our cancer rates are off the charts, along with heart disease, diabetes, obesity, birth defects, learning disorders, depression…..
But guess what? ALL of these conditions are caused by poor nutrition. Malnourishment. Americans have severely compromised immune systems due to low quality food intake.
The problem is that most people have no idea what a healthy diet is!
Common myths;
- Low fat is healthy.
- Red Meat is bad for you.
- Grains, especially whole grains, are good for you.
- Caloric restrictions works to aid in weight loss.
- Fat makes you fat.
- Cereal is a decent, even healthy, breakfast.
- It’s healthy to cook with olive oil.
- Vegetarianism is healthy and better for the planet.
Our cancer rates began to rise in the early 1960’s due to the fact that Americans had at that point continued to eat the alternative fats we were asked to use while we were were rationing food during World War 2. Combined with the proliferation of processed foods, instant foods, eating out more often, woman beginning to work outside the house, TV becoming what we do most of the time…I could go on but you get the point. We do not eat the diet we are meant to eat; plenty of healthy organic fats (remember they ALL used to be organic along with everything else we ate), high quality protein and mostly green leafy veggies and other low glycemic foods.
Cancer is treatable, even curable, when we repair the immune system. That can only occur with the right nutrients, nourishing and repairing the body. Cancer is preventable by keeping our immune system intact and that only occurs with enough of the healthy saturated fats and organic grass fed proteins our bodies need so badly.
For more reading;
The Importance of Saturated Fats for Biological Functions
What If The Whole Low-Fat Trend Has Been A Big Lie?
City gardening is often heralded as a modern solution adopted by crafty urban developers and foodies. But urban gardening during times of economic and political turmoil is as deep-rooted in the American tradition as apple pie. Take the Panic of 1893: The U.S. was caught in a serious economic recession (sound familiar?), unemployed factory workers filled the streets, scant social assistance programs existed, and cities were in full-blown panic mode. Enter “Potato Patch Farms,” an urban gardening initiative that also began in Detroit. Mayor Hazen Pingree’s program connected unemployed families with unused city land and provided them with farming materials and education. More than 1,700 families took advantage of Pingree’s program, and the idea spread to 18 other cities, including Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Seattle—some of the leaders of today’s urban farming boom.
To read the whole article- Good Magazine
Filed under: Food and it's Impact on Our Health
Millie; Her Physician, Dr. Vayner said, prophetically, “It’s not your fault, but you’re not going to be able to do it.”
WHAT? Her doctor told her she would not be able to lose weight? How about educating her as to what great nutrition is, how carbs are what makes her gain weight? Or doesn’t this doctor (or other doctors) know how to educate their patients on nutrition? And if they don’t perhaps they should not be practicing medicine! My mechanic knows what fuel is best for my car and how to keep my engine clean and a doctor doesn’t know such basic info? I had a doctor tell me once he didn’t “have time” to educate his patients. I had another tell me there was NO PROFIT in teaching them how to get well to a high degree because then her patients wouldn’t continue to come in that average 7 times a year!
In ancient China a physician was paid when his patients were well, when they got sick he didn’t get paid!
Here’s the article from NYTimes;
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
Though Shani Gofman had been teased for being fat since the fourth grade, she had learned to deal with it.
She was a B student and in the drama club at school. She had good friends and a boyfriend she had met through Facebook. She even showed off her curves in spandex leggings and snug shirts.
When her pediatrician, Dr. Senya Vayner, first mentioned weight-loss surgery, Ms. Gofman was 17, still living with her parents in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, her bedroom decorated with glow-in-the-dark stars because she was afraid of the dark.
There was no question, at 5-foot-1 and more than 250 pounds, she was overweight. But she resisted, saying she could diet.
“I’ll lose weight,” Ms. Gofman assured her doctor.
Dr. Vayner said, prophetically, “It’s not your fault, but you’re not going to be able to do it.”
Along with the obesity epidemic in America has come an explosion in weight-loss surgery, with about 220,000 operations a year — a sevenfold leap in a decade, according to industry figures — costing more than $6 billion a year. And the newest frontier is young patients like Ms. Gofman, who allowed The New York Times to follow her for a year as she had the operation and then embarked on a quest to lose weight, navigating challenges to her morale, her self-image and her relationships with family members and friends.
Filed under: Food and it's Impact on Our Health, Going Green; How and Why..., Non-Toxic Choices
From Lifehacker
Over the holidays, the USDA approved a strain of Monsanto’s genetically engineered corn that can now be planted freely in the environment and distributed throughout the U.S. food supply, with no oversight or efforts to track its safety.
Monsanto says the strain is drought-tolerant, but the USDA itself has actually found otherwise.
Instead, the agency ignored its own results as well as concerns from the public, which has little trust in the safety of the crop. Nearly 45,000 public comments were written in opposition to the particular corn variety and only 23 comments were written in favor, according to the Cornucopia Institute.
Approving an Agent Orange Chemical
Other GMO crops are also on the way. Cornucopia reports that the USDA has opened a public comment period for a soybean variety from Monsanto containing increased levels of an omega-3 fatty acid—which you hear a lot about as being healthy, but it doesn’t not naturally occur in soybeans.
The agency is also holding a public comment period for a GMO corn from Dow engineered to better resist the poisonous herbicide 2,4-D.
While the USDA attempts to assure the public that 2,4-D is safe, scientists have raised serious concerns about the safety of this herbicide, which was used as a key ingredient in “Agent Orange,” used to defoliate forests and croplands in the Vietnam War.
2,4-D is a chlorophenoxy herbicide, and scientists around the world have reported increased cancer risks in association with its use, especially for soft tissue sarcoma and malignant lymphoma. Four separate studies in the United States reported an association with chlorophenoxy herbicide use and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Mark Kastel from Cornucopia said, “the approval of a cultivar resistant to 2,4-D will cause an exponential increase in the use of this toxic agrichemical,” comparing it to Monsanto’s GMO corn that has become resistant to itsRoundup herbicide—and which has led to the evolution of superweeds that grow up to three inches per day.
Bad News for Public Health and Safety
The science of the effects of this chemcial is frightening:
Research by the EPA found that babies born in counties with high rates of 2,4-D application to farm fields were significantly more likely to be born with birth defects of the respiratory and circulatory systems, as well as defects of the musculoskeletal system like clubfoot, fused digits and extra digits. These birth defects were 60% to 90% more likely in counties with higher 2,4-D application rates.
Birth defects were also found to be more likely in babies conceived in the spring—when application of herbicides is at its highest.
There’s also a touch of irony that should not be overlooked, again from Cornucopia:
In its petition, Dow AgroSciences states that 2,4-D is increasingly important for chemical farmers because of the presence of weeds that have developed resistance to glyphosate, as a result of the widespread use of Monsanto’s genetically engineered glyphosate-resistant crops.
When Monsanto introduced glyphosate, it was touted as a safer and less toxic alternative to herbicides like 2,4-D. Now, an emerging body of scientific literature is raising serious concerns about the safety of glyphosate as well.
Filed under: Food and it's Impact on Our Health, In The Kitchen with Millie- How To's, Nourishment
Here is a recipe for an energy bar that is way lower on the glycemic index due to the lower coconut cream, coconut and nuts. Bear in mind though that I am not an advocate of eating these often, but we all get stuck hungry or with no other choices sometimes.
Millie’s Energy Bar
1 cup almonds
1 cup cashews
3 T Almond Butter
2 cups dried cherries
1 cup grated coconut
2 T. Coconut Cream – Available from Tropical Traditions or at your health food store, called coconut butter.
1 T. Raw Chia Seeds
½ t. Stevia
½ T. cinnamon
1 t. vanilla
1 T. orange zest- use a micro planer and you will get just zest, none of the pith that is bitter.
Pinch Sea Salt
- Heat the oven to 350°F and arrange a rack in the middle. Place parchment paper in an 8-by-8-inch baking pan; set aside.
- Place almonds on a rimmed baking sheet in a single layer and bake, stirring halfway through, until fragrant and light golden brown, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Place apricots and dried cherries in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a blade attachment and process until finely chopped, about 1 minute. Transfer to a small bowl.
- Place cooled almonds and the cashews in the food processor and pulse until finely chopped and the texture of fine meal, about 25 (1-second) pulses. Add dried fruits and process, stopping to scrape down the sides as needed, until nuts and fruits are combined are finely chopped, about 45 seconds. Add almond butter, orange zest, vanilla, cinnamon, salt, and process until evenly combined, about 45 seconds. Transfer mixture to a large bowl.
- Using your hands, knead the coconut into the mixture until evenly mixed, about 3 minutes.
- Transfer mixture to the prepared baking pan and, using your hands, pat it into an even layer to the edges of the pan. Fold the waxed or parchment paper over and press down on it with the bottom of a measuring cup or a flat-bottomed cup until the mixture is firmly packed and the top is smooth. Freeze for 30 minutes or refrigerate overnight.
- Lift the paper and the energy bar slab out of the pan and place on a cutting board. Remove the paper. Cut into 4 squares, then cut each square into 4 (4-by-1-inch) bars to form 16 bars total. Wrap each bar in plastic wrap. Store at room temperature for up to 5 days or freeze for up to 3 weeks.
Filed under: Gardening
Materials needed;
One 5 gallon bucket with lid- these are available from your hardware store, but they are pricey at about 5 to 7 dollars apiece. I have friends who are in the construction industry so was able to get some from them. When I exhausted that supply I went to Deli’s in my neighborhood and got the buckets they get pickles in. I washed them with soap and sat them in the sun for a few days to get the pickle smell out.
A few large zip ties
Small saw or sharp knife to cut the lid down.
Drill
1 1/2 foot length of PVC pipe, 2 inch size.
3 plastic 16 ounce Solo cups or other containers to prop up the lid.
1 16 oz. Solo cup to use as a means of osmosis to get moisture to your soil.
window screen- fine mesh
small bag of organic potting soil
small bag of organic compost
small bag of Perlite
an old, or new, pair of cheap pantyhose
1) First we will be working with the lid. start with cutting it down just a little, remove half of the lip on it. It should fit down in the bucket about half way. Take off a bit at a time, you can always take more off!. In the pic below they have used a bucket bottom, we are going to trim the lid to do this.
2) Here is a picture of what you are shooting for; See how you will have one hole in the middle slightly smaller than the rim of one Solo cup? Then you need one more hole to fit the piece of PVC pipe in. Make sure you trim the bottom of the PVC at an angle or the water will not flow out effectively.
This picture has many cups under it, I use only three, and PVC instead of the Plastic tube shown.
3) Get the lid just right and then let’s work on the bucket. Check where the bucket lid comes to and drill a small hole at that point on the side of the bucket. This is where the water will drain when you water the plant.
4) In a separate bucket or container mix the soil, compost and Perlite in equal amounts and mound it up some.
4) Now place the 3 Solo cups upside down in the 5 gallon bucket. Take the panty hose and cut each leg off about 14 inches up. Place one leg in the Solo cup and fill it with the soil mixture. Dampen the soil, set aside. Place the lid to the bucket on the upside down cups, slide the PVC pipe in the hole you’ve drilled for it, diagonal side down. Use zip ties to hold the pipe straight up after drilling two small hone near the top of the bucket. Put the cup with soil in the large hole in the middle.
5) Place the screen over the whole thing in the bucket and make it come up the side a few inches. Place the rest of your soil in the bucket so that it comes up to about 2 inches below the rim. Now water the soil slowly and with a sprinkler head on your water bucket. or hose. This is the only time you will water from the soil. Normally you water into the tube until it flows out the side hole.
Cucumbers in Grow Bucket growing up a chain.
Filed under: Non-Toxic Choices
Millie- If your sinus’s are so stuffed up habitually. Neti pot is treating the SYMPTOM, not the cause. Give up dairy = get rid of most congestion, colds, allergies, sinus infections, ear infections, asthma.
Dana Robinson’s Flickr page/via
Neti pots, which look like genies’ lamps, have become more popular in recent years as a natural remedy for colds, allergies and sinus infections. Ear, nose, and throat surgeons recommend using a Neti pot or similar device to irrigate nasal passages for patients who have undergone sinus surgery. Many people with sinus symptoms from allergies and environmental irritants also have begun to use the Neti pot to alleviate these symptoms. The Neti pot works by flushing some of the mucus out of the nasal passages. But Neti pots are not a panacea. In recent, but rare incidences, use of neti pots resulted can result in deaths.
Two recent deaths have been tied to neti pot use and an aquatic amoeba
Two people died recently from an encephalitis infection after using neti pots. The infection involved brain eating amoebas (just the sound of that scared the bejesus out of me). The amoeba, Naegleria fowleri, is common in rivers and lakes, but only rarely causes brain infections.
Doctors have issued a warning for people not to use tap water in neti pots
After the first incident, doctors thought it might be a fluke. But after the second, doctors have felt the need to issue warnings to patients advising them not to put tap water in their noses.
Tap water is generally safe to drink, the problem is shooting tap water up one’s nose
Huh? If I’m drinking tap water, shouldn’t it be clean enough to squirt into my nose? The answer is no. If you are using a neti pot or other nasal device, you should only use distilled or filtered water. Tap water in many places is safer to drink than even bottled water, the specific issue here is having tap water shot up one’s nasal cavity.
It is important to regularly clean neti pots and drinking water filters
You should also make sure both your neti pots and your water filters are regularly cleaned. It is also important to let the devices dry, since the amoebas need a wet atmosphere to survive in.
Although neti pot instructions usually recommend using distilled water, people often do not heed recommendations. It is still a very rare occurrence to die from using a neti pot with tap water. Still, it is better safe to be than sorry. Furthermore, neti pots can be more effective for sinus relief when saline water is used.
Avoid other activities that shoot water up one’s nose, like diving
Since the neti pot isn’t the culprit, just the conduit to your nose, it is important to note that one should also avoid doing other activities that would shoot water up one’s nose, i.e. diving or dunking one’s head in brackish, warm freshwater. This is a note of caution if one is swimming in warm, unchlorinated natural bodies of water, including hot springs- sadly for those of us who especially love bathing in these bodies. So if you find yourself in hot water, remember to keep your head up. Oh and save the cannonball for the swimming pool.
Filed under: Food and it's Impact on Our Health
Environmentalists go back and forth about the necessity of milk in a healthy diet. Some are advocates of organic milk, some raw milk, and some are vegans that shun milk entirely. It’s a balance of finding the healthiest, lowest impact means of getting the essential nutrients necessary for optimal health.
But a recent study has many questioning whether drinking milk on a regular basis may have harsh implications for the health of the prostate later in life. The study, published in this month’s addition of the American Journal of Epidemiology found that those that drank milk daily were more likely to die of prostate cancer later in life.
The study followed 2,200 men born between 1903 and 1937.
Reuters reports:
Among 463 men who recalled drinking milk less than once a day in their teens, one percent developed advanced prostate cancer or died of the disease over a quarter century of follow-up.
That figure was three percent among the more than 1,800 men who said they drank milk at least daily in adolescence.
The study found a connection between high milk intake during teen years and the health of the prostate gland. While the link could not be explained through education, check-ups, and diet, questions certainly remain.
Again, Reuters:
From these data alone we cannot recommend that teenage boys should chance their dietary habits,” [Johanna Torfadottir, a nutrition scientist and a graduate student at the University of Iceland] said. “We are only looking at the risk of one disease, prostate cancer, and obviously risks of other conditions, e.g. bone health, need to be considered.”
While the research is just emerging, it creates more questions for milk consumption. Not to mention the environmental implications. Cows produce 120 pounds of waste each day, comparable to two dozen people, along with 18 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide.
Even if going vegan entirely isn’t realistic for you, limiting dairy to small portions of high quality local products is certainly a worthwhile feat especially in the face of emerging heath benefits.
A heavy, but essential, addition to the kitchen, cast-iron cookware is dependable and full of history.
The other day someone asked me how I cooked eggs or hash browns without a non-stick skillet. I told them I used my 100 year old cast-iron skillets, wonderfully non-stick because I keep them seasoned correctly, never, ever use soap in them…eggs and hash brown slide right out. I have a 6 inch skillet, 2 12 inch skillets, a 12 inch round griddle with a handle, a 30 year old 12 inch Dutch oven with a lid and an antique cast iron waffle maker with a iron ring to use on the stove top.
They all perform beautifully. There is no reason to pay more for a pre-seasoned pan, or pans such as La Crueset with enamel that cost a small fortune. These pan are non-stick when seasoned, and kept that way.
Besides being an ideal heat conductor, cast iron heats evenly and consistently, it is inexpensive and will last a lifetime (actually several lifetimes) with proper care, and it is an old-fashioned way to cook non-stick. When well seasoned, a cast-iron pan will be stick resistant and require no additional oil.
The benefits of cast-iron pans are terrific: Foods glide out of it as from no pan made with Teflon; it goes from stove to oven; no special utensils are needed to cook in it and cleanup is a cinch. It’s time people realize the culinary wonder that a cast-iron pan can be!
As a chef, I consider cast-iron pans to be precision cooking tools, as these dependable pans enable precise control of cooking temperatures. Their heat retention qualities allow for even cooking temperature without hot spots. Cast-iron pans can be used on top of the stove or to bake in the oven. All our grandmothers had cast iron skillets and stove-top griddles. In fact, your grandmother swore by it and the pioneers depended on it.
If you don’t own a cast-iron skillet, it’s well worth the time and money to invest in one. You can find them for sale on the internet, at cook stores everywhere, thrift stores, flea markets, or you can scour the tag and yard sales for one that might look as if it has seen better days. If the pan is rusty or encrusted with grease, buy it anyway. Don’t worry! I’ll tell you how to get that new or old one into shape so you can enjoy it for a lifetime of non-stick cooking. You’ll be able to pass the pan on to your own children and grandchildren.
To season a new pan, or re-season one you have been abusing;
All new (not old pots) cast-iron pots and skillets have a protective coating on them, which must be removed. American companies use a special food-safe wax; imports are covered with a water-soluble shellac. In either case, scrub the item with a stainless steel scouring pads (steel wool), using soap and the hottest tap water you can stand.
If the pan was not seasoned properly or a portion of the seasoning wore off and food sticks to the surface or there is rust, then it should be properly cleaned and re-seasoned. Seasoning a cast iron pan is a natural way of creating non-stick cookware. And, like you cook and clean the modern non-stick cookware with special care to avoid scratching the surface, your cast iron cookware wants some special attention too.
You season a cast iron pan by rubbing it with a relatively thin coat of neutral oil (I stress a light coat of oil).
NOTE: NEVER use vegetable oils (canola, sunflower, etc.), or shortening (like Crisco shortening) to season your pan. These oils get very sticky when heated (the same as they do in your arteries!!) Use coconut oil or lard for seasoning your cast iron pans. You can also use butter.
Place the cast iron pan, upside down, in the oven, with a sheet of aluminum foil on the bottom to catch any drips. Heat the pan for 2 hours in a 250 degree oven. Once done, let the pan cool to room temperature. Repeating this process several times is recommended as it will help create a stronger "seasoning" bond.
The oil fills the cavities and becomes entrenched in them, as well as rounding off the peaks. By seasoning a new pan, the cooking surface develops a nonstick quality because the formerly jagged and pitted surface becomes smooth. Also, because the pores are permeated with oil, water cannot seep in and create rust that would give food an off-flavor.
Your ironware will be slightly discolored at this stage, but a couple of frying jobs will help complete the cure, and turn the iron into the rich, black color that is the sign of a well-seasoned, well-used skillet or pot.
Never put cold liquid into a very hot cast iron pan or oven. They will crack on the spot!
Be careful when cooking with your cast-iron pots on an electric range, because the burners create hot spots that can warp cast iron or even cause it to crack. Be sure to preheat the iron very slowly when using an electric range and keep the settings to medium or even medium-low.
Important:
Unless you use your cast-iron pans daily, they should be washed briefly with warm (not hot) water and a green scrubbie, then rinsed and thoroughly dried in order to rid them of excess surface oil. If you do not do this, the surplus oil will become rancid within a couple of days. After you clean the skillet (and this is easiest if you clean it while warm), rub a small amount of coconut oil over the surface.
Remember - Every time you cook in your cast-iron pan, you are actually seasoning it again by filling in the microscopic pores and valleys that are part of the cast-iron surface. The more you cook, the smoother the surface becomes!
Cast iron is 50 percent pig iron and 50 percent steel. It’s cooking properties have been championed and cherished for generations.
I use only cast iron or triple bottom stainless steel to cook. Cast iron for frying or scrambling eggs, frying bacon or steaks, sautéing onions or other veggies. Never cook acidic food such as tomatoes in cast iron, you will remove the seasoning.
I use my cast iron Dutch oven for sautéing roasts or other cuts of meat that I need to brown first, then finish in the oven. My favorite is a Provencal Chicken that I make a little bit of dough to seal the lid to the pot. It seals it completely and when the seal is broken the steam coming out with the smell of chicken, herbs and garlic is amazing!
The technology for making cast-iron cookware has come a long way in the last 100 years, but each piece is still cast in sand moulds. Yes, sand. This method goes back to the Chinese. At Lodge, the biggest cast iron company in the United States, the iron/steel mixture is melted with electro-magnetic heat to 2,500°F. The pouring of the molten metal into the sand moulds has been automated. It’s this automation that has made Lodge the industry leader–and survivor. They were also the first, and only, cast-iron company to offer a pre-seasoned pan. This means the pan is ready to go when you buy it.
Filed under: Food and it's Impact on Our Health
Happy New Year! As we go into the new year let’s make it a year for changes, positive changes. I have recently changed the name of my business, along with my business site and blog name.The new name is Criterion Living
cri·te·ri·on- a standard of judgment or criticism; a rule or principle for evaluating something.
I consider a Traditional Human Diet the gold standard of nutrition. NOT low fat, not a diet to lose weight, not caloric restriction, not vegan or vegetarian..good old-fashioned traditional fats, proteins and veggies. All organic, preferably local, cooked fresh and enjoyed. NOT eating on the run, skipping meals, being afraid of food.
Let THIS year be the year you get healthy, learn what great nutrition is, help yourself and others to achieve goals.
Let’s turn off the TV, return to spending quality time with each other, talking to our spouses and children, luxuriating in the pleasures of great food, abundant health and happiness and great conversation.
Let’s skip a movie and take a walk, practice yoga.
Turn off the dryer and use the clothesline.
Let’s stop whining and do something to make a difference!
Let’s work at giving and sharing what we have with each other; our talents, our happiness. Find out which friends have small businesses and talents and SUPPORT them!
And most importantly; Let’s learn to live each day, each moment from a deep well of gratitude. It’s amazing how different life looks when we appreciate what we have.
EatWild.com is a site that let’s you search by state for sources of healthy, natural and nutritious grass-fed beef, lamb, goats, bison, poultry, pork, dairy and other wild edibles.
As great a source as it is for food, it’s also a great reference site on the benefits of these foods.
