A cool little video…shows clearly how easy it is to grow your own food…in a tiny little space..

From Apartment Therapy

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.

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!

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.

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;

GreenAmerica.org

FairTradeUSA

EthicalConsumer

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

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

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.

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?