Well, I thought I'd heard it all. Green building. Green cleaning. Green cooking. Green shopping. Green driving. Green sex products for goodness sake! But then, lo and behold, I hear the enevitable, I suppose...
Green DYING??
Hah! It's true. If you die these days, and heck, everyone will, didja know that there's an environmentally friendly way to plan the afterparty so to speak? What's more surprising than that actually, is the findings I came across regarding how un-Earth friendly the average cremation and/or burial really is. It's totally ironic... decaying life forms are supposed to enrich the soil and help the planet's natural cycle, not counteract it! Check this out:
Take cremation. Lots of people choose this option over casket-styles burial because it takes up way less space, or none at all if you sprinkle Great-uncle Bob around outside, or keep him in a jar on the mantle. Crappy thing is, that cremation itself is to blame. I mean, something's gotta give the corpse a hand.. bodies don't just burn themselves. Are we talking fossil fuels here? Unfortunately, that's the truth.. depending on what kind of facility you use, and how old it is, your last moments in one piece could be spent consuming precious (and dirty, dirty) fossil fuels. Older facilities tend to use more, but newer ones eat up gas all the same. What a way to go!
... and while we're on the topic of fumes...
Burning up a human body releases a cringe-worthy medley of pollutants, regardless of the fuel used to spark you up! You can compare it to one last, final super-fart. (Am I branching into poor-taste territory yet?)
So cremation isn't such an Earth-lovin' way to put someone to rest after all. But I mean c'mon.. can't you just put me in the ground, let the worms have at 'er, and call it a (loooong) night? Sadly.. nope. Traditional burial sounds like an environmentally sound idea, but the space that modern cemeteries take up is enormous. GINORMOUS. We all know this. Pristine woodlands are clear-cut all over the place for space to put someone in the ground and then cover the entire area in big bulky concrete slabs and stones, making sure that no critters, no plant life, .. actually nothing living at all can ever flourish there again. Well.. save for the worms. They'll eat well. But still! What a waste of material, space, and wild areas!
So what's the solution? You've gotta look this up on the 'net.. it's neat. A whole big idea aptly named "natural burials" is blossoming in North America and other parts of the world. Here's how it goes:
- Whole people are buried without all the nasty chemicals included in the embalming process (that stuff gets into the ground water.. yecch.), without a big wooden coffin, (waste, again.. I mean seriously!) or cement stuff.
- Biodegradable coffins are becoming more and more of a thing - mostly made from recycled cardboard and paper fibres. NOW we're talkin'!
- This sort of contraption gets buried in a much more natural space - in sparse woodlands, or natural fields - where the local flora and fauna are as disturbed as little as possible, and the woodland critters are free to frolic amongst the almost impercievable burial sites, marked with particular trees, rocks, small and simple markers, or absolutely nothing at all. Do you really have to know the exact place?
The more I read about it, the more I think this is such a huge, awesome idea that I say "well duh" about, and really think that we all should've figured out a long time ago. Well, we did actually.. not so long ago, burials of the average joe all over the world were in in this fashion, before the whole idea of the modern cemetery sprung up. There's a ton of information on this phenom out there, and it's not hard to track down. Here are a few I checked out!
www.naturalburialassoc.ca - Fantastic! This is the best one, a must-see. Go Canada!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-cemetery - Yep, Wikipedia covers it. And how! Check out those stats!
http://www.naturalburial.coop/canada/ - again, cool.
And there you have it - as far as I'm concerned, it's a must-do. Remind me to contact my next of kin! And if a random piece of space junk lands on me while I bike to work this week, well... gentle readers, you'll know exactly what to do!
Til next time.... hope you're all enjoying all them summer daisies....
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
Workin' for the man, while greenin' up the land...
Alrighty! Here I am, back from Guatemala, and as promised, back with another Green Daisy post. I've got my cup o' green tea (harder to find down there), a wooly sweater on, (only May in Canada requires multiple layers...) and a cat poking at my leg. Yep.. I'm home.
And, subsequently, back to work. While at work the other day, I noticed a short blurb about greening up office space, and since I work at a place with "Environmental" in their very name, I started slacking off, poking around, and compiling a handy list of ways to be environmentally conscious while on the job... like you need one more thing to think about at work!
We do a lot of green things at my workplace that could be applied to any kind of job, whether it be an office, outside, in the service industry, or .. hell, even illegal! I was thinking about it, and many of us spend more time involved in our occupation than we do at home.. we're always hearing ways to green up the average household, but what about the places we slave.. er, I mean.. work at every day? For instance....
- Most jobs require some paper use at some point, and when paper's being used.. it's probably also getting wasted. Sad! All I can think of when I see paper in a garbage bin in Julia Hill telling us to imagine a chainsaw attached to every disposable piece of paper.. it doesn't have to be that way. Using recycled paper and making sure that unwanted scraps end up ACTUALLY getting recycled in the responsible thing to do. I've worked in places where the recycling bins are emptied in the dumpster every night, and I bet you have too... running a business without shelling out for simple recycling pick-up is a crappy thing for a boss to do. (I used to bring all the paper scraps home to recycle from a previous employer who shall remain nameless.)
- Speaking of paper, if you're in an office setting, or in a workplace that has a computer network of some kind, email reports and memos to people instead of using paper! Think about it.. you can 'lose' an important report, but you sure can't 'lose' an email... mua ha ha!
- I'm infamous for collecting random scraps of interesting waste paper at my job and turning them into cute little notebooks. All you need is a hole punch and some string! Why spend money on those annoying coiled memo pads that bust up in a week anyways? Obsessive note/list makers like myself will agree.
- Do you love lunch time? I love lunch time. And beneath my tofu-laden exterior lies a former greasy-food addict who still loves to stuff herself with chip-wagon poutines.. but I know, I know... lunch garbage sucks. It sucks because most of it can't be recycled at all, or even re-used properly. Styrofoam, greasy paper, those little foil plate things, plastic straws... the fast food lunch is an environmentalist's stomachache of guilt. We can't deprive ourselves all the time, but there is a better way. Invest in some reusable food containers (go stainless steel, glass or ceramic!) and bring your eats from home. Wash 'em up later, and trash-be-gone! Alternatively, show the neighbourhood greasy spoons what you're made of - and it isn't styrofoam. Bring a reusable container, and ask them to put your order in it, instead of a takeout container. They'll probably look at you funny at first, or even refuse to do it - and I understand their point of view. But if they want your business, they'll comply if you're friendly and explain your motives.. and don't forget to mention that you're saving them supplies!
- Here's one that gets my goat. See all those office buildings, big and small, leaving their lights on all night? What the poop!? And don't let anyone tell you that it 'saves energy' not to turn lights on and off as needed.. that's for the birds. Besides common sense telling me this, I also saw it on Mythbusters. (What a show.) They did a full out experiment, and guess what.. turning the lights on and off according to use doesn't waste energy a bit, compared to leaving them on from here til infinity. It's like your momma always told you: if you leave the room, turn the light off. (I'm not made of money ovah heah.) Same goes for computers, fax machines, and other office appliances.. it takes seconds to turn them off at the end of the day, and big Momma Earth'll thank you.
- Coffee.. I love it. It makes my eyes all buggy and makes me work faster. Oh my! But if you're a coffee or tea lover like I am, you'll want to be a responsible caffeine-addict and do the right thing. There's no good reason to have disposable cups lying around in the staff room... if everyone used a travel mug or just brought in a crappy old mug from home or the thrift shop (or better yet, make a neat collection of 30 cent mugs and teacups from your local Goodwill in funky 70's colours! Oh.. I guess by 'neat' I meant 'tacky'...) you'd avoid that gross paper/styrofoam taste in your beverage while avoiding waste. Buy sugar in bulk, not in those tiny packets, and the same goes for milk and cream. Also, while you're at it, shell out an extra dollar or two for fair trade coffee and loose-leaf teas. Hooray! Extra hot double soy cappuccino anyone?
- Ok.. I'd like to know who has the ambition to hit the gym or track every day after work? Not I. Why not get some exercise and invigorate yourself in the morning by walking or biking to work when you can? Even if you take the bus half way and walk the rest, you're still doing something fantastic for your health. And it gives you a magnificent excuse to have that second fritter at break time. Oh baby. Public transit, if you can get it, is a generally stress-free way to get to work, and greener too - I know a fella who has an hour-long bus ride to work every morning, but the cool thing is that he doesn't lament this fact. Rather, he uses it as a time to chill out, read, or get something done before he gets to work. Good for the enivronment AND the soul.. fancy that!
There are a million different professions, and a million ways to avoid waste.. if you've got an idea from your workplace, let me know! We've all gotta make a living, but that new business isn't gonna get off the ground if there isn't a friendly planet to put it on.
Thassit for now - stay tuned for next week's post.. and don't forget to give the poutine man your reusable lunch container and tell him to fill 'er up!!!
And, subsequently, back to work. While at work the other day, I noticed a short blurb about greening up office space, and since I work at a place with "Environmental" in their very name, I started slacking off, poking around, and compiling a handy list of ways to be environmentally conscious while on the job... like you need one more thing to think about at work!
We do a lot of green things at my workplace that could be applied to any kind of job, whether it be an office, outside, in the service industry, or .. hell, even illegal! I was thinking about it, and many of us spend more time involved in our occupation than we do at home.. we're always hearing ways to green up the average household, but what about the places we slave.. er, I mean.. work at every day? For instance....
- Most jobs require some paper use at some point, and when paper's being used.. it's probably also getting wasted. Sad! All I can think of when I see paper in a garbage bin in Julia Hill telling us to imagine a chainsaw attached to every disposable piece of paper.. it doesn't have to be that way. Using recycled paper and making sure that unwanted scraps end up ACTUALLY getting recycled in the responsible thing to do. I've worked in places where the recycling bins are emptied in the dumpster every night, and I bet you have too... running a business without shelling out for simple recycling pick-up is a crappy thing for a boss to do. (I used to bring all the paper scraps home to recycle from a previous employer who shall remain nameless.)
- Speaking of paper, if you're in an office setting, or in a workplace that has a computer network of some kind, email reports and memos to people instead of using paper! Think about it.. you can 'lose' an important report, but you sure can't 'lose' an email... mua ha ha!
- I'm infamous for collecting random scraps of interesting waste paper at my job and turning them into cute little notebooks. All you need is a hole punch and some string! Why spend money on those annoying coiled memo pads that bust up in a week anyways? Obsessive note/list makers like myself will agree.
- Do you love lunch time? I love lunch time. And beneath my tofu-laden exterior lies a former greasy-food addict who still loves to stuff herself with chip-wagon poutines.. but I know, I know... lunch garbage sucks. It sucks because most of it can't be recycled at all, or even re-used properly. Styrofoam, greasy paper, those little foil plate things, plastic straws... the fast food lunch is an environmentalist's stomachache of guilt. We can't deprive ourselves all the time, but there is a better way. Invest in some reusable food containers (go stainless steel, glass or ceramic!) and bring your eats from home. Wash 'em up later, and trash-be-gone! Alternatively, show the neighbourhood greasy spoons what you're made of - and it isn't styrofoam. Bring a reusable container, and ask them to put your order in it, instead of a takeout container. They'll probably look at you funny at first, or even refuse to do it - and I understand their point of view. But if they want your business, they'll comply if you're friendly and explain your motives.. and don't forget to mention that you're saving them supplies!
- Here's one that gets my goat. See all those office buildings, big and small, leaving their lights on all night? What the poop!? And don't let anyone tell you that it 'saves energy' not to turn lights on and off as needed.. that's for the birds. Besides common sense telling me this, I also saw it on Mythbusters. (What a show.) They did a full out experiment, and guess what.. turning the lights on and off according to use doesn't waste energy a bit, compared to leaving them on from here til infinity. It's like your momma always told you: if you leave the room, turn the light off. (I'm not made of money ovah heah.) Same goes for computers, fax machines, and other office appliances.. it takes seconds to turn them off at the end of the day, and big Momma Earth'll thank you.
- Coffee.. I love it. It makes my eyes all buggy and makes me work faster. Oh my! But if you're a coffee or tea lover like I am, you'll want to be a responsible caffeine-addict and do the right thing. There's no good reason to have disposable cups lying around in the staff room... if everyone used a travel mug or just brought in a crappy old mug from home or the thrift shop (or better yet, make a neat collection of 30 cent mugs and teacups from your local Goodwill in funky 70's colours! Oh.. I guess by 'neat' I meant 'tacky'...) you'd avoid that gross paper/styrofoam taste in your beverage while avoiding waste. Buy sugar in bulk, not in those tiny packets, and the same goes for milk and cream. Also, while you're at it, shell out an extra dollar or two for fair trade coffee and loose-leaf teas. Hooray! Extra hot double soy cappuccino anyone?
- Ok.. I'd like to know who has the ambition to hit the gym or track every day after work? Not I. Why not get some exercise and invigorate yourself in the morning by walking or biking to work when you can? Even if you take the bus half way and walk the rest, you're still doing something fantastic for your health. And it gives you a magnificent excuse to have that second fritter at break time. Oh baby. Public transit, if you can get it, is a generally stress-free way to get to work, and greener too - I know a fella who has an hour-long bus ride to work every morning, but the cool thing is that he doesn't lament this fact. Rather, he uses it as a time to chill out, read, or get something done before he gets to work. Good for the enivronment AND the soul.. fancy that!
There are a million different professions, and a million ways to avoid waste.. if you've got an idea from your workplace, let me know! We've all gotta make a living, but that new business isn't gonna get off the ground if there isn't a friendly planet to put it on.
Thassit for now - stay tuned for next week's post.. and don't forget to give the poutine man your reusable lunch container and tell him to fill 'er up!!!
Friday, April 18, 2008
TITANIC ORGANICS! They're friendly, they're healthy, they're sustainable!
Hey, folkies! First off, let me say OH NOES and then make a little sad-face :-( because my last post was almost three weeks ago. Ooopies. I've getting ready to go to Central America (for three weeks!), which involves a lot of working-working-saving and then a lot of planning-organizing-errands, which left me little energy or will to attend to my beloved blog. But! Never fear... it's friday, I've got a day off, all of my errands (do they still make little travel toothpastes? I need to buy socks that don't belong to my boyfriend! Wait... I need travel insurance??) are done, it's the first gorgeously warm day of the year, and here I am on my balcony with my laptop. Ahh. Actually, with the trip still in mind, let me say that between April 24th all the way to... May 12th or something like that, there'll be a grand Green Daisy shut-down, to be resumed, of course, as soon as I get back. Woot!
Carrying on!
I was shopping for fruits n' veggies at my favorite local snack-haunt (cough cough, Herb n' Spice) today, and picking out some marvelous organic Canadian tomaters, when I started thinking about the farmer's markets that I heart, packed with organic produce, that'll soon be popping up here and there, supplying neighbourhoods with lovely local foods. That got me thinkin' that it's high time that I did a mini-post on ... ORGANICS! Namely: what qualifies food, namely produce, as organic? And why is it that I should pay an extra fifty cents on that basket of organic peppers?
The general idea, is that the term 'organic', when applied to food, means that
* No pesticides or chemical fertilizers were used when growing it
* Ditto for growth hormones
* The produce, or produce involved in a product, was not genetically modified in any way
The no-chemical rule also applies to all agriculture involved, the harvesting, and all transportation and distribution. Basically, from seed to food to harvest to market, the produce was farmed and treated in a traditional manner.. only compost/manure fertilizers can be used, natural pesticides only (such as introducing one bug species that enjoys preying on other bugs that eat the plants, for example) and no tampering with the DNA of the food source (to brighten colour, to enlarge fruit, to make more attractive, etc).
Doesn't sound like a bad idea! And organic agriculture means more than just an assurance that carcinogenic chemical pesticides don't end up on your plate...
* Supporting organically grown foods means limiting pesticide run-off into our lakes, rivers, and water-sources. Gallons and gallons of chemical pesticides can be used on a single crop! There's no place for pesticides in our drinking water.
* Organic farming promotes excellent soil health. Let's not forget.. as inert as it may look, soil is living too. A what a living thing it is!! Millions and millions of microscopic living things live in even small amounts of healthy soil. They're at the bottom of the food chain, essential for more.. well, visible things, further up. Healthy, uncontaminated soil contains minerals, nutrients, vitamins and tiny critters that are essential for the growth of healthy plants and crops. When we use harsh pesticides and chemical fertilizers, we nuke all these great things.. what's found in the soil ends up in our food.. would we rather have poisons or nutrients? Organic food is actually better for you.
* Organic farming methods also promote other things that are lovely for our planet, such as diversity of living things in the area of the harvest, (more species allowed to thrive means a stronger eco-system) and healthier soil also results in less erosion and destruction of these natural systems. Let's take a moment to think of our insect, plant, and animal life that can be affected by irresponsible pesticide use.. egad.
* Healthier soil means a better crop NEXT year! And a better one after that! Compost is truly a miracle-worker, and thriving soil means a higher yield. Good for the farmer and for market prices.
* Not in every case, but quite often, organic farming is associated with family-run productions and smaller farms, which not only is fantastic for small communities, but means less pollution caused by transportation of gigantic yields going long distances. WOOT!
* Put simply, less energy is used, meaning less pollution, less waste, less destruction.
* And finally, the big tomato: put all of these things together, and what do we get? SUSTAINABILITY!!! Something that in this wasteful, use-it-all-up-until-there's-nothing-left world, that we desperately need.
There's a lot of good news in organics right now. Demand for organic produce and food products is going up up up, with all the hoot and holler about cancer rates and the environment lately. High demand for something means more work for organic farmers and lower prices for everyone.. organic fruit and veggies may be somewhat pricier than the standard stuff at Loeb these days, but buying what you can goes a long way in terms of support. I mean, even since I moved to Ottawa about five years ago, prices have gone down significantly, and selection improving. I notice my grocery bill looking better and better as the months go by! We have more people doing what they can to support organics to thank for that.
The organic movement sprung up across the planet in the early 20th century.. virtually at the same time people started, for the first time, growing food UNorganically!! There's always been a backlash.. something about chemicalized food and earth has never rung true for some people, even when there wasn't yet the scientific evidence to prove it. Good sense and simplicity will never go out of style.
For more info on organics and other related topics, visit :
Canadian Organic Growers - www.cog.com
Organic.org - www.organic.org
And here's a neat one... An introduction to organic farming by the government of Ontario!
www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/06-103.htm
I'm going to try and squeeze in another post before I leave next week for some Mayan ruins... hey, that gives me an idea. Eco-travel? What a great post that would make! Alright, calm down, brain. Hearts, and happy Spring weathering!!!!
Carrying on!
I was shopping for fruits n' veggies at my favorite local snack-haunt (cough cough, Herb n' Spice) today, and picking out some marvelous organic Canadian tomaters, when I started thinking about the farmer's markets that I heart, packed with organic produce, that'll soon be popping up here and there, supplying neighbourhoods with lovely local foods. That got me thinkin' that it's high time that I did a mini-post on ... ORGANICS! Namely: what qualifies food, namely produce, as organic? And why is it that I should pay an extra fifty cents on that basket of organic peppers?
The general idea, is that the term 'organic', when applied to food, means that
* No pesticides or chemical fertilizers were used when growing it
* Ditto for growth hormones
* The produce, or produce involved in a product, was not genetically modified in any way
The no-chemical rule also applies to all agriculture involved, the harvesting, and all transportation and distribution. Basically, from seed to food to harvest to market, the produce was farmed and treated in a traditional manner.. only compost/manure fertilizers can be used, natural pesticides only (such as introducing one bug species that enjoys preying on other bugs that eat the plants, for example) and no tampering with the DNA of the food source (to brighten colour, to enlarge fruit, to make more attractive, etc).
Doesn't sound like a bad idea! And organic agriculture means more than just an assurance that carcinogenic chemical pesticides don't end up on your plate...
* Supporting organically grown foods means limiting pesticide run-off into our lakes, rivers, and water-sources. Gallons and gallons of chemical pesticides can be used on a single crop! There's no place for pesticides in our drinking water.
* Organic farming promotes excellent soil health. Let's not forget.. as inert as it may look, soil is living too. A what a living thing it is!! Millions and millions of microscopic living things live in even small amounts of healthy soil. They're at the bottom of the food chain, essential for more.. well, visible things, further up. Healthy, uncontaminated soil contains minerals, nutrients, vitamins and tiny critters that are essential for the growth of healthy plants and crops. When we use harsh pesticides and chemical fertilizers, we nuke all these great things.. what's found in the soil ends up in our food.. would we rather have poisons or nutrients? Organic food is actually better for you.
* Organic farming methods also promote other things that are lovely for our planet, such as diversity of living things in the area of the harvest, (more species allowed to thrive means a stronger eco-system) and healthier soil also results in less erosion and destruction of these natural systems. Let's take a moment to think of our insect, plant, and animal life that can be affected by irresponsible pesticide use.. egad.
* Healthier soil means a better crop NEXT year! And a better one after that! Compost is truly a miracle-worker, and thriving soil means a higher yield. Good for the farmer and for market prices.
* Not in every case, but quite often, organic farming is associated with family-run productions and smaller farms, which not only is fantastic for small communities, but means less pollution caused by transportation of gigantic yields going long distances. WOOT!
* Put simply, less energy is used, meaning less pollution, less waste, less destruction.
* And finally, the big tomato: put all of these things together, and what do we get? SUSTAINABILITY!!! Something that in this wasteful, use-it-all-up-until-there's-nothing-left world, that we desperately need.
There's a lot of good news in organics right now. Demand for organic produce and food products is going up up up, with all the hoot and holler about cancer rates and the environment lately. High demand for something means more work for organic farmers and lower prices for everyone.. organic fruit and veggies may be somewhat pricier than the standard stuff at Loeb these days, but buying what you can goes a long way in terms of support. I mean, even since I moved to Ottawa about five years ago, prices have gone down significantly, and selection improving. I notice my grocery bill looking better and better as the months go by! We have more people doing what they can to support organics to thank for that.
The organic movement sprung up across the planet in the early 20th century.. virtually at the same time people started, for the first time, growing food UNorganically!! There's always been a backlash.. something about chemicalized food and earth has never rung true for some people, even when there wasn't yet the scientific evidence to prove it. Good sense and simplicity will never go out of style.
For more info on organics and other related topics, visit :
Canadian Organic Growers - www.cog.com
Organic.org - www.organic.org
And here's a neat one... An introduction to organic farming by the government of Ontario!
www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/06-103.htm
I'm going to try and squeeze in another post before I leave next week for some Mayan ruins... hey, that gives me an idea. Eco-travel? What a great post that would make! Alright, calm down, brain. Hearts, and happy Spring weathering!!!!
Friday, March 28, 2008
Book Review! Book Review!
Halloooooo all! Here we are, on Earth Hour... eve? Haha! Sorry, here's another reminder. I think it's so cool. Too bad it's on a Saturday though.. I think a lot of people would be a lot more willing to turn the lights out on a quiet Monday night instead of on a well-observed party-hour. Oh well! Maybe it'll make the point all the more appreciated. Anwyays: www.earthhour.org for more details. I'm so into it.
Other things! This is going to be a short post because my last one was so terribly, terribly long, and because there's just one thing that I really want to do: give a hoot about a book that I recently read called Buddhism For Mothers, by Sarah Napthali. Now, this book pretty much is what the title describes it as: a thoughtful and beautifully written book about how the properties and lessons of Buddhism can be applied to Motherhood. It's realistic, insightful, true-to-life and really quite brilliant. I ended up picking it up because the mother of the children that I nanny for owns it, and the title was an instant pull. Also, it was well-thumbed-through and probably read and re-read, borrowed and lent, a number of times.. I couldn't help myself. In those precious little five-minute intervals when the children were actually safely occupied by themselves, I'd read a few pages at a time and soak it up like the words themselves were delicious. It's a fantastic book! I'd recommend it for mothers of course, but it's really for everybody. It's quite a find.
Getting to the point, there was a little summary list at the end of one of the chapters that I found myself going through again and again with relish, and I thought I'd post it up here.. I hope it's not some kind of horrible copyright infringement bad-karma to do this, but going with the spirit of the book, something tells me that it's probably not a horrible idea.
Excerpt from 'Buddhism For Mothers', by Sarah Napthali
* Realise that deep and lasting happiness can only come from within. Stop relying on the world outside you to deliver.
* Stop postponing happiness and enjoy your present moment.
* Make time to stop 'doing' and just 'be'. Meditation, for example.
* Realise that slavishly attending to your self-image does not lead to happiness. Don't get locked into any particular image of yourself.
* Attachment to youth and beauty causes suffering because aging and death are inevitable. [It's so true.. why spend so much energy fretting about something we have no control over?] Work on letting go, and acceptance. Realise that aging doesn't hurt you! Only your resistance to it does.
* It's okay to accept death as a reality; it only helps you live more consciously.
I like it; real, not sugar-coated, but optimistic, like the whole book. There's a chapter on the 'self', about how anyone's 'self' is not a static being, but an ever-changing entity that is never the same from day to day, or even minute-to-minute... moods, experiences, realisations, so many things contribute to the ever growing, changing thing that we call our 'image' that trying to pin ourselves down into some kind of description, definition, or 'way-that-we-are' and then trying to maintain that self-image is a life-long pain-in-the-ass energy waste. Just be! Are 'you' simply the sum of your parts? Are 'you' your physical attributes? Are 'you' your resume? Are 'you' simply the descriptive-words that other people might describe you as being? Just coming to the realisation that we DON'T have to fit ourselves into some kind of mold and then maintain that shape forever in a frenzy to fit in, or be appreciated is so... liberating!
I feel like I learned a lot from that book. If you've got any good reads that you'd reccommend for Daisy readers, feel free to leave a big healthy book review as a comment! Happy EarthHour everyone, and stay tuned for next week... I've got a couple of delicious posts on the way.
Hearts!
Other things! This is going to be a short post because my last one was so terribly, terribly long, and because there's just one thing that I really want to do: give a hoot about a book that I recently read called Buddhism For Mothers, by Sarah Napthali. Now, this book pretty much is what the title describes it as: a thoughtful and beautifully written book about how the properties and lessons of Buddhism can be applied to Motherhood. It's realistic, insightful, true-to-life and really quite brilliant. I ended up picking it up because the mother of the children that I nanny for owns it, and the title was an instant pull. Also, it was well-thumbed-through and probably read and re-read, borrowed and lent, a number of times.. I couldn't help myself. In those precious little five-minute intervals when the children were actually safely occupied by themselves, I'd read a few pages at a time and soak it up like the words themselves were delicious. It's a fantastic book! I'd recommend it for mothers of course, but it's really for everybody. It's quite a find.
Getting to the point, there was a little summary list at the end of one of the chapters that I found myself going through again and again with relish, and I thought I'd post it up here.. I hope it's not some kind of horrible copyright infringement bad-karma to do this, but going with the spirit of the book, something tells me that it's probably not a horrible idea.
Excerpt from 'Buddhism For Mothers', by Sarah Napthali
* Realise that deep and lasting happiness can only come from within. Stop relying on the world outside you to deliver.
* Stop postponing happiness and enjoy your present moment.
* Make time to stop 'doing' and just 'be'. Meditation, for example.
* Realise that slavishly attending to your self-image does not lead to happiness. Don't get locked into any particular image of yourself.
* Attachment to youth and beauty causes suffering because aging and death are inevitable. [It's so true.. why spend so much energy fretting about something we have no control over?] Work on letting go, and acceptance. Realise that aging doesn't hurt you! Only your resistance to it does.
* It's okay to accept death as a reality; it only helps you live more consciously.
I like it; real, not sugar-coated, but optimistic, like the whole book. There's a chapter on the 'self', about how anyone's 'self' is not a static being, but an ever-changing entity that is never the same from day to day, or even minute-to-minute... moods, experiences, realisations, so many things contribute to the ever growing, changing thing that we call our 'image' that trying to pin ourselves down into some kind of description, definition, or 'way-that-we-are' and then trying to maintain that self-image is a life-long pain-in-the-ass energy waste. Just be! Are 'you' simply the sum of your parts? Are 'you' your physical attributes? Are 'you' your resume? Are 'you' simply the descriptive-words that other people might describe you as being? Just coming to the realisation that we DON'T have to fit ourselves into some kind of mold and then maintain that shape forever in a frenzy to fit in, or be appreciated is so... liberating!
I feel like I learned a lot from that book. If you've got any good reads that you'd reccommend for Daisy readers, feel free to leave a big healthy book review as a comment! Happy EarthHour everyone, and stay tuned for next week... I've got a couple of delicious posts on the way.
Hearts!
Friday, March 21, 2008
DaisyBabies!
Hello, folks! Thanks for hitching a ride back to The Daisy. Now, today's post may not concern everybody who reads it at the present moment, but it's info that somewhere along the line, may prove quite valuable... at least to one special little person. That's right.. I'm talkin' about...
BABIES!
Babies. Different people have some pretty different responses to the word! We've all seen people's eyes light up on the topic (especially when they're going to be an aunt or uncle instead of the mummy or daddy.. heh heh), and we've also seen a lot of people's eyes roll in terror at the thought of filthy diapers or a galaxy of spit-up down the back of someone's shirt. As for myself... well, let's just say that although I can feel my arms almost reaching out on impulse to cuddle the big-eyed, chubby little creature sitting in the shopping cart in line ahead of me, (I'm reminded of those nature documentaries where every female chimp in the clan are climbing all over themselves to adore the new baby of the group) I can safely say that I'm quite content with the company of cats at this point in my life.
Nevertheless, babies, childcare, and other such things have been at the forefront of my thoughts lately for a few reasons. Firstly, because I've been employed as a nanny for a 15-month-old and a 3-year-old since January, and with the end of my contract is coming up soon, I feel like I've learned a lot, and have come to the heavy conclusion that environmental concern and babies (and small children) go hand in hand like no other segment of the population. Another reason, is that just recently I've noticed that the birth rate among my closer acquaintances has skyrocketed, bringing the whole topic of birth and baby-rearing closer to home.. our little ones are the most vulnerable among us, and the most deserving of protection. Being small, their tiny, delicate systems accumulate a higher level of toxins than adults, but are less able to deal with it. Even a baby's skin is way more absorbent! It's painfully easy to see that childhood cancers and defects are on the rise, along with respiratory illnesses, among many other ailments.
That being said, baby-rearing is an occupation with a huge potential for waste. Looks like we've gotta protect our babies from the environment and protect the environment from our babies!!!
When you're choosing soaps, lotions, and other body-care products for your baby, toddler or child, don't get suckered in by cute packaging or even a popular brand. Read that ingredients list!! Don't buy anything for them that you wouldn't slather on yourself. Just because it's 'made for babies' doesn't mean that it's even close to baby-friendly. Check out the previous post on crap that ends up in toiletries, and avoid those things. Go for organic, basic, and natural. Don't buy anything with sodium laurel sulfate or anything like it - as I've added before, it's a cheap industrial cleanser, and it's too harsh for the body. On a baby's skin, it can lead to irritation, dryness, and rashes.. and when it's rinsed into our waterways, it strangles aquatic life. There are a lot of people washing themselves, and this stuff adds up!
On that note, forget about petroleum-based products too. Not only is a lot of pollution created in its manufacturing, it's really no good for anyone's skin. When used for diaper rashes and skin ailments, it may feel soothing at first, but it blocks air and clogs pores, stifling the area and making matters worse. Watch out for alcohol and ammonia in baby-care products too... I've read some pretty scary labels in my time. We wouldn't put those ingredients in their raw form on baby.. why mix it in with their lotion? Fragrances and colourants are usually nasty substances, too... they're unnecessary and add to the chemical bath. Egad.
On a brighter note though, I can say with a ton of confidence that there are a lot of people out there who are sticking to their belief that natural is better for baby, and are producing some high-quality, affordable alternatives. The environmental shop that I've worked at has a bustling baby section, and I've heard rave reviews from parents on natural products.. not only do they work like a charm, but they're concentrated and last longer. Check out these brands for ointments, shampoos, soaps, lotions and all sorts of other baby-friendly products!
-Aubrey's (makes a lovely shampoo for children)
-Butterfly Weed (Rave reviews! Especially for their nappy-rash ointment)
-Burt's Bees/Baby Bee (A plethora of baby products.. watch for 'fragrances' though)
-Druide (Smells so good.. I want some.)
Taking care of baby's delicate skin doesn't have to be pricey. Check out some of the recipes for body care products I've listed before.. they're gentle as can be, and make some hefty batches. I can guess though that you'd probably want to cut down on essential oils though for wee ones.. babies are sensitive in many ways, and strong scents of any kind are probably gross-outs.
Moving on... what goes in, must come out. And that's why we need diapers.
Ugh. Diapers. I've changed SO many in the last four months. Weirdly, I've gotten quite used to it. It's almost like a scientific miracle.. baby poop doesn't bother me anymore? I never thought I'd see the day. Anyways, we've got to take care of it somehow, and if we're gonna do it, we'd might as well take the most environmentally and baby-friendly route.
A note on disposable diapers: they're convenient, they're less yucky because you deal with the contents a little less, and they're widely available. But. The average kid goes through as many as 7000 diapers before they're potty-trained. They're plastic, they're bleached with chlorine, and they're going to sit in the landfill, outliving us all, for thousands and thousands of years. Awful! If every kid goes through thousands of diapers, imagine the millions and millions and millions of disposables taking up space, leaching nasty chemicals, and forever adding up, all over the world! They don't let your baby's skin breathe, worsening diaper rash, and exposing little guys to the bleach and chemical compounds used on them. Luckily, there are some great alternatives to this problem.. and they're not new. Just ask your grandma!
Cloth diapers! They're not really all that bad! I've dealt with them, and yes, you have to face up to poop a lot more, but it's really not as horrendous as I thought it was going to be, and it's not even that hard with all the updated stuff out there right now. Also, you relieve yourself of a huge guilt-trip (Heh heh... "relieve"). Hoorah! Check out health, environmental and baby stores for cloth diapers. Sure you can get the old fashioned kind that you fold, but some of the updates for cloth diapers are pretty fun. A lot of them are pre-folded, and stitched to stay that way, with velcro and snaps to do them up! Companies are making them from breathable, organic cotton and other natural fibres, with really cute patterns and colours. Kushies is one brand that makes cute-as-a-button cloth diapers, and Hankettes is another, both available across Canada. Of course, there's an environmental burden associated with cloth diapers too because of the need to wash them frequently, but if you use plant-based, biodegradable soaps and biodegradable peroxide bleach instead of chlorine to do the job, you can rest assured that you're taking care of a reusable product and avoiding - literally - tons of trash. And don't forget.. cloth diapers are a one-time buy, compared to the packages and packages of costly disposables a kidlet goes through!
Somewhere in the middle between disposables and reusables, is the new "gDiaper" that I've seen lately. It's kind of neat. (www.gdiapers.com) A starter kit comes with pre-folded, fitted cloth diapers that you can keep and continue to wash, but they come with bioderadable liners (from wood pulp I think) that stick in to absorb the poop, etc, which you can then remove and either flush or chuck. You don't have to wash the entire diaper as often that way, because the diaper itself doesn't get a lot of mess on it. It's got all the convenience of disposables, with some of the goodness that comes with reusables. I think it's an interesting idea for busy parents. You do have to check with your city if it's okay to flush the liners though..
Yep, cloth diapers are a good thing. But let's be realistic for a minute. Today's families travel and get about a lot more than in days past, and there's a lot of high demands on busy families. Even for the most dedicated cloth-diaper users, there may be times when a strategy isn't available to use them somewhere. Seventh Generation makes a line of disposable diapers that aren't bleached with chlorine or treated with any chemicals, which is good for sensitive skin.
What's one baby-related environmental topic that's been all over the news lately? The whole plastic thing. Baby bottles and sippy cups made from plastic are the standard choice these days, but that may not last for long with all the recent confirmations that plastic in general is a health no-no.. heck, with Mountain Equipment Co-op pulling all of their plastic Nalgene bottles, a big seller, off the shelves because of alarm over drinking from plastic, it seems very plausible that baby and child supply stores will follow suit.
Check out the post on the horrors of plastique from a few pages ago for more info, but here's the quick breakdown on plastic types:
- Plastics numbered #1, #2, #4 and especially #5 are okay for drinking from.
- #3 is the worst. Effects organs and bones and is probably carcinogenic.
- #6 is highly toxic and exposure messes up the brain and nervous system.
- #7 wreaks havoc on the reproductive system. Yikes.
Plastic smells repulsive when heated and creates deadly pollution in processing.. it's no wonder people seriously started looking into it. #5 is your best bet for plastic that is more inert and doesn't release junk into liquids.
Better yet, heck with plastics all together. Glass baby bottles are still out there, (check pharmacies, health-type stores, baby stores) and newer ones are shatter-proof even when dropped on the kitchen floor. A good bet for sippy cups are those great stainless steel ones available these days made by Klean Kanteen, etc. Environmental stores will stock these, or check the internet. They're selling like hot-cakes! Both glass and stainless steel are wonderful, durable, non-leeching alternatives to le plastique.
A few more environmentally friendly baby n' child carin' tips that I've picked up along the way:
* The lady that I nanny for buys only certified organic jarred baby food for her tiny kidlet. It's only a few cents more expensive, and if it's properly certified, guarantees that the fruits and veggies within weren't exposed to pesticides. That's something to nom nom on. Great books full of nutritious blender babyfood recipes are available too! They advise that you make a big batch of baby food in the blender - that way you know exactly what goes into it - and then freeze it in ice-cube trays in the freezer for perfect portions. It's such a fun way to introduce behbeh to new foods, it's economical, and it's super-handy.
* Buying second-hand clothing and using hand-me-downs for l'il 'uns is a great way to recycle! Especially the way kids blast through clothing. Lots of clothing companies are making kid's clothes from sustainable materials these days too! Check the 'net and local shops for organic cotton, hemp and bamboo stuff for babies.. additionally, these materials are super-soft and breathable, making them ideal to swaddle babies in. The designs are insanely cute, too. (Check out http://www.underthenile.com/ for organic, fair-trade kids n' baby clothes... the little stripey onesies are too much!)
*The plastic rule should be taken into account when buying toys for babies and toddlers too! Face it.. they shove EVERYTHING they can into their mouths and chew it to death. It's part of the learning process. Noshing on chemical-laden, off-gassing plastic is no way to grow up.. try focusing on toys made from natural, sustainable materials like wood, and plush toys made with friendlier materials. http://www.barefoot.lk/Toys.htm is an amazing place to look - Barefoot Toys employ men and women in Sri Lanka to made adorable toys for a living wage, with everything made from super-friendly kapok fibre and natural dyes, so kids can chew the hell out of them without making parents and gift-givers fret. The colours and designs are unreal - lions, elephants, octopi, caterpillars... actually, I want one of those little mice. They even have tiny bloomers under their dresses!
Whelp, that's about it for now. It's time to stop thinking about rugrats and start considering the fact that I'm at my mom's house and her immaculately clean bath tub is calling me for a soak. What is it about parents' bathrooms that are ALWAYS cleaner and nicer than your own? It's like they stay that way by magic. Anyways, happy Spring, happy Easter, happy Chocolate day and happy everything else.
PS, don't forget about Earth Hour coming up on March 29th, at 8pm. Visit the website for some great info - this is gonna be REALLY neat!! (http://www.earthhour.org/) Hey.. you can get T-shirts too. Nifty.
HEARTBEAMS!
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Oh, Audrey!
Hello, all! It's a bright Sunday afternoon, and as I look out my window as I type, the icicles dripping in the sunshine (melting at an alarming rate!) reminds me that Spring will soon be here. How great will that be?? Suddenly, I'm dreaming of shorts, tanned skin, and sun-kissed hair by August... my thoughts always turn to the concept of beauty as Spring approaches. As I dug out my old bathing suits in premature anticipation today, my thoughts lingered on many sorts of beauty... natural beauty, the beauty of the first Spring flowers... the sun sparkling on these icicles is beautiful too. And, eventually, I found myself kind of lost in contemplation over what beauty really is.. all of the different ways to see it, that make beauty impossible to define. And, of course, that train of thought led me to inner beauty.. which is too elusive to describe in so many words. Maybe that's why I like pondering it so much.
Getting to the point of today's post, due to popular suggestion, I thought I'd put something up on here that touches on the concept of beauty in an unexpected and gleefully fulfilling way. Back in the day, Audrey Hepburn wrote up a list of her favorite "Beauty Tips", which I found not too long ago, and subsequently passed on happily to as many people as I can. Coming from a celebrity beloved for her own special brand of demure glamour and distinctive beauty as much as her talents, I find the fact that she wrote this list makes it all the more special. It's not what you'd expect.. there's quite a lack of hair-care and make-up tips here. Clearly Audrey Hepburn's mind was as thoughtful as her beauty was inspiring.
AUDREY HEPBURN'S "BEAUTY TIPS"
* For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
* For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
* For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
* For beautiful hair, let a child run their fingers through it once a day.
* For poise, walk in the knowledge that you never walk alone.
* People, more than things, have to be restored, reclaimed and redeemed; never trow out anyone.
* Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of each arm. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.
* The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure she carries or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.
* The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but the true beauty of a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, and the passion that she shows.
* The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years.
Nice! I never get tired of typing this up. Spring's just around the corner, everyone... it's never too early to get excited! Stay tuned to the Green Daisy for more Greentastic articles n' tips!!
Getting to the point of today's post, due to popular suggestion, I thought I'd put something up on here that touches on the concept of beauty in an unexpected and gleefully fulfilling way. Back in the day, Audrey Hepburn wrote up a list of her favorite "Beauty Tips", which I found not too long ago, and subsequently passed on happily to as many people as I can. Coming from a celebrity beloved for her own special brand of demure glamour and distinctive beauty as much as her talents, I find the fact that she wrote this list makes it all the more special. It's not what you'd expect.. there's quite a lack of hair-care and make-up tips here. Clearly Audrey Hepburn's mind was as thoughtful as her beauty was inspiring.
AUDREY HEPBURN'S "BEAUTY TIPS"
* For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
* For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
* For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
* For beautiful hair, let a child run their fingers through it once a day.
* For poise, walk in the knowledge that you never walk alone.
* People, more than things, have to be restored, reclaimed and redeemed; never trow out anyone.
* Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of each arm. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.
* The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure she carries or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.
* The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but the true beauty of a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, and the passion that she shows.
* The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years.
Nice! I never get tired of typing this up. Spring's just around the corner, everyone... it's never too early to get excited! Stay tuned to the Green Daisy for more Greentastic articles n' tips!!
Friday, March 7, 2008
The Mystery of Tofu... SOLVED!!!
Hey folks! Apologies for it being more than a week between Daisy Posts.. between work and beloved friends visiting from afar, I haven't had the time to blob out with the ol' laptop and conjure up a post! Until now, that is... it's a sick day for this little blogger, and what better time to post another healthy-food article than when you really need some?
A few posts ago, I mentioned that if someone wants to try eating less meat, a variety of protein substitutes are available. Well, one of them just so happens to be... *drum roll*... TOFU! Surprised? Didn't think so. Grossed out? Maybe. A lot of people take one look at a fresh, white, squishy block of tofu, and think "Uh, how can that be a meat substitute? It doesn't even look like food!" I tried to get into tofu years ago, and back then, couldn't quite make it. Mind you, I wasn't really trying very hard. I'd read that tofu takes on the taste of whatever you marinate it in, or cook it with - just like chicken does. So, I'd take a million slices of tofu, dunk them in soy sauce (and soy sauce alone), throw them in the oven, and then hope for the best.. but they'd come out tasting like one big soy accident. So I'd feel bad for it, crumble it into something where it'd be unidentifiable (sauce) and lament for my inability to make tofu edible. Le sigh.
Howevah...
Just recently, I'd been noticing friendly ol' tofu sitting on the shelves of every grocery store I went. Sitting there... beckoning to me... it had an irresistible pull for some reason. Something deep down in the part of my brain that makes me want to eat certain things was craving it... as sad and failure-ridden my past experience had been with it. So I tried it again.. but this time, with more effort. I thought about how tofu and raw chicken have so much in common.. they're both pale, squishy, unappetizing and near-tasteless unless you cook it right. I was encouraged, and tried a new recipe every week, until I found a group of ingredients that I thought really suited it. I like tofu baked also, but there's something about fried tofu that just tastes like a million bucks. I never thought I'd be successful enough with tof' to get to this point, but I can safely say that I now consider tofu... a treat! I crammed all my favorite additives into one, and would now like to present to you...
JENNIE'S FAVORITE TOFU RECIPE!
I have pictures of this particular recipe as well... I'll see if Blogger lets me publish them or sends me into an oblivion of download errors instead. [Note: Blogger let me publish the photos but they showed up at the top of the post for some reason. Oh wells!] It's tasty, somewhat spicy, and has a meaty texture. I added it to a stir-fry recipe that I'll note at the end!
What you need:
- One big classic block of extra-firm tofu
- 2 cloves garlic, minced or mashed
- 1/3 cup soy sauce
- A tablespoon or two of sesame oil
- A drizzle of maple syrup
- Chinese chili garlic sauce (I love the Lee Kum Kee kind), a teaspoon or tablespoon (or more) depending on how much heat you like
- Olive oil
- A few green onions, diced
What you do:
1. Cut up the tofu into smallish cubes. Stir-fry sized cubes.
2. Turn the stove element up to medium heat. Add enough olive oil to cover most of the bottom of a largeish frying pan. Add the minced garlic and the onions, and cook til it smells really nice.. a few minutes or so.
3. Mix the soy sauce, sesame oil and chili garlic paste in a bowl while the garlic cooks.
4. Add the chopped tofu, and the bowl contents all in one big good-smelling go. Mix it all together, and then drizzle the maple syrup over top.
5. Now, we cook it. And cook it. And cook it some more. Keep stirring, and don't let anything get stuck to the bottom, or you'll lose the crispy coating that'll form! To get it crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, I had to keep frying it for a lot longer than I thought I would. Wait until all the sides of the tofu cubes are browned. Do some taste tests too! When it's nearing completion, snack a few, and if you want to add more of a particular ingredient, go for it. I tend to add a lot of that garlic chili sauce, or throw in a bit of curry paste!! The sesame oil adds something really tasty to it too.
Voila! There are two ways that I like to eat this kind of tofu.
1. The Simple Way. I tumble some into a dainty Chinese bowl and dip it in plum sauce. It's out of control.
2. In A Stir Fry! I kept the same pan going, but threw in broccoli, red pepper strips, lots of mushrooms, (zucchini and eggplant work well too) and some of those really big soft squishy Japanese noodles (precooked), a bit more oil, a dash of water, and some more seasoning, and cooked the whole thing into an incredible stir fry that almost made me die of food-joy.
Finally. Tofu tasted like FOOD! Like, really GOOD food! Food that I wanted to have all the time. A lot of protein-rich food is gross in its unprepared form. We don't let that deter us from enjoying meats, beans and lentils.. tofu's no different. It just needs some attention to make it delicious.
Got some amazing tofu recipes?? Send them to me, or post them under comments! There are so many out there! Stay tuned for the next 'Daisy post... if you enjoy any sort of cleanliness in the home at all, you may be interested. Hearts!
Sunday, February 24, 2008
The Joy of Pilates - an interview with health and fitness buff Allison Moorhouse!
Hurrah! What an amazing post I have for today's Daisy Readers!! If you're as interested in fostering the health of the body and mind as I am, I think that you're really going to like this one, and I'm proud to offer it to you. Welcome to The Green Daisy's first interview!!!
Allison Moorhouse is originally a Brockville girl who moved to Toronto in 2002 to pursue studies in her fields of interest. She has a degree in journalism from Humber college, but has always had a passion for fitness, which led her to get her personal training certification through Can-Fit-Pro, with the desire to teach herself about the body, how to train it properly, and how to set up and maintain a progressive workout program. In 2005, the fitness buff combined her two diplomas and began work working for a publication you've probably heard of - Oxygen, an international women's fitness magazine. She started as the researcher/fact-checker, but moved up to Fitness Editor, creating the workout programs the magazine featured each month, or finding experts to create additional programs! In 2007 however, she left Oxygen to pursue higher education. Although she loved writing about nutrition, health and fitness, she knew that her true calling was personally teaching and helping others about those subjects... she decided to go back to school to become a Registered Holistic Nutritionist. Allison is currently taking part-time distance courses at the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition, and plans on completing her diploma by early 2009.
Allison became interested in the body-mind-spirit connection through mat Pilates and Yoga, and she is interested in teaching in the near future. In 2008, she completed the first part of the Mat Pilates Certification, and she is able to teach beginner and intermediate students. Once she takes the second part of the course, she will be able to teach advanced students and be fully certified.
Allison is currently training for her first fitness competition (Sports Athletic category) through Neutron Sports on March 29th! After the show, she intends on diving head-first into Pilates training once more. As a yoga enthusiast, I've often heard odds and sods about Pilates and its benefits, but had never more than scratched the surface on information about the topic. Knowing that Allison had plenty of background in natural health and fitness, I was incredibly pleased when she agreed to do an interview with me on her experiences with Pilates for The Green Daisy! Its the Daisy's first interview, and I'm happy to say that it's a fantastic and informative one! For anyone who's looking to amp up their total health, I hope you enjoy this week's post!
(Note: Allison would like to add that she only studies mat Pilates, and hasn't used Pilates equipment, such as a Reformer, etc., because she is more interested in learning and perfecting moves that can be done anywhere without the use of extras. She does note however, that there are amazing benefits to using the equipment as well.)
Allison Moorhouse is originally a Brockville girl who moved to Toronto in 2002 to pursue studies in her fields of interest. She has a degree in journalism from Humber college, but has always had a passion for fitness, which led her to get her personal training certification through Can-Fit-Pro, with the desire to teach herself about the body, how to train it properly, and how to set up and maintain a progressive workout program. In 2005, the fitness buff combined her two diplomas and began work working for a publication you've probably heard of - Oxygen, an international women's fitness magazine. She started as the researcher/fact-checker, but moved up to Fitness Editor, creating the workout programs the magazine featured each month, or finding experts to create additional programs! In 2007 however, she left Oxygen to pursue higher education. Although she loved writing about nutrition, health and fitness, she knew that her true calling was personally teaching and helping others about those subjects... she decided to go back to school to become a Registered Holistic Nutritionist. Allison is currently taking part-time distance courses at the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition, and plans on completing her diploma by early 2009.
Allison became interested in the body-mind-spirit connection through mat Pilates and Yoga, and she is interested in teaching in the near future. In 2008, she completed the first part of the Mat Pilates Certification, and she is able to teach beginner and intermediate students. Once she takes the second part of the course, she will be able to teach advanced students and be fully certified.
Allison is currently training for her first fitness competition (Sports Athletic category) through Neutron Sports on March 29th! After the show, she intends on diving head-first into Pilates training once more. As a yoga enthusiast, I've often heard odds and sods about Pilates and its benefits, but had never more than scratched the surface on information about the topic. Knowing that Allison had plenty of background in natural health and fitness, I was incredibly pleased when she agreed to do an interview with me on her experiences with Pilates for The Green Daisy! Its the Daisy's first interview, and I'm happy to say that it's a fantastic and informative one! For anyone who's looking to amp up their total health, I hope you enjoy this week's post!
(Note: Allison would like to add that she only studies mat Pilates, and hasn't used Pilates equipment, such as a Reformer, etc., because she is more interested in learning and perfecting moves that can be done anywhere without the use of extras. She does note however, that there are amazing benefits to using the equipment as well.)
AND NOW, ONTO ZE PILATES INTERVIEW!
1. What is your personal definition of pilates?
To me, Pilates is much more than doing a few ab exercises. It’s about focus, breath, and truly connecting your mind with certain muscles and organs of the body. Mat Pilates is a core-focused, yet full body strength training routine, that strengthens the body from the inside out. Originally, there were 34 exercises, but a few new exercises have been created since then, and are sometimes included. The main focus of Pilates practice is on the internal muscles – the inner stabilizing muscles that are regularly forgotten in day-to-day life. These muscles can become weak, which can lead to injuries or overall muscle deterioration. By focusing on the ‘Pilates Pillar” during each exercise, you’ll develop and strengthen these muscles, along with the exterior muscles, and create that long, lean look that Pilates enthusiasts aim for.
So, what is the Pilates Pillar? It’s much more than just your abs. It’s located through the trunk of your body, and is comprised of 5 press points:
1. pubis bone and tail bone
2. point between pubis bone and navel, and through to the back. This is known as the “powerhouse”
3. from navel to the point where spine meets the pelvis
4. zyphoid process through to the same spot at the back (this point is generally at a woman’s bra strap)
5. breast bone to the spot between the shoulder blades
Any certified mat Pilates instructor should teach you about the Pilates Pillar and powerhouse the first Pilates class you take. He/she will call out the press points you should be focusing on, while executing the particular exercises. Focusing on these points allows your mind to connect with your body in ways that you probably don’t do regularly. This focus helps strengthen the muscles in and surrounding these press points and allows you to mentally envision these muscles so you can execute the move with grace and control. This mental focus also aids in stress relief, as your mind is preoccupied with that particular moment, and not on outside stresses and thoughts.
2. How did you discover/become interested in pilates?
To be honest, I became interested in Pilates because I was unhappy with my abs. I had a very weak core and knew I had to do something to strengthen it. I started doing the Windsor Pilates DVDs on my spare time, and even though I definitely didn’t have the knowledge of the entire process that I do now, I noticed results within the first couple of workouts. I stood taller, my core was tighter, and I felt like I was in more control of my body. I knew right away that I was hooked. I only wish I knew then what I know now!
3. Does pilates compare or relate to yoga or other practices/exercises?
Joseph Pilates, the man who created the Pilates method, is said to have studied yoga. In fact, in original teachings, he called the exercises “poses.” However, the Pilates exercises are specific and much different than yoga poses. You do not stay static in the exercises, like you do in yoga (actually, “Pilates Zest” is a term that describes the swiftness and continuity of the execution of exercises one is supposed to practice). Also, the breathing practice is different, as yoga focuses on inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the nose, while Pilates is inhaling through the nose, and exhaling through the mouth or the nose. I do feel, however, that practicing both disciplines can only be beneficial to the body and the mind.
4. How long has pilates as a practice been around in its present form?
I’m going to give you this link so that I don’t end up plagerising any information accidentally. This gives the best run-down of the history, as it’s pretty lengthy and I don’t want to get anything wrong!
http://www.pilates.com/BBAPP/V/about/joseph-pilates.html
[Jennie's note: we curious folks at The Green Daisy just loooove clickables.. thanks for the handy link!]
5. Would you say that pilates is more of a mental discipline, a physical discipline, or a bit of both?
I’d say it’s definitely a bit of both, as you can’t do one without the other. Moving through each exercise without having a mental focus can not only lead to injury, but create such a lack of benefit that the moves become pointless. Additionally, having only mental focus won’t do your body much good as your muscles won’t be worked. When I took my certification, my teacher told our class that she once had her entire class only focus on their breathing and Pilates Pillar press points. They were confused, as it seemed from an outsider that they were barely moving their body. But, after 45 minutes of focus on internal muscles, the class participants were dripping in sweat, and had an incredible workout. The mind-body connection is key to Pilates practice.
6. In your opinion, what are the chief benefits that the average person can get from pilates?
There are so many benefits! Let me list a few:
- improved core strength
- improved total body strength
- improved strength in stabilizing muscles
- a mind-body connection
- a sense of empowerment achievement
- improved posture
- stress reduction
- overall well-being
7. Is there any particular equipment or clothing that I need for a pilates class?
Luckily, with mat Pilates, there is minimal equipment requirements. If you go to an actual Pilates studio, they should be equipped with Pilates mats (these are thicker than yoga mats. This is to protect your spine, since you spend a lot of time on your back). If you’re going to a gym for a Pilates class, you should call ahead to see if you need to bring a mat. If you don’t have a Pilates mat, you can double up two yoga mats. As for clothing, you should wear something similar to what you’d wear to a yoga class – comfortable! You will not be wearing shoes or socks. If you’re a woman, it’s probably best that you don’t wear a bra with a back clasp. Try and wear a sports bra without this, as it may cause discomfort in some exercises. Also, if you wear a pony tail, it’s best to take it out during practice, or push it high or low on your head to avoid discomfort while on your back.
8. Who would you recommend pilates to, and why?
I’d recommend Pilates practice to anyone, since it requires minimal equipment, and can be modified based on your skill and technique. A qualified instructor can determine what level you’re at, and what aspects you need to work on. Even the most expert Pilates enthusiasts can improve. Whether you’re a seasoned athlete, or an inactive grandmother, Pilates can be modified to your individual needs and benefit your body and mind. It’s never too late to start!
9. What should I expect from first pilates class?
You should expect a qualified instructor who fully explains the “Pilates Pillar” and the “powerhouse.” You should expect to also be repositioned by the teacher if he/she feels you’re not executing the moves properly. Do not get discouraged if the teacher points out that you’re doing something incorrectly. Everyone’s body is different, and sometimes, certain body structures just physiologically have more trouble executing certain exercises. There is no pressure in Pilates. Do not feel that you need to keep up with other participants. Work at your own pace. Your body is unique and Pilates instructors understand that. It is not about executing the exercises as fast or as hard as you can. It’s about proper, precise execution.
10. How long have you been doing pilates, and how has pilates been a positive influence in your life?
I truly appreciate a great mind-body connection in any sort of exercise I do, and try to experience it whether I’m doing cardio, weight lifting, yoga or Pilates. I think that it’s necessary to fully experience whatever activity you are doing, or you don’t achieve that activity’s full benefits. I love how Pilates promotes this connection, and have been interested in it for many years. I’ve been practicing Pilates on and off for about four years, but have become more serious about the practice this year. Not only has it made me stronger physically (my core strength has improved dramatically than what it was years ago), but it’s given me a different outlet to improve my body internally and externally. I love how I am able to practice anywhere, and how there is always something to improve upon. I experience a much calmer mind day-to-day, since I practice focusing so much more during Pilates practice. It’s truly given me a better quality of life, and overall sense of well-being.
Most mat Pilates classes are less than an hour in length, and you can expect to move through the exercises sequentially and with zest (but don’t worry, you’ll be able to keep up). You’ll always begin with the Pilates Hundred – an exercise that warms up the entire body and gets the blood circulating throughout your body. You can expect the instructor to show you the moves, or walk around throughout the class, giving you cues and tips. Most instructors will give you relaxation time at the end of your class, something similar to a yoga class.
You can expect to leave your class feeling exhilerated, long and strong!
WOW! Is it just me, or does this interview make everyone want to jump into some comfers cozers clothing and run off at full speed to the next available pilates class in your neighbourhood??? I wanna be long and strong! Allison, I want to say thanks-a-million for blessing the 'Daisy with your knowledge and enthusiasm. Being open and giving, and sharing your passion with others can enrich and change people's lives in enormous ways!
For more about Miss Allison and her adventures in fitness, check out her blogs!!
http://ilikenaturalfood.blogspot.com
http://bodyspace.bodybuilding.com/allisonmm/
I think Allison puts gets it dead-on when she talks about the importance of the mind-body-spirit connection. What a beautiful way to live your life! Thanks for dropping into The Green Daisy, and if you've got anything to add, please email me or leave a comment! I hope you enjoyed the post.. stay tuned for the next addition to 'Daisy, which will be a love-explosion of... "gastronomic" proportions!!! Tee hee!
1. What is your personal definition of pilates?
To me, Pilates is much more than doing a few ab exercises. It’s about focus, breath, and truly connecting your mind with certain muscles and organs of the body. Mat Pilates is a core-focused, yet full body strength training routine, that strengthens the body from the inside out. Originally, there were 34 exercises, but a few new exercises have been created since then, and are sometimes included. The main focus of Pilates practice is on the internal muscles – the inner stabilizing muscles that are regularly forgotten in day-to-day life. These muscles can become weak, which can lead to injuries or overall muscle deterioration. By focusing on the ‘Pilates Pillar” during each exercise, you’ll develop and strengthen these muscles, along with the exterior muscles, and create that long, lean look that Pilates enthusiasts aim for.
So, what is the Pilates Pillar? It’s much more than just your abs. It’s located through the trunk of your body, and is comprised of 5 press points:
1. pubis bone and tail bone
2. point between pubis bone and navel, and through to the back. This is known as the “powerhouse”
3. from navel to the point where spine meets the pelvis
4. zyphoid process through to the same spot at the back (this point is generally at a woman’s bra strap)
5. breast bone to the spot between the shoulder blades
Any certified mat Pilates instructor should teach you about the Pilates Pillar and powerhouse the first Pilates class you take. He/she will call out the press points you should be focusing on, while executing the particular exercises. Focusing on these points allows your mind to connect with your body in ways that you probably don’t do regularly. This focus helps strengthen the muscles in and surrounding these press points and allows you to mentally envision these muscles so you can execute the move with grace and control. This mental focus also aids in stress relief, as your mind is preoccupied with that particular moment, and not on outside stresses and thoughts.
2. How did you discover/become interested in pilates?
To be honest, I became interested in Pilates because I was unhappy with my abs. I had a very weak core and knew I had to do something to strengthen it. I started doing the Windsor Pilates DVDs on my spare time, and even though I definitely didn’t have the knowledge of the entire process that I do now, I noticed results within the first couple of workouts. I stood taller, my core was tighter, and I felt like I was in more control of my body. I knew right away that I was hooked. I only wish I knew then what I know now!
3. Does pilates compare or relate to yoga or other practices/exercises?
Joseph Pilates, the man who created the Pilates method, is said to have studied yoga. In fact, in original teachings, he called the exercises “poses.” However, the Pilates exercises are specific and much different than yoga poses. You do not stay static in the exercises, like you do in yoga (actually, “Pilates Zest” is a term that describes the swiftness and continuity of the execution of exercises one is supposed to practice). Also, the breathing practice is different, as yoga focuses on inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the nose, while Pilates is inhaling through the nose, and exhaling through the mouth or the nose. I do feel, however, that practicing both disciplines can only be beneficial to the body and the mind.
4. How long has pilates as a practice been around in its present form?
I’m going to give you this link so that I don’t end up plagerising any information accidentally. This gives the best run-down of the history, as it’s pretty lengthy and I don’t want to get anything wrong!
http://www.pilates.com/BBA
[Jennie's note: we curious folks at The Green Daisy just loooove clickables.. thanks for the handy link!]
5. Would you say that pilates is more of a mental discipline, a physical discipline, or a bit of both?
I’d say it’s definitely a bit of both, as you can’t do one without the other. Moving through each exercise without having a mental focus can not only lead to injury, but create such a lack of benefit that the moves become pointless. Additionally, having only mental focus won’t do your body much good as your muscles won’t be worked. When I took my certification, my teacher told our class that she once had her entire class only focus on their breathing and Pilates Pillar press points. They were confused, as it seemed from an outsider that they were barely moving their body. But, after 45 minutes of focus on internal muscles, the class participants were dripping in sweat, and had an incredible workout. The mind-body connection is key to Pilates practice.
6. In your opinion, what are the chief benefits that the average person can get from pilates?
There are so many benefits! Let me list a few:
- improved core strength
- improved total body strength
- improved strength in stabilizing muscles
- a mind-body connection
- a sense of empowerment achievement
- improved posture
- stress reduction
- overall well-being
7. Is there any particular equipment or clothing that I need for a pilates class?
Luckily, with mat Pilates, there is minimal equipment requirements. If you go to an actual Pilates studio, they should be equipped with Pilates mats (these are thicker than yoga mats. This is to protect your spine, since you spend a lot of time on your back). If you’re going to a gym for a Pilates class, you should call ahead to see if you need to bring a mat. If you don’t have a Pilates mat, you can double up two yoga mats. As for clothing, you should wear something similar to what you’d wear to a yoga class – comfortable! You will not be wearing shoes or socks. If you’re a woman, it’s probably best that you don’t wear a bra with a back clasp. Try and wear a sports bra without this, as it may cause discomfort in some exercises. Also, if you wear a pony tail, it’s best to take it out during practice, or push it high or low on your head to avoid discomfort while on your back.
8. Who would you recommend pilates to, and why?
I’d recommend Pilates practice to anyone, since it requires minimal equipment, and can be modified based on your skill and technique. A qualified instructor can determine what level you’re at, and what aspects you need to work on. Even the most expert Pilates enthusiasts can improve. Whether you’re a seasoned athlete, or an inactive grandmother, Pilates can be modified to your individual needs and benefit your body and mind. It’s never too late to start!
9. What should I expect from first pilates class?
You should expect a qualified instructor who fully explains the “Pilates Pillar” and the “powerhouse.” You should expect to also be repositioned by the teacher if he/she feels you’re not executing the moves properly. Do not get discouraged if the teacher points out that you’re doing something incorrectly. Everyone’s body is different, and sometimes, certain body structures just physiologically have more trouble executing certain exercises. There is no pressure in Pilates. Do not feel that you need to keep up with other participants. Work at your own pace. Your body is unique and Pilates instructors understand that. It is not about executing the exercises as fast or as hard as you can. It’s about proper, precise execution.
10. How long have you been doing pilates, and how has pilates been a positive influence in your life?
I truly appreciate a great mind-body connection in any sort of exercise I do, and try to experience it whether I’m doing cardio, weight lifting, yoga or Pilates. I think that it’s necessary to fully experience whatever activity you are doing, or you don’t achieve that activity’s full benefits. I love how Pilates promotes this connection, and have been interested in it for many years. I’ve been practicing Pilates on and off for about four years, but have become more serious about the practice this year. Not only has it made me stronger physically (my core strength has improved dramatically than what it was years ago), but it’s given me a different outlet to improve my body internally and externally. I love how I am able to practice anywhere, and how there is always something to improve upon. I experience a much calmer mind day-to-day, since I practice focusing so much more during Pilates practice. It’s truly given me a better quality of life, and overall sense of well-being.
Most mat Pilates classes are less than an hour in length, and you can expect to move through the exercises sequentially and with zest (but don’t worry, you’ll be able to keep up). You’ll always begin with the Pilates Hundred – an exercise that warms up the entire body and gets the blood circulating throughout your body. You can expect the instructor to show you the moves, or walk around throughout the class, giving you cues and tips. Most instructors will give you relaxation time at the end of your class, something similar to a yoga class.
You can expect to leave your class feeling exhilerated, long and strong!
WOW! Is it just me, or does this interview make everyone want to jump into some comfers cozers clothing and run off at full speed to the next available pilates class in your neighbourhood??? I wanna be long and strong! Allison, I want to say thanks-a-million for blessing the 'Daisy with your knowledge and enthusiasm. Being open and giving, and sharing your passion with others can enrich and change people's lives in enormous ways!
For more about Miss Allison and her adventures in fitness, check out her blogs!!
http://ilikenaturalfood.bl
http://bodyspace.bodybuilding.com/allisonmm/
I think Allison puts gets it dead-on when she talks about the importance of the mind-body-spirit connection. What a beautiful way to live your life! Thanks for dropping into The Green Daisy, and if you've got anything to add, please email me or leave a comment! I hope you enjoyed the post.. stay tuned for the next addition to 'Daisy, which will be a love-explosion of... "gastronomic" proportions!!! Tee hee!
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Eeek! Plastique!!!
Good evenin', Daisy readers! Welcome to a merry little late-night Thursday post. Thursday night is actually the beginning of my weekend, (a rough life, I know!) and as I was embarking on my half-hour bus ride home after work, I decided to put my feet up, dig out a 'Natural Health' magazine that I found in a pile at my other job and promptly "borrowed", and take a sip of water from my... glass jam jar? That's right! I tote my water around in a cleaned-out, label-removed jam jar. People look at me like I've got two heads when I drink from it on the street sometimes, but I got the brainstorm to start using it as a portable water vessel a couple of months ago when I was washing some old jars out and realized that not only were they a very convenient size to haul all over town, but they were completely leak proof! So my old blueberry jam jar became my 'water bottle', and the random junk in my purse hasn't gotten soaked lately.
Where am I going with this? I'll tell yas. Not long ago, someone asked me if I was using the glass jar in place of plastic. I wasn't - but it made me think. Warnings about the use of plastic to store food and drink have been all over the news lately, even prompting big stores like Mountain Equipment Co-op to pull plastic Nalgene bottles from their shelves!! I decided to check out some of the most recent studies and info on the joys of plastic, and make a handy list to post here on The Green Daisy. Some of it I'd heard before; some of it is fairly common knowledge; and some of it was downright creepy.
Read on! Read on and find out why plastic ain't so fantastic.
Ever check out the little number in the recyclin' triangle on the bottom of that milk jug? There are seven types of plastic, each one made of different stuff, and generally used for different purposes. To start off, here's a brief run-down of plastic types and where you'll find them. Check 'em out:
#1 - Polyethylene Terephthalate Ethylene, commonly used for soft drink bottles, juice containers, water bottles, and peanut butter jars.
#2 - High Density Polyethelene, commonly used for milk and water jugs, detergent bottles.
#3 - Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), commonly used for cling wrap, oil jars, cleaner bottles.
#4 - Low Density Polyethylene, commonly used for plastic shopping bags, cling wrap, and assorted bottles.
#5 - Polypropylene, commonly used in Rubbermaid containers, soup and yogurt containers, drinking straws and baby bottles.
#6 - Polystyrene, used to make styrofoam, egg cartons, and disposable cups, dishes, and cutlery.
#7 Polycarbonate, used in baby bottles, can liners, sippy cups, and plastic cutlery.
So there's the categories - here's the really important stuff. To start off with, only #1 and #2 are recyclable. Put any other kind of plastic in the recycling bin, and you're guaranteed that it's going to the dump, where it's going to sit for a few thousand years.
As far as toxicity goes, there are a few major culprits to look out for in the list o' plastique. If you must use plastic for food or beverage storage, you're better off using #1, #2, #4 and #5. The dreaded #7, #6, and #3 shouldn't be used for anything. Ever. Checkit:
#7 contains Bisphenol A, a chemical that mimics estrogen and can stimulate certain cancers, particularly ovarian. It messes up the reproductive system, sperm count, the immune system, and also interferes with puberty. It can easily pass through from mother to fetus via the bloodstream.
#3 contains di(2-ethylhexyl)adipate. Exposure to this chemical causes nasty effects on the organs and bones, and is a probable liver carcinogen. Besides being the least-recyclable of the plastics, it's the worst for our health too! Its manufacture creates major air and water pollution, and often contains added lead.. yechh! Not in my food, baby.
#6 contrains styrene. It's highly toxic to the brain and nervous system. It messes up organ function, and interferes with red blood cells.
So! #7,#3 and #6 - don't use 'em!! Eventually though, it would be a good idea to phase out the use of plastics in our daily lives as much as possible, as most of them are made from petroleum, which is a non-renewable resource that's mostly used to create unnecessary packaging anyways... junk that ends up in the landfill (and our streets and waterways!!) and stays there, taking up valuable space on our already overcrowded planet and leaching goodness-knows-what into the ground.
It's obvious why plastic's been such a hit for the last hundred years or so - it's cheap to make, super-lightweight and usually very durable. But the pros don't outweigh the cons when it comes to protecting our health, our planet, and our children's future.
PLASTIC BANISHING TIPS!!!
- Switch to cloth bags for grocery trips! Those plastic bags clog up sewer grates, collect in landfills faster than dirty socks in my laundry pile, and even show up in the tummies of wild animals. Besides, cloth bags are way easier for the long jaunt home and will halt the creepy multiplication of plastic bags in your home, too!
- Invest in some glass, ceramic or stainless steel containers for storing food. Almost anything's better than plastic. Avoid cling wrap and tupperware as much as you can. You don't have to toss it all out right away.. gradually phasing plastic out is the name of the game!
- A strange fact: ordinary tap water is tested for impurities to a much larger extent than any brand of bottled water. Bottled water isn't just expensive - it's a rip-off and a big waste of natural resources. Skip the bottle whenever you can! Glass or stainless steel are great alternatives, and you wont get that plastic taste.
- People might look at you funny for this today, but years from now you'll be saying "I told you so" when everyone's doing it: bring your own containers when you order fast food or coffee to take the place of styrofoam. Styrofoam is gross and toxic. It's your health and your body; it's your right to demand safety. Don't let a few curious looks deter you.. I bring my own containers all the time!
- If you do use plastic or cling wrap any time, doooon't microwave it! When we heat it up in the microwave, we send the particles and atoms in the plastic buzzing and flying all over the place, worsening and quickening the nasty effects of plastic. Keep it at a cool temperature.
And there we have it! You know, it's weird.. now that I haven't been using plastic to drink from in a long while, on the occasional time that I do, I really notice it. As soon as you're not desensitized to plastic anymore, you really sense the negative attributes it has. It tastes funny. It smells funny. It's subtle, but it's there.. plastic gives me a cranky face. It's everywhere, but avoid it as much as you can! In the years to come, I've got the feeling that the general use of plastic, food-wise or not, is going to decline as more and more studies come out. I'd hate to see more bad news on top of the stuff already written here, but you know what they say.. the truth hurts... but the truth will set us free!
As an end note, it's time to recap last week's poll. Meats n' eats.
On the average week, how many of your lunches and dinners include meat?
11% said all, or most
11% said many - at least half
33% said only a few here or there
44% said none - I'm a vegetarian, fool!
This week's quiz is up and running.. thanks for pollin' and thanks for readin'!
Where am I going with this? I'll tell yas. Not long ago, someone asked me if I was using the glass jar in place of plastic. I wasn't - but it made me think. Warnings about the use of plastic to store food and drink have been all over the news lately, even prompting big stores like Mountain Equipment Co-op to pull plastic Nalgene bottles from their shelves!! I decided to check out some of the most recent studies and info on the joys of plastic, and make a handy list to post here on The Green Daisy. Some of it I'd heard before; some of it is fairly common knowledge; and some of it was downright creepy.
Read on! Read on and find out why plastic ain't so fantastic.
Ever check out the little number in the recyclin' triangle on the bottom of that milk jug? There are seven types of plastic, each one made of different stuff, and generally used for different purposes. To start off, here's a brief run-down of plastic types and where you'll find them. Check 'em out:
#1 - Polyethylene Terephthalate Ethylene, commonly used for soft drink bottles, juice containers, water bottles, and peanut butter jars.
#2 - High Density Polyethelene, commonly used for milk and water jugs, detergent bottles.
#3 - Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), commonly used for cling wrap, oil jars, cleaner bottles.
#4 - Low Density Polyethylene, commonly used for plastic shopping bags, cling wrap, and assorted bottles.
#5 - Polypropylene, commonly used in Rubbermaid containers, soup and yogurt containers, drinking straws and baby bottles.
#6 - Polystyrene, used to make styrofoam, egg cartons, and disposable cups, dishes, and cutlery.
#7 Polycarbonate, used in baby bottles, can liners, sippy cups, and plastic cutlery.
So there's the categories - here's the really important stuff. To start off with, only #1 and #2 are recyclable. Put any other kind of plastic in the recycling bin, and you're guaranteed that it's going to the dump, where it's going to sit for a few thousand years.
As far as toxicity goes, there are a few major culprits to look out for in the list o' plastique. If you must use plastic for food or beverage storage, you're better off using #1, #2, #4 and #5. The dreaded #7, #6, and #3 shouldn't be used for anything. Ever. Checkit:
#7 contains Bisphenol A, a chemical that mimics estrogen and can stimulate certain cancers, particularly ovarian. It messes up the reproductive system, sperm count, the immune system, and also interferes with puberty. It can easily pass through from mother to fetus via the bloodstream.
#3 contains di(2-ethylhexyl)adipate. Exposure to this chemical causes nasty effects on the organs and bones, and is a probable liver carcinogen. Besides being the least-recyclable of the plastics, it's the worst for our health too! Its manufacture creates major air and water pollution, and often contains added lead.. yechh! Not in my food, baby.
#6 contrains styrene. It's highly toxic to the brain and nervous system. It messes up organ function, and interferes with red blood cells.
So! #7,#3 and #6 - don't use 'em!! Eventually though, it would be a good idea to phase out the use of plastics in our daily lives as much as possible, as most of them are made from petroleum, which is a non-renewable resource that's mostly used to create unnecessary packaging anyways... junk that ends up in the landfill (and our streets and waterways!!) and stays there, taking up valuable space on our already overcrowded planet and leaching goodness-knows-what into the ground.
It's obvious why plastic's been such a hit for the last hundred years or so - it's cheap to make, super-lightweight and usually very durable. But the pros don't outweigh the cons when it comes to protecting our health, our planet, and our children's future.
PLASTIC BANISHING TIPS!!!
- Switch to cloth bags for grocery trips! Those plastic bags clog up sewer grates, collect in landfills faster than dirty socks in my laundry pile, and even show up in the tummies of wild animals. Besides, cloth bags are way easier for the long jaunt home and will halt the creepy multiplication of plastic bags in your home, too!
- Invest in some glass, ceramic or stainless steel containers for storing food. Almost anything's better than plastic. Avoid cling wrap and tupperware as much as you can. You don't have to toss it all out right away.. gradually phasing plastic out is the name of the game!
- A strange fact: ordinary tap water is tested for impurities to a much larger extent than any brand of bottled water. Bottled water isn't just expensive - it's a rip-off and a big waste of natural resources. Skip the bottle whenever you can! Glass or stainless steel are great alternatives, and you wont get that plastic taste.
- People might look at you funny for this today, but years from now you'll be saying "I told you so" when everyone's doing it: bring your own containers when you order fast food or coffee to take the place of styrofoam. Styrofoam is gross and toxic. It's your health and your body; it's your right to demand safety. Don't let a few curious looks deter you.. I bring my own containers all the time!
- If you do use plastic or cling wrap any time, doooon't microwave it! When we heat it up in the microwave, we send the particles and atoms in the plastic buzzing and flying all over the place, worsening and quickening the nasty effects of plastic. Keep it at a cool temperature.
And there we have it! You know, it's weird.. now that I haven't been using plastic to drink from in a long while, on the occasional time that I do, I really notice it. As soon as you're not desensitized to plastic anymore, you really sense the negative attributes it has. It tastes funny. It smells funny. It's subtle, but it's there.. plastic gives me a cranky face. It's everywhere, but avoid it as much as you can! In the years to come, I've got the feeling that the general use of plastic, food-wise or not, is going to decline as more and more studies come out. I'd hate to see more bad news on top of the stuff already written here, but you know what they say.. the truth hurts... but the truth will set us free!
As an end note, it's time to recap last week's poll. Meats n' eats.
On the average week, how many of your lunches and dinners include meat?
11% said all, or most
11% said many - at least half
33% said only a few here or there
44% said none - I'm a vegetarian, fool!
This week's quiz is up and running.. thanks for pollin' and thanks for readin'!
Monday, February 18, 2008
treehugger.com!
Hey, Ladies n' Gents! Just a quickie post - I really want to give a hoot to...
WWW.TREEHUGGER.COM!
I'd come across it before a long time ago, but just rediscovered it. It's got EVERYTHING! There's something for everyone on this site. Science, Arts, Travel, Business, Nature, Gadgets... it's got a really easy-to-navigate, modern design and has a lot of neat random goodies of interest to peruse. I'm impressed!
WWW.TREEHUGGER.COM!
I'd come across it before a long time ago, but just rediscovered it. It's got EVERYTHING! There's something for everyone on this site. Science, Arts, Travel, Business, Nature, Gadgets... it's got a really easy-to-navigate, modern design and has a lot of neat random goodies of interest to peruse. I'm impressed!
Sunday, February 17, 2008
For The Love Of Broccoli!
Hello, Daisy Friends! Welcome to a lazy Sunday Daisy post! This week's topic is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. It has to do with food, and how what we eat affects our "footprint" on the Earth - that is, how much energy we use, and how much waste we leave behind. Howevah, today's post gets a bit more specific.. it has a lot to do with the ol' meat vs. veggies debate, and the bigger story on that topic.
Now, before I get started, I want to be pretty clear that today's post isn't about the ethics of eating meat; living things eat other living things, and I'm not going to try to push one type of diet over another.. that's the choice of the individual. What I'm concerned about though, is the environmental consequences behind today's large-scale meat production, why it's crappy, and what we can do to make sure that we fund those operations as little as possible by exploring new and exciting alternatives!
Let's get stahhhhted!
This post is really about meat consumption, people, and the environment. It's about how factory farms really get my goat, and if you enjoy meat, why smaller, local, free-range and certified organic farm operations are the real deal, and deserve your support!
These days, the large-scale 'factory' farm is quickly taking over from the smaller, more traditionally run rural and family farms. The idea behind the modern factory farm is to turn out as much meat as possible, as cheaply as possible - that's the very definition of a 'factory'. Lots of product, large-scale production, fast and cheap. The Better World Handbook (a wonderful read!) states that these factory farms are kicking smaller farms into oblivion - a projected 6000 smaller dairy farms alone in the States are projected to go under in the next fifteen years. That's a lot of livelihoods lost, and lot of factory gained. Here's a big fat list of why factory farms are ... well, the worst.
- Factory farms generate HUGE wastes for the environment. There are hundreds to thousands of animals on each factory farm, and the manure run-off alone is cause enough to worry. Downstream it goes, into our rivers, and into everyone's water supply, killing marine life and making us sick on the way. This water contains vast amounts of poop and the hormones, antibiotics, nitrogen, chemical fertilizers, and bacteria of all sorts that come with it. With such a huge volume of waste and not enough earth to re-absorb it, manure alone becomes a major pollutant. Additionally, the factory farm burns large amounts of non-renewable fossil fuel to operate a larger-scale, more heavily mechanized method of farming. Not good.
- Huge grain and soy crops are grown to feed the unlucky animals who end up on these factory farms. These huge crops are almost always treated with vast amounts of chemical pesticides to produce optimum yields.. and optimum pesticide poison in our air and waterways.
- Like I stated before, these factory farms are taking business away from legit, family-run, traditional farms that are better for so many reasons. (I'll get to those reasons next!!) Imagine running your own small-scale, earth-friendly operation on your own family's land, only to be shut down or bought up by a factory farm thousands of times your size, with a track record for heinous cruelty and gigantic wastes. The traditional family farm/rural community is dying.
- As if it couldn't get any worse, I'm forced to add a point that all of us are already aware of: the animals on factory farms suffer. A lot. Many of them have never even seen sunlight. They have no room to move. They're stuffed together, encouraging a whole host of infections and diseases, and violence between them as they compete for food and space. Ech... it's a sad state of affairs. There are a lot of websites out there that are more than willing to go into graphic detail about this kind of stuff, and if you can stomach it, it's worth checking out. I wont go any further on the topic right now, because it makes me feel particularly crummy.
... but there's a ray of hope! A big one! There are a zillion good reasons why we should support the traditional, local, small-scale farm! (Especially if they're certified organic!) Here are just a few of them!
- Cows that are fed on actual pasture grass (that's right! outdoors!!) are healthier, and the meat ends up being leaner and better for you. The same goes for other animals that are treated to the option of enjoying the great outdoors and natural feed - on a smaller farm, grazing makes the huge crops of grain and soy (pesticides!) required for the factory farm unnecessary, and the grass replenishes itself as the cows migrate around (and the grass benefits from the constant fertilizer! Thanks, Bessie!!). Nature!
- Smaller rural farms hire... local people! On a factory farm, employee accidents (machinery, chemicals, scary working conditions) are through the roof. Not so much on a smaller scale farm. The wages are generally better too, and jobs are more hands-on, instead of being a drone on a conveyor belt.
- Since manure is created in smaller amounts, the run-off isn't scary. The earth around a farm can absorb and degrade small amounts of waste, and regenerate itself. Also, with animals moving around outdoors, the poop is spread around evenly, reducing run-off. Thank goodness for that!
- Supporting a local farm means less trucking the produce around. A quick drive into the city or farmer's market is better for the environment than a legion of trucks driving hundreds of miles to deliver mass quantities.
- Finally, the animals acquire less disease, enjoy real air and sunshine, and eat better. That's good karma for everyone involved.
Those are some damn good reasons. But guess what: the best list is yet to come. Because....
Now, before I get started, I want to be pretty clear that today's post isn't about the ethics of eating meat; living things eat other living things, and I'm not going to try to push one type of diet over another.. that's the choice of the individual. What I'm concerned about though, is the environmental consequences behind today's large-scale meat production, why it's crappy, and what we can do to make sure that we fund those operations as little as possible by exploring new and exciting alternatives!
Let's get stahhhhted!
This post is really about meat consumption, people, and the environment. It's about how factory farms really get my goat, and if you enjoy meat, why smaller, local, free-range and certified organic farm operations are the real deal, and deserve your support!
These days, the large-scale 'factory' farm is quickly taking over from the smaller, more traditionally run rural and family farms. The idea behind the modern factory farm is to turn out as much meat as possible, as cheaply as possible - that's the very definition of a 'factory'. Lots of product, large-scale production, fast and cheap. The Better World Handbook (a wonderful read!) states that these factory farms are kicking smaller farms into oblivion - a projected 6000 smaller dairy farms alone in the States are projected to go under in the next fifteen years. That's a lot of livelihoods lost, and lot of factory gained. Here's a big fat list of why factory farms are ... well, the worst.
- Factory farms generate HUGE wastes for the environment. There are hundreds to thousands of animals on each factory farm, and the manure run-off alone is cause enough to worry. Downstream it goes, into our rivers, and into everyone's water supply, killing marine life and making us sick on the way. This water contains vast amounts of poop and the hormones, antibiotics, nitrogen, chemical fertilizers, and bacteria of all sorts that come with it. With such a huge volume of waste and not enough earth to re-absorb it, manure alone becomes a major pollutant. Additionally, the factory farm burns large amounts of non-renewable fossil fuel to operate a larger-scale, more heavily mechanized method of farming. Not good.
- Huge grain and soy crops are grown to feed the unlucky animals who end up on these factory farms. These huge crops are almost always treated with vast amounts of chemical pesticides to produce optimum yields.. and optimum pesticide poison in our air and waterways.
- Like I stated before, these factory farms are taking business away from legit, family-run, traditional farms that are better for so many reasons. (I'll get to those reasons next!!) Imagine running your own small-scale, earth-friendly operation on your own family's land, only to be shut down or bought up by a factory farm thousands of times your size, with a track record for heinous cruelty and gigantic wastes. The traditional family farm/rural community is dying.
- As if it couldn't get any worse, I'm forced to add a point that all of us are already aware of: the animals on factory farms suffer. A lot. Many of them have never even seen sunlight. They have no room to move. They're stuffed together, encouraging a whole host of infections and diseases, and violence between them as they compete for food and space. Ech... it's a sad state of affairs. There are a lot of websites out there that are more than willing to go into graphic detail about this kind of stuff, and if you can stomach it, it's worth checking out. I wont go any further on the topic right now, because it makes me feel particularly crummy.
... but there's a ray of hope! A big one! There are a zillion good reasons why we should support the traditional, local, small-scale farm! (Especially if they're certified organic!) Here are just a few of them!
- Cows that are fed on actual pasture grass (that's right! outdoors!!) are healthier, and the meat ends up being leaner and better for you. The same goes for other animals that are treated to the option of enjoying the great outdoors and natural feed - on a smaller farm, grazing makes the huge crops of grain and soy (pesticides!) required for the factory farm unnecessary, and the grass replenishes itself as the cows migrate around (and the grass benefits from the constant fertilizer! Thanks, Bessie!!). Nature!
- Smaller rural farms hire... local people! On a factory farm, employee accidents (machinery, chemicals, scary working conditions) are through the roof. Not so much on a smaller scale farm. The wages are generally better too, and jobs are more hands-on, instead of being a drone on a conveyor belt.
- Since manure is created in smaller amounts, the run-off isn't scary. The earth around a farm can absorb and degrade small amounts of waste, and regenerate itself. Also, with animals moving around outdoors, the poop is spread around evenly, reducing run-off. Thank goodness for that!
- Supporting a local farm means less trucking the produce around. A quick drive into the city or farmer's market is better for the environment than a legion of trucks driving hundreds of miles to deliver mass quantities.
- Finally, the animals acquire less disease, enjoy real air and sunshine, and eat better. That's good karma for everyone involved.
Those are some damn good reasons. But guess what: the best list is yet to come. Because....
HERE'S WHAT YOU CAN DO!!!!!!
1. Support small local farms. Research them on the 'net, and the find out where you can buy their meat. Farmer's markets, smaller butcher shops and health-food stores are always good bets. Try to get a background story on the farm operations if you can. This is stuff that we put into our bodies to nourish us: you have a right to know where it came from, and to know what you're supporting with your dough.
2. Look for certified organic and free-run products. Yes.. you will pay a bit more. But the more we purchase these products when we can, the higher the demand will be for them, and the prices will eventually start to go down. Organic means no pesticides, chemicals, hormones or antibiotics.. in other words, the meat you're eating isn't polluted! Free-range means that throughout their lifetime, the animals get to roam around as they please and engage in their natural behaviors. Watch out for "free-run" though.. that doesn't necessarily mean that they're even allowed outside. Terminology can get tricky.. try to get some facts.
3. You don't have to stop eating meat.. but you can try to eat less. All things considered, meat takes a lot more energy to produce a lot less food, than plant-based products. It's just a fact. By eating less meat, you'll help save natural resources, and help your own health too! Try experimenting with fun meat substitutes - there are a lot out there! And they're good for ya!
1. Support small local farms. Research them on the 'net, and the find out where you can buy their meat. Farmer's markets, smaller butcher shops and health-food stores are always good bets. Try to get a background story on the farm operations if you can. This is stuff that we put into our bodies to nourish us: you have a right to know where it came from, and to know what you're supporting with your dough.
2. Look for certified organic and free-run products. Yes.. you will pay a bit more. But the more we purchase these products when we can, the higher the demand will be for them, and the prices will eventually start to go down. Organic means no pesticides, chemicals, hormones or antibiotics.. in other words, the meat you're eating isn't polluted! Free-range means that throughout their lifetime, the animals get to roam around as they please and engage in their natural behaviors. Watch out for "free-run" though.. that doesn't necessarily mean that they're even allowed outside. Terminology can get tricky.. try to get some facts.
3. You don't have to stop eating meat.. but you can try to eat less. All things considered, meat takes a lot more energy to produce a lot less food, than plant-based products. It's just a fact. By eating less meat, you'll help save natural resources, and help your own health too! Try experimenting with fun meat substitutes - there are a lot out there! And they're good for ya!
Be sure to check out local vegetarian restaurants in your area for superb ideas for introducing more meatless meals into your diet! For more information on the concept of 'flexitarianism', which I think is a pretty frabulous idea, check out this news article on it. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4541605/
If you're interested in vegetarianism, I recommend checking out www.goveg.com, for a massive amount of information on the topic, and a lot of links. It's anti-meat to an extreme though, so don't say that I didn't warm ya. You can also try www.vegetarian.allrecipes.com for some recipe ideas. And don't forget to search for local farms and farmer's markets in your area! It'll pay off big! Local and organic tastes better, I swears it... and the planet will thank you!!
THANKS for reading everyone!!! Don't forget to comment if you've got something you'd like to add, or a recipe you'd like to share! But before we go, as promised, here are the results from last week's poll. Thanks for voting :-D
10% of you drive a car or truck as your major mode of transportation
30% take the bus the majority of the time
40% of you mostly ride your bike
and 20% walk!
Hoot! I like those numbers! Stay tuned for next post.. fun stuff comin' up.
If you're interested in vegetarianism, I recommend checking out www.goveg.com, for a massive amount of information on the topic, and a lot of links. It's anti-meat to an extreme though, so don't say that I didn't warm ya. You can also try www.vegetarian.allrecipes.com for some recipe ideas. And don't forget to search for local farms and farmer's markets in your area! It'll pay off big! Local and organic tastes better, I swears it... and the planet will thank you!!
THANKS for reading everyone!!! Don't forget to comment if you've got something you'd like to add, or a recipe you'd like to share! But before we go, as promised, here are the results from last week's poll. Thanks for voting :-D
10% of you drive a car or truck as your major mode of transportation
30% take the bus the majority of the time
40% of you mostly ride your bike
and 20% walk!
Hoot! I like those numbers! Stay tuned for next post.. fun stuff comin' up.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Herbalicious........
Hey folks! First off, a billion (organic fair-trade) sugar-coated thanks for visiting The Green Daisy and for participating in my weekly poll. You have no idea the level of heartbeams I get when I tune in to the Daisy Pages and see that someone's added their info or opinion to it! I'll be sure to start posting the end results and adding my two cents (or three cents, or four) each time they're finished.
OKAY! So my last post was an excellent example of my tendency to be mercilessly long-winded on topic that I enjoy, so I thought it'd be a grand idea to make today's post on a topic that's more concise and listy. (Listy? You can probably tell that I just got up.) A few years ago, I really started getting into using herbs and other materials directly from nature to treat minor health ailments. It was almost more of a curiosity than a quest to heal anything.. after all, most of the compounds that are found in store-bought medicines are just synthetic copies of remedies that can be found in your own backyard (unless your backyard is a parking lot, like mine) and it seemed like a pretty common-sense idea. Why not get your prescription directly from Mother Nature? Now if only she specialized in heart surgery..... ;)
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that if you're on death's door you should fix yourself a cup of herbal tea and forget about it. Obviously there's a time to visit the doctor, and your body will tell you when that is. But for daily gripes and bothers, there's no need to fill yourself up with questionable, synthesized (and expensive) bottled junk from an already filthy-rich company when you can do it nature's way and be extra-kind to your body in the process. It's friendly for your bod, and it's friendly for the planet. I'm no expert on the topic, but I'd like to share a list of herbal/natural remedies that I've added to over the years. I really dig some of them, and I'll add a l'il blip of my testimonials when applicable.
LEMON BALM
It's a plant that is readily available dried or in tea-bag form. Make 2-3 cups of lemon balm tea daily to simmer down a headache or relieve mild depression. I started drinking lemon balm tea a few years ago when I was working a very stressful job and it was starting to affect my mood. It took a few days, but I honestly did feel a hell of a lot better. Then I quit that crappy job.. hee hee.
TEA TREE
A wonderous plant! Ideal for areas needing a natural antiseptic, any skin ailments (cuts, infections, even head lice!) and even athlete's foot. You can add the oil to a bath, or buy soaps and shampoos with tea tree added to them. You can use the oil directly too, but you might want to dilute it somewhat. [Jennie's note: Long story short: I got head lice for the first time in grade 12. Tried on antique-hats. Caught lice. Mortified. Used tea tree oil and tea tree shampoo... lice gone. Only slightly traumatized.]
TUMERIC
A delicious food seasoning, also good for inflammation - of cuts, rashes, etc. Use the dried powder or fresh plant in your cooking a often as possible or take as a supplement. [I use this all the time in my cooking! Tasty and healing? Hooray!]
KAVA KAVA
From the plant - apparently good for stress, muscle tension and anxiety. [I've never actually used it before, but it's on the list waiting, just in case. I've heard good things.] You can buy it as a supplement at health food stores.
ENCHINACEA
We've all heard this one before, but I had to add it, because mercy, it works. Use it at the first signs of a cold, sore throat, or virus invasion. Take a bunch. You can find it in crunchy tasty tablet form too! Its immune boosting properties are known worldwide.
PASSIONFLOWER
Take passionflower as a tea, 2-3 times daily, or in supplement form for anxiety, irritability and especially insomnia. [Jennie's note: I haven't tried this one personally, but I have a friend who does. Apparently having a cup of passionflower tea about a half-hour before bed time is supposed to do wonders. It kinda makes me wonder though... wouldn't I have to wake up to pee? Haha]
ST.JOHN'S WORT
This is supposed to be THE herb to take for mild depression. Funny thing - I've actually tried St.John's Wort in tea-form simply because it tastes good! Anyways, I haven't tried it as a remedy, but like passionflower, I know someone who does, and they swear by it and I put it on this list on their urging. This herb has a very good reputation for relieving depression. Available as a supplement or as tea.
VERLERIAN
Another favorite to help with the havoc that insomnia causes! Take as a bed time tea, or buy the tincture and put it in a bit of hot water. You can get it as a supplement too. Watch it though - this herb is supposed to be a marvelous relaxant, but you don't want to fall asleep at the wheel.
RED CLOVER
This is supposed to be amazing for hushing menopausal symptoms. Needless to say, I haven't actually had a reason to try this stuff yet. Just throwin' it out there for ... further reference? Take as a tea, three or more times daily.
FLAX SEED.
Whoo boy. Say goodbye to constipation. Store-bought laxatives are awful for your system. Try flax seed instead! Soak 1 tsp of the seeds in cold water overnight, and then add it to your oatmeal or cereal in the morning. Have a nice big glass of water with it. Flax works like a charm... don't overdo it.
CHAMOMILE
A tea-lover's favorite, no doubt! I'm in love with chamomile tea. It's great for all over agitation, stress, headaches, and general i've-had-a-long-crappy-day,-wind-me-down-please. It's very calming without making you sleepy, although it is nice at bed time. Have a cup of chamomile tea whenever required, or have it daily. Add honey... it'd delicious.
FENNEL
Fantastic for indigestion complaints. That new spicy Indian dish didn't agree with you? Make tea with fennel seeds. I promise.
GINGER
One of my favorites! Ginger is really neat. Not only does it taste like a (spicy) dream, it's perfect for indigestion, nausea and other complaints - it's great for when you're sick with a cold or flu too. When in doubt - have some ginger. Work it into a dish, or better yet, make a delicious tea from it. Boil a one-inch piece (you can cut it up too) in enough water for a cup or two of tea for five minutes or so, and then strain. You can use just the ginger water as tea, or better yet, add some green tea leaves and/or lemongrass stems to it for an extra boost. Sweeten with honey... great, now I have to go make myself a pot of ginger tea. Be right back.
PEPPERMINT
Peppermint is another one of my best herbal friends. It's fantastic as a natural wake-up, but it's good for indigestion and headaches too. Like ginger, I find that peppermint is one of those all-around very-handy any-time herbs. If you're feeling crappy, try peppermint. You can get it in ready-made teabags, (watch for artificial flavoring... that stuff's crap) or better yet, get a sprig of the fresh plant and add it to freshly boiled water. Add a squirt of lemon and/or honey. You can't go wrong.
So there we have it! And now I ask YOU: what's YOUR favorite herbal remedy? I think we all have one! Or, if you've tried one of the above and would like to share the results, add a comment or send me an email!
That's all for today's Daisy Pages... thanks again for reading! Stay tuned for the next post, too... it's gonna be a doozy. So long - I'll be in the tub with my ginger tea if you need me.
OKAY! So my last post was an excellent example of my tendency to be mercilessly long-winded on topic that I enjoy, so I thought it'd be a grand idea to make today's post on a topic that's more concise and listy. (Listy? You can probably tell that I just got up.) A few years ago, I really started getting into using herbs and other materials directly from nature to treat minor health ailments. It was almost more of a curiosity than a quest to heal anything.. after all, most of the compounds that are found in store-bought medicines are just synthetic copies of remedies that can be found in your own backyard (unless your backyard is a parking lot, like mine) and it seemed like a pretty common-sense idea. Why not get your prescription directly from Mother Nature? Now if only she specialized in heart surgery..... ;)
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that if you're on death's door you should fix yourself a cup of herbal tea and forget about it. Obviously there's a time to visit the doctor, and your body will tell you when that is. But for daily gripes and bothers, there's no need to fill yourself up with questionable, synthesized (and expensive) bottled junk from an already filthy-rich company when you can do it nature's way and be extra-kind to your body in the process. It's friendly for your bod, and it's friendly for the planet. I'm no expert on the topic, but I'd like to share a list of herbal/natural remedies that I've added to over the years. I really dig some of them, and I'll add a l'il blip of my testimonials when applicable.
LEMON BALM
It's a plant that is readily available dried or in tea-bag form. Make 2-3 cups of lemon balm tea daily to simmer down a headache or relieve mild depression. I started drinking lemon balm tea a few years ago when I was working a very stressful job and it was starting to affect my mood. It took a few days, but I honestly did feel a hell of a lot better. Then I quit that crappy job.. hee hee.
TEA TREE
A wonderous plant! Ideal for areas needing a natural antiseptic, any skin ailments (cuts, infections, even head lice!) and even athlete's foot. You can add the oil to a bath, or buy soaps and shampoos with tea tree added to them. You can use the oil directly too, but you might want to dilute it somewhat. [Jennie's note: Long story short: I got head lice for the first time in grade 12. Tried on antique-hats. Caught lice. Mortified. Used tea tree oil and tea tree shampoo... lice gone. Only slightly traumatized.]
TUMERIC
A delicious food seasoning, also good for inflammation - of cuts, rashes, etc. Use the dried powder or fresh plant in your cooking a often as possible or take as a supplement. [I use this all the time in my cooking! Tasty and healing? Hooray!]
KAVA KAVA
From the plant - apparently good for stress, muscle tension and anxiety. [I've never actually used it before, but it's on the list waiting, just in case. I've heard good things.] You can buy it as a supplement at health food stores.
ENCHINACEA
We've all heard this one before, but I had to add it, because mercy, it works. Use it at the first signs of a cold, sore throat, or virus invasion. Take a bunch. You can find it in crunchy tasty tablet form too! Its immune boosting properties are known worldwide.
PASSIONFLOWER
Take passionflower as a tea, 2-3 times daily, or in supplement form for anxiety, irritability and especially insomnia. [Jennie's note: I haven't tried this one personally, but I have a friend who does. Apparently having a cup of passionflower tea about a half-hour before bed time is supposed to do wonders. It kinda makes me wonder though... wouldn't I have to wake up to pee? Haha]
ST.JOHN'S WORT
This is supposed to be THE herb to take for mild depression. Funny thing - I've actually tried St.John's Wort in tea-form simply because it tastes good! Anyways, I haven't tried it as a remedy, but like passionflower, I know someone who does, and they swear by it and I put it on this list on their urging. This herb has a very good reputation for relieving depression. Available as a supplement or as tea.
VERLERIAN
Another favorite to help with the havoc that insomnia causes! Take as a bed time tea, or buy the tincture and put it in a bit of hot water. You can get it as a supplement too. Watch it though - this herb is supposed to be a marvelous relaxant, but you don't want to fall asleep at the wheel.
RED CLOVER
This is supposed to be amazing for hushing menopausal symptoms. Needless to say, I haven't actually had a reason to try this stuff yet. Just throwin' it out there for ... further reference? Take as a tea, three or more times daily.
FLAX SEED.
Whoo boy. Say goodbye to constipation. Store-bought laxatives are awful for your system. Try flax seed instead! Soak 1 tsp of the seeds in cold water overnight, and then add it to your oatmeal or cereal in the morning. Have a nice big glass of water with it. Flax works like a charm... don't overdo it.
CHAMOMILE
A tea-lover's favorite, no doubt! I'm in love with chamomile tea. It's great for all over agitation, stress, headaches, and general i've-had-a-long-crappy-day,-wind-me-down-please. It's very calming without making you sleepy, although it is nice at bed time. Have a cup of chamomile tea whenever required, or have it daily. Add honey... it'd delicious.
FENNEL
Fantastic for indigestion complaints. That new spicy Indian dish didn't agree with you? Make tea with fennel seeds. I promise.
GINGER
One of my favorites! Ginger is really neat. Not only does it taste like a (spicy) dream, it's perfect for indigestion, nausea and other complaints - it's great for when you're sick with a cold or flu too. When in doubt - have some ginger. Work it into a dish, or better yet, make a delicious tea from it. Boil a one-inch piece (you can cut it up too) in enough water for a cup or two of tea for five minutes or so, and then strain. You can use just the ginger water as tea, or better yet, add some green tea leaves and/or lemongrass stems to it for an extra boost. Sweeten with honey... great, now I have to go make myself a pot of ginger tea. Be right back.
PEPPERMINT
Peppermint is another one of my best herbal friends. It's fantastic as a natural wake-up, but it's good for indigestion and headaches too. Like ginger, I find that peppermint is one of those all-around very-handy any-time herbs. If you're feeling crappy, try peppermint. You can get it in ready-made teabags, (watch for artificial flavoring... that stuff's crap) or better yet, get a sprig of the fresh plant and add it to freshly boiled water. Add a squirt of lemon and/or honey. You can't go wrong.
So there we have it! And now I ask YOU: what's YOUR favorite herbal remedy? I think we all have one! Or, if you've tried one of the above and would like to share the results, add a comment or send me an email!
That's all for today's Daisy Pages... thanks again for reading! Stay tuned for the next post, too... it's gonna be a doozy. So long - I'll be in the tub with my ginger tea if you need me.
Friday, February 8, 2008
HEMPTASTIC!!!
Hoot hoot! Welcome to the seventh post on The Green Daisy. I've got a feeling that I'm going to have a lot of fun writing today's post, because it's on a topic that I'm really getting into - all things HEMP. So... what do you think of when you hear the word 'hemp'? Probably a lot of different things, but a few major visions are bound to come up.. marijuana... maybe a burlap-sack-like fabric... maybe some filthy guy with burrs caught in his beard at a folk festival. Well, forget all that. Except for maybe the folk festival guy. He needs some help getting those burrs out before he bad-trips. Anyways, the point is, that there's a lot more to hemp than meets the eye, and a lot of the time, I think that common associations with the word and materials distract us from the REAL information that's out there about hemp and why it's so effing great. It's got a long, long history providing valuable resources for us humans, and today, more than ever, it's a highly important source of materials - it's renewable, extremely useful, and fantastic for the planet!
Let's get to the juicy... ahem... hempy stuff, shall we?
Get this: hemp was probably among the very first fibres cultivated by human beings, way, way back in our species' infancy, when we were just figuring out how to use the things that grow out of the Earth to make our lives easier. There's actual evidence that humans across Asia were well on their way to making simple ropes and such from hemp stalks as long as 30 000 years ago, and it shows up in Indian and Chinese texts 5000 years ago, being praised for its use in medicine and as a fibre for nets, ropes, and baskets.
Why was this plant so highly valued for its practical uses? A lot of reasons. Although it grows the tallest in hot and humid environments, the plant is in fact highly adaptable.. high altitudes and cold winter seasons only deter its growth minimally. In can be spun very coarsely, to be used as rope, twine, baskets, sturdy sacks, or boat sails - or it can be spun extraordinarily fine for clothing and linens.. when very fine, it can rival silk. It's highly absorbant, so it makes a way better material for clothing than synthetics, which just make you clammy instead of helping your body out. It holds dye incredibly well, making rich colours and sturdy shades possible.. the fashionable person's dream come true. It doesn't wrinkle easily, and clothing moths hate it. It dries quickly, reducing living quarters for mold and mildew, and it's also highly resistant to the severe cold, heat, dampness, wetness, sunlight, salt and chemicals. Neat! Hemp fibre is extremely strong too, which is why everything from paper to the grand sails of ships were made from it. It's all-purpose and has a million-and-one uses. (There are more benefits to using hemp, but we'll get to those later, as they're the most relevant reasons for using hemp in today's world. )
So... why the heck did it fall out of favor in many parts of the world? There are a lot of different arguments. What a lot of people believe, is that in the 1930's, prohibition was trying to stamp out intoxicants.. and guess what was one of them? Pot. But wait! Are hemp and marijuana both from the same plant? Not quite. Let's get some truthiness going here. Hemp and pot are actually cousins of the same variety of plant, with the big differences being that if you smoke pot, you get high, and if you smoke a hemp plant, you just get a headache. It simply doesn't have enough of the good (ahem) stuff in it that makes cannabis such a sought-after dried herb. On the reverso though, if you try to spin fibre from a pot plant, you'll get a crappy, low-quality result. So, the bottom line is, pot plant = pot, hemp plant = hemp. That's it. Unfortunately, not everyone saw it that way, and the whole shebang got outlawed in America. Crummy. You may have heard this before, but it's true: even George Washington grew hemp. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper, so it would keep! At the same time, cotton production in North America started to boom without hemp as a rival, and people began to favor it over the 'evil weed' as it was sadly called. Hemp was grown again briefly during WWII because they needed it for emergency ropes and such, but ultimately it seemed like hemp had gone the way of the dinosaur. Handy, healthy hemp oil was replaced by synthetic, petroleum-based substitutes, and then we started destroying ancient forests for paper instead of using the super-quick-growing, quickly-replaces-itself hemp plant. What were we thinking?! Cotton, unless certified organic these days, is the crop that uses the most pesticide in the entire world. Oh, and those ancient forests? Yeah. They don't grow back in a single season, like hemp does. You need about two thousand seasons. Crappy.
But don't despair - it's time for the best part.
Hemp is enjoying a newfound popularity lately for a number of very, very good reasons. Put very simply, we've mined our planet's precious resources to the limit, and we need a realistic alternative.. right now. Here are some fantastic facts about hemp that makes it such a blim blammin' good idea to invest in, in these sketchy times.
- Hemp grows incredibly fast. Faster than trees. Faster than your little brother. It's really neat. One plant can grow up to 18 feet in a single year... that's a lot of hemp!! With the demand for paper, textiles, and foodstuffs, that the human race requires, we need something that can bust it that fast.
- Unlike cotton and lots of other crops, hemp actually leaves the soil replenished with nutrients instead of depleted! It makes its own fertilizer for the next generation of baby hemp plants! Think of the resources that can be saved on that alone. Growing hemp is good for the soil and for the other plant-life around it.
- Hemp doesn't need pesticides to grow like crazy and meet our demand, unlike cotton and many other crops. It's hardy and crazy that way.
- Hemp produces a huge seed yield, so you get more, more, more.
- As mentioned before, the hemp plant is highly adaptive, and can follow humans wherever they go. Plant it all over the place! Wherever we go, hemp can go too.
The bottom line: Hemp is a sustainable, renewable resource for a million things that we really need. It we grow more hemp, we CAN limit the destruction of ancient forests and eco-systems that make our planet breathable.
Alright! Now that I'm feeling fabulous about hemp, I'd like to share a few awesome things with you - lots of awesome, fair-trade companies are churning out incredible, happily hempily products right now, and they're not all tye-dyed. Seriously!!! They're practical, beautiful, economical, and hemptastic. Check out:
www.hoodlamb.com (sexy, fashionable hemp clothing for guys and ladies)
www.rawganique.com (clothes and a home section too!)
www.ecolution.com (my personal recommendation.. fair-trade for sure!!!)
www.adbusters.org (hemp SHOES! They're amazing! See the link on right on their site)
www.spiritstream.com (has everything. Everything.)
A ton of stuff in your daily life is available in hemp-form. Clothes, fabric, towels, washcloths, belts, jewellery, footwear, shower curtains, blankets, bags, backpacks, wallets, coffee filters, rope, toys... the list goes on and on. I have a hemp backpack from Ecolution that I bought about three years ago, and let me tell you something about it: it's been tossed about from one end of Canada to the other, all over Vancouver, across the ocean, from one end of Ireland to the other, on countless trips to Montreal, to Toronto, New York City, and on about a zillion grocery and day-trips, and after a wash, it still looks as good as the day I bought it.
Before I bring this post to a close, I'd like to give a quick hoorah to a few of the places in Ottawa that supply hemp stuff: find it at Arbour (800 Bank St.) and Karma Wear (110 Parent St. in the Market). Lots of other places are carrying it now too.. snoop around and send me your hemp sightings!
We hear a lot of the time that perhaps the biggest tool for making change in our lives is our wallets. Be careful who you give your money to, and what you're supporting. If we demand sustainable, and we demand fair-trade, then it'll happen. And finally, if you're the lucky owner of some hemp stuffs, or are thinking about supporting it next time you purchase something hempable, feel proud about it, and tell all your friends the facts! So long 'til next time!
Let's get to the juicy... ahem... hempy stuff, shall we?
Get this: hemp was probably among the very first fibres cultivated by human beings, way, way back in our species' infancy, when we were just figuring out how to use the things that grow out of the Earth to make our lives easier. There's actual evidence that humans across Asia were well on their way to making simple ropes and such from hemp stalks as long as 30 000 years ago, and it shows up in Indian and Chinese texts 5000 years ago, being praised for its use in medicine and as a fibre for nets, ropes, and baskets.
Why was this plant so highly valued for its practical uses? A lot of reasons. Although it grows the tallest in hot and humid environments, the plant is in fact highly adaptable.. high altitudes and cold winter seasons only deter its growth minimally. In can be spun very coarsely, to be used as rope, twine, baskets, sturdy sacks, or boat sails - or it can be spun extraordinarily fine for clothing and linens.. when very fine, it can rival silk. It's highly absorbant, so it makes a way better material for clothing than synthetics, which just make you clammy instead of helping your body out. It holds dye incredibly well, making rich colours and sturdy shades possible.. the fashionable person's dream come true. It doesn't wrinkle easily, and clothing moths hate it. It dries quickly, reducing living quarters for mold and mildew, and it's also highly resistant to the severe cold, heat, dampness, wetness, sunlight, salt and chemicals. Neat! Hemp fibre is extremely strong too, which is why everything from paper to the grand sails of ships were made from it. It's all-purpose and has a million-and-one uses. (There are more benefits to using hemp, but we'll get to those later, as they're the most relevant reasons for using hemp in today's world. )
So... why the heck did it fall out of favor in many parts of the world? There are a lot of different arguments. What a lot of people believe, is that in the 1930's, prohibition was trying to stamp out intoxicants.. and guess what was one of them? Pot. But wait! Are hemp and marijuana both from the same plant? Not quite. Let's get some truthiness going here. Hemp and pot are actually cousins of the same variety of plant, with the big differences being that if you smoke pot, you get high, and if you smoke a hemp plant, you just get a headache. It simply doesn't have enough of the good (ahem) stuff in it that makes cannabis such a sought-after dried herb. On the reverso though, if you try to spin fibre from a pot plant, you'll get a crappy, low-quality result. So, the bottom line is, pot plant = pot, hemp plant = hemp. That's it. Unfortunately, not everyone saw it that way, and the whole shebang got outlawed in America. Crummy. You may have heard this before, but it's true: even George Washington grew hemp. The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper, so it would keep! At the same time, cotton production in North America started to boom without hemp as a rival, and people began to favor it over the 'evil weed' as it was sadly called. Hemp was grown again briefly during WWII because they needed it for emergency ropes and such, but ultimately it seemed like hemp had gone the way of the dinosaur. Handy, healthy hemp oil was replaced by synthetic, petroleum-based substitutes, and then we started destroying ancient forests for paper instead of using the super-quick-growing, quickly-replaces-itself hemp plant. What were we thinking?! Cotton, unless certified organic these days, is the crop that uses the most pesticide in the entire world. Oh, and those ancient forests? Yeah. They don't grow back in a single season, like hemp does. You need about two thousand seasons. Crappy.
But don't despair - it's time for the best part.
Hemp is enjoying a newfound popularity lately for a number of very, very good reasons. Put very simply, we've mined our planet's precious resources to the limit, and we need a realistic alternative.. right now. Here are some fantastic facts about hemp that makes it such a blim blammin' good idea to invest in, in these sketchy times.
- Hemp grows incredibly fast. Faster than trees. Faster than your little brother. It's really neat. One plant can grow up to 18 feet in a single year... that's a lot of hemp!! With the demand for paper, textiles, and foodstuffs, that the human race requires, we need something that can bust it that fast.
- Unlike cotton and lots of other crops, hemp actually leaves the soil replenished with nutrients instead of depleted! It makes its own fertilizer for the next generation of baby hemp plants! Think of the resources that can be saved on that alone. Growing hemp is good for the soil and for the other plant-life around it.
- Hemp doesn't need pesticides to grow like crazy and meet our demand, unlike cotton and many other crops. It's hardy and crazy that way.
- Hemp produces a huge seed yield, so you get more, more, more.
- As mentioned before, the hemp plant is highly adaptive, and can follow humans wherever they go. Plant it all over the place! Wherever we go, hemp can go too.
The bottom line: Hemp is a sustainable, renewable resource for a million things that we really need. It we grow more hemp, we CAN limit the destruction of ancient forests and eco-systems that make our planet breathable.
Alright! Now that I'm feeling fabulous about hemp, I'd like to share a few awesome things with you - lots of awesome, fair-trade companies are churning out incredible, happily hempily products right now, and they're not all tye-dyed. Seriously!!! They're practical, beautiful, economical, and hemptastic. Check out:
www.hoodlamb.com (sexy, fashionable hemp clothing for guys and ladies)
www.rawganique.com (clothes and a home section too!)
www.ecolution.com (my personal recommendation.. fair-trade for sure!!!)
www.adbusters.org (hemp SHOES! They're amazing! See the link on right on their site)
www.spiritstream.com (has everything. Everything.)
A ton of stuff in your daily life is available in hemp-form. Clothes, fabric, towels, washcloths, belts, jewellery, footwear, shower curtains, blankets, bags, backpacks, wallets, coffee filters, rope, toys... the list goes on and on. I have a hemp backpack from Ecolution that I bought about three years ago, and let me tell you something about it: it's been tossed about from one end of Canada to the other, all over Vancouver, across the ocean, from one end of Ireland to the other, on countless trips to Montreal, to Toronto, New York City, and on about a zillion grocery and day-trips, and after a wash, it still looks as good as the day I bought it.
Before I bring this post to a close, I'd like to give a quick hoorah to a few of the places in Ottawa that supply hemp stuff: find it at Arbour (800 Bank St.) and Karma Wear (110 Parent St. in the Market). Lots of other places are carrying it now too.. snoop around and send me your hemp sightings!
We hear a lot of the time that perhaps the biggest tool for making change in our lives is our wallets. Be careful who you give your money to, and what you're supporting. If we demand sustainable, and we demand fair-trade, then it'll happen. And finally, if you're the lucky owner of some hemp stuffs, or are thinking about supporting it next time you purchase something hempable, feel proud about it, and tell all your friends the facts! So long 'til next time!
Friday, February 1, 2008
Recipes.... for your FACE! And other places.
Ah... a day off. What better time to pamper oneself a little? In fact, I've got avocado in my hair as we speak... but that's another story. Welcome to today's post - a little something to counteract the gloom n' doom of the previous post, which was a bountiful flurry of the harmful poop that sneaks into our lives via our toiletries and cosmetics. I'm really happy to share a few of my favorite homemade beauty/hygiene recipes with the Green Daisy readers today. There are the tried and true recipes, tested by myself for years, and then there are a few that are next on my list! If you've got a few of your favorites that you'd like to share with the Daisy Pages, please send 'em in! I'd love to put them up! (Also: Grandparents and your hippie aunt are great sources of this kind of information! Haha)
And remember peoples, with all this talk of 'beauty products' and such, don't think that this stuff is only limited to the benefit of the ladies.... fellas need to wash n' shave naturally just as much as the gals. Anybody got a good recipe for eco-friendly beard wash? HAHA! Now there's a market for ya!!!
Just before we start: collecting the ingredients for some of this stuff might seem a little daunting at first read. Luckily, I can say from my experience, that the best places to find this kind of stuff is your friendly neighbourhood health-food shop/natural pharmacy and the grocery store. Surf the web and check out the phone book listings for these kind of places, and call ahead to see if they have what you need. In Ottawa, I can often do one-stop shopping for cosmetic recipe ingredients! Try the Natural Food Pantry and the Ottawa Natural Pharmacy.. they're amazing places.
Alright.. ON with it already!
JENNIE'S FAVORITE BEESWAX DRY SKIN BALM/LIP BALM
I've been making this stuff for years. It's smells lovely and it works wonders.
- 1 oz pure beeswax bar (make absolutely sure nothing's been added to it)
- 1/4 to 1/2 cup olive oil
- a dash of honey (optional)
Directions: In a small pot, preferably one that you don't care for particularly, place the beeswax bar, and heat on the stove over lowish heat. You can watch it slowly dissolve into liquid... really neat. Once it's totally liquified (Don't boil! Oh god, don't boil!) slowly, slowly stir in the olive oil. There reason why I wrote 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup olive oil, is because some people like this stuff fairly hard and scrapeable, and some people like it quite squishy. It's up to you.. it may take some experimenting to get the right final consistency, but it's fun. Once the olive oil is stirred in, add any optional ingredients, like the small dash of honey or a few drops of essential oil for lip-balm yummy smell. Pour while still hot into lip-balm containers, tiny mason jars, tiny empty tins... whatever you want! Let cool, and it will re-solidify into balm. Use it on your hands before you go to bed for an amazing hand-softening treatment, use it on eczema or really dry skin, or enjoy it as an amazing lip balm.
SILKY LOVELY SHAVING LOTION
Gotta love this stuff. Don't worry if your measurements aren't exact or the consistency isn't like the stuff you get in the can.. it's really nice.
- 4oz aloe vera oil
- 1/2oz jojoba oil
- 15 drops chamomile essential oil
- dash of vegetable oil
Mix them together, and bottle it up. Use it on legs n' pits for sure - haven't gotten the word on whether it's groovy for the face or not, but I can only imagine it'd be amazing. (TIP! This one comes from my Mom n' Grandma.. if you're out of shaving cream, an all-natural hair conditioner works incredibly well!)
ALL-NATURAL BUBBLE BATH
I love this stuff! It makes me realize that I simply don't take enough baths. The best part is that you can add whatever essential oil to it that floats your boat the most.
- 1 cup all natural liquid vegetable-based/castille soap (I recommend Nature Clean)
- 2 tbsp vegetable glycerine (available at natural pharmacies/food stores)
- 10 drops of your favorite essential oil - a fruity or flowery one works wonders. Go for lavender for a soothing bath, or for citrus for a gentle wake-up.
Simply mix and bottle. (Don't shake!) Use it within a couple of weeks if you can.
JENNIE'S INCREDIBLE PEPPERMINT SUGAR SCRUB
This is wonderful stuff. I enjoy making a batches of it to be given away as presents just as much as making a big batch of it for myself. It's moisturizing and exfoliating - great for your skin, especially after a shave. If you use the peppermint oil in it though, watch the eyes.. a little strong for the ol' eyeballs and sinuses.
- A cup or two of sugar, any kind will do.
- Olive oil
- 1 - 2 tbsp. vegetable glycerine
- small handful dried mint leaves - crush 'em up and remove stems!
- 5-15 drops peppermint essential oil
This scrub smells good enough to eat. In a mixing bowl, add the sugar, and then enough olive oil to get a nice consistency going - you might like your scrub more on the powdery side, or like me, you might like it a little creamier. Experiment. Add your glycerine and mint leaves (again with the mint leaves, add a few or plenty... they make it really pretty) and then stir in the essential oil. You can make it really strong smelling, or not so much. It's all about personal taste. Stir and beat until totally mixed, and then put it all into a pretty mason jar... tie a ribbon and make a label if it's a present!
CHAMOMILE SHAMPOO
I haven't actually tried this recipe out yet, but it intrigues me (Make my own shampoo! Of course! Why haven't I entertained this idea before?) and it's going to be my next experiment. If anyone out there tries it before I do, give me your input! I got the recipe from somewhere ages ago... I wish I could remember where.
- 4 bags chamomile tea, or a handful of fresh chamomile flowers
- 4 tbsp pure vegetable soap flakes (or grate a bar)
- 1 1/2 tbsp vegetable glycerine
Let the chamomile steep in 1 1/2 cups of boiled water for about ten minutes, and strain. Add the grated soap, mix and let it stand until all soft. Stir in the glycerine and mix well until blended. Bottle!
That sounds incredible! Hmm... speaking of shampoo, maybe it's time to go wash this avocado out of my hair before it turns green. Before I vanish though, I'd really like to add a little list of my recommendations as far as purchased body care products go. We don't always have the time to make everything we'd like to make at home, and it's fun to try new things from respectable businesses. After working in an environmental products store for years, I've had the opportunity to try a lot of stuff... here are my favorites!
Badger - makes a balm similar to the one listed as a recipe, but comes in an adorably illustrated tin. Works wonders.
Aubrey's - at the end of the day, my favorite body care company. They've been making shampoos, soaps, lotions and everything else all-natural since the 1960's, and I've never been disappointed by their stuff. They're really picky about ingredients and I consider them to be the real deal.
Green Beaver - a Canadian company that makes incredible natural deodorant and toothpaste!!!
Nature Clean - another Canadian company that makes mostly home-care products, but do an amazing liquid body soap, shampoo and conditioner. They're so simple and honest.
Dr.Bronner's - specializing in amazing liquid soap.. get a bottle and use it sparingly because it's so concentrated. It'll last you months, and you can read that totally bizarre label while you're at it. You'll know what I mean if you've seen it.
Butterfly Weed - mothers and fathers, check out their diaper-rash balm (they call it nappy-rash), and then buy 12 of them, because parents have told me time after time after time that it works about a thousand times better than anything medicated that their doctor gave them. They also make other great mommy/baby products and balms.
SoapWorks - my favorite soap bars. Stores always have a display of like thirty of their soaps all together, in all varieties, colours and uses. Their olive oil soap is great for dry skin, but try them all!
Got anything else to add? Send me your recipes and natural-product favorites! Until next time... kisses n' daisies.
And remember peoples, with all this talk of 'beauty products' and such, don't think that this stuff is only limited to the benefit of the ladies.... fellas need to wash n' shave naturally just as much as the gals. Anybody got a good recipe for eco-friendly beard wash? HAHA! Now there's a market for ya!!!
Just before we start: collecting the ingredients for some of this stuff might seem a little daunting at first read. Luckily, I can say from my experience, that the best places to find this kind of stuff is your friendly neighbourhood health-food shop/natural pharmacy and the grocery store. Surf the web and check out the phone book listings for these kind of places, and call ahead to see if they have what you need. In Ottawa, I can often do one-stop shopping for cosmetic recipe ingredients! Try the Natural Food Pantry and the Ottawa Natural Pharmacy.. they're amazing places.
Alright.. ON with it already!
JENNIE'S FAVORITE BEESWAX DRY SKIN BALM/LIP BALM
I've been making this stuff for years. It's smells lovely and it works wonders.
- 1 oz pure beeswax bar (make absolutely sure nothing's been added to it)
- 1/4 to 1/2 cup olive oil
- a dash of honey (optional)
Directions: In a small pot, preferably one that you don't care for particularly, place the beeswax bar, and heat on the stove over lowish heat. You can watch it slowly dissolve into liquid... really neat. Once it's totally liquified (Don't boil! Oh god, don't boil!) slowly, slowly stir in the olive oil. There reason why I wrote 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup olive oil, is because some people like this stuff fairly hard and scrapeable, and some people like it quite squishy. It's up to you.. it may take some experimenting to get the right final consistency, but it's fun. Once the olive oil is stirred in, add any optional ingredients, like the small dash of honey or a few drops of essential oil for lip-balm yummy smell. Pour while still hot into lip-balm containers, tiny mason jars, tiny empty tins... whatever you want! Let cool, and it will re-solidify into balm. Use it on your hands before you go to bed for an amazing hand-softening treatment, use it on eczema or really dry skin, or enjoy it as an amazing lip balm.
SILKY LOVELY SHAVING LOTION
Gotta love this stuff. Don't worry if your measurements aren't exact or the consistency isn't like the stuff you get in the can.. it's really nice.
- 4oz aloe vera oil
- 1/2oz jojoba oil
- 15 drops chamomile essential oil
- dash of vegetable oil
Mix them together, and bottle it up. Use it on legs n' pits for sure - haven't gotten the word on whether it's groovy for the face or not, but I can only imagine it'd be amazing. (TIP! This one comes from my Mom n' Grandma.. if you're out of shaving cream, an all-natural hair conditioner works incredibly well!)
ALL-NATURAL BUBBLE BATH
I love this stuff! It makes me realize that I simply don't take enough baths. The best part is that you can add whatever essential oil to it that floats your boat the most.
- 1 cup all natural liquid vegetable-based/castille soap (I recommend Nature Clean)
- 2 tbsp vegetable glycerine (available at natural pharmacies/food stores)
- 10 drops of your favorite essential oil - a fruity or flowery one works wonders. Go for lavender for a soothing bath, or for citrus for a gentle wake-up.
Simply mix and bottle. (Don't shake!) Use it within a couple of weeks if you can.
JENNIE'S INCREDIBLE PEPPERMINT SUGAR SCRUB
This is wonderful stuff. I enjoy making a batches of it to be given away as presents just as much as making a big batch of it for myself. It's moisturizing and exfoliating - great for your skin, especially after a shave. If you use the peppermint oil in it though, watch the eyes.. a little strong for the ol' eyeballs and sinuses.
- A cup or two of sugar, any kind will do.
- Olive oil
- 1 - 2 tbsp. vegetable glycerine
- small handful dried mint leaves - crush 'em up and remove stems!
- 5-15 drops peppermint essential oil
This scrub smells good enough to eat. In a mixing bowl, add the sugar, and then enough olive oil to get a nice consistency going - you might like your scrub more on the powdery side, or like me, you might like it a little creamier. Experiment. Add your glycerine and mint leaves (again with the mint leaves, add a few or plenty... they make it really pretty) and then stir in the essential oil. You can make it really strong smelling, or not so much. It's all about personal taste. Stir and beat until totally mixed, and then put it all into a pretty mason jar... tie a ribbon and make a label if it's a present!
CHAMOMILE SHAMPOO
I haven't actually tried this recipe out yet, but it intrigues me (Make my own shampoo! Of course! Why haven't I entertained this idea before?) and it's going to be my next experiment. If anyone out there tries it before I do, give me your input! I got the recipe from somewhere ages ago... I wish I could remember where.
- 4 bags chamomile tea, or a handful of fresh chamomile flowers
- 4 tbsp pure vegetable soap flakes (or grate a bar)
- 1 1/2 tbsp vegetable glycerine
Let the chamomile steep in 1 1/2 cups of boiled water for about ten minutes, and strain. Add the grated soap, mix and let it stand until all soft. Stir in the glycerine and mix well until blended. Bottle!
That sounds incredible! Hmm... speaking of shampoo, maybe it's time to go wash this avocado out of my hair before it turns green. Before I vanish though, I'd really like to add a little list of my recommendations as far as purchased body care products go. We don't always have the time to make everything we'd like to make at home, and it's fun to try new things from respectable businesses. After working in an environmental products store for years, I've had the opportunity to try a lot of stuff... here are my favorites!
Badger - makes a balm similar to the one listed as a recipe, but comes in an adorably illustrated tin. Works wonders.
Aubrey's - at the end of the day, my favorite body care company. They've been making shampoos, soaps, lotions and everything else all-natural since the 1960's, and I've never been disappointed by their stuff. They're really picky about ingredients and I consider them to be the real deal.
Green Beaver - a Canadian company that makes incredible natural deodorant and toothpaste!!!
Nature Clean - another Canadian company that makes mostly home-care products, but do an amazing liquid body soap, shampoo and conditioner. They're so simple and honest.
Dr.Bronner's - specializing in amazing liquid soap.. get a bottle and use it sparingly because it's so concentrated. It'll last you months, and you can read that totally bizarre label while you're at it. You'll know what I mean if you've seen it.
Butterfly Weed - mothers and fathers, check out their diaper-rash balm (they call it nappy-rash), and then buy 12 of them, because parents have told me time after time after time that it works about a thousand times better than anything medicated that their doctor gave them. They also make other great mommy/baby products and balms.
SoapWorks - my favorite soap bars. Stores always have a display of like thirty of their soaps all together, in all varieties, colours and uses. Their olive oil soap is great for dry skin, but try them all!
Got anything else to add? Send me your recipes and natural-product favorites! Until next time... kisses n' daisies.
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