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How To Find Local, Pastured Meat And Dairy Products Near You

david — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:34:21 +0000

The other day on Twitter someone asked me if I had a resource for finding local, grass-fed meat and dairy products, and I decided that I would mention it here as well because you guys may be interested too.

There is a website called Eat Wild which is a tremendous source of information on finding “safe, healthy, natural and nutritious grass-fed beef, lamb, goats, bison, poultry, pork, dairy and other wild edibles” all around the United States & Canada. Their state-by-state map has details on over 1,300 pasture-based farms which meet their criteria for providing well-cared for animals high in nutrition and free of antibiotics and added hormones.

Many of the farms are organically certified, and others lack certification but follow organic standards. By searching for and purchasing local, healthy food products, you are supporting local farming efforts instead of giant conglomerates interested only in profits. These corporate factory farms provide almost all the meat, eggs, and dairy products found in the supermarket today, coming from animals raised in confinement in large facilities called CAFOs or “Confined Animal Feeding Operations.” Choosing grassfed meat and dairy is better for the animals, better for the farmers, better for the local economy, and much better for you.

Support your local farmer, and visit Eat Wild to find a farm near you to purchase your local, pastured meat and dairy from. The animals and the planet thank you!

Image from BigStockPhoto

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How To Compost (And 55 Things You Can Compost!)

david — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:00:10 +0000

What can you compost? Good question! While composting can be an effective, environmentally friendly way of dealing with some waste products, it’s important to know what you can and cannot put in your compost pile. Put in the wrong items and you could end up with a useless pile of infested, decaying matter — and we definitely don’t want that, do we?

Compost is decomposed organic matter which is rich in vital nutrients for growing food or for use in landscaping. It is “made” by combining piles of the compostable materials and waiting for the matter to break down and return back into its organic state, whereupon it can be used as fertilizer or soil conditioner. In order for the create a useful product, your compost pile should be an even mixture of “green” and “brown” materials (think grass and shredded paper), along with water and oxygen, all of which is regularly turned into itself to ensure proper decomposition.

Let’s take a look at a few methods of composting, along with 55 common items you can safely put in your compost pile in preparation of starting next season’s plantings and gardens.

Methods of Composting

There are several ways you can compost at home. For starters, and if you don’t want to run out to your bin after every meal, you are going to need somewhere to keep your kitchen scraps (larger items can go out anytime.) You can buy a countertop compost keeper, which is the route most people go, but I recommend something different – an empty yogurt container in the freezer. It costs nothing more than the original cost of the yogurt while simultaneously keeping any odors away. Just keep adding food scraps to the yogurt container until it is full, and then take it out to your compost bin or pile. Saves money, has no smell, and reuses a container you probably already have in your home. It’s a win-win-win. But this is for inside your home; what do you need outside to compost?

If you live in an apartment or a condo, you probably don’t have access to a yard so you would need to buy one of these indoor composting kits or you could even make your own indoor composting bin. If you have access to outdoor space, you have two choices – you can either just keep a compost pile in a wooden box or some fencing, or you can purchase a compost tumbler like the one I used to have. For my new place I am moving to, I will build a compost bin like this. Either way is fine and is up to you, as some people prefer the ease of the tumblers while some like the ones made of solid wood. Both work just fine.

55 Things You Can Compost

Cardboard
Coffee grounds
Coffee filters
Receipts (paper only, not thermal paper)
Vacuum contents
Dead plants
Used matches
Wood chips
Popcorn
Feathers
Cut grass (dried is better)
Hair
Hay
Paper napkins
Leather
Newspaper
Flowers
Fruit peels
Pine cones
Cornstalks
Egg shells
Cotton clothing (rip into shreds first)
Veggie scraps
Weeds
Paper bags
Newspapers
Subscription cards from magazines
Pasta
Bread & cereal
Paper towel and toilet rolls
Toe & finger nail clippings
Toothpicks
Potato peelings
Leaves
Egg cartons (paper, not plastic or styrofoam)
Cereal and pizza boxes
Wine corks
Beer
Dirt
Algae
Seaweed
Kitchen rinse water
Cotton balls
Q-Tips not made from plastic
Lint from a clothes dryer
Paper mail
Envelopes
Christmas tree
Pet fur
Tissues
Apple cores
Nut shells
Sawdust
Tea leaves
Cotton or wool socks

Things You Cannot Compost

Charcoal ashes
Cat droppings/litter
Toxic materials
Dog droppings
Meat
Oil
Grease
Non-biodegradable materials

Tips For Better Compost

Turn your compost often
Keep the green matter to brown matter mix even
Tear up or shred larger pieces of material like cardboard
Keep the compost in direct sunlight if possible
Do not let your compost dry out
Laying leaves on as a top layer when adding scraps helps keep flies away

If done properly, your compost pile will provide you with a steady stream of healthy nourishment for your plants, garden, and landscaping while reducing the amount of trash you throw away. There is no need to go to the home store to buy fertilizer when you can make your own at home from everyday scraps. So what are you waiting for – start a new compost pile today!

Photo from BigStockPhoto

12 Reasons To Stop Drinking Bottled Water.

david — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:00:01 +0000

It is a common misconception for many people that bottled water is safer than tap, plastic bottles get recycled, and no harm is being done to the environment in the bottling process. Unfortunately, that could not be further from the truth! So in case you either needed more reasons to stop drinking bottled water, or a few extra talking points when discussing with your friends, I have assembled 12 solid reasons to kick the bottled water habit:

American tap water is among the safest in the world.
As much as 40% of the bottled water sold in the U.S. is just filtered tap water anyway. Be sure to check the label and look for “from a municipal source” or “community water system”, which just means it is tap water.
By drinking tap water, you can avoid the fertilizer, pharmaceuticals, disinfectants, and other chemicals that studies have found in bottled water.
Tap water costs about $0.002 per gallon compared to the $0.89 to $8.26 per gallon charge for bottled water. If the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000.
88% of empty plastic water bottles in the United States are not recycled. The Container Recycling Institute says that plastic water bottles are disposed of (not recycled) at the rate of 30 million a day.
Plastic bottles can leach chemicals into the water if left in the sun, heated up, or reused several times.
Production of the plastic (PET or polyethylene) bottles to meet our demand for bottled water takes the equivalent of about 17.6 million barrels of oil (not including transportation costs). That equals the amount of oil required to fuel more than one million vehicles in the U.S. each year. Around the world, bottling water uses about 2.7 million tons of plastic…each year.
Bottled water companies mislead communities into giving away their public water in exchange for dangerous jobs.
It can take nearly 7 times the amount of water in the bottle to actually make the bottle itself.
On a weekly basis, 37,800 18-wheelers are driving around the country delivering water.
The EPA sets much more stringent quality standards for tap water than the FDA does for the bottled stuff.
One out of 6 people in the world does not have safe drinking water, and about 3,000 children a day die from diseases caught from bad water…that we know of. This while Americans spend about $16 billion a year on bottled water.

Have you kicked the bottled water habit? We finally did a few years ago, when we started using reusable bottles and filtered tap water from our house. So what do you think? Think we can encourage more people to get rid of their bottled water?

Which Fruits & Vegetables You Should Be Buying Organic.

david — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:00:04 +0000

If you are on a budget or just plain refuse to pay the extra for organic fruits and vegetables, there really are some good reasons to buy at least a few of those items in the organic version if you can. We buy as much organic produce as we can, and of course sometimes you have to buy the non-organic version. But I like knowing that most of my fruits and vegetables were not sprayed with toxic chemicals. It only makes sense to avoid them – after all, you don’t go around pouring pesticide in your mouth or on your clothes, so why would you want to eat food that is either A. coated with it or B. full of it? Pesticides are toxic, and they are designed to kill bugs, weeds, rodents, fungi, rot, and other pests – do you really want to eat that stuff? These chemicals have been shown to suppress the immune system, increase the risk of breast and other cancers, disrupt the hormonal system and do reproductive harm. And while you might initially say that you ate regular versions of these fruits and vegetables while you were growing up and you are fine now, the amount and incidences of pesticide use have skyrockets in recent years – times have changed.

Convinced yet? Great! So now I have convinced you that you don’t want to buy the toxic pesticide versions, but you want to know which fruits and vegetables should be bought only organic and which ones it is safer to skimp on, right? Well, if you can pick and choose your organics, there are definitely fruits and veggies that either require less pesticide or absorb less of it, so let’s take a look.

The following fruits and vegetables tend to be higher in either pesticide use and/or absorption:

Peaches
Pears
Green Beans
Apples
Squash
Strawberries
Raspberries
Spinach
Potatoes
Tomatoes

The following fruits and vegetables tend to have less pesticides in them:

Pineapples
Mangoes
Avocado
Bananas
Cauliflower
Watermelon
Kiwi Fruit
Brussels Sprouts
Eggplant
Blueberries
Radishes
Onions
Grapefruit

Even with washing and peeling, you cannot get rid of pesticides in your fruits and vegetables. And besides, with peeling you might be losing a lot of the good nutrients. So when you can, choose the organic version of your produce just to be on the safe side. But when you cannot, at least keep in mind which products contain less pesticides and might be safer for you to eat!

Photo by by SqueakyMarmot