Been gone for a while now, but just had to post this list. Here you can find the fruits and vegetables most likely to be saturated with pesticides in the grocery store. Follow the links to find more about the study, the pesticides and reasons to go organic.
Gross (and scary) yet, informative.
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Monday, August 4, 2008
Weekend Ups and Downs
This weekend was great for two reasons. Not only did I get to spend a great deal of it with my family; I also got to educate some of them about being green. I even convinced one of my aunts to recycle.
My brother, who turned 33 last week decided to host a shin-dig at his home in Columbus. Let me just first say that my family loves to celebrate. Even if we only have a little money to do it, we just tell everyone to BYOB and we get it poppin'. So while 'politick-in' by the trash can telling everyone about my daughter's Klean Kanteen, I decided to start a trash bag for recycling. I am so different now, that when I see glass I just think of it being here when nothing else is. It will be an artifact...artifact times 1 trillion. So while talking and encouraging the folks, my recycling bag even caught on for a while. People were throwing their cans and bottles into the recycling bag. After a while it seemed like I didn't have to stand around and tell them for them to do it. However, after more than a while, the little trash got full and people started throwing their food trash into my recycling bag. At the end of the night when I was helping....excuse me... I mean watching everyone clean, I noticed that my recycling efforts had been virtually unsuccessful and that I'd have to spend the rest of the night continuing to make my brother feel guilty about hurting the environment.
"You have to teach your kids that when you throw things away, they never really GO AWAY!" I fumed. "Take them to a landfill," I said, "and explain how it works. GLASS NEVER BREAKS DOWN!!!" I hope I got through to him. I know that I got through to my aunt who said she only recycles newspaper. Now I'm thinking of getting shiny new recycling bins to every relative whose address I have, even if they become dog baths, I still feel like I gave it some effort.
Sunday was 20 times better than Saturday. I got to see my grandmother, I got recruited for designing the family reunion t-shirt, and I had a meal, in my mother and father's home that came entirely from their garden. I was blown away because my father is the same man who denies anything is happening to polar bears and denies global warming entirely. "You're greener than you think!" I tell him. The food tasted excellent and felt extremely good going down because I knew exactly where it came from. We had red potatoes, red cabbage and chicken (which did not come from the garden, but we'll get there...lol). I was extremely proud. I think I'm wearing the folks down, guys!!!!!!!!
While I'm sure that people do this all the time, I'm honestly not sure how many of my people do this all the time, which is why I am so excited about it.
My brother, who turned 33 last week decided to host a shin-dig at his home in Columbus. Let me just first say that my family loves to celebrate. Even if we only have a little money to do it, we just tell everyone to BYOB and we get it poppin'. So while 'politick-in' by the trash can telling everyone about my daughter's Klean Kanteen, I decided to start a trash bag for recycling. I am so different now, that when I see glass I just think of it being here when nothing else is. It will be an artifact...artifact times 1 trillion. So while talking and encouraging the folks, my recycling bag even caught on for a while. People were throwing their cans and bottles into the recycling bag. After a while it seemed like I didn't have to stand around and tell them for them to do it. However, after more than a while, the little trash got full and people started throwing their food trash into my recycling bag. At the end of the night when I was helping....excuse me... I mean watching everyone clean, I noticed that my recycling efforts had been virtually unsuccessful and that I'd have to spend the rest of the night continuing to make my brother feel guilty about hurting the environment.
"You have to teach your kids that when you throw things away, they never really GO AWAY!" I fumed. "Take them to a landfill," I said, "and explain how it works. GLASS NEVER BREAKS DOWN!!!" I hope I got through to him. I know that I got through to my aunt who said she only recycles newspaper. Now I'm thinking of getting shiny new recycling bins to every relative whose address I have, even if they become dog baths, I still feel like I gave it some effort.
Sunday was 20 times better than Saturday. I got to see my grandmother, I got recruited for designing the family reunion t-shirt, and I had a meal, in my mother and father's home that came entirely from their garden. I was blown away because my father is the same man who denies anything is happening to polar bears and denies global warming entirely. "You're greener than you think!" I tell him. The food tasted excellent and felt extremely good going down because I knew exactly where it came from. We had red potatoes, red cabbage and chicken (which did not come from the garden, but we'll get there...lol). I was extremely proud. I think I'm wearing the folks down, guys!!!!!!!!
While I'm sure that people do this all the time, I'm honestly not sure how many of my people do this all the time, which is why I am so excited about it.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Merry Christmas to all....and to all a good hot dog!
*Cue Donny Hathaway* This Chrismas, instead of a traditional turkey or ham or vegetable lasagna for the lone vegetarian, my family grilled out. We called it a July dinner for Christmas, you know, like Chrismas in July but reversed. And yeah, I'm one of the corny ones who made it up, partly because I wanted my family to pay attention to the warm(er) weather for Ohio this year and partly because I was assigned to cook and I kind've got to weasel out of it because all I eat is turkey products and no one else does.
But really, what other year (here in Ohio where I'm from anyway) has it been 50 degrees and/or up, not snowing or sleeting and warm enough to stand outside to wait for food to cook. I mean, I grew up in Ohio and I'm used to the cold. I acutally miss the cold. I sleep better when it's cold. And while my father still doesn't believe that global warming is real, there we were grilling out. It was sunny too. The food was divine. BTW, is grilling a green thing to do? Probably not...hmmmm..... I'll have to check the science of it and get back or if you are out there reading and you know, leave a comment and enlighten me. I'm always looking to be better.
Grilling out this Christmas gave me some hope, too, that old habits maybe don't die hard, even for the folks. We still were chomping on mac and cheese and greens like always, but we're working on extending our culinary choices and options. Especially to the good organics. But anyway, the day is coming to an end and I think, although I procrastinated too long to get the green goods/reusable bags/reusable aluminum water bottles before Christmas (I got yall for Kwanzaa though), I think I raised, and continue to raise, the issue enough to show the fam that I take gifts seriously, especially the gift of the earth (more importantly the God that gave it to us).
Yeah, call me corny or whatever, I already told y'all I was.
Merry CHRISTmas everyone!
But really, what other year (here in Ohio where I'm from anyway) has it been 50 degrees and/or up, not snowing or sleeting and warm enough to stand outside to wait for food to cook. I mean, I grew up in Ohio and I'm used to the cold. I acutally miss the cold. I sleep better when it's cold. And while my father still doesn't believe that global warming is real, there we were grilling out. It was sunny too. The food was divine. BTW, is grilling a green thing to do? Probably not...hmmmm..... I'll have to check the science of it and get back or if you are out there reading and you know, leave a comment and enlighten me. I'm always looking to be better.
Grilling out this Christmas gave me some hope, too, that old habits maybe don't die hard, even for the folks. We still were chomping on mac and cheese and greens like always, but we're working on extending our culinary choices and options. Especially to the good organics. But anyway, the day is coming to an end and I think, although I procrastinated too long to get the green goods/reusable bags/reusable aluminum water bottles before Christmas (I got yall for Kwanzaa though), I think I raised, and continue to raise, the issue enough to show the fam that I take gifts seriously, especially the gift of the earth (more importantly the God that gave it to us).
Yeah, call me corny or whatever, I already told y'all I was.
Merry CHRISTmas everyone!
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Trying to understand the 100 Mile Diet
Last night I was talking to my mother about how I really wanted to read the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle because it talks about a family's quest to live only off of what they can eat locally.
I think this is amazing for several reasons 1) because having been a victim of some still unnamed digestive disease, I am very concerned about what's in the food I eat and how it affects my health. 2) If you grow your own food or if you can have a conversation with the person that's growing your food you'll know that the seed is not genetically modified to prevent grasshopper loitering or something. 3) Sure, like mom says, there won't be strawberries to eat in Ohio in the winter (maybe some strawberry jam, though) but it forces one to be creative and crafty with what is available and 4) It would save the world from all the gas that it takes to drive/fly those strawberries to Cali or wherever they're being grown to me.
Think about it. What did you eat for breakfast or lunch today. Out of all the things you ate, can you name all the ingredients and better yet, do you know what they are? I know I can't. I had a cookie out of the vending maching and all I know is that it had no trans-fat and it tasted good. Probably had some flour... dark chocoalte... sugar I'm sure, but the point is that I don't know. We don't know. All this sickness and disease plaguging our race has some kind of connection to what we're eating, and what we're exposed to, but we can control one of those things. We can choose to make better choices for us and the environment.
The option has always been there for me, in my hometown in Ohio, to eat local. I can even tell you the name of the popular year-round farmer market. The challenge is to try.
I think this is amazing for several reasons 1) because having been a victim of some still unnamed digestive disease, I am very concerned about what's in the food I eat and how it affects my health. 2) If you grow your own food or if you can have a conversation with the person that's growing your food you'll know that the seed is not genetically modified to prevent grasshopper loitering or something. 3) Sure, like mom says, there won't be strawberries to eat in Ohio in the winter (maybe some strawberry jam, though) but it forces one to be creative and crafty with what is available and 4) It would save the world from all the gas that it takes to drive/fly those strawberries to Cali or wherever they're being grown to me.
Think about it. What did you eat for breakfast or lunch today. Out of all the things you ate, can you name all the ingredients and better yet, do you know what they are? I know I can't. I had a cookie out of the vending maching and all I know is that it had no trans-fat and it tasted good. Probably had some flour... dark chocoalte... sugar I'm sure, but the point is that I don't know. We don't know. All this sickness and disease plaguging our race has some kind of connection to what we're eating, and what we're exposed to, but we can control one of those things. We can choose to make better choices for us and the environment.
The option has always been there for me, in my hometown in Ohio, to eat local. I can even tell you the name of the popular year-round farmer market. The challenge is to try.
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