Getting Hammered Organically

Not that we condone such behavior!

Of course, the mantra of the eco conscsious is to "reduce." So drinking in excess is clearly in violation of that mantra. However, we are human and our nature is to err, and St. Paddy's Day is around the corner, so let's be real. If you plan to cocktail it up a bit, consider some organic alternatives.

At this point in time, organic liquor, wine and beer is not found abundantly in stores, bars or restaurants. If you are headed out, an eco eatery will most likely have the largest assortment of libations from which to choose. City dwellers will have many options here. Rural/suburban dwellers should continue their "in house"drinking. These folks can either plan ahead and order online or hit the Whole Food/Wild Oats and sample some of their organic beer selections. Or call your local liquor store and see if they carry organic wine or other libations. Here are a few sites that can aid in your search:

Cocktail Organico A site that lists and discusses organic liquor in length. The owner looks like a guy who really knows his cocktails! http://www.cocktailorganico.com/

Purus Vodka This is my drink of choice. Pure, natural, and takes the edge off after only a 1 oz serving is consumed. Especially recommended for around dinner time when the kids are whining and irratating, or after a crappy day on the job. http://www.purusvodka.com/

Anheuser-Busch With the growth and popularity of organic beer, AB has jumped on the bandwagon with 2 organic beers on its product menu, Stone Mill Pale Ale and Wild Hop Lager. See their site for more details and on retail locations. http://www.anheuser-busch.com/

Valley Wines and Spirits This wine shop in New Jersey carries a large assortment of organic wines and ships direct. Ideal for East Coast wine lovers. (Ship as local as possible!) http://www.valleywinesandspirits.com/

Organic Wine Press Organic wine is getting really hot, especially on the West Coast. Here's an organic wine merchant located in Oregon. Lots to choose from and each listing has a nice description. http://www.organicwinepress.com/

The bottom line here, folks, is that its probably more important to drive less, eat less beef or to install compact fluorescent bulbs than to drink organic booze, if you are trying to save the planet. But for the eco-curious, those who care about the Earth and what you put into your bodies, or want to offset some of the damage to your liver with chem-free booze, I say "cheers!"

And a Happy St Paddy's Day to you!

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Boost your Kids' Immune Systems with Organic Veggies

Back in October, I wrote an article favorably reviewing Jessica Seinfeld's new cookbook Deceptively Delicious. This is the "Results" post, so to speak. In the book, Jessica describes how to puree veggies and hide them in your kid's food. While many people criticized the book saying that she copied someone else's idea, and she gave Oprah 21 pairs of Manolos Blahniks for promoting it, I say "Who gives a shit!" It works. I found it to be brilliant and implemented her, or whoever's strategies. The only difference was that I went purely organic. Now this was at a time when my daughter was NOT consuming many (or any I should say) veggies at all. She was in and out of school almost ever other week with one ailment or another, and she would take a tremendously long time to recover. After several months of constant pureeing, and a vitamin supplement to boot, the results are in. I am happy to report that she is rarely sick at all. In fact- and I hope I don't jinx myself, she hasn't been sick all year, even though stomach viruses have passed around, and the flu, and a million other weird preschool sicknesses. I am a true believer that the power of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, etc. from vegatables have strengthened her little growing body. ( OK now I'm really jinxing myself!) And you know what, it's really not that much extra work and I like it in my food too. We make a mean turkey, broccholi and mushroom burger!

As a side note, my daughter and myself DO NOT eat beef or beef byproducts as a result of, what I believe, is unacceptable meat processing standards and lax quality control by the USDA. The hormones, the antibiotics and heaven's knows what else. We will pass on the 'downer cow' burger, thanks!

If your kids get sick a lot, try this...it worked for me. Read more!

The YouBar: Customized Nutrition

We are all on the go so much these days that having a meal in the sitting position is a true luxury. Skipping a meal is commonplace, and the after effects usually involves strapping on a feedbag to make up for it! I have tried dozens of meal replacement bars on the market, but none of them are made with my specific requirements and needs in mind.

Until now, the YOU BAR is here!

A brilliant mother and son team in LA began formulating and creating their own snack/nutrition bar recipes for themselves, and when friends and relatives started bringing them their personal requests, they realized that they were onto something. YouBars don't sell these in stores, only online, and you can select all the ingredients personally based on your nutritional needs,tastes and preferences. They offer many all natural and organic ingredients, dairy and gluten free options, even vegan varieties, and so much more! And if you don't like your own concoction, they offer a money back guarantee!

Healthy foodies, check out this smart product!

www.youbars.com Read more!

Fast, Energy Efficient Cooking

No, it's not a campfire or a blow torch.

I have a childhood memory of my mother making our dinner using a pressure cooker. It had a small weight on top of it that would bobble around when it reached full steam. I have to admit, it seemed a little intimidating, knowing that if you touched it the wrong way, it might explode all over the kitchen.

Fast forward to adult life. One of my holiday gifts was a pressure cooker. ( So much for jewelry and clothes.) Oh no, I thought. I'm not using that thing. It's old fashioned, it's passe, and most importantly, that thing is dangerous!

After a few years, I decided to open the box. I read the instructions. I inspected the pot. Hmmm...no more bobble weight on the top. The new models seemed pretty much idiot proof now. So I gave it a try, with careful supervision. I sauteed a little onion, carrots and celery and threw in some chicken parts, seasoning and water. I sealed it up and turned on the heat. I sat there, staring at the thing to make sure it didn't explode. It didn't, naturally. And in 15 minutes, I had made chicken soup. I was amazed. I will try this again, I thought. And I did. Again and again. Now I am a huge proponent of pressure cookers. I use it all the time, and my family is amazed at what comes out of there so quickly. Pot roast, chicken, our lamb and french bean stew...in the time you would boil pasta!

At some recent family gatherings, the ladies would congregate and swap stories, one of which was about their beloved crock pot. In only 8 hours, they would come home to a nice hot meal. That's all good but 8 hours? Not only is the pressure cooker faster, but it uses a heck of a lot less energy. 8 hours vs. 15 minutes. I mentioned this to the ladies. And they say,"Oh yeah, but I'm afraid of it." Aren't we all? Hell, if we can give birth, this is a cakewalk.

There are several good ones on the market. If you have an interest in an energy efficient way to cook your family a nice, healthy meal, this one is my choice.

Fagor Pressure Cookers. This is a great company out of Spain that makes good quality products. Go to www.fagorpressurecookers.com. Read more!

FDA Claims Cloned Animals Safe to Eat

Is it just me, or does the title to this article seem disturbing to you? A little bizarre? Unappetizing?

The photo is of Dolly, a stuffed replica of the first cloned animal in the world. Yummy! (Ick.)

As a self proclaimed "greenie", I have been delving into facts about the food we eat, and the more I learn, the more I become repulsed, especially by raw meat. Let alone cloned meat!

Can you imagine going to Morton's of Chicago, the famous steak house, and they bring over the presentation cart, and they offer you the Clone Rib eye?

On January 16Th, the papers reported that the FDA declared cloned animals and their progeny safe to eat, and now they can make their way to a supermarket near you.

I don't have any scientific evidence to support that drinking milk from a cloned cow or eating it will harm us in any way. But it seems to me that whenever the human race tries to take short cuts from natural evolution, things go awry. Didn't Europe ban genetically engineered crops? OK so cloned veggies are bad but live animals? No problem!

The question is now, will they even label it? How will we know what we are eating?

It seems to me that corporate America is so incredibly greedy that they would feed us anything for a buck. If you go to the market and pick up one of the most highly recognized food brands, you can see that the ingredients in the products are totally artificial and very bad for you, but they are used simply because they are cheap and us fat Americans will eat anything that tastes good.

What are the implications to our health and to our environment? The health piece is up for debate, and environmentally, doesn't cloning mean more cows and sheep and pigs, faster and faster? We know that cow poop produces enough methane to help climate change occur nicely, so why more? How many more do we need? Has demand increased dramatically or something?

But is cloning immoral too? If God didn't create it, who cares! We can make it ourselves? How do we know this won't lead to some freak doctor cloning babies for infertile couples next? We don't. Welcome to our world.

I highly recommend taking an particular interest in all the ingredients in the products you put in your mouth, and especially your kid's mouths. Cloning to me is not natural so don't do it. Read more!

New Year's Resolutions - Get Green!

Happy New Year World!

I'm sure, like myself, many of you are thinking about ways to make the New Year much healthier and better than the last one. Maybe add some purpose to your life? Just kidding. So, I have put together a few suggestions that can be simple to implement yet meaningful to your health and to the planet! ( We had thunderstorms on New Years Day in New York, uh hello, not normal weather! Is this getting your attention?)

1. Go Organic. First of all, Americans are the fattest people on the planet because we are the richest. In reality, we don't need to buy or eat much of what we bring home, but we do so because its socially more acceptable than a nice drug or alcohol addiction! How about buying less and buying quality, such as organic? Start with staples like milk, eggs, tomato sauce, salad, things that you eat a lot of, and then move to veggies. And get off the processed food. It's not real!

2. Consume less. AKA "reduce." I mean this in every way. Think twice before buying meaningless nonsense that does nothing more than take up space. If you really don't need them, think again. And I'm not saying to trade your Manolos for Birkenstocks, grow out your underarm hair and live in a hippee commune! Just be smart about it. Being too materialistic is simply tacky anyway.

3. Recycle more. You would be surprised how many containers from the market can be recycled. It's not just about glass and bottles anymore. Plastic egg container, olive oil drums, crumbled Gorgonzola containers, even those dreaded plastic bags from the supermarket too. More detail coming soon.

4. Change those light bulbs. I have said it before and I'll say it again. Buy the compact fluorescent bulbs from my man Rob on EBay (Seller ID 6801goodbuy) - he has great deals- and change every light bulb in your house. They are much cheaper than they were last year and you will save $$ on your utilities too. This is a biggie!

5. Reconsider beef. Did you know that the methane gas that cows produce from their waste is more harmful to the environment than the carbon from automobiles!?? I know it sounds ludicrous, but it's true. Not only that, but meat processing is a major cause of e coli poisoning and its loaded with antibiotics and other harmful drugs. Do you ever wonder why we are getting those colds for longer and longer and why antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria are surfacing, and killing people? We eat food that contains antibiotics and our bodies are/have become resistant. I quit the stuff 6 months ago and don't miss it at all. More on this in future posts.

I hope someone on this planet will find this advice helpful and will take action because I would really like to see some snow in winter in New York. I'm not asking a lot here, greenies! Read more!

How Many Pesticides Make it to Your Thanksgiving Table?

Thanksgiving is my all time favorite holiday, and not just because it's a day of fabulous food, friends and family, but it's a great time for reflection. This year in particular, I will be giving thanks for my new found commitment to green living. After years of living blindly to the dangers that lurk in our food, our homes and the Earth, I finally realize that it is so important to the health of our families. Duh. I guess better late than never.

This year, we will be hosting the 1st Annual All Natural Organic Thanksgiving! Here are a few ideas for you to keep it chem-free.

Step 1: Order an Organic Bird. This can be done at a quality butcher shop, or even a local farm. If you want a really good one, based on a test of 9 turkeys conducted for the New York Times, buy an Eberley (also labeled D'Artagnan) certified organic or an Eberley (D'Artagnan) natural, which is similar except it's not fed organic grain. In taste tests, these turkeys ranked #1 and #2 hands down respectively vs. the other 7, which included a Butterball, a Bell and Evans, a kosher turkey and several wild birds. To order one, call 800-327-8246 and they will ship it right to you. It costs more than store bought, but this is one day to splurge. Or try IGourmet.com; they also offer organic turkeys.

Did you know the world famous Butterball brand is injected with the following: vegetable oil, water, salt, emulsifiers (mono- and diglycerides), sodium phosphate, annato color and artificial flavor. Is this supposed to be Thanksgiving or a high school chemistry experiment??

Not that I'm Giada de Laurentiis or anything, but I do highly recommend brining the bird the night before in a salt water mixture. This helps the turkey retain its moisture and tenderness. You can find many recipes using this technique at www.epicurious.com.

STEP 2: Organic Bread Stuffing. This is an easy one. Buy a few loaves of organic wheat bread ( or mixed varieties) and let them go stale. Not rock hard, just day old. Then cut off the crust and chop into bread cubes, add poultry seasoning, onions, celery, milk, stock or whatever you fancy and voila, fresh and natural dressing.

STEP 3: Haul yourself to the best organic market in your area or the local farmers market, if available. In my area, that is going to be Whole Foods. They have a wonderful selection of produce, and organic potatoes, both sweet and regular, should be on your list. Contrary to my own incorrect assumption, and according to the Environmental Working Group, 81% of potatoes were shown to have contained harmful pesticides, after peeling and washing. Here is a list of other Thanksgiving favorites, with the percentage of the sample that contained known pesticides, according to a study by the EWG:

Celery 94%
Carrots 81.7%
Green Beans 67.6%
Winter Squash 41%
Sweet Potatoes 58.4%
Cauliflower 84.6%
Spinach 70%
Lettuce 68.2%
Broccoli 28%
Frozen Peas- 23%

Not all veggies made it to the list, like my beloved brussel sprouts. But this list is fairly comprehensive. So shop accordingly.


Step 4: Dessert. I haven't found results on pumpkin, but I am confident that you can find a can of organic pumpkin puree at a good market, or use your old pumpkin off your stoop and hope it won't kill you. Based on the fact that you are only using the inner scrapings, my guess is that its not bad at all. Apples for that cobbler has a high concentration of pesticides also- 94%, and peaches 96%, strawberries 92% - but blueberries seem to be the big winner at 27%. Go figure. Or find an organic bakery and let them do some of the work!

I hope you found this information helpful. Enjoy the fruits of your labor, and be thankful for YOU- for putting out such a healthy and delicious meal!

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The Facts about Tap vs. Bottled Water

Like many other Moms out there, I have taken pride in the fact that my child has never drank regular tap water. Providing her spring water was "the only option" because it was simply the best, purest and most natural. In fact, my whole family has exclusively drank spring water for at least the past 10 years, maybe more, and I'm sure many of you have a similar history. Recently, I started wondering if it was as pure and natural as I always thought it was. So I did a little digging around. Eat your heart out, Erin Brockovich.

Ironically, the entire marketing strategy for bottled water companies is to promote the health benefits, yet there are no strict standards to enforce their purity. A test conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council found that after testing more than 1,000 bottles, about one fourth of the bottled water brands (23 of 103 waters, or 22 percent) were contaminated at levels violating strict enforceable state (California) limits for the state in which they were purchased, in at least one sample. Hmmm, that doesn't sound right, 25% contaminated? Here are a few more discoveries I made:

1. The EPA sets standards for tap water; and the FDA sets standards for bottled water. According to the NDRC, the FDA standards were very weak and needed significant reform.

2. At least 25% (and up to 40%) of all bottled water in this country is actually bottled tap water, some filtered additionally, and some not.

3. Big city tap water must be disinfected, tested for e coli and fecal coliform, Crypto-sporidium, Giardia, viruses and organic chemicals such as benzene. Bottled waters, seltzers and carbonated waters are not, at all!

4. The Pacific Institute estimates that it takes approx. 17 million barrels of oil to produce the amount of plastic bottles we need to meet US bottled water consumption annually.

5. The amount of energy used to make the plastic water bottle, fill it at the "source", transport it to US cities and finally to our homes, and deal with the waste accounted for 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, in 2006.

6. Americans buy 28 billion water bottles a year, and 80% of it goes back to the dump! Worldwide, recycling rates are even lower, closer to 90% to the landfill.

7. Bottled water is in a plastic bottle, and usually comes with an expiration date. A plastic container may leak chemicals such as phthalates or Bisphenol A into the bottled water, even if the water itself is pure. Storage in cool and dark places helps reduce leaching of these chemicals. All those half full water bottles in your car that heat up in the sun, throw them out now!

8. The NDRC study found that overall, most waters were safe, but some were not. I think we all take for granted that if the water is in a bottle, its 100% safe, and that is not the case.

Shocking, huh?

Here we are spending thousands of dollars a year on water that may or may not be better for us than actual tap water, because of the health implications that are programmed into our brains. In fact, much of it is tap water! Then we learn that the plastic may leach into it, and on top of it all, its causing unnecessary carbon emissions into the atmosphere. OK, so what are the options?

Well, the first thing you can do is to get a report from your local water company and see what the quality of your water actually is. If you enjoy good water quality like most of us in the US, you are all set. If not, you can opt for a filtration system like Brita, Culligan or PUR. The links are attached in the side column for your convenience. You must be vigilant to change the filters on these systems to really see the benefits. Or you could stick with bottled water and be more serious with the recycling, if you are not already, if you must! Maybe just reduce your consumption of it. Also, reusable bottles are a nice alternative for those trips in the car or to the gym. Check out www.filterforgood.com, where a portion of your purchase is donated to the Blue Planet Run Foundation, a water centered non-profit group.

I know, I know, the thought of drinking tap water is really freaking me out too. You feel that you must drink from the pure and natural spring next to a serene mountain or on a tropical island somewhere! It will definitely take some deprogramming in our sales & marketing saturated brains. But take my comments, get your water report, do some due diligence online, and make an educated decision.

Look at the bright side- you could afford to buy all organic food with the money you save on water! :) Read more!