 Yes, Valentine's Day is coming up. Besides the usual flowers, cards and chocolate (which I love by the way), another great gift idea is sending organic fruit baskets to your loved ones. I found a great website www.goldenstatefruit.com that offers organic fruit gift baskets. I love their organic milk chocolate cherries. What a great nutritional treat. For more information about their products, visit their website at www.goldenstatefruit.com. They are offering free shipping with no minimum purchase required. If you have any great organic gift ideas, please feel free to share with the rest of us. 2 Comments With the recession and uncertainty in the economy, how can anyone offer to eat organic food? Well, here is how I try and incorporate organic food into my family meals. For me, it's all about trade offs and opportunity costs. First, we only eat at restaurants on a monthly basis (not even fast food chains) because the cost for the cheapest meal is at least $5 when you include tax. This does not include the cost of driving to/from the restaurant. When we do eat at restaurants, we do not order any drinks (we drink the tap water that they give us) and most restaurants let you bring in your own drinks for your kids (especially when you have them in cute sippy cups or reusable bottles). We skip dessert as well most of the time (if we do order dessert, we order one and share among ourselves). Second, we have a designated left over meal day (e.g. when you cook meals in bulk, it's usually cheaper and more convenient). I also limit the amount of meat we eat. If you think about it, the cheapest non-organic chicken will cost you at least $3.99/lb when the per pound cost of organic strawberries will run you the same price or less. In general, I've done quite a bit of research on this, organic fruits and vegetables will cost you much less than non-organic meat. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense of reduce your meat intake while increasing your organic fruits and vegetables intake (with a net cash savings for yourself). If you don't believe me, try gradually reducing your meat intake while increasing your organic fruits and vegetables purchase and track how much you wind up spending on groceries. You'll be happy with the results. Third, buy organic fruits and vegetables on sale. However, do not over purchase, unless you remember to put the extra ones in the freezer. Fourth, grow your own organic food. This takes quite a bit of time, but the hassle factor is almost completely gone once you've planted the plants and initially tended your garden. Fifth, limit or reduce purchase of small gadgets or toys. I know a lot of parents who are fond of the local dollar stores and use it to treat their kids for good behavior, etc. I am totally supportive of rewarding and recognizing good efforts from my kids. I just don't purchase things from the dollar stores. Instead, I scribble a star on a board and keep track of their behavior, then, when they reach the pre-agreed upon number of stars, I bring them to the zoo or museum. This way, I eliminate the collection of extra stuff at home (thereby, reducing the "where is my_____ , mommy?" conversations) and we get to go on a cool family outing. Finally, I would rather save money from movie rentals (I borrow what we want to watch from the local library) and use the savings towards organic food. Yes, that is how much I believe in consuming organic food.  If I had infinite amount of time and dedication, I would attempt to make my own homemade soap. I actually borrowed a couple of books from the local library and researched the process (I even got to the point in which I bought a double boiler on sale ---- .... apparently a double boiler is necessary for making your own soap). Atlas, the double boiler is collecting dust (I might resurrect it for my cooking attempts). The reality is,.. I do not have the time or energy to attempt making my own soap, so I enjoy purchasing home made organic soaps from boutique shops. I have tried the Fresh Meadow soap from www.truly-life.com. The soap crumbles a little bit when you use it in the shower, so I savaged it by placing it in a plastic container (I actually squish the soap back together, sort of like how my kids play with Play-Dough). Despite the little bits of crumbs that I left behind, I really enjoyed the fresh clean scent of the soap. I also wind up using a lot less water since organic soaps do not create as much suds as traditional soaps. This boutique shop offers a number of different handmade eco-friendly soaps, lotion bars and perfumes. The items are all handmade and 100% organic. The soaps come in parchment paper like wrapping and brown paper wrapping. They are a Virginia based company that delivers their products to local clients via bicycle. (Talk about practicing what they preach). For more information about their handmade organic products, please visit www.truly-life.com. Hurry and visit their website, they are offering FREE samples of their product as long as you sign up for it before February 14th (a great free treat for yourself). As I continue on my eco-friendly journey, I am learning more each day about how so many wonderful individuals are all trying their best to keep their businesses profitable while "doing the right thing" for the environment. I get so excited just learning about these individuals. The eco-friendly community is growing and I'm glad to be a part of it.  The two weeks countdown to Valentine's Day is about to begin. It's time for flowers, cards and of course, lots of chocolate. If you are planning to purchase chocolate for your loved ones, you might want to consider buying Vosges chocolates. I tried the organic Dominican republic dark chocolate candy bar. It's 74% cacao and contains 30% of the daily recommended value of iron! Their chocolate is produced using 100% renewable energy. It makes me think if a boutique shop can do this, it's time the major corporations join the party and re-vamp their production to focus on using renewable energy. Vosges Haute Chocolat is an indulgence for yourself or your loved ones. If you visit their website today at www.vosgeschocolate.com, you can find out how you can win a romantic getaway weekend to Paris sweepstakes! Have you ever heard of the term: the Seven Arts? They are the following: architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry, dance and social sculpture. One of my goals this year is to explore the seven arts. I doubt I will be able to explore all of the seven, but I figure if I tackle at least one a year, in seven years, I will be a well versed Renaissance woman. I am encouraging my kids to do the same. Studies have shown that happiness is driven by an individual desire to help others and to express oneself. The Seven Arts definitely helps the individual express his/herself. I just signed up my kids to run in a free local race. I'll be there cheering them on. Exercise such as running will become a lifelong habit when started at an early age. I hope they keep a healthy outlook in life with lots of exercise. I haven't started training for my race yet. I plan to select a race before the end of the week. Hoping that an actual deadline will work better than arbitrary training. I notice that ever since I've been exercising more regularly, my appetite has gone through the roof. I really need to pace myself and make sure I don't binge on food after working out.  I have recently tried organic French vanilla coffee from www.DeansBeans.com. The coffee was delicious with an all-natural vanilla flavor. Their French vanilla coffee is made from Peruvian beans. Dean’s Beans is a family owned certified organic, fair trade coffee roaster. Dean's Beans coffee costs about 25% less than leading brand (non-organic) coffee and are sourced from various countries. In addition to their fair trade practice, Dean's Beans design and fund grassroots development projects in the villages where they buy their beans. How can they do all this and still remain competitive? Well, they do not have the large marketing budgets as other leading brand (non-organic) coffee and depend on word of mouth to reach new potential customers. I believe that their products are great and their mission is admirable. All of Dean's Beans fine whole bean specialty coffees are roasted in small batches at their beanery in Orange, MA. You can also make your own custom label as well straight from their website. In addition to their coffee products, they also offer other cool product as well. For more information about their products, visit www.deansbeans.com. Samples of Dean's Beans coffee will be randomly given away to email program members by March 31st, so join the free Eco-friendlyliving.com Email program today by submitting your contact information in the "Join Free Email Program" section of this website. Please note that your complete mailing address will need to be provided in order to receive samples. Your contact information is not sold or shared to any third parties. Random giveaways are sent by the end of each month. I am not an impulsive person. I don't enjoy window shopping and I do not turn to retail therapy to relieve stress. However, for the longest time, I have not gotten my act together enough to plan my meals ahead of time. So usually, by 5pm each day, I am in scramble mood to get dinner started while making sure the kids are entertained. I am trying to get a bit more organized and am actually planning my meals for this week (and sticking with the plans). It is sooo tempting to buy stuff on sale even though they are not on the list. So I figured instead of guilty myself of sticking to my list all of the time. I am going to designate a meal at least once a week for food items that were on sale. This way, I will be able to satisfy my bargain hunting urge while making sure I keep to my overall list. Eco-friendly living: Organic gardening 01/21/2010
 We planted broccoli and the broccoli plants are doing really well. Here is a photo of one of them. I can't wait until we harvest them. This spring I plan to expand my gardening endeavors to more fruits and vegetables. I don't have much of a "green thumb." Growing up in the Lower East side of Manhattan, the closest real gardening exposure I've had are indoor house plants. We had a ton of indoor plants but none of them were edible, so I am really excited about my own little organic garden. I have noticed that the broccoli plants are a lot more insect resistant than my spinach so I hope the insects leave enough spinach for me to harvest. Eco-friendly living: Running 01/21/2010
I have never been a "runner." I enjoy group exercises, dancing and swimming, but running seems boring to me. However, I am trying to expand my horizon and start running. I get a natural high after I do some exercise (especially after ZUMBA). I noticed that I get the "runner's high" even though I don't particularly enjoy running, so when I can't make it to any group exercise, I put on my sneakers and go out for a run. The natural endorphins in my brain that's release (causing the "runner's high") is great. I hope to run a race before the end of 2010. There, I wrote it, so now I'm going to do it. I'm hoping to get the race in before May (so I don't have to stress about it for the rest of the year). Now I just need to find some running buddies. The runners I know so far, fall into two camps: competitive runners and recreational runners/walkers. Unfortunately, I am too fast for the recreational runners/walkers and way too slow for the competitive runners, so I guess I need to run on my own for a while until I catch up to the competitors. Some people enjoy listening to music on their iPods. I gave up headphones years ago (maybe because being a mom has caused me to have a strong aversion to any loud music or maybe because I am suffering from years of blasting music from my headphones in highschool). Anyway, it's therapeutic for me just to listen to my environment (my panting | AuthorEco-friendly activist trying to make more healthy eco-friendly choices for my family. CategoriesAll ArchivesFebruary 2012 |
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