All posts filed under: Conservation

Our worm farm and 2,000 Carles

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For awhile now I’ve wanted to compost, but in DC we were in a teeny tiny apartment where I couldn’t figure out how to do it. Then, when we moved to Sydney I thought that it wouldn’t make sense to do it here since we’re in an apartment and I”m not sure what we’d do with the compost once it was finished. Finally, I realized that I didn’t care if it was too short a time period to make the investment, or if we’d then have compost that we couldn’t use. If anything, it can serve as an experiment to see how much food waste we generate. And, at the end of the day, if we have too much compost we can give it away to some of my gardening folks. All that being said. I bought a worm farm three weeks ago. You can make them easily if you have the tools, but we didn’t. Instead I just went to the nearest hardware store and bought one. With the kit, I also bought 2,000 …

How much water was used to produce your dinner?

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Something that I’ve thought about recently is how much water was used to produce the food that I eat. One of the reasons why I eat almost no animal protein anymore is because of the statistics that I read about how much grain and water went into the production of various animal proteins (see the reason’s why page). But animal protein isn’t the only thing on our plate that’s water intensive. I’ve read a number of articles about how much water goes into the production of rice, almond milk, and avocados – but there’s not often a comparison to alternatives. For example, does rice use more milk than pasta? And, are all rice varieties the same? What about farro or some other ancient grain? Anyway, this is something I’ve always wondered about and I’m actually working on an article right now that highlights milk alternatives and how much water goes into the production of each one.

Sydney: Two of My Favorite Things so Far

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We’ve been in Sydney for three weeks now and there are some aspects of the city that are quickly becoming my favorite things. Today I’m going to share two with you. First, is one that I can’t really capture for you, so I’m just going to have to tell you about it. All of the intersections in the city have pedestrian signs for when it’s time to walk. Pretty common, right? Wrong! These are super laser signs. When the little red man standing still turns into the green walking man there’s this amazing sound that comes with it. The sound makes me think of what an alien later would sound like. It makes me really happy. Naturally, I walk around the city making laser noises to myself. Obviously. Read more here for the second thing!

We Ate Grasshoppers!

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I didn’t take this picture, it’s from The Black Ant’s twitter page. When I first read about entomophagy (the practice of eating insects), it was through an NPR article (The Joys and Ethics of Insect Eating) that was introducing the reader to the company Little Herds. One thing that Robert Nathan Allen, the founder of Little Herds, mentioned was the greatest barrier to Americans eating insects what the “ick factor”. The article, as a whole, was very compelling. After reading it, I promptly went to the Little Herds website and bought the chocolate chip cookie mix and some of the cricket flour. Since buying these, I’ve made chocolate chip cookies, bread, and a potpie with cricket flour. At first, Jason was not a fan of this. To be fair, I started off with the cookies which was a mistake. The cookies were good. But Jason might be obsessed with chocolate chip cookies and didn’t appreciate the change in flavor (even though it’s slight). The bread and potpie were much easier to get by him. Read …

Nutritionists and Environmentalists Should Work Together: So Why Doesn’t Congress Want Them To?

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The group of appointed nutritionist (appointed by the government) to draft new guidelines for the nation’s diet had decided to utilize data collected on the environmental implication of different food choices. Sounds great, right? And, if you think about it, makes a lot of sense. The guidelines would help individuals to move towards healthier and environmentally friendly diets. Read more here.  

Defining Fair Trade

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Since we’re getting closer to the gift-giving holidays, I thought I would post some information on a couple of different shops that offer fair trade items that could make wonderful presents. I’m currently working on this, and it will be posted under Responsible Shopping soon (hopefully next week). When I started looking at all of these shops, I realized that while I knew some aspects of what defined fair trade, I didn’t feel confident that I could accurately explain it to someone else. So I decided to do some research to teach myself. Read More.

Conserve Water by Taking “Navy Showers”

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I’ve noticed that a lot of this blog includes me admitting things about myself to the internet. For example, I love long, hot showers. Especially in the winter. I like to emerge from them hot pink from the temperature being a little too hot. All of that being said, you might remember that this is a blog about how to lead a socially and environmentally conscious lifestyle. So, what’s a girl to do?    Read more here.  

My Ideal Housing Arrangement

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You guys! Check out this apartment building/farmer’s market in Rotterdam. Isn’t this amazing? The article says that residents have to sign a “green lease” in which they promise to reduce water, energy, and waste. Some of the stands even have roof garden on top! I feel like this building might be where I belong. The article says that so far not too many people have signed leases for the units and not too many vendors have rented stalls, yet. I wonder if everyone’s waiting to see how it fares? I can’t imagine the building not thriving, given that the Scandinavian countries are very environmentally friendly.

Recycling Cooking Water/Broth

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Last night, I posted a recipe for Whole Roasted Cauliflower and also some information on some simmered Kale. The recipe isn’t what I wanted to share, but more so the concept behind it. We often use water/broth to boil pasta, vegetables, and what not. Most of us throw out the water/broth after we’re done cooking, but why? The water/broth is perfectly fine and more than likely has more flavor now that it’s been used once. I’ve started keeping the water that I used and storing in in glass mason jars. With this is mind, I prepared the kale described below. Simmered Kale (from the left over cauliflower water) After making the cauliflower in the recipe below, I decided to keep the left over liquid as it was perfectly good and quite flavorful. I thought I would keep is for a day or two until I came up with something to use it for – pasta, steaming vegetables, whatever. Once I was putting away the leftovers I remembered that I had a lot of kale in …