Taking Stock and Taking a Blog Break

When I my kids ate 3 raw beets and 4 purple carrots after school for their snack one day, I knew something major had changed in our family. Since then I've had writer's block. Maybe because this blog has served it's original purpose for me. It has made me follow through on things I might never have done otherwise - and now I'm hooked, I don't need the cyberspace motivation anymore. Our progress has been beyond my wildest expectations. Thank you to those who have read the blog, commented, emailed or debated with us for the last several months.

In the last 4 months, our changes have focused on food, chemicals, and consumerism. But the more I learn, the more I confirm that all of these components are interconnected. As I change my food patterns, I discover community. As I change my shopping habits, I contribute to a more fair, sustainable economy. It's been eye opening, and surprisingly easy. It turns out that an average, somewhat lazy, but socially conscious mother can actually drastically change her habits in just a matter of months.

If you're interested, here's my inventory of changes:

• purging all processed foods from our diets, with a few exceptions that allow us to function socially!
• switching from about 10% organics to about 90% when it comes to fruits, vegetables, wine, baking supplies, oils, nuts, cosmetics and pretty much everything else except clothing (one of these days...cotton uses an insane amount of pesticides). We aim to choose local products where possible.
• switching to organic meats, with particular attention to grass fed beef and dairy (avoids feedlot agriculture, and provides a more healthy balance of omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids) and cooking meals with smaller meat portions.
  
• eating more vegetarian meals with beans and lentils to make up for our expensive meat
  
• phasing out new toys for birthday parties and baby gifts (unless they are very needed). We recently gave an "e-charity gift" from Plan Canada. Our choice was a "Birthing Kit" (to be used for a woman with no access to clean medical facilities) to honour the birth of a friend's child. For the new big sister, we chose the gift of a year's worth of school supplies for a girl who would otherwise have no access to school.
• vowing to avoid loot bags and dollar store toys that don't last. Vowing to have gift free (or recycled gift, or charity gift) parties for our own kids, at least until they're old enough to really fight it.
  
• making way more foods from whole grains, and from scratch (ie. bread once or twice a week, muffins and cookies occasionally). We love our Ontario grown and milled Grassroots Organics flours. When we're stuck, we buy Stonemill wholegrain breads - they even bake with 100% green power!
  
• phasing out refined sugar and replacing it with agave nectar when possible
• choosing Fair Trade certified products when possible. Ten Thousand Villages makes a good shopping adventure for this, and stores are carrying certified goods more frequently than they used to.
  
• working towards homegrown food, even on our deck (and shared garden at my parents' place) where we're hoping to grow our own huge tomato crop so we can make our own tomato sauce, diced and stewed tomatoes to get us through the winter. We're also growing herbs, peas, beans, carrots, cukes, melons, and squash, some of which we will can, pickle or freeze for winter.
  
• teaching our kids about healthy foods, and watching them start to get excited about heirloom tomatoes, atomic red carrots, stripey beets, and kale chips (and actually eat these things!)
• avoiding canned foods (because the linings leach phthalates -endocrine disruptors)
• getting rid of most of our plastic containers in favour of glass
• buying less packaging (including finding products in refillable containers like Harmony milk in glass bottles and "NatureClean" laundry soap)
• replacing all of our chemical filled soaps, shampoos, and detergents with more natural ones. We're particularly avoiding parabens and phthalates. While I'm still not crazy about my natural shampoo, I'm trying different brands until the right one works for me. We've also avoided all fragranced products to reduce our exposure to phthalates.
  
• chucking my aluminum based anti-perspirant in favour of a crystal...even though I still sometimes get panic attacks about my aroma.
• reading more non fiction books (for fun) than I have in my life about organic gardening, container gardening, whole foods cookbooks, food industry critiques, politics of food, and the eye opening Anti-Cancer book. I've learned some really compelling reasons to follow through with our changes so far.

The result? We're all working harder and spending more time in the kitchen and the garden...but it feels like an adventure instead of like a chore for a change. The kids are being great about this, more and more adventurous with new foods each day. I feel like I'm finally doing my best to keep my family healthy, safe and socially conscious instead of using my old excuse about not having enough time or money for these changes.

So what's next? More of the same. My next project is to build some homemade test models of the Earth Box to see if they can help me produce even more food. And to continue to find more options for foods like kale, chard, fresh herbs and other veggies. And to learn how to can and pickle stuff. And to switch to baking soda and vinegar for cleaning. And to compost in the backyard...the list is endless, but the focus remains the same. I think I will need my blogging time this spring to tend to the garden, bake bread and soak beans. I'll post updates as things come along, but for now, I think I need a break!

Thanks for reading!

Mama Earth Organics

We've been working on eating more organic foods. At first, we just switched the greens, apples, oranges, and bananas. Then we moved onto dairy, now we're on board with flour, rice, beans, nuts, and pretty much everything else. I've been ordering a lovely little organic fruit and veg basket that arrives on our doorstep every Tuesday, but have still done the bulk of my shopping at Loblaws.

I've been feeling good about buying organics now that the initial sticker shock has passed, but I wondered if it was possible to have more access to locally sourced products than I could find at the grocery store. When I finally spent some time browsing the selection at my online organic store Mama Earth Organics, I was excited to find it's possible to find local flours (rye, wheat, spelt), beans, and even popcorn. I realized there was a better selection of local stuff available through this service than at the grocery store. And the prices are on par - sometimes cheaper.

So, we're taking a leap away from the grocery store and are going to start ordering most of our stuff from Mama Earth. One reason is we like the produce we're already getting. Another is the convenience. There's also the lack of temptation to buy shiny packages of crap. But mostly it's because we trust them to source their products as locally as possible. I don't have time to drive to Grey Country every week, so I'm happy to let Mama Earth do the work for me.

Can't wait til Tuesday!

The seeds you sow

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you sow.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

I'm sure that if I took a moment to think about it, I could extract a meaningful life lesson from this quote. Today I prefer to take it at face value. That way I can judge these last few weeks as very successful since the seeds I've sown are sprouting.

This week I added lettuce, melons, beets, zucchini, and dill to my herd of tomatoes and herbs. My tomatoes are coming up beautifully, especially my funky Rainbow Blend and the early ripening Stupice.

Before I start peeing myself with excitement over my hypothetical harvest, I suppose I must remind myself about last year. Last year I purchased five huge pots of the most gigantic, healthy and unfailable cherry tomato plants at the garden center. Within weeks I had killed them all. I think we got about three tiny tomatoes for the bargain price of about $40. This year I'm hoping for a slightly better ratio.

But I suppose if I heed Robert Louis Stevenson, the harvest doesn't really matter.

Yeah, right.

Highjacked Organics

Batter Blaster is an aerosol can of pancake/waffle batter. Seriously, it exists and it's organic. I thought it was a joke, but apparently it's not. It's been profiled on Regis and Kelly and is apparently carried by Loblaws, Sobey's and Metro (though I've never actually seen it in real life). My husband forwarded me the website (www.batterblaster.com) when he stumbled across a magazine ad and thought it was just too funny to pass up. Unfortunately, alot of people must not get the joke. Over 3 million cans were sold in 2008. It's marketed to "make breakfast a blast", and as a healthy, mess-free breakfast. While the ingredients are organic, there is nothing natural about a food you spray from a can.

This is where things break down a bit in the whole organics industry. I've been weighing the arguments for and against corporate organics (lower cost, more marketing power, greater efficiency VS. circumventing the "spirit" of organic agriculture, redefining the rules of what is considered organic, and continuing to promote processed foods). Batter Blaster makes me wonder what organic food will look like in 5 years. And it makes me wonder why we ever bothered with organic waffles.

Our family has recently switched to making our own organic pancakes (without aerosols) and then freezing them to be heated up for quick breakfasts later in the week. It works and doesn't take much time. In fact, I'm quite sure it's less than if we sprayed them into the pan.

Squirrels in the Ointment

The recent "clean food" kick I've been on lately has led to a relatively surprising turn of events. I've become a reader of gardening blogs, magazines and seed catalogues. I've become familiar with Chioggia beets, Rainbow Chard and Riesenstraube tomatoes. I have been growing seeds under grow lights that must have my neighbours wondering if I'm running a grow-op in here.

The only irritant in this new idyll is squirrels. Yesterday I planted onion and garlic bulbs. This morning I saw a squirrel munching one, chased it away, then realized the rest of the bulbs were already gone. I've been warned by many experienced gardeners - squirrels will make me crazy.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of operation Red Hot. I found a recipe for homemade squirrel repellent which calls for Murphy Oil Soap, Cayenne Pepper, and hot sauce. You spray it everywhere and the squirrels are supposed to dislike the taste - you have to reapply after each rainfall. It apparently doesn't hurt the plants. We'll see, it stinks and makes my eyes water...so hopefully it will do the trick. Racoons chewed a hole in our roof last year causing $4000 of water damage - I am likely to lose it if "urban wildlife" attacks my garden too! If anyone has any tried and true squirrel repellent ideas, I'd love to know about them.

And no, the squirrel in the picture is not real.

Urban Garden

I don't have much of a garden. It's more of a postage stamp with partial sun. My gardening attempts have never amounted to much, and I blame it on only partial sun and my watering neglect. I figure I need somewhere sunny to plant, and someone to help me keep up with watering. An arrangement has been brokered with my parents to make use of part of their expansive suburban backyard, apply my dad's vigilance with the garden hose, and share the harvest (assuming there actually IS one).

Today was a glorious early Easter Sunday. We had one of the best family days in my recent memory, even thought it included digging up a 12x13 foot patch of lawn, getting blisters, and aching muscles. The great parts were heat and sunshine, camaraderie, worm hunting, listening to my son boast that he's "digging just like Daddy", and watching my daughter pretend to be a pig rolling around in the dirt.

Ahhh.