Cooking and eating more sustainably doesn't require that you rethink your entire life. Here are some simple things you can do to get started.
Start canning some of your own pickles and jams when fruits and vegetables are at the peak of season. It will be cheaper than buying store-bought, and likely the quality will be better as well.
Grow your own — either plant vegetables in raised beds in the yard or even just put some herbs in pots on a sunny kitchen windowsill.
Eat lower on the food chain — take advantage of the whole animal by using off-cuts of meat that others might pass up, such as beef shanks or lamb's necks, and try cooking the less popular small, oily fish, such as mackerel and sardines that don't extract such an environmental cost compared with high-end fish such as salmon.
Meatless Monday. Even in the best circumstances, raising meat takes a toll. Make this change only one day a week and you probably won't even notice.
FOOD HUGGERS
Who said laundry can’t be fun? LooHoo Wool Dryer Balls are colorful, reusable dryer balls that reduce drying time (by 25 percent) and soften laundry naturally! LooHoos lift and separate clothes creating a constant motion that allows more air to circulate around your wet laundry so it dries faster. Made of lanolin-rich wool, about the size of a baseball, these dryer balls can be used for years and the hues will never transfer onto your clothes. The wool fibers absorb static cling, and an added bonus, wool absorbs odors too… so no more stinky socks!
The future of our food system is at a critical juncture, says Arty Mangan, Food and Farming Program Director for Bioneers. “The industrial agriculture industry says that they want to feed the world, but at what cost?”
Checks and balances. Have you ever thought about how amazing those
two words are? In the simplest sense, writing checks and figuring out
how much money you have left after you’ve written them. In the larger
sense, if something is depleted or out of whack, something comes along
to reestablish order.
After spending years in the political closet (one of the dangers of a politically mixed marriage) I have emerged with a flourish, and a job as Press Person for a Michigan candidate for the United States House of Representatives. I have been working for Bob Alexander, a Democrat running in Michigan’s 8th Congressional District, against Mike Rogers, a four-term Republican incumbent. Bob is the kind of Democrat my parents are – a Joan Baez, “if you want peace, work for justice” kind of guy who spent years circulating petitions and working crowds “cold” to promote the value of a living wage for working people, and eventually persuaded the Michigan legislature to raise the minimum wage by 29 percent. He was not holding office at the time, mind you; it was just the right thing to do.