I've been making a more decided effort this year to live a little greener :) I have always been one to recycle and to wash my clothes in cold water, and to compost my food scraps, but I've decided to do more. Why you ask? Well, for the good of the earth, for the health of my family, and because we're the ones that God put in charge of the earth so it's our duty to look after it.
Some of the biggest changes I've made lately have been to decide on using earth (and family) friendly cleaning products. As anyone who knows me realizes, I'm not one to throw anything away, so I'm slowly working at using up my poisonous chemical cleaning products and am replacing them with biodegradable, non-toxic cleaners. I purchase these from my friend Kim who sells Shaklee products. Not only are they safe for the environment (and my lungs and skin), but my favourite part is that they are also much cheaper than purchasing the toxic poison cleaners from the store :) YAY, double win situation there!!
I've also been making a much more determined effort to bring my own shopping bags when I do my grocery shopping, or even when I pick something up at another store. I've got a couple of reusable shopping bags tucked in my purse that I can pull out when I need them. I saw a special on how grocery bags are destroying the planet and many animals and made that choice. Yes, it takes more effort, but I'm almost completely in the habit of remembering my bags now when I go into the store. I hope that it's only a matter of time before Ontario becomes bag-free and we no longer have these terrible plastic bags given out so freely.
I've also been trying to cook healthier meals for my family. Selling Epicure and using their herb & spices has made this a little easier. I no longer purchase Sidekick flavoured rices since I can boil brown rice on my stove with a tablespoon of a myriad of seasoning choices and have my own homemade flavoured rice without the added sodium. Not to mention the disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate and sulphites...yummy...NOT. Joel recently read the book: In Defense of Food that talked about healthy eating (it's on my list of books to read), one of the author's lessons is that if you don't know what a product in an ingredient list is, that's probably a good sign that it's not good for you. I love that Epicure stuff is MSG and preservative free, most is salt free and it's 100% Canadian (okay, sorry, slipping into sales mode). My massage therapist has been making me aware of food colouring and MSG in so many products. So I'm trying to take note of that kind of stuff too. I'm not saying my cupboards are perfect, but I'm working at it.
Another thing I'm going to work at this year is trying to buy my food locally (as much as I can without a farmers market in town). I now buy my eggs at a farm just outside of Clinton. For $1.50- a dozen ore $3.00 a flat (30 eggs!), it's a steal. Some of these brown eggs are gigantic. The kids enjoy going into the barn with me to pick them up...they get a kick out of the idea of eating farm fresh eggs...and so do I :)
So here's to living greener and trying to support my local community.
Mel
2 comments:
Way to go, Mel! Lots of applause for you!
may i suggest some other very easy ways to "go green"...
-hang up your clothing instead of putting it in the dryer even in the winter, using clothes horses or a line put up in the house (dryers are one of the worst household greenhouse gas makers)
-use a rainbarrel for watering all your outdoor plants
-buy a push lawnmower (gas mowers actually emit more green housegases then cars!)...if you don't like the push lawnmower, electric mowers are another pretty good environmental choice..although they obviously do use electricity
-put as many of your household applicances on powerbars and turn them off when not in use (things pluged into outlets still use energy when you're not even using them)
-replace all your light bulbs with energy efficient ones
-try to walk more places or ride your bike
i could go on and on but i'll stop there!
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