Candid and sensible green living advice since 1999.

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January 30th, 2012
Posted in: Green Kitchen, Green Terms, Greenwashing, Sustainable Food

Understanding egg carton labels

Unless you’ve got egg laying chickens clucking around your backyard, you’ve seen the dizzying selection of eggs at the supermarket. Cartons touting everything from “free range” to “vegetarian fed” to “no antibiotics”—up to a half dozen claims and labels that can lead to confusion instead of confident decisions about what it all means.

In this … Continue reading


December 20th, 2011
Posted in: Consumerism, Reduce, Reuse, Special Occasions

Need a gift fast? Rejoice, reuse and re-gift this holiday!

Time’s almost up and you still have _____ (fill in the blank) people to shop for! OR do you?  Do you really need/want to head “out there?” The last-minute holiday shopping rush is an ugly, spirit-killing scene. Parking wars, crowds, long lines, short fuses, crying toddlers that have been stuck in a shopping cart for … Continue reading


December 7th, 2011
Posted in: Green Kitchen, Reuse

Green Glass giveaway!

Of all the repurposed products to come through my office in the past twelve years, few have impressed me more than the creations of The Green Glass Co. Green Glass salvages used and condemned beverage bottles and artfully transforms them into unique tumblers and stemware.

The company’s website states that their goblets have been chosen … Continue reading


December 2nd, 2011
Posted in: Cleaning, Green Kitchen, Special Occasions

Post-holiday Oven Clean Up

The out-of-town guests and Thanksgiving feast leftovers are long gone, but there is one thing from last weekend that hasn’t disappeared yet—the
greasy, splattered mess inside my oven! My poor oven paid a price for giving us one very crispy, brown-skinned bird and two juicy apple pies—among other things!  Time to clean it out before the … Continue reading


November 24th, 2011
Posted in: Energy, Perspectives

Woman to Woman: The Best Way To Beat The Winter Cold Is With the Proper Under Garments

 

As we leave fall behind and descend into winter, those with leaky homes—or just thin blood—will soon be feeling a chill that seems miserably inescapable at times. The temptation to crank up the thermostat to a toasty 76 degrees will seem more like survival than self-indulgence, but wasting heating fuel or electricity and … Continue reading


November 4th, 2011
Posted in: Consumerism, Reduce, Reuse

Renting Your Stuff—A Good Idea That Hasn’t Taken Off

 

There are at least half a dozen websites online that help people rent things they need or post their own rentable items within their community…from the family dog to a staple gun…just about anything goes!  

I have lots of things I’d like to rent (NOT my dog, however), so I checked out rentalic.comContinue reading


“Organic” and “natural” cereals and granolas are not the same thing

Eat cereal?  Cornucopia Institute’s new report examines the difference between “certified organic” and “all natural” cereals and granolas. 

For more information… http://www.cornucopia.org/2011/10/natural-vs-organic-cereal/


September 18th, 2011
Posted in: Reduce, Reuse

Bulk food bins: Do they reduce or increase food shopping waste?


Bulk bins in the supermarket offer a chance to help ourselves to as much or as little food as we want.  When we help ourselves to large quantities, these bins are remarkably helpful in reducing packaging waste. Unfortunately, bulk food bins aren’t just used to purchase large quantities.  They can be just as appealing when … Continue reading


September 2nd, 2011
Posted in: Product Review, Reduce, Reuse

For the Purest Taste and Healthiest Water, Drink from Glass

If you’re one of those people who need constant rehydration, a portable water bottle is probably as much an accessory to your lifestyle as your cell phone. But if that bottle came prefilled with water from the grocery store or a vending machine, you’re not only contributing to one of the earth’s most prolific waste Continue reading


August 16th, 2011
Posted in: Green Terms, Recycling, Reduce, Trash

Why “recycling rate” and “recycled content” mean everything in our packaging choices

Knowing how difficult it is to recycle plastic packaging, it’s hard for me to make a trip to the grocery store and not be disheartened by the overwhelming number of products that come cocooned inside the stuff.  Even some supposedly environmentally sensitive companies are abandoning recyclable packaging.

If companies that claim to care about … Continue reading


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