Don't go Bananas!

Or at least don't blow your grocery budget on organic bananas!

Okay, I know that sounds harsh. Organic farming is still widely-acknowledged as being better for the soil and water, so organic bananas DO provide a benefit.

If your specific concern is the ingestion of pesticides, bananas are a low-risk produce item. My daughter loves bananas and can eat 1 a day herself, so I bought them a few times at our organic foods store...for $.99/lb, roughly twice what they go for at our other market.

Although non-organic bananas are treated with pesticide, the sprayed pesticides remain on the skin, leaving the fruit 'safe' for consumption. Bananas have appeared on multiple lists of "XX number of foods you don't need to buy organic" including this one at The Daily Green and this one on MSN Health & Fitness (thanks for the link, Andrea!). Paying twice as much for no health benefit...not worth it on my budget!

Another way to save on your banana grocery budget is to REDUCE your waste. I have been guilty more than once of letting the last two bananas go brown and then they are slipped into the garbage (*gasp!*). Here are two great ways to prevent yourself from committing this most heinous produce sin.

1. Reduce your waste by extending the life of your produce. I have not yet tried this method, but am looking forward to trying the Green Bags recommended by fellow-blogger Chele.

2. If you still aren't able to eat your 'nanas before they turn all brown and blotchety, then for heaven's sake make Banana Bread!

This is the recipe I use - an amalgamation from several cookbook recipes.

Emily's Best Banana Bread

Ingredients:

• 3 or 4 overripe mashed bananas, well-mashed
  
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
  
• 1 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 and butter a loaf pan.
Mix together butter and mashed bananas in a large bowl. Add sugar, eggs and vanilla and stir until mixed in. Slowly stir in the dry ingredients until just blended. Pour into buttered loaf pan and bake 45 - 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool loaf in pan on the cooling rack for 15 minutes, then take the loaf out of the pan and allow to cool on rack.

Shower Challenge - Day 2 - Improvements all around?

Hmmm. What to make of this. First off, today *I* forgot to time my shower, but Husband remembered to time his. He apparently is sneaking peeks at this blog and suddenly decided on the day he times his shower to NOT shave until afterwards! He was pretty proud of his 3:42 shower. I have to admit, I was secretly impressed. It almost made me forget how annoyed I was that he only "half-listened" to my instructions (which was to time a 'normal' shower first).

It must have flustered me, because I forgot to time my shower. I know it was shorter than usual though, but that's only because of the psychic connection I share with my daughter. Yes, that's right. Allow me to explain: She has the uncanny ability to sense when I'm about to relax/take a shower/fall asleep and that is the exact moment she decides to wake-up crying. So this morning, as soon as I turned the faucet on, she let out a wail over the monitor. I hopped in and did an speed-suds-and-rinse routine and by the time I got out, she was back to sleep. I can't complain, though, because she slept a whole hour later than usual!

Tally: I'd have to say Husband and I were both under 5 minutes today, but I'm inclined to call it a fluke. We'll see how we fair tomorrow.

Shower Challenge - Day 1

Well, I accomplished half of my mission. I forgot to time my husbands, but I did time my shower this morning and it was right at 8 minutes. I'll be honest, that is A LOT better than what I thought it would be.

Just knowing I was timing it, I was thinking of what I could be doing differently. One thing I came up with was to wash my face in the sink, after I get out of the shower. That will save maybe 45 seconds or a minute? Hmmm. I was thinking 8 minutes was pretty good, but I'll be honest, I'm not sure about making it to 5 mintues.

Quick sidebar here: I've looked at some of the suggestions on other blogs. I've seen gems like "turn off the shower while you lather up your hair and body, then turn it back on to rinse"...um, no thank you. Can you imagine doing that in the winter?! Let's get real. This is what annoys me about so many of these Going Green blogs. Unless you are uber-dedicated and/or don't work outside the home, it's nearly impossible to achieve their standards of "green." Maybe I'll never be a nice, deep forrest green. I can be happy with chartreuse. I just want to keep it real, folks.

Okay, well, I'll take out my face-washing and try to streamline the shower process and see where that leaves me tomorrow...I'm always game for a challenge =)

Pride goes before a (eco-) fall

Yesterday I was all high & mighty over my big reusable bag discovery. Today I am taking my daughter to a craft program at our local library and it reminds me of something I need to confess.

I am a book collector.
Yes, I like to read. However, I will buy a book even when I'm in the middle of reading four others. I have books on my various bookshelves that are years old and have never been read. Yes, that would be money, trees and oil...wasted by me. *sigh*

My maternal grandmother was a librarian by trade, and growing up my family and I were regular library users. Somewhere along the line, though, I stopped borrowing and started buying. We are preparing to move and I have FOUR bookshelves to pack up. No Barnes & Noble bargain bin went un-perused, no gift card unspent, no Amazon wish-list ignored. I have amassed a collection of paperback, hardbacks, fiction, non-fiction, self-help, self-indulgence...it's a mess.

So how to I correct this? Obviously, I need to stop buying every book that is recommended to me (be it friends, family or Oprah), has a pretty cover or a catchy title. Okay, that's Step 1.

Step 2 - find a way to recycle the books that a) I'm never going to read or b)I've already read & won't re-read (yes, I'm so nerdy that I re-read books). I suppose I could make a generous gift-in-kind to my local library, right? I mean who wouldn't want to read "A Year of Health & Beauty" by Beverly & Vidal Sassoon. Is the "Da Vinci Code" still popular? Hmmm...hopefully they'll accept my donation.

Step 3 - how do I address my insatiable lust for new books? No amount of green-lecturing is going to keep me from wanting new books. I think this is going to have to be a two-step program. First, use the library for any books that I am ready to read right now. Second, find a way to get those immediate gratification books that I'll end up reading "someday." I am looking into a website called www.bookmooch.com where you can swap your books for others you'd like to read. That sounds like a good plan. I'll let you know how it goes!

It's in the bag, baby!

Everyone knows plastic bags are wasteful and take up way too much space in our houses, but I did a little research and found some stats. According to deliciouslivingmag.com (great name, huh?):

• Plastic bags don't biodegrade - instead they slowly break into little toxic bits that contaminate our soil, water and food (oh, and it takes 1,000 years to fully decompose - what's filling up our landfills? These suckers.).
• Paper bags aren't much better because they are so bulky and take more energy (OIL) to transport
• 12 million barrels of oil are used to produce the plastic bags used in the U.S. in one year
  

But I also loathe those bulky, awkward reusable bags that "big box-mart" sells. I bought one on a guilt-trip day and it sits at home because I never remember to bring it with me when I run errands.

At our local organic grocer, I found a great solution. It's a big, nylon, reusable bag that collapses into a teeny bag that clips onto your purse (or fits nicely inside). I have mine stuffed in my purse and it's with me at all times. I use it for groceries, of course, and to round up the trash that accumulates in my car. Best of all, it was cheap ($5, I think) and I've had mine for almost a year now and it's still going strong.
I found the bag-makers website online - www.chicobag.com and have attached a pretty picture from their website.



Just for fun, I am also uploading a picture of mine.
Here is a picture of my purse & my bag
(and yes, that's really my hand...).
That sucker is tiny, isn't it?



Oh, and I also unfolded it and put it next to my purse so you could see how big it gets.
It holds probably twice as much as your average grocery store plastic bag.



Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Now don't get me wrong, I still use those plastic suckers.
But I use fewer and fewer all the time. And the ones I do bring home, I use to line our diaper pail, bathroom trash cans, and as spare bags for dirty/wet clothes when we're out and about. And when my little plastic bag full of plastic bags is overflowing, I take it to our grocery store and let them recycle it. Now excuse me, I have to go pat myself on the back... ;)

Lord Help Me - I'm becoming My Mother

Or my father to be more accurate. And my grandparents who grew up during the Depression. I spent the day in a house that was too warm, turning off appliances and lights in a manner that even annoyed me. This all reminds me of the things my parents and grandparents used to harp on "us kids" about growing up. I remember going to grandma's house in western New York state in August and thinking "PLEASE turn on some air conditioning!" Why was she so cheap? And my dad, always nagging us to "turn off a light when you leave the room." He couldn't figure out what was so difficult about that, and we couldn't figure out why he cared. Even when I started to pay my own bills, I just didn't think about it. Ever wonder what shape the Earth would be in if we still followed the principles so many of the Greatest Generation learned the hard way?

I spent the day trying to be very conscientious about my water and energy use. It was a rainy but muggy morning - nonetheless, I left my windows open and kept the A/C off. That lasted until my daughter and I were both overwarm in the mid-afternoon. I tried to delay the evil air conditioning by heading outside. Bad move. It was now sunny and HOT! The breeze was good, but not enough. We turned on the ever-popular Elmo sprinkler and ran through that a few times. After about 5 passes and one insulting spray in the face, Elmo was disconnected. We were cool - for all of 5 minutes. Back inside for drinks and...we turned on the air conditioning. Drat. My compromise was to only turn it on upstairs (we have separate controls for up & down), since we were probably going to want it on for baby bedtime anyway. As a result, we spent about an hour cleaning and packing (getting ready for the Big Move) in the cooler part of the house. Got stuff done, and didn't turn on the whole house a/c. That counts as a win right? Or at least a draw?

Hey, it's a start.