The human cost of chocolate

The more I look, the more I see, and some things I don't want to see because they are so incredibly unfair and unjust. The chocolate trade is one of those things. Most of the chocolate that we can buy here in the First World comes from West Africa, and it is harvested by children, under terrible working conditions. The word for it is "slavery." These children are bought and sold and subjected to abuse and worse.

I've been hearing more and more about it, which is a good thing for maybe people will stop buying slave chocolate. The big companies to avoid are Nestle, Cadbury, Mars, and Hershey.

The next time you sit down to enjoy a chocolate bar, take a moment to think about where it came from, who produced it and what the real, human cost of it is. Kind of leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

The only chocolate that is going to be making it's way into my mouth is Fair Trade Organic. You can buy Fair Trade Chocolate at any health food store, and if your local grocery store doesn't carry it you can ask them to.

The war on flyers

and so it continues... I have now called the flyer force 2 times, emailed twice, signed up for both the Red Dot Campaign and Dump the Junk, talked to the kids who deliver them and now I have posted a giant NO FLYERS sign on my front door. So maybe my neighbours think I'm a little crazy, I want this madness stopped I tell you!!

Enough of that, here is a lovely video from one of my favorite bands, The Be Good Tanyas human thing.

Happy Almost Spring!

the business of yoga

I must admit I have a small problem with buying yoga clothes. I have drawers full of them, and I hate to say it but most of them are of the lycra variety. In my own defense, I worked at lululemon for 4 years, and that is where it all began. Before lulu, I practiced yoga in plain old cotton pants and t-shirts, but who can resist the 60% staff discount?

Which brings me to the change of the week- no more lycra yoga clothes. Lycra is basically a plastic, which is a petroleum product, which takes hundreds of years to break down in a landfill not to mention the environmental cost of producing the stuff. So, I have sworn off lycra and will now only buy organic cotton, hemp, soy, or bamboo clothes. This should be easy considering that everyone now sells organic cotton, yay for eco-chic, eco-hip! In fact, just this afternoon I bought myself an organic cotton t-shirt from superstore. I feel pretty cool sitting here in my pesticide free t-shirt.

100% pre used trees!

It appears that the office supply giant staples now carries 100% recycled paper. When I found it last night I couldn't help but grin, and then still with a huge smile face, I asked the stock boy if they had 100% recycled notebooks. He said that yes, they did, and I thought I had hit the jackpot. Who knew that notebooks could make me so happy? He directed me to the aisle, but they did not have them. They had notebooks with recycled covers, but I don't care if the cover is recycled, I want the pages too! I purchased my paper, and a map of the world, and left without even requesting the notebooks, I was that bummed out.

In case you haven't already noticed, it's hip to be green. This is a far cry form the early 90's, when environmentalism was hip, but in a hippie dippie sort of way. Corporations weren't jumping on the green bandwagon, and organic cotton more resembled old burlap. You certainly couldn't find organic produce at your local Safe place to buy food, and shopping green meant shopping second hand. It's funny how the green movement is spawning a whole new reason to shop. Buy more Stuff, Save the Planet!

Change of the week

My newest change is to actually use my reusable shopping bags, and so far I have been very good about it. It was this picture that really made me rethink all of those plastic bags that I get at the grocery store, and I do a lot of grocery shopping. We eat all of our meals here in our house, and I am feeding a 6'4" man with a huge appetite, plus myself, and I can pack away a lot of food. And Elias too, but he is not a big eater, yet.

Earth saving 101

These two are another reason why I do this. And for everyone else, I thought I would compile a list of small changes that we have made in our lives over the years to lessen our footprint on the earth. They are easy to do.

1. Earth friendly cleaning products! In case you haven't tried them already (here comes some shameless self-promotion) Small Planet are really the best cleaning products around and there are NO questionable ingredients, everything is listed on the bottle. They are produced locally, by me, and they work better than anything else out there.
2. Bar soap for showering. No fancy bottled shower gel, just lovely handmade (local) soap. Do Be Clean is my favourite.  www.dobeclean.com
3. Eco-laundry soap. I use Nellies, and for stain removal I use a stain remover bar from Eden Essentials in the Calgary Farmer's Market.
4. Compact Flourescent Bulbs in all the lights in our house. They last 7 years, they don't waste energy by producing heat, and they save you money on your electricity bill.
5. Energy Star appliances. If your fridge is 10 years old, it is a huge energy sucker. Fridges in general are huge energy suckers, but old ones are worse. Not all new fridges are energy star, however, and the ones with the freezer on top are the most energy efficient.
6. 100% recycled office paper and notebooks. Just for fun, whenever I go into Staples I ask for 100% recycled paper. They don't have it, and I know this, but I like to watch them try to find it and then wonder why they don't carry it. On my way out I fill out a suggestion form requesting that they carry it. If everyone did this they would carry it for sure. So next time you're in staples, ask for it.
7. Crystal deodorant. Anti-perspirant contains aluminum, which builds up in your body, close to your breasts. I just don't like the idea of purposefully putting metal onto my body. Plus, the crystals have no packaging.
8. No bottled water. I bring my own stainless steel water bottle where ever I go. Water is a basic human right. Everyone on the planet should have access to fresh, clean water, but they don't. This is a whole other topic in itself, so stay tuned!
9. The Library. Although I love buying books I have started using the library as much as I can. If I sign out a book that I can't live without, then I buy it. To quote Margaret Atwood, "we are writing our history on the skins of fishes with the blood of bears."
10. Recycle everything that I can. The only way to recycle your plastic in Calgary is to have a curbside pickup. I don't know where it goes, but if anyone wants to find a use for plastic there is a huge market in Calgary. I was thinking ultra-cool lawn furniture made from local recycled plastic, and play structures for parks and backyards. I'm looking into it.

The Red Dot Campaign

To reduce your unwanted mail and save about 100 million trees a year, go to www.reddotcampaign.ca. Print out the red dot letter, sign it and drop it into your community mail box. I don't know for sure how effective it is, but I'm giving it a try.

Boogers, flyers, and gratitude

Things around here haven't been great. Both Elias and Mike are sick. My no tissue rule is proving to be very fun indeed. Last week I bought three organic cotton hankies for $12. I soon realized that 3 hankies lasts about 2 hours in a house full of runny noses. Then I cut up an old baby blanket into about 12 more. They lasted one day. Last night I cut up another one, and now I am doing the laundry. 

Mmmm boogers. There is a lot of them in my house, just in case you were wondering. The great thing about using flannel blankets to wipe your nose is that you don't rub your nose raw from wiping it with wood products. No matter how many synthetic lotions they put into tissue, it is still a wood product at the end of the day, and your nose will be red and sore. Not so with flannel!! I don't even mind the small bit of extra laundry.

Enough about boogers, I never posted my newest change last week so here it is: Gratitude. One small simple word that means so much. Gratitude for all the people in my life, my house, my bed, my health, my telephone! Gratitude makes what I have enough, and more. Every day I think of all of the things that I am grateful for and that I have, then I don't feel the need to acquire more useless stuff. 

I was looking through one of the many flyers that come to my house (yes, I still get them despite all of my efforts to have them stopped- more on that later!!) and I saw a shiny stainless steel toaster oven, and for a moment I thought "hey, I could use a new toaster oven." Why this thought entered my mind I do not know. I have a toaster oven, it is old but it works great and I use it everyday. I took a moment to be grateful for the one I have, and then moved on. 

Having fliers delivered to your house each day feeds the need to get more stuff. 

Back to the flyer problem, I have called the flyer force (in case you want to call in Calgary, the number is 291-0657. Tell them Jennifer Vanderland told you to call and have your flyers cancelled!)  I have asked the kids that deliver them to please stop, I have a sticker on my door, and I have even gone online to www.the-cma.org/consumer/donotcontact.cfm to join the "Dump the Junk Campaign" So far nothing has worked. I plan on staking out my front door until those kids stop throwing flyers on my front porch. I lived in a condo in Hillhurst for years, and I had a nice little sticker on my door which was amazingly effective. The burbs are a different story.

Why oh why?

I've been thinking a lot lately about why I am doing this weekly green change in my life, and there are many different reasons. I don't consider myself to be a radical eco-warrior, I am just your average concerned citizen. I just heard about this terrific blog called Green as a Thistle, and this woman has made one eco-change every day for a year. Every Day. Not just once a week. That is some serious change.

I am doing this not because I like to walk around for one week a month with a submarine sandwich between my legs, or because I am the kind of person who likes to deny themselves pleasure. It's because I find it so easy, and I want to share these small changes with others and maybe inspire them to do the same. I want to live simply and happily, and I want to change my life for the better. A lot of these changes that I have made I have been thinking about for some time, but I have just been too lazy to do them. So now I have no excuse. I am changing one thing each week for the entire year of 2008. 

Here's a little recap of my year so far:

1. Reduce garbage. This is my biggest challenge and it is something that I think about everyday, with every purchase I make. Because of this I no longer buy any packaged or processed foods. Mike was searching through the cupboards for something to eat the other night, and really there is nothing there! We have a tonne of  food and if 8 people dropped by for dinner I could whip up something divine, but there is no snack foods. I took pity on him and made him some chocolate chip cookies.
   
2. Compost. I love this. I was digging around in my compost pile this afternoon, and it's looking good. I learned that you can add dryer lint and hair to your compost! Fabulous!
   
3. Reusable menstrual pads. Don't love it but I haven't found a suitable alternative yet. Still experimenting with the Diva Cup.
   
4. 100% recycled toilet paper. Don't even miss the quilted soft kind.
   
5. No more tissue! Elias has a cold right now and I have been wiping his nose with reusable hankies from Hankettes. I Love them and Elias doesn't mind either. His nose isn't even red from all the wiping.
   
6. I gave up coffee for 3 miserable days. Then I realized that I still have to ENJOY my life so I changed it a little. No more starbucks, no more paper cups, only fair trade organic beans. So far I have only had one latte from second cup. (my sister had a coupon, I couldn't resist!)
   
7. Reusable bum wipes. Why did I wait so long? These are much better than the alternative.
   
8. Homemade bread, granola, and yogurt. So far so good on the bread and granola, have not done the yogurt yet, although we always used to make our yogurt...
   
9. Bulk spices= less packaging.
   
10. Organic meat only in our house.

That about sums it up for tonight, sweet dreams if anyone is reading.

Jeef Berky

I haven't been very diligent about posting, and I will take this time to blame it entirely on Elias who has decided he doesn't need to nap anymore, and instead, when he gets grumpy he takes it out on his unsuspecting cousin. Blessedly, he is now in a peaceful slumber as his little body could no longer take it. As adults, we can ignore these signs of sleepiness by ingesting copious amounts of caffeine, but babies simply sleep when they need to.

Thank God for that.

In light of some new beef recalls ( the thought makes me shudder, those two words should never be in the same sentence) I have decided that we will be eating less meat than we already do, and will eat only local, organic meat. I like to buy it from Hoven Farms, Sunworks, or the dutchies at the Calgary Farmer's Market. They are not called the dutchies, but they are dutch and I cannot remember the name of the actual business. Lack of sleep will do that to you.

In our house we eat meat (chicken or beef) twice a week at the most. The rest of the time we eat beans, rice, pasta, soup, and fish. Poor Mike. He was raised on meat and potatoes and has married a woman who is a little scared of cooking and eating meat. I once served him raw pork chops. mmmmm.