Organic Food

Something I’ve always wanted to try is buying/consuming only organic foods. At the moment, it’s not possible for me (being that I’m a college student who’s low on money). But for the people who can afford to buy/have organic food, here are some tips.

• If you have a dog or a cat, I hear the best pet food for them is Buffalo Blue. It’s all natural and organic.
• Try starting your own fruit and vegetable garden. It may be a lot of work, but it’ll be worth it after a few seasons of growth.
• Search for the closest Organic Market by you. It’s a simple way to find out where you can go to get organic food, and the search may even tell you the price range of the market.
• Buy foods that are in season. You don’t want to go looking for strawberries, which are spring fruits, in the middle of winter. Also, you want to find foods that are indigenous to where you live. You don’t want to go looking for fresh swordfish in your local market if you live in New York.
• If you’re stuck with your local everyday market, and aren’t sure if they sell organic food, ask someone. It never hurts to ask. Or you could look for the organic symbol. Some foods have a little sticker on them that says ‘USDA Approved’ or ‘USDA Organic’. It may be harder to find these foods in an everyday market, but if that’s the only option you have, take it.
• Love your meat? Organic food markets most likely have organic meat too. If you don’t know what organic meat is, it’s the meat of animals who were fed a grass or wheat based diet, and were never treated with hormones or antibiotics. The best meats to get are the ones that are sourced locally.
• If you can, maybe start a little farm. Buy some live chickens at lest and use them for fresh eggs and, after you’ve bread some chicks, use the older chickens for fresh meat. Depending on where you live, you could also buy a cow or two. Then you’ll be able to get some fresh milk. But starting a farm would probably be for those people who know a little bit about animals. Keeping animals is a hard task.

I don’t know much about organic farming, but my research has given me these few points, and I hope they can help someone who wants to start on the organic path. If you really search there are a lot of things that you can find that are organic (like Organic Coke, or Organic Dippers). Happy Searching!

Let’s Try Organic!- Let’s Make it New!

The Life and Times of Me

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on this site, but I have my reasons. Senior year, busy summer, college, etc. But in that time I have realized a few things:

1. Food isn’t always going to be as amazing as it is at home.
2. It’s very easy to make friends, it’s harder to keep friends, and it’s even harder to keep friends who accept you for who you are.
3. Life has decreased my want to help the environment; it shouldn’t have.
4. I have to start anew with a lot of things, but once I start, it’ll all be worth it.

In realizing these things I’ve decided to:

1. Learn how to cook better.
2. Be myself and hope someone thinks I’m worth keeping.
3. Review my past progress in environmental studies and start trying to restart my goals of reducing waste.
4. This will make it worthwhile.

For all the people who happen to stumble upon this site. It’s as much of a life blog as it is a blog about the environment. I’ll try to keep it focused around the environment, but toss in a life lesson every once in a while. Hopefully I won’t fall out of blogging again. College will start again soon, but I won’t make that an excuse.

Life stops for no man- Let’s Make it New!

Update- Shoes Off

So it’s been over a week since I started Lights Out and Unplugged. It’s been kind of hard, but rewarding when I think that I’m still going. I usually have problems with keeping up with things, but I’m able to say that this project is still going well. I wish that I could see the electricity bill at the end of the month, probably wouldn’t make much of a difference, but imagine if it really did, that’d be cool.

I don’t know if anyone knew, but today is apparently National No Shoes Day! SO throw off your shoes and give support! Yay no shoes! XD

Give Up Your Shoes- Let’s Make it New!

A Note About Influence

I noticed something quite cool this week. When someone does something to make a difference, it makes others want to participate. Like my family is trying to use less light now. And it’s good to know that even these little self projects can influence them. I’m glad to know that, if anything, I have helped people want to start doing something. Even if it’s just an idea or instilling some knowledge, anything can make a difference.

A small idea can go a long way- Let’s Make it New!

A Quick Note About Water

Did you ever sit and think about how much water you actually drink in a day? It’s a lot! But did you know that only 3% of Earth’s water is fresh water? And even more interesting, 77% of that fresh water is trapped in ice caps. That means we have very little water to quench the thirst of over 6 billion people. And yet we waste the most of our fresh water on flushing the toilet… puts a whole new perspective on our methods of conservation, doesn’t it?
I just thought that was kind of silly. Why not use gray water or something? I guess water just isn’t precious enough in society. Even when it comes to agriculture we waste water. We still use a quite primitive way to water our crops. I mean think about it, squirting water through a sprinkler that disperses it into tiny drops thus increasing surface area which, in turn, increases evaporation; does that really seem too smart? Most of that water is lost, quite quickly, to the atmosphere, leaving very little for the crops.
Just something I’ve been thinking about. Anyone else find that silly?

Oh! While on the subject of water… Instead of throwing out your plastic water bottles (or recycling them, which I hope you all do), a better thing to do is to get a reusable water bottle, like one of these
http://www.simplygreensolutions.com/promotional/bottles/
It’s a great way to help focus on the three R’s.
Remember: Reduse, Reuse, Recycle- Let’s Make it New!

Realization

So even though it’s only been three days, I’ve already noticed how much I depend on things, like lights, or my technologies, and by slowly weening off of them, it’s making me want it more. It’s like some odd adverse effect or something.

So I find it funny how the night I said I was going to unplug, I had to charge my phone and my ipod. And I thought, is this some kind of irony or something, because I expected to use less energy, but on that day I needed more energy. Interesting how things happen.

I have a jumble of idea that I can put into play, but the thing is that many of the ideas are either out of my control or I can’t do any more than I do. Like I was going to suggest day 3 be to recycle, but I recycle a lot, so I don’t think there’s much more I could do. Then there are ideas like, buy fruits that are in season so that I can help cut down on the energy used in transporting the fruits, but I don’t buy the food in my house, so it’s not in my control. Sometimes when I can’t do something I feel like I’m not doing enough, and it’s frustrating…

Please suggest some ideas, and Let’s Make it New!

Suggested Ideas

So if anyone has any ideas that they think would be a cool simple way to make a difference, comment here. It doesn’t even have to be only about the environment. If you feel like you’ve ever wanted to make a difference with anything, just drop me a subject and I’ll see if I can make it work.

Together We Can Make a Difference- Let’s Make it New!

 

The World is Dark when Unplugged

So today was my first day of Operation Lights Out and honestly… it was very dark o.o lol.

I had to get ready in the morning on the west side of my house and do my homework when I got home on the East side. When it got too dark inside I went outside to do it, but it was so cold. Overall, I did pretty well though.

Which leads me to my next idea. I’m going to try to unplug things that aren’t in use. In todays society everything is plugged in or charged; ipods, cell phones, computers, laptops, tv’s, playstation’s, wii’s, xbox’s, etc. But how many of these things are we actually using at any given time? Not many, and yet they’re kept plugged in. So to save energy why not unplug?

Day 2: Unplugging yourself is easy- Let’s make it new!

Hello World!

So a few days ago I was being a super procrastinator and what better way to procrastinate then to go on facebook. A friend of mine sent me a link to a game called eMission, which is a environmentally based game. It actually got me thinking a little more about the world around me and how little I actually know about things (even though I am taking an environmental class in school). Then today he sent me a link to a site called dosomething.org, which was perfect because I want to make a difference; I want to do something, even if it’s a little thing.

So today I start this blog hoping that others who want to make a difference will help me in making a change.

Let’s Make it New!

 

Lights Out

So as my first gesture to make a difference I’m simply going to turn off lights. Doesn’t seem like a big deal, but lights that are kept on when not necessary use up a lot of energy that could be conserved. I decree, that starting this Sunday 27th of March 2011, I will not use lights during daylight hours. Hopefully those ~12 hours or so will make a huge impact. Obviously I don’t really have a choice when it comes to lights in school, but on my own personal time I won’t use lights during the daytime, and if I see a light that’s on, but not in use, I’ll turn it off.

Day 1: Lights make a difference- Let’s make it new!