The wonders of moderation

I've been reading Just Food by James E. McWilliams, and I'm going to have a lot to say about it when I'm through.  In the meantime, though, I'd like to talk about the concept of moderation.

People seem to view living sustainably as an all-or-nothing endeavor.  "I couldn't do that, I like my Twinkies/Doritos/McDonald's cheeseburgers too much," is a common refrain I hear when I talk to people about my project.  But no one ever said you have to give up Twinkies, or Doritos, or even McDonald's cheeseburgers, in order to eat more sustainably.

The key there is the word "more."  I'm talking about improvements, not complete overhauls.  Sure, the environment would be much better off if we all were exclusively vegan locavores who rode bikes to work at offices powered by solar energy and fairy farts, but realistically that's never going to happen.  But most of us can make changes - even small changes - in our diets and our lives to move us in the direction of sustainability.

I don't think anything I'm doing this year is out of reach for the average suburban middle-class family.  Sure, I'm lucky to live in an area with a vibrant food community - I can easily get everything from locally made cheese to local pasta to local hummus, right at the farmers' market - but Cleveland isn't the only place with farmers' markets and CSAs.  Despite what my parents keep saying, they DO have access to both in Delaware:

• farmers' market in downtown Wilmington: http://www.inlittleitaly.com/events.htm
• CSA in Newark: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/M38211
• Restaurants, orchards, and more: http://www.localharvest.org/search.jsp?map=1&lat=39.794276&lon=-75.534321&scale=10&zip=19803

Getting to the farmers' market requires a little bit of planning - I'm getting good at remembering to bring the cooler and ice packs with me - but isn't any harder than going to a second grocery store to pick up something that was out of stock at your regular store.  My routine tends to be:

• Tuesday - visit the local grocery store chain while my daughter is in an after-school program nearby
• Thursday - pick up CSA basket (about 10 minutes away from our house)
• Saturday - visit farmers' market and Trader Joe's, which is right next door

Occasionally I need to supplement this with a trip to the local grocery store (which is across the street from the library, which I visit at least once a week), and any trips to the farm stand can usually be combined with a trip to visit friends nearby, so neither one counts as a separate trip, just an extra stop on an existing errand run.

Recycling is easy for most of us, thanks to curbside pickup and the proliferation of paper pickup dumpsters at schools and businesses.  But recycling paper (dropoff at my daughter's school, which I have to visit every week anyway) and cardboard (curbside pickup) means that our family garbage output is now down to slightly more than one bag a week.

Composting works if you've got any sort of yard at all - or even a basement or cool closet, if you're willing to set up a worm composter.  Our compost setup is terribly complex - it's a pile in the backyard that I flip around once in a while with a pitchfork.  I decided not to harvest any of the finished compost this spring, keeping it instead to kickstart things for this summer's output.  But when I'm ready to use it, it will be taking the place of some of the mulch in our existing flower beds, as well as taking the place of some of the soil amendments I need to buy when I make a new bed.  Getting the kitchen scraps out to the compost pile is no work at all - I hand them to the kid and tell her she gets an extra 5 minutes of playing outside before bed if she takes the scraps out for me.  Win/win!

One of our main waste sources used to be cat litter.  But now that I'm using a flushable litter, that's dropped to zero, as has our need for plastic grocery bags to scoop stuff into.  Come on, most of us keep our cat boxes in a spare bathroom or utility room anyway - is it that hard to scoop it into a toilet instead of a bag?

Choosing sustainable products for housekeeping is getting easier and easier.  Even stores like Target and Wal-Mart carry brands that, while not perfect, are at least an improvement on conventional detergents and soaps.  And things like soaps, lotions, and other personal care items can even be bought online from small vendors (we like several sellers on www.etsy.com, as well as local folks who sell at the farmers' market and the gift shop at the botanical garden).

Growing your own food doesn't take 40 acres or a mule.  Don't tell me you don't have time, or space, or even a container.  It takes five minutes to grab an old plastic tote, drill some holes in it, and fill it with dirt.  Plant something in it.  Stick it on a patio, put it on your front porch, leave it sitting near whatever sun you can find in your apartment.  Even growing one tomato plant - or a small planter of herbs or salad greens - lets you control exactly what goes into your mouth in a way that trips to Safeway can't.

And one of the easiest ways to make a big impact on the environment doesn't involve farmers' markets or weird soap or finding a place to recycle #5 plastics, it just means making more informed choices when you plan your meals.  We've gotten so used to having every food available every day - thank you, Chile and New Zealand! - that the idea of waiting until something is actually in season near you before you eat it is completely foreign to most of us.  Asparagus with Christmas dinner?  Sure!  Strawberries in January?  No problem!

There's nothing wrong with enjoying an occasional out-of-season treat, but partaking in the bounty of the Southern Hemisphere all year when there are local alternatives that support neighbors' farms and don't damage the environment as much - well, that's just wasteful.  As I described it to the kids in my daughter's kindergarten class, when you go to the grocery store, you should think before you buy fruit - do you want a banana from South America, a kiwi fruit from California, or an apple that was grown in a suburb of Cleveland?  There's nothing wrong with eating bananas, or kiwi fruit - but we don't need them every day.  They taste that much better if they're a treat to be anticipated and savored, not a staple to be taken for granted.

Erg, this has gone on too long.  I'm not done - plenty of blog fodder in my brain, at least today! - but I'll put it on hold for now.

Now, got grab some asparagus before the season is over!

Ramping up

Hello, my name is Gretchen, and my lifestyle is Somewhat Sustainable.

• I have a compost pile ... but I don't trudge out there in the winter, and it's not large enough to compost all of the leaves we rake in the fall.
• I recycle cans, bottles, paper, #1 and #2 plastic, and cardboard ... but I don't bother sorting through the trash in my car to bring home the recyclables.
• I have a ton of reusable shopping bags in my car ... but I rarely remember to use them, and anyway, I need the plastic bags for cat litter disposal.
• I bought a bunch of CFL light bulbs ... but I haven't installed them because a) they take so long to light up, and b) we sort of use the incandescent lights as a secondary heat source in our craptastically cold house all winter.
• All of the beef we buy is local and sustainably raised, and I haven't bought a fast food cheeseburger in more than a year ... but I slip occasionally and buy something that contains beef (like chili) at a restaurant.
• I buy recycled printer paper, and recycled paper towels, and recycled paper napkins ... but I hate the paper towels, I am too picky about my toilet paper to try a new brand, and I should be using cloth napkins instead of paper, anyway.
• I try to minimize the number of plastic bags I send in my daughter's lunches ... but that means I'm sending stuff in non-recyclable plastic containers that may or may not be BPA free (she's 5, and can't be trusted with glass at school).
• Canning is fun! But by the time I get all of the stuff washed and prepped and processed and cleaned up, I've probably used more resources (water/electricity/glass) than I would have if I had just bought the canned tomatoes from the grocery store.
• I have fun being a member of a CSA ... but I still waste a lot of food, either because I don't like it (I'm talking about you, beets and chard) or because I'm too lazy to cook it.
• I'm trying to install a native plant garden in my yard and I love seeing butterflies and birds in the yard ... but I have no problem paying Trugreen to come and spray god only knows what all over my yard every six weeks so that I can have a weed-free lawn.
• I have been trying more environmentally friendly cleaning products (like shampoo, soap, dish detergent, laundry soap) and I wash most of our clothes in cold water, but I run all of our clothes through the dryer, even in the summertime.
• I'm recycling all that I can from the packing materials that came with my daughter's birthday presents - boxes, wrapping paper tubes, paper packing material - and I'm reusing a bunch of gift bags for the millionth time, but I still use plenty of (non-recyclable) wrapping paper and tissue.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture.  So, in my quest to become Supremely Sustainable, I plan to do the following:

1. Compost everything that can possibly go into a standard pile, including crushed eggshells, dryer lint, yarn scraps, and hair from our brushes. 
2. Look into buying a worm compost system to use in the winter when I'm too lazy to walk out to the pile.
3. Look into getting a leaf shredder, or at least use our newly discovered (at the end of last fall) method of shredding the leaves before bagging them.
4. Switch cat litter varieties to one that is flushable, which should reduce the number of grocery bags I need in the house.  If the litter doesn't work, buy the new biodegradable plastic bags to use for collection.  
5. Start using the damn shopping bags.
6. Recycleables from the car come into the house.  Period.
7. Install the CFL bulbs in rooms where we don't use the lights for heat (bedrooms, living room, kitchen) as the old ones burn out.
8. Reduce the number of meals eaten in restaurants, and stick to mainly-vegetarian options whenever possible.  
9. Replace paper towel dispenser with cloth towel and stick roll of crappy paper towels in the closet for cat puke cleanups and other severely gross jobs.  Use microfiber cloths for most cleaning (windows, counters, bathroom, mirrors, etc.).
10. Keep sending the lunches in reusable containers - maybe look into buying a bento set for next year?
11. Need to can lots more tomatoes, more tomato sauce and salsa, more peaches and pears, less jelly.  And freezing works better for a lot of things, anyway - maybe freeze some veggie mixes this year instead of just solo veggies?
12. Cook more of the CSA stuff, or find homes for it with people who like it (Hi, Judy!  Those beets are coming your way!).  
13. Cancel TruGreen, and see how the yard does.  If the dandelions come back, try removing by hand, or if that doesn't work, look into more enviro-conscious yard companies ... because they won't let me grow a prairie in my front yard, no matter how much I'd like one.
14. As they run out, replace shampoo and body wash with locally made or enviro-conscious alternatives.  Use miracle cloths whenever possible (seriously, they do work miracles with just water).  Reduce the number of cleaning products in the house.  And start using the clothesline for some things.
15. Look into making fabric gift bags for future use?  Or switch to using just paper gift bags made of recyclable material?

So, who's with me?  What are you planning to add to your sustainability repertoire this summer?  I'd love to hear your ideas!

So long, farewell

The height of the pile of research books by my bed has descended to ankle-level, there are actual vegetables for sale at the farmers' market, my CSA deliveries have started, my vegetable garden is mostly planted, and I've found sources for local cheese and beer.  I have to face facts - the time has come to say goodbye to my family's resource-wasting diet and begin our (sort of) sustainable summer.

The transition isn't happening overnight.  I actually started easing into it a few weeks ago as I was researching sources for various local and organic products.  As we ran out of things - milk, eggs, cheese - I replaced them with the most sustainable versions I could locate at the time.  So we now have free-range organic eggs that were grown in the Cuyahoga Valley, milk from grass-fed Ohio cows, and hand-made breads from local bakeries. They're sitting right next to the individually-wrapped hot dogs, American cheese slices, and Quaker chewy granola bars that we already had in the house.  I keep picturing the new kids on the block talking trash to the old guard whenever the fridge door closes, but that's probably just my imagination.

When sustainable versions haven't been available, I've been trying to skip the purchases.  My kid doesn't really need granola bars or cheese-flavored crackers, not to mention whipped yogurt that costs an arm and a leg for something that's mostly air and artificial flavoring.  And while orange juice tastes good and isn't the worst thing we could be drinking, even the organic stuff is trucked in from points that are waaaaay outside our loose definition of "local," and we're able to get local organic apple cider that's cheaper in both monetary and environmental costs.

I've been weaning us off of fast-food, too, making a point to have lunch fixings in the house all the time and scheduling errands so that we don't have to eat on the run.  We've been sitting down to dinner every night - in a dining room, not a car - and for the most part all of us have been eating the same thing.  I wouldn't say the troops are ecstatic about that last part - asparagus has not gone over well with Liza, and we've had a lot to use up - but I must say the routine is getting easier.

Our final preparatory step is going on today and tomorrow.  We still have a stock of "forbidden" foods that need to disappear out of temptation's reach before we officially begin the experiment.  I've been trying to use them up and/or throw out the ones that we shouldn't be eating anyway, but there's still quite a bit left.  The nonperishables - dried pasta, cans of tomato sauce, a few tins of mandarin oranges - will get packed up in a box in the basement, where we'll be able to get them if we absolutely have to, but they won't be staring us in the face every time we open the cabinets.  Perishables are going to get farmed out to friends and neighbors, who might be gullible enough to take some of those Stouffer's frozen dinners off of our hands.  I sure hope so, because I could really use the space in my fridge for "real" food ...

And so tonight we had our final family meal of forbidden foods - not things that we love, but things that we needed to finish up and get out of here.  An early dinner of chicken nuggets, frozen curly fries, and still more asparagus was followed by a late-evening snack of microwave popcorn.  After dinner we went on a refrigerator purge, pitching jars of ancient teriyaki sauce, pickled peppers that expired last year, and some tahini that I honestly believe was from 2007, judging from the flora inside the can.  I kept some salad dressings that were made outside of our area (and contain - gasp! - HFCS) because Jason was starting to get grumpy at that point, and it wasn't worth the fight.  I'll have plenty of time to research awesome homemade dressing recipes without having to shove the idea down his throat the first day.

Full disclosure:  As I type this, I'm making a big dent in the jar of cheese goop and bag of chips we had left.

So that's it.  This next week, our family will be going in different directions, visiting family and going to a grown-up version of summer camp.  The next time we're all together, we'll be officially starting to eat local.  Wish us luck!