The Red, White, and Green

Photo via Flickr: 666isMONEY

A lot of environmentalists are the crystals-and-incense type. I’m not; you’re probably just as likely to hear me inquire after someone’s sign or use the expression raising consciousness as I am to eat a factory-farmed cheeseburger. (Which is to say, not very.)

So that’s why I’m kind of semi-cringing as I write this, but lately I feel like the universe is trying to tell me something.

Three different apartments in the space of six months. Four discrete insect infestations. A loss I’m not ready to write about yet. And a kitchen ceiling that two days ago started leaking water all over me at the very moment I took out my laptop to start working again after our move this past weekend.

This is not to say woe unto me; the world at large is a far crazier place right now, to be sure. An apartment full of moving boxes and bouncing crickets is still a more restful abode than a tent in Zuccotti Park (now a backpack on the Brooklyn Bridge?).

Still, I hope you’ll understand if I stop fighting the tide for a few weeks and take an early holiday break. I will still be working on a few exciting projects in the interim (though most important: enjoying time with my little one and getting our home in order), so I’ll have lots to share when I return after the New Year. Happy and healthy to you all–

–Jennifer Grayson

Some holiday posts you might enjoy from the archives:

Real or fake? Rent your tree instead
Holiday travel: Stay at an Energy Star hotel
Sustainably sweet potato pancakes
How to give gifts without giving ‘stuff’

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Photo via Flickr: Jelene

Should we do everything in our power to reform US corn subsidies so that genetically modified corn syrup isn’t the sweetener of choice for US candy manufacturers? Absolutely. Should we support GMO labeling laws so that those companies are forced to rethink putting GM ingredients in their products to begin with? Of course! Should we urge companies like Hershey’s to stop sourcing cocoa from places that use child slave labor (or even boycott those companies)? Not even a question.

But until those reforms happen, should we punish our children by not letting them partake in some good old fashioned trick-or-treating and candy-eating that (heaven forbid) isn’t organic and fair-trade certified? I say an emphatic no.

There’s been a big push this year to green Halloween, to make it a “conscious” holiday. I’m all for DIY costumes, lead-free makeup, and using a pillowcase to collect treats instead of the ubiquitous landfill-bound plastic pumpkin, but seriously: Don’t make your kids stay home and celebrate with lame healthy “treats” while their friends run around the neighborhood and rejoice in their candy carousing.

Halloween only happens once a year, and kids need to be kids. Even the eco ones.

–Jennifer Grayson

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Photo via Re-Nest

Apologies for the sporadic posting lately. If you saw my last post, you know that I’ve been in the midst of an arduous move, made more so by the fact that the original apartment we were supposed to move into had some serious problems, so we had to pull out the day before moving day and find another place — a week before we had to give up our old one.

Maybe I should have taken it as an omen that the apartment manager was a global warming denier.

Now that we’re moved in though, pulling our place together has been slow-going. That’s because admittedly, I’m trying to do everything eco. Whereas the old me would have rushed out to buy curtains and drawer organizers and all those little knick-knacks you never realize you need until you move into a place with all sorts of funny corners and cabinet drawers and empty space to turn into something fabulously useful, the new me is considering everything.

What shower curtain can I buy that’s PVC-free and also biodegradable? Can we score an amazing dining table at the flea market instead of buying one made from new materials? And what’s worse: lining my kitchen cabinet shelves with foam grip liner, or having to buy all new dishes in the event of an earthquake?

Am I crazy? After working so hard to give us a clean slate (we either Freecycled or sold everything extraneous) I want to make sure I do it right this time.

–Jennifer Grayson

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Photo via Flickr: Aforero

I always thought I was a minimalist, but packing for our upcoming move has made me question what, in fact, that term really means. It took me 15 medium-sized boxes (Rent A Green Boxes, mind you), for example, just to pack up the kitchen of our modest-sized 1-bedroom apartment. Just looking at it all is exhausting.

Granted, I’m a devoted cook, and those kitchen boxes are more than the boxes for everything else in our home combined, but when did we get so much stuff? And what will a move look like after we add another child to our family, or one day live in a house?

That’s why The Zero Waste Home blog is my new bible. For each and every “necessity” I’ve contemplated keeping or tossing (i.e., donating or recycling), I ask myself: What would Bea Johnson (the Zero Waste author) do? If it’s not something that will add true value to our life or that I genuinely adore, it gets listed on Freecycle. I’m refusing to hold onto things “just in case.”

Knowing how to move without leaving behind a big pile of trash is an important part of green know-how, but the real test will come after we move: With a clean slate and a bigger place, it’s going to be all-too-tempting to fill the empty space with fresh new stuff. But then three years from now, we’ll be getting ready to move again and I’ll just have to go through the exact same process all over again. Refuse, refuse, refuse…

–Jennifer Grayson

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Maybe it’s my fascination with a new book by Los Angeles urban homesteaders Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen called Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World; perhaps it’s the simple knowledge that 80 percent of Americans will be living in urban areas by the year 2025; but lately I’ve been obsessed with this notion of sustainable cities.

So I love that TreePeople will be hosting LA’s first Green City Fair this Saturday, to give Angelenos the practical knowledge they need to carve out their own little eco existence at home — whether that be on a ranch in the verdant hills of Malibu or a two-story walk-up amidst the hustle and bustle of Koreatown.

Hosted by eco-celeb Ed Begley Jr. and sponsored by The Gas Company, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Energy Upgrade California, Southern California Edison, Boeing, Wells Fargo, and Whole Foods, the fair will offer how-tos on everything from composting and gardening to solar panel installation and greywater recycling.

It won’t be only educational, of course; eco family fun like upcycling crafts and forest-inspired face painting will be going on all day, as well (not to mention music and yummy food).

The event, which goes from 10-4, is free, but you can make sure you have a seat at some of the most in-demand workshops by pre-registering here. (I, for one, will be checking out Sustainability for the Apartment Dweller.)

See you there!

–Jennifer Grayson

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The second annual Women of the Green Generation Conference is exactly one week from tomorrow, and I’m super excited for my early Mother’s Day present: The “green motherhood” panel I’ll be moderating, featuring four incredibly inspiring eco-moms – Anna Getty (PureStyle Living), Jessica Iclisoy (California Baby), Caroline Howell (GreenBeanie), and Kimberly Danek Pinkson (Ecomom).

Lest you think the event is a green mommy gathering, though, let me just say: My panel is just one of more than a dozen exciting sessions happening that day — not to mention the green celeb sightings, eco spa treatments, yummy organic food and beverages, and giveaways from more than 40 sustainable sponsors. Just to hang at beautiful Marrakesh House (home of Who Killed the Electric Car? director Chris Paine) is worth the trip alone.

Being as it is Mother’s Day this Sunday, though, let me just give one more shout-out to another amazing green mom. Or mom-to-be, I should say. Check out my Huffington Post interview with Blue Legacy founder and National Geographic Emerging Explorer Alexandra Cousteau. She couldn’t make it to the conference this year, but she’ll be introducing the fourth generation to the famous Cousteau family this July!

Congrats to Alexandra and Happy Mother’s Day to all your eco-minded moms out there — especially my own!

–Jennifer Grayson

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I wrote a couple weeks back about the need in my own life to turn to eco-conveniences, and it looks like I’ll be adding one more: gDiapers hybrid diapers with their disposable (but flushable/biodegradable/compostable) inserts.

I won’t give you the play-by-play of the whole blowout that led to this decision, but let’s just say it involved one husband grabbing a particularly messy cloth diaper out of his wife’s hands, double-bagging it in plastic shopping bags (where did those even come from?), and storming out to the dumpster while screaming The world is going to shit no matter what kind of diapers we use!

a) That wife doesn’t want to destroy her marriage over doody, but b) once she stopped to take into account the amount of water and money (and time!) she was wasting trying to clean cloth diapers at the laundromat (2 washes + 2 dries for 5 days’ worth), it turns out the gDiapers inserts are a pretty close second, both environmentally and monetarily.

(Tip: Subscribe to Amazon Mom and sign up for Amazon Subscribe & Save (both free!) and you can get the inserts for 30 percent off the regular price. But you didn’t hear that from me; you heard that from the wife in the “story.”)

–Jennifer Grayson

Want to hear firsthand how other eco-minded moms are dealing with their own dilemmas? Don’t miss the “green mommy” panel I’ll be moderating at the upcoming 2011 Women of the Green Generation Conference.

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Photo via Flickr: Jencu

Lately, every day feels like I’m on one of those giant hamster wheels. I can’t remember a night when I haven’t been writing and answering emails right up until it’s time to go to bed. Yesterday, my husband said to me: You know, we’re really doing everything the most difficult way possible. And it gave me pause. Because you know what? He’s right.

Going green is obviously so much a part of my life that it practically is my life, but my effort to DIY (actually DIM) is starting to feel, well, exhausting: We don’t have a washing machine, so I have to schlep my daughter’s cloth diapers to the laundromat. She’s starting to eat solid food now, so I’m whipping up different variety organic purees every couple days. I abhor processed food, so I cook three organic meals a day from scratch (and we don’t have a dishwasher). I try to make it to the farmers market once a week. I run errands on foot. I mend clothes. I soak beans. I breastfeed.

Oh, and did I mention my daughter recently started crawling?

The fact is, there are great eco-conveniences out there: Disposable (but biodegradable) gDiapers, for instance. Prepackaged organic baby food. Prepackaged organic adult food. Organic grocery delivery services. Canned beans.

The problem is, these little green time-savers come at a cost; monetarily, yes, but also environmentally, since they usually come neatly wrapped in not-always-recyclable packaging. But I may have to learn to compromise.

What eco-conveniences are you turning to?

–Jennifer Grayson

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Photo via Flickr: Cuttlefish

My mouth was watering when I read last week’s New York Times Dining piece featuring some of the best veggie burgers around the country, but it also dropped wide open when I came across this statistic in the article:

According to Mintel, a market research firm, there was a 26 percent increase in menu items labeled vegetarian or vegan between the last quarter of 2008 and the same quarter in 2010.

Twenty-six percent? That’s huge. The big question, though, is: What’s driving the demand? And, is this a fad like the low-carb craze, or are these numbers really here to stay?

I followed up with Mintel, but they’ve yet to look into reasons for the increase. My guess is that the still-sucky economy is playing a role; after all, meatless menu items are typically less pricey than meaty ones.

But I think the bigger piece of the puzzle is increased awareness that a meat-heavy diet simply isn’t sustainable — for our health and the planet’s. When Oprah goes vegan, when Wendi Murdoch convinces her media magnate husband to have a Meatless Monday at home, when celebs from Carrie Underwood to Forest Whitaker talk about going veg — these are seeds that sow into the public consciousness.

–Jennifer Grayson

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I’m a news junkie, but even I can only hear about massive asteroids on a collision course with Earth so many times before I need a bit of fluff to lighten it all up. Literally. Like this gigundo gourmet two-pound marshmallow from Plush Puffs that’s corn syrup–free and made with all-natural ingredients.

So delicious and amazing looking! I was really tempted to order one, but since I spouted off last year about consumerism on Valentine’s Day, I thought the better of it. (And while trying to slim down five months post-baby, I find it generally helpful not to consume anything that includes the word “puff” in the name.)

So brilliant for a gluten-free birthday cake, though. Order yours here, at Abe’s Market.

–Jennifer Grayson

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