Dead-Air Space

I know I've discussed this already, but there is so much waste in packaging. Wrapping and packaging of food is unavoidable. I am not anti-plastic. But some items border on the ridiculous.

I'm more than happy to buy my fish in a plastic vacuum pack for example. But wrapping fruit in individual styrofoam trays is annoying, useless, and a complete waste. It does not help the fruit stay any fresher and it prevents me from actually handling the fruit and see if it is of good quality etc.

Trader Joe's overpackages most of their produce so that you can only buy three little zucchini at a time. And how about those hydroponic lettuces sold in plastic shells?

What is up with the single banana wrapping, it already has the perfect packaging: biodegradable, ergonomic, anti-microbial, and hopefully chemical-free. It's called a banana peel...



So many products justify this by saying the added air in the bag of cereal is to keep the cheerios from getting crushed. How many times have I opened a bag of chips and peered inside thinking "what the heck?" Some companies purposely package certain products to make it appear like there is more inside, it's borderline false-advertising.My kids love the Stretch Island fruit leather bars. They are healthy, great snacks, and cheap when you buy them in large quantities at Costco. Here is my one complaint though, this is what it looks like when you actually compare the box to what is actually inside, there is so much wasted packaging!!



Pack-AH!-ging

So this is how my pantry looked like as of a few days ago. Not very visually-exciting. Bags were breaking, stuff was leaking, and some items were lost forever within the inaccessible depths of my shelves. I found an onion-dip mix that expired in 2009.

But more importantly, not environmentally-exciting either. There is sooo much waste in packaging. Even if you buy organic food, unprocessed food, healthy food, what-have-you food, it is always wrapped, bound, enclosed in shiny, sparkly, crispy plastic.

Spring cleaning and lots of rethinking is in order. My belated 2012 resolution: I am no longer buying grains/dried fruit/pasta etc in these cute little colorful packages. Bulk is the way to go. You can buy as little or as much as you want, it's usually cheaper, you can see what you're buying, and you are not buying A LOT of useless plastic and cardboard.

Here are my tips to try and save a little on packaging:

1. Buy as much of your food as you can in bulk. You can even bring your own plastic bags to the store and refill them a million times. Some even bring their tupperware/containers directly to the store and then deduct their weight off the total at the checkout aisle. Some stores will let your grind your own coffee.

Furthermore, most boxes of things like chips, popcorn, or cereal are only filled halfway. Individual servings of the same items, or things like kid snacks are even more ridiculous. I've refused to buy things based on their packaging (apples wrapped in hard plastic at Costco, 'pouches' of fruit juice for kids, itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny packets of chips, etc). The various company reps will say it's necessary to leave empty space in the box so the product can breathe or as a buffer so the chips won't get squished, etc.

For more info on this "wasted space" in food packaging, check out this article from ConsumerReports:

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/2010/january/shopping/product-packaging/wasted-space/product-packaging-wasted-space.htm

2. Don't buy individual servings of food. This will be the demise of modern civilization. Just divvy up your snacks, no biggie.

3. Don't take the plastic bags provided in the grocery store. I'm talking both the ones at the produce section as well as the ones at the checkout aisle. People will bag their bananas, then bag them again at the checkout, get to their house and rip both bags apart. All that plastic lasted 15 minutes. Really unnecessary, especially if we're talking bananas. If you MUST use them, then reuse them once you're home. But seriously, you don't need them. Bring your own cloth bags and dedicate one to just produce when you're at the checkout aisle.

True, grocery stores do provide bins where you can recycle your unwanted plastic bags. But did you know they can't wash them and use them again directly? Nope, it's not sanitary apparently. So all those bags have to be shipped, melted, reprocessed, and reshipped to make... NEW bags. Americans go through 100 billion plastic bags annually, for a total cost of $4 billion, that is insane. No need to go into detail about that, we know the damages of plastic bags to oceans and ecosystems, the impact it's had on the digestive track of animals, the chemicals that are in now our soils and aquifers, etc. Plastic bags blow, we've heard the campaign.

4. Please, please, please don't buy plastic forks/plates/cups. I don't know what else to say about that. Just don't. Wash your dishes, period.

5. Don't buy ziploc bags, either, argh! There is really no need for them. Reuse the plastic bags from other packaging (i.e. bread). Or use tupperware. Or glass containers. They all work perfectly well in the fridge or freezer.

6. Oh yeah, no plastic bottles either. People argue that the plastic breaks down over time or in hot weather and that's why they throw them away. Yuck. So even more reason to buy just one good bottle, like a Nalgene (they are now BPA-free) or stainless steel container. Hang on to it and reuse it.

7. Take advantage of your farmer's markets, 'tis the season! No stickers on produce and packaging is kept to a minimum.

If you want more info on how to reduce your garbage and minimize waste, check out this cool blog. Some of it is pretty extreme but the author has lots of good tips and ideas to get started:
http://www.zerowastehome.blogspot.com/

So this is my pantry after my little OCD afternoon. Waay better.

Antigua Farms

The main reason I wanted to start this blog up again was so I could have a record of our latest project.

Last year we bought a beautiful but run-down property with the idea of progressively turning it into a family farm. Our home has virtually no backyard and is surrounded by pine trees, which makes gardening a bit of a challenge. And we wanted our children to have a place to run around and play too.


This idea has grown and grown so quickly over the last months that I thought I would retrace this last year, as we started this almost exactly a year ago. So here is the accelerated version of the beginnings of ... Antigua Farms!

In May of 2011, we bought a 1930s stone house built on a 1.4 acre property near a creek, right in town. We had been looking all over for something similar and were incredibly lucky to find this beautiful place five minutes from our home. it was exciting and daunting all at once.

The "Farmhouse"

Over the summer, Jim went beserk. I forgot how incredibly efficient and tireless my husband is. He litterally gutted the entire house and nearly rebuilt the whole damn thing. And he did this in record time; by August, we had tenants.

I call this one 'Kitchen, Deconstructed'



Kitchen Before

 

Kitchen After!

 During the fall and winter months, we shifted our focus on the adjacent land and again Jim went nuts. This time it involved cutting trees, mending fences, weeding, plowing, and digging beds. If that wasn't enough he also built a 200sq ft greenhouse a cute lil' red barn for tools and equipment. Did I mention, the property has a well, so we have free water, which is usually an issue with farming in the Southwest. Two large water tanks were hooked to a well-pump to allow for easy water access throughout the farm.

June 2011

January 2012

May 2012

We also had the good luck to team up with Thomas from Karma Farms. He and other local farmersplant food on private property and then share what they grow with the owners. They fixed up the small barn that is on the property and added a goat pen. They have fresh milk, we have fresh eggs as trade, as well as some extra hands in the garden.

Refurbishing the goat pen

Twilla mid-crunch

Goat hotel and message board

The lil' red barn

Over the Spring months, we planted potatoes, garlic, and onions in the beds. The greenhouse kept us busy with a "pot party" during which we planted over 1,000 seedlings, including tomatoes, a variety of peppers, eggplant, zucchini, herbs, squash, etc. Lots of watering and transplating...

French Musquee Squash

The greenhouse was equiped with a solar panel connected to a fan to control the temperature inside the structure. We (Jim) also created a picnic/firepit/shade spot for our work parties, saturday night bbqs, and family picnics.
 

Pre pot-party

Pot party underway

Shade!

 

Wind, earth, and fire

Tomatoes everywhere

Baby jalapenos and bell peppers

Now that we have finally moved into summer; tomato and squash plants were transplanted outside, Hopi corn was planted along the creek, and a variety of greens, carrots, peas, and alfafa were seeded in the beds. Basically, you name it, we planted it.

Alfafa for the goats to keep their milk nice and sweet...

Potatoes and onions sharing some straw

Lettuce mix

Itsy, bitsy, teeny, weeny carrots

Tomatoes keeping cool in 'water tents'

Butternut squash chilling in the shade

Hopi corn growing using dry-farming techniques

I will now make sure to track the progress of this crazy endeavor of ours in more detail. Hopefully pictures of us harvesting loads of veggies will be coming soon!

Future plans in the works? Chickens, hammacks, a tree house, fruit trees and berry bushes, and a more permanent community space (yurt anyone?). And we're always looking for some helpers, so you and your muscles, come on over.

 

Silvio's aerial view of the garden!

Aha! and Huh? (No. 3)

As we continue in our random posts of interesting and lame eco-logics, I present to you the latest findings:

Aha!
I had to stop and take a picture of this parasol as we were driving down to Mexico a few of weeks ago.

Yes, it's an-upside down satellite dish used for shade at a roadside food stand.
Que bueno reciclaje, love it!


Huh?
This is a coupon for emergency supplies of canned goods, in case the world comes to an end, there is no food, and we are all ready to kill each other. And it is versatile: "Terrorist Attacks, Recession, Layoffs!"

Don't fret, just buy a year supply of canned or freeze-dried food and stash it in your bunker.

But if the end of the world lasts more than a year, then sorry, you're f***ed.

Aha! and Huh? (No. 2)

Here we go again with the good and the bad of my lil' ecologics  world..

Aha!

This is a lecture from Daniel Gilbert, a professor of Psychology at Harvard, who explains why people are in denial when confronting the issues surrounding global warming.
Very informative and incredibly well summarized. Everyone should listen to him, it makes perfect sense!

http://vimeo.com/10324258

Huh?

I went to Fry’s this week and brought my own cloth grocery bags.
As a reward for doing so, I got a sticker! Love it, it says "You saved a plastic bag."

My reward for not using plastic is… a piece of plastic.
Let's not be overly eco-friendly, we wouldn't want to make this too efficient.

Awesome.

Eco Costco?

I shop at Costco perhaps once or twice a month and we try to be eco-logic when shopping in general. However, I’m not perfect.
We eat a lot of cereal and that has a lot of packaging, there is no bulk cereal available where we are and I am not ready to make my own granola. We use a rather large amount of disposable diapersand I am really not ready to do cloth diapers quite yet.

Bu we definitely don't always make smart choices.

Exhibit A:
My kids love the Vache-Qui-Rit (Laughing Cow) cheese, which I like to buy because it reminds me of home (France).
Is it the best-tasting cheese in the world? No

Is it an organic, all natural food? Nope

Is it cheap? Not really

Is it well packaged? Heck no; individual chunks of cheese wrapped in aluminum foil, wrapped in a cardboard box, and wrapped again in a larger box.

Do I buy it every time we go to Costco? Yes I do

So I don’t want to sound like I always make the best decisions, I most definitely don’t! And I don’t want to be hypocritical either. But after shopping there for about a year now, here are some of the pros and cons in my humble opinion in terms of environmental-friendliness at Costco.

On the plus side:

1. No plastic at the checkout. You either bring your own bags, or they provide you with cardboard boxes; which brings me to my second point;

2. Cardboard recycling. The boxes used to ship and package the food is reused at the checkout aisle for customers to take home.

3. Organic food. They have a growing selection of organic produce, chicken, cereal, soups, coffee, etc.

4. Bulk food. Some products, such as nuts, cereal, or cheese come in large quantities with less packaging per weight of produce sold than in other grocery stores.

5. Less handling. You buy the food directly from the wholesaler, instead of it being handled by a middleman company. Less shipping, redistributing, shelving, etc.

6. Cheaper. Many of the products available are also much cheaper, both for regular and organic.

However, on the negative side:

1. Shipment Packaging. There is an incredible amount of different types of wrapping, paper, plastic, and cardboard used to ship and store the large quantities of food. Granted, a lot of this is similar to other grocery stores, we just don’t see it elsewhere because the food is unwrapped behind closed doors.

2. Individual packaging. Large quantities doesn’t necessarily equate with smart packaging. You can buy 50 mini bags of Doritos individually wrapped instead of just buying one large bags of chips.

3. Serving size. From a nutritional point of view, I really think that it makes giant sizes the new norm in terms of how much is an acceptable amount to both buy and eat. And although many Costco products are made for the food industry at large, individuals now buy the same large quantities of food for personal consumption.

4. Food waste? I’ve done this before, bought the huge box of yogurt because it was such a good deal, and it went bad before we could finish it. Better to buy smaller quantities, fresher produce, and not-as much frozen food. It’s healthier and you know your family will eat it. And I don’t know the answer to this, but I wonder if they have to throw more expired/moldy food or produce away than other food retailers due to the large quantities that they deal with.

5. Food ‘allure’ part 1. As soon as you are at the checkout, before you can get to your car you have to pass the giant pizza/ice cream/soda area, where you can buy fast food for dirt cheap. Way to promote unhealthy food and unhealthy eating habits.

 6. Food ‘allure’ part 2. And then there are the little tasting booths. Sometimes the options are great, we got free yogurt last time and my kids quietly ate them for the entire time we were shopping. However, when the options are dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets and weight-loss cookies, it also leads to having to repeat over and over “no we are not getting that, no you can’t taste it, I know everyone else is tasting them, but you can’t” and telling the nice old lady “no thank you my kids don’t want any,” while they are screaming “but I want one!”

Again, what is my conclusion? I don’t know. I think almost anything in moderation is ok.

And next time you go to Costco you should try some Vache-Qui-Rit, it’s so good!

Aha! and Huh? (No. 1)

So, I’ve decided to share with you pictures or pieces of info on the state of eco-logics in the world today. Anything goes, cool local projects, statewide politics, international relations, etc. To try and make it even, I’ll look for a positive piece of info so we can feel happy about our fellow humans and their actions, as well as a weird or dumb one for entertainment purposes.

If you would like to share happy, silly, or dumb eco pictures, please send them my way and I’ll post them!

So here we go with our first duo:

Aha!

I’ve been working for over a year at our local Liberal Arts College and just this week noticed how ecologic it was. Solar panels, xeriscaping, rainwater harvesting, etc.

The entire terracing behind the college is made with recycled asphalt. A little dreary in the winter, but they use the area to grow veggies that they then sell on campus. Great idea, good job Prescott College!

Huh?

The news has been highlighting the increasing food prices in the US, trying to show the tough decisions Americans are facing when shopping. Here is the picture from the front page of the MSN a few days ago.

I don’t disagree with the topic of their article at all, but come on, pick a better picture. The woman is holding 3 bottles of soda and looking at cake mixes. Apparently, the recession is not that bad, she still has enough money to buy junk food.