Jammin' Endeavours

One of my summer activities that is frugal and happens to be relatively green is canning. I tend to mostly make jam, but I've also made my own applesauce, conserve, syrup and chutney, all properly heat-treated and shelf-stable.

There are few ingredients to these things, and most of them are fairly thrifty and sustainable. Many of them I got from my own yard or local farms.

What I actually bought:

• 1 dozen half-pint jars (~$9, reusable!)
• Extra Lids ($3, reusable, but not for heat treating.)
• Extra Rings and Lids ($7, reusable! Until they rust.)
• 11 lbs Strawberries from Boxx Berry Farms (~$1.5/lb)
• 11 lbs raspberries from Bjornstad Farms (~$1.35/lb)
• 2 10 lb. bags of white sugar (~$8)
• 3 lemons ($3)
• 2 oranges (~$2)
• Walnuts and raisins(??)

What I did not buy:

• Several pounds of transparent apples.
• 5 lbs Italian plums
• Lots and lots of blackberries
• A big bundle of spearmint.
• More than a dozen pint/pint 1/2 jars, found on the side of the road during student moving season. =)

The results?

This doesn't include the half-dozen jars I've already given away or eaten.

• 4 pint and a half  jars of completely natural, local applesauce.
• Three pint jars of plum conserve
• Several half-pint jars each of strawberry jam, strawberry-raspberry jam, raspberry-orange jam, and lightly seeded blackberry jam.
• Two jars of mint syrup (which later needed to be watered down and made about 5 pints of syrup.)

 All made without artificial flavors or pectin, with the important ingredients coming from a 25-mile radius from my house. They make great gifts and keep so well that I'm eating though a couple of years worth of jam, and the jars can be reused for more jam, for leftovers, for random storage items. I use my leftover jars as portable coffee cups, yogurt parfait containers, as a pill container and as a toothbrush holder. until I need them for canning again.

So, in conclusion, canning your own food can be thrifty (after an investment in supplies) it encourages local shopping and saves the transportation cost of whatever kinds of foods you would normally buy at the grocery store. And you end up with a taste of summer when you crack open that jar of raspberry jam in the dead of winter.

Sustainable Seafood

Fast Company: Whole Foods Implement Seafood Color-Coded Rating System

This article talks about the new initiative Whole Foods has rolled out: labeling all of their seafood with sustainability ratings, with plans to phase out their "red-listed" or unsustainably harvested seafood by 2012.

 It is also an excellent example of the company taking responsibility instead of the consumer: it is possible to find out which kinds of fish in your area are or aren't sustainable or overfished, but its even easier for the company to research and educate their customer base about these kinds of issues, and then use thier pwer to negotiate with suppliers and eventually, lower the demand for these products.

This is something I would love to see implemented everywhere. At the moment, I only know of a few kinds of fish that are sustainable: farm-raised rainbow trout or catfish, which are both breeds that have low food conversion ratios and do well in inland pond environments, and Alaskan salmon and Nova Scotian lobster, both of which are well-managed and regulated industries.

Fortunately, a quick google takes me to the Monterey Bay Aqaurium website, which has a not only information on the issue of sustainable seafood, but also a set of pocket guides available to print out, varying by region of the United States, with the same rating scale that they developed for Whole Foods. Print one out and take it with you shopping!

*for anyone who needs ideas and article to write about, check out Fast Company's website and click the "Ethonomics" tab. A whole section devoted to sustainable and ethical articles!

Assignment #2 - Toxicity Assessment

Product: Bath and Body Works Midnight Pomegranate Body Lotion

Ingredients: Water, Glycerin, Petrolatum, Cetyl Alcohol, Ceteraryl A;cohol. Fragrance, Dimethicone, Ceteareth-20, Aloe barbendensis Leaf Juice, Avena Sativa (Oat) Meal Extract, Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Seed Extract, Tocopheryl Acetate, Pryus Malus (Apple) fruit Extract, Tetrasodium EDTA, Macadamia Ternfolia Seed Oil, Sodium Hydroxide, Disodium EDTA, Propylene Glycol, Ascorbic Acid, Diazolidinyl urea, Methylparaben, Benzyl Alcohol, Propylparaben, Carbomer, Alpha-isomethyl Ionene, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Citral, Citronellol, Limonene, Geraniol, Hexyl Cinnamal, Hyrdroxycitronellal, Linalool, Red 33, Lake, Red 4, Blue 1

The ingredient I'm highlighting is Propylene Glycol, partlly because its in just about all lotions, potions and soaps, but also because you can actually go out and buy it at any soap-making soap. I happen to have a bottle of it.

 It has a hazard rating of 4/10 on the cometics database. it been linked to...

• Cancer
• Reproductive Toxicity
• Allergies
• Skin Irritation
• Organ System Toxicity
• and more!

On the ohter hand, all of these have "limited evidence" or "one or more tests" have shown specific results. In general, it is allowed in proportions of up to 50% in most cosmetics.

I probably will not replace this ingredient in my usual routine. it is pretty ubiquitous, and harmless at low doses, even when eaten.

Enviromental Footprint

Here are my results for my global footprint:

If everyone was like me, we would go through 4.6 earths! Most of that is made up of services, and most of the land I use is for energy.  However, according to them, there isn't much I can do. Following all of their suggestions (stop flying, eat less meat, recycle more, and take more public transpotation) would only get me down to 4 earths' worth of resources. It really doesn't take into account the fact that I walk everywhere.

But, to reduce my carbon footprint, I'll try these three things.

1) Start composting. I tried this over the summer, but let it go by the wayside. Its time to start again (and maybe empty it more often so it doesn't get as gross.) I also need to turn the composter at least once a week, and source some more dry goods to put in there.

2) Walk even more. I'll start walking to get groceries instead of driving.

3) Manage my electricity usage. The major source of electricity we use in our apartement is for heating and electronics. I can set up the electronics so that they are on a power flat with an easy-to-reach switch, so I can keep them from draining power when they are switched off. I also have a goal of not turning up the heat until the end of October. I'll close the blinds at night, open them on the sunny side in the morning, and make use of my sweatshirts, blankets, and slippers. I can also use less energy by using the dryer less and air-drying my clothes, and by taking shorter showers w/less hot water.