Simple Changes for Healthier Eating

After posting an earlier article on how to afford organic food, I realized that it may have given the impression that I believe organic food is healthy food. I do believe, based upon loads of research (like this and this) and my family’s own experiences, that organic food is healthier than non-organic options of the same items.

However, I don’t believe that organic = healthy. A diet of chips and cookies is not high quality nutrition, even if the chips are made with organically grown potatoes and the cookies contain only unrefined sweeteners. Choosing organic food is only one consideration of many for healthier eating.

It can seem like eating healthier is amazing complicated but there are some simple changes you and your family can make that will have you all eating healthier soon. Here are a few: Read more

I Want to Eat Organic Food But How Can I Afford It?

January is a time for resolutions, many of which focus on health and finances. To help people get off to a good start on their goals this year, I want to discuss a topic that comes up frequently as we chat with other parents. How the heck is it possible to eat organic food when finances are tight?

We’ve been able to switch almost all of our food purchases to organic items without increasing the money we spend on food. Here is what helped us: Read more

Benefits of Going Green – 7 and Counting

As we have been preparing for the new school year, we’ve been looking backwards as well as forward and reviewing our progress over the year to date. We have our green goals and have been tracking our progress on them but it struck me that the benefits of going green have gone far beyond meeting those goals. Here are the main benefits of going green we have experienced: Read more

How We’re Doing on Our Green Goals for 2009

With July already well underway, I realized it’s time to review our goals for 2009. I wrote about the annual goals we set earlier and since then we have added a few more. Here’s how we are doing so far.

Mission Accomplished!
•    Expand our garden beyond containers. We now have a small garden going in our backyard. After doing some research, we decided to stick mostly with herbs this first year while we build up the soil. Even with our record breaking drought, the garden is doing well so far. (Fingers crossed!) Thanks to Heather at Simple-Green-Frugal for answering my newbie questions about gardening in Texas! Read more

Save Money, and the Earth, with Homemade Cleaners

Last week we discussed how toxic many household products are (so toxic that they are routinely referred to as hazardous household waste) and how to safely remove them from your home. This week we want to share some inexpensive and simple recipes so you can make earth-friendly replacements for those items.

We’ll start with cleaning supplies.

Conventional cleaning supplies: Homemade cleaning products can get your home just as clean as conventional products for far less money and with far less toxic exposure. They also smell better! Here are recipes for a few multi-tasking items. Read more

Shopping at Thrift Stores – Good for the World, Good for the Wallet

I posted earlier about our back-to-school shopping trip but wanted to go into more detail about the benefits of thrift store shopping. When we initially considered shopping at thrift stores, my first thought was, “Ick!” In case that is also your reaction, here are some reasons to consider it.  Read more

Info on Auto-Sharing Services

Newsweek recently posted a story about auto-sharing services. I was surprised to learn that Zipcar has expanded to the point that 13 million Americans are within a ten minute walk of its parked cars. Wow! I knew of it as an option in only a couple of large east coast cities but it has seen serious growth recently.

According to Zipcar, each car in their program replaces 15 personally owned vehicles. Something to think about during your next commute! Read more