Eco-Chick · The modern girl's guide to living green & fabulous.

Ani Phyo’s Healthfully Decadent Raw Coconut Kream Recipe

Dessert has always been my favorite part of any meal (though I do love apps!) and while I’ve managed to tame my sweet tooth in the last few years, I’ve by no means eliminated it. (By tame I mean I can get my sweet-happys from maple syrup, honey, and desserts made with fruit and less sugar.) Frankly, I’d rather carry around an extra five pounds than skip desserts, in all their toothsome glory. But I try to concoct or uncover desserts that are healthy as well as tasty. Just because it’s dessert doesn’t mean that it has to be a nutrition wasteland!

So stumbling upon Ani Phyo’s wonderful raw dessert cookbook (with 85 recipes!) was a coup. As you may already know, raw foods retain all sorts of wonderful enzymes, vitamins and minerals, plus are less ‘predigested’ (I know it’s a bit gross, but that’s basically what cooking is; partial digestion of food before you eat it). That means your body has to work a bit harder to digest, which makes you feel full longer and is actually really good for your gut. All of which means you get more nutrition and eat less when you go raw. While I’m not a raw foodist by any means, I’m going on my 19th year of vegetarianism and love the way whole foods that are minimally processed taste and make me feel. And the more I’ve read about the benefits of raw, the more I try to incorporate it into my diet.
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Reduce: Use a Home Soda Making-Machine

On the homepage of the Container Recycling Institute is a counter clocking how many beverage containers have been landfilled, littered and incinerated in the United States. This year alone the counter has tallied over 125 billion bottles and cans. Amazingly, the average American drinks around 60 gallons of soda each year, sadly, only 33-45 percent of those bottles and can get recycled. The environmental toll from the production, packaging and shipping of each soda can and bottle is incredible – the energy wasted in 2001 to produce 50.7 billion soda cans was the equivalent to 16 million barrels of oil!  Our towns and cities are being buried in water and soda bottles and cans.

With the economy in the dumps– no pun intended– the problems arising from these drink containers is getting even more severe.  Plainly said, at this moment in time, there is no market for recyclables. Paper, plastic, aluminum, cardboard, all those products we are so proud to put in our recycling bins and put on the curb for pick up are piling up at municipal recycling facilities.  A once lucrative business, recyclers cannot find anyone to buy there “junk”.

According to a December 7th story in the New York Times entitled Back at Junk Value, Recyclables are Piling Up, in some areas mixed paper is selling for $20-25 a ton, down from $105 in October and tin is now $5 a ton, down from $327 earlier this year.  Some towns and cities across country that used to get paid for their recyclables are either not getting their monthly checks or are now being charged to take the junk away.

I recently spoke with public works representative in my town who told me that our township was getting paid for all our recyclables but the checks had stopped coming.  However, they told me that our town is lucky because we are in a contract with a hauler, so our recyclables were still getting picked up. In many towns without rock-solid contracts, recyclable haulers are refusing to pick up their loads.

So now what?  Clearly we should not abandon our recycling programs. I know I’ve painted a bleak picture, but it is really important to continue to recycle.  However, now more than ever, the first two of the 3 “R’s”s are increasingly more important.  We need to REDUCE and REUSE.

Between 1960-79 the average person purchased 200-250 packaged drinks per year. In 2006 that number has soared to 686 drinks (Source: Container Recycling Institute).  We need to turn this around and reach for zero new waste. We need to make consumer choices to buy products that are not only recycled and recyclable, but to buy goods that do not generate more recyclable garbage.  Sounds hard right?  Well in some instances its not as difficult as you might think.

In my house we’ve taken an interesting step in this direction. We drink a lot of soda water (seltzer).  At least a 1/2 gallon a day.  Now my husband and I used to drink Pellegrino by the case.  Doing so would put at least 6-8 glass bottles back into the garbage/recycling stream on a weekly basis. In addition, our sparkling water traveled thousands of miles to reach us. A gallon of Peligrino costs over $7.50 per gallon, much more than gasoline.

Recently, we got the opportunity to try out Sodastream Soda-Club, a home seltzer and soda-making machine. The machine is already helping eco-conscious consumers elsewhere – 30% of German and 24% of Swiss households have soda machines and have reduced their waste.  With a Soda-Club machine, we drink freshly made, great tasting seltzer and we are drastically reducing waste from store-bought cans and bottles. The machine uses no batteries or electricity, just a 14.5 oz CO2 canister that can make up to 60 liters of seltzer or soda. Empty carbonators are returned to Soda-Club to be cleaned, inspected and refilled with CO2 drawn naturally from the air. Carbonators are reusable as long as they remain in good condition.

We tried a machine that is called the Penguin. This little marvel comes with 2 glass carafes. Other versions come with clear plastic (PET), BPA-free reusable bottles will about 3 years. Each bottle also comes with a special cap with a hermetic seal that keeps your soda carbonated long after you first open it and it really works.

The machine’s also come with regular, diet and caffeine-free flavors to make cola, root bear, cherry soda and many more. In addition they have fruit essence to make flavored-seltzer. If you are purist like me these syrups may not pass the test. But for those of you who still need your soda fix, it beats drinking high-fructose Coca-Cola. Regular flavors have 2/3 less carbs, calories and sugar than store-bought sodas, and contain much less sodium. Both regular and diet flavors do contain Splenda®.

For our household we are sold. We always have fresh bubbly seltzer in the house. Finish a bottle during a meal, just fill the bottle with water, stick it in the machine press the lever and we have seltzer in seconds. According to Carbonrally, we save about 6 lbs of carbon emissions per week (production, bottling, transport) by making our own soft drinks. According to Soda Club, worldwide, they estimate over 10 million units have been sold.  That is huge savings worldwide in carbon emissions, bottles and cans.

So if you are like me and want to still recycle but REDUCE your waste dramaticly, I suggest giving a Soda-Club machine a try.  The machines range from about $100 to $230 dollars depending if you order just a machine or a machine with flavors.  All machines come with CO2 carbonators.  It may sound a little steep but the savings on your waste, environmental impact and future costs (pay back depends on how much you drink), it is well worth it.  AND Soda-Club is giving Eco-Chick readers a discount. Use the discount code MELISSA at check out you will get an additional $5 off after their current holiday discount, a total savings of $25 per machine.

January Sales are On….

At Sodafine (for all sale stuff, click here)

At By Nature (for all sale clothes, as well as housewares, click here)

At Kaight (for all sale clothes, click here)

At Beklina (for all sale items, click here)

A Case of Coat Lust

Confession: I have many winter coats. There’s the 3/4 length periwinkle wool overcoat, the chunky-knit turquoise peacoat, the 70′s butternut squash colored fuzzy cape, the plain black wool number with the best hood ever, and the abbreviated khaki raincoat. I love them all, and wear them all, too.

Obviously I am not a one-winter-coat girl, but I think it’s OK because I’ve had most of my coats for several years, and clean them each Spring to keep for the next year. I always think my coat wardrobe is complete, but then I’m tempted with the likes of these…..

Hoodlamb Drop Top in Natural at The Hempest, $249

Hoodlamb Hemp in Camoflage, at The Hempest, $259

Stewart+Brown Altai Coat, on Paygaya, $795

Passenger Pigeon’s Double Breasted Hoody in Hemp and Cotton, at Sodafine, $188

Stewart+Brown Wool Khara Coat, at Pangaya, $374

Delano Collection Organic Wool Ramona Coat at Greenloop, $425

Lets Be Clear

Canada has been dealing with some rough water issues lately, and the David Suzuki Foundation is taking note of it. Since late last week residence of Vancouver have been facing mudslides over taking their resevoirs where the city gets their water. The extremely high level of turbidity has caused an advisory for Vancouver residents to boil all of their tap water.

Water contamination is something Canada has faced in the past with over 200 different contaminations. But why? One would think that after like 80 contaminations we would be looking to the causation of this. David Boyd answers this question.

Canada’s water quality guidelines are actually voluntary. There are currently no legally enforced rules to protect our water. Mr. Boyd says the Federal government should step in and establish mandatory standards that meet or exceed those of other countries.

No really?

North Americans in so many areas have been given a horribly skewed sense of security. At a young age in geography class we’re told that 70% of the earth’s surface is covered in water, that’s a lot of water. But then we have to factor into that how much is actually drinkable. Most of it, 68.9%, is trapped up in glaciers and another 30.8% is in groundwater. That leaves us with a tiny 0.3% of our fresh water resources in lakes and rivers.

It’s only going to get worse as global warming gets worse. The Great Lakes will decline greatly and most of the water that melts from glaciers is going to go into the oceans, which isn’t drinkable. Our alternative – bottled water – isn’t so awesome either.

Health Canada’s website on bottled water reports that there’s no evidence to support this. In fact, Professor Rolf Halden of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, had this to say about water in U.S. cities. “The truth is that city water is much more highly regulated and monitored for quality. Bottled water is not. It can legally contain many things we would not tolerate in municipal drinking water.”

Not to mention it’s really expensive. Rock on water shortages in Canada. But what can we do? The solution is the same for everything – educate people. We all know that “educate people” over simplifies to the point that it hurts. Luckily, David Suzuki is a bit more optimistic than I am and offers a few ways that we can all help out a little bit, and keep track of what water supplies.

Water conservation starts at home. Here are some things you can start doing at home right now to protect our water for the future.

* Low-flow shower heads can cut your water use in the shower by more than 30%. You can also reduce your water use by installing a, low-flow toilet that uses less water.
* Household cleaners are flushed away then go through treatment facilities, but trace elements become part of the water cycle. A lot of household cleaning can be accomplished with good old white vinegar and baking soda. (Really!) For ideas visit H2Ouse.
* Shower with a friend! It saves an average of 200 liters of water and it’s lots of fun. You’ll have a helping hand scrub those parts of the back you can’t reach on your own.

Learn more:

* This blog has links to find out what’s happening with the world’s water.
* Environment Canada’s Conserve water page.
* If you want to see how much water you’re using, and aren’t afraid of giving your e-mail address to the government, check out Environment Canada’s water use calculator.

Turns out, I use a lot of water…

Your daily average water usage: 478L

Your province’s daily average: 425L
Canadian national daily average: 335L