The case for organic turkeys

Have you ever wondered where the 45 million turkeys consumed each year on Thanksgiving come from? Me neither, but with being sick this week and watching way to much TV, unfortunately I found out. Deciding to watch something educational or mind stimulating, I found a show called "How It's Made" on the Discovery Channel. I thought, "Great! I'll get to learn how something cool is made!" until I heard the the topic was turkeys. In an hour of way too much information on turkeys, here's what I learned:

• The average life of a "farmed" turkey is 5 months.
• Since the demand for turkey is so high, commercial turkey farms artificially inseminate all their female birds (who wants that job? And yes, they showed how it's done. Eeww.)
• Females are allowed 1 hour to lay their eggs, then they are mechanically booted out of the cage to make room for the next bird.
• Once the female lays her eggs, she is immediately inseminated again!
• The eggs are packed up daily and taken to a hatching facility.
• A hatching facility incubates 200,000 eggs a day and approximately 900,000 eggs are hatched in one week.
• Chicks are kept in cages for almost a month before being sent to "the farm" where they will live out the rest of their short 5 month life.
• Chicks follow humans around the farm trying to find their mothers (All I could think of was the children's book, "Are You My Mother?)
• There are a series of 4 barns the turkeys will move through until they're ready to be "packaged." As far as conditions in the barns? Not that great.

Organically raised turkeys are usually free range and get lots of fresh air, real sunshine, and certified organic feed that is free of synthetic pesticides and antibiotics. Their diet of high quality grains and vegetable proteins also make for a tastier bird. Here's a great article from Bon Appetit magazine on choosing the right turkey for your thanksgiving meal. As far as what will be on our table this year? Well, after watching this program, we'll be having sushi.

I'm back...but I need some rest!

It's been a while since I've visited the blogoshpere, let alone post on my own blog. Things have been quite hectic around here, to say the least. My son turned five last week, so I was deep in party mode (Pirate party mode, to be exact), plus I had my Mom and her good friend visiting for a week so I was a tour guide as well. Life is getting a bit back to normal now, except I've been totally exhausted. Feeling like I've been run over by a bus tired. All I want to do is sleep, but alas, that doesn't seem to be in the cards for me. I had a hard time sleeping last night because the sink drain in my bathroom was gurgling all night. It's probably stopped up with some sort of hairy clog, but since I've been making a concerted effort to go green around here, I can't pick up the Liquid Plumber.

I found this recipe online to "safely" unclog drains. I'm going to try it out along with my super cool new drain snake . Next time you reach for the Drain-O, try this instead: Pour a cup of baking soda, followed by a cup of white vinegar, down the drain. Plug the opening with an old rag or a stopper and let it bubble away. After a few minutes, rinse with hot water and repeat if necessary. I'm taking my plumber hat off now and, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a nap!

Cute Reusuable Shopping Bags

These days, there really is no excuse for not using reusable shopping bags. Even Costco, Wal-Mart and Target have their own bags for purchase, and generally they're pretty inexpensive. My local grocery store sells nice sized, sturdy reusable bags for 99 cents. It took me a while to remember my bags when shopping, but now it's become habit.

I have found that you can pack more items into the reusable bags, so less trips from the car to the house. Plus, there are some pretty cute bags out there, which makes being green even better! Here are two favorites from my collection:

You can find a great assortment of reusable bags at this site, and though they're a bit pricey, I think the investment is well worth it!

If you still need a reason to stop using plastic or paper grocery bags, here's 10:

1. Paper bag production causes 70% more pollution than plastic.
2. Plastic grocery bags take 450 years to biodegrade.
   
3. Plastic “photo degrades” and ends up in our oceans. It is then consumed by fish, and eventually it winds up on your dinner table (lovely).
4. If you think everyone is recycling those plastic bags, think again. Only 2% of plastic bags are recycled in the U.S. each year
5. The recycling of plastic emits heavy metals into the air causing extreme air pollution.
6. An average person will use over 350 bags in a single year, and with only 2% being recycled? Yikes!
7. In New York City alone, one less grocery bag per person would reduce waste by 5 million pounds and save $250,000 in disposal costs.
8. In 1999 more than 14 million trees were cut down to produce 10 billion paper bags that were used by Americans that year.
9. Many grocery stores are considering not offering paper/plastic bags unless you purchase them (some stores in France already do this).
   
10. Shopping with stylish reusable bags is hot!

So, go out and get yourself a couple of cute shopping bags and hit the stores. You'll be encouraging others to do the same, thereby doing your part for the environment. Hey, every little bit counts, right?

**TO ANSWER ALL THE EMAILS I'VE RECEIVED ABOUT THE BLUE Q GROCERY SHOPPER BAG ABOVE: BUY ONE HERE

A greener way to wrap

I have fabric coming out the wazoo, so when I read about furoshiki, I was so excited (doesn't take much these days). Not only is using fabric as wrapping paper cool, but it means less paper in the landfills - hooray!

There are many different techniques, so be sure to use this link for a great diagram and have fun with furoshiki!

Poo, Potatoes and Corn, oh my!

I had quite the day yesterday in terms of cool new eco-friendly finds. First off, while visiting my favorite Little Nature Store here in Boerne, I discovered poo paper; paper made from poo (panda poo to be exact). Of course, I immediately picked it up and smelled it and was relieved to find out it smelled like paper. Then I thought, you know your diet is rich in fiber if you're poopin' paper! Apparently in China there is a surplus of fiber-rich panda excrement and they're looking for ways to use it. So now I'm thinking, whose job is that - to keep track of the panda poop supply? Anyway, The Chiang Mai Zoo in northern Thailand already sells multicolored paper made from the excrement produced by its two resident pandas. Making paper there involves a daylong process of cleaning, boiling it in a soda solution, bleaching it with chlorine and drying it under the sun. So while it may not be totally organic, it's still a great way to save trees.

adapted from msnbc.msn.com

Even cooler was my discovery last night while enjoying a little happy hour with the Hot Tamommies (what I affectionately call my circle of friends). Adorable Lindsay whips out these disposable plates made from limestone, corn and potatoes. Yea! Guilt free disposable stuff! The plates seemed very sturdy, are microwavable and heat/moisture and cut-resistant. You can even add them to your compost pile instead of your trash can, as they are totally biodegradable. Best of all, they're easy to find (Target and WalMart carry them) and cheap; around $2.99 for a package of 25 plates.

Not that I need another excuse to go to Target, but I'm on my way now to stock up on these plates. See, it really is easy being green!

Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees.
Revelations 7:3