This, ladies and gentlemen, is why I make my own deodorant and wash my hair with baking soda and vinegar.  The incredible team behind “The Story of Stuff” just released a new video, “The Story of Cosmetics: The Ugly Truth of ‘Toxins In: Toxins Out.”

Perhaps more surprising than the fact that there are carcinogens in baby shampoo?  The average American woman uses twelve personal care products each day.  I use… 6?  Maybe.  And, of those 6, I make two.  I’m unwilling to give up fluoride toothpaste and mouthwash but I use Tom’s of Maine so I feel like maybe I’m in the clear(er).  Plus, making soap just does not appeal to me and Dr. Bronner just works so well, you know?

One thing I haven’t yet dealt with is the whole sunscreen thing…  On one hand, given that vitamin D deficiency is increasingly common, I’m tempted to just wear sunscreen if I’m going to be outside for more than 45 minutes.  On the other hand, since I got my tattoo I’m much more conscious of always putting sunscreen on it.

Anyway, after watching the video there are lots of ways to get involved.  I, for one, am going to take a look through the recipes on the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics’ website.  Also, I’m a huge fan of Angry Chicken’s Mailorder #11– a booklet of loads of person and earth-friendly personal care products.  Time to revisit that, I think.

Behold, The Bobble.  It is a water bottle with a built in filter that you can fill over and over again from the tap.  Genius.  Right?  Maybe.  I mean, the US has some of the cleanest drinking water around.  Plus, you’ve still got this filter to deal with.  Of course, in DC the problem may not be with the water per se but with the Civil War-era pipes.  Although, really… WASA doesn’t really do a whole lot to inspire confidence (large chlorine dumps, anyone?)

I bought one, as you know I adore gimmicks.  However, part of me wonders if this is the worst kind of greenwashing.  While the item itself hits all the right points, do I really need something to filter my perfectly safe US water?  That said, the Bobble is made in the USA, BPA-free, and recyclable.  Even the filters are recyclable– which is more than I can say for Pur.  You can either mail it back to them (and pay the postage) or drop it in curbside recycling since it’s a plastic “1.”  I can’t remember if I posted about this before, when the “Take Back the Filter” campaign was in full swing.  We switched from Brita to Pur since Pur is a slightly better filter– as far as I can tell, you cannot recycle a Pur filter.

image via Luxist

If nothing else, I’ll use this at work.  Although I carry a reusable water bottle, I typically drink from the water cooler at work.  Switching to the tap won’t make my office stop getting gallons of water delivered, but at least I’ll be drinking tap water and wont have my belief in the lameness of bottled water take a break just because we have a water cooler at the office.

Oh, and I picked this one up at a local shop, Home Rule, for under $10.  I love this shop.  They carry all sorts of fun and brightly colored kitchen, bath, and bar supplies.  Sure, you can’t outfit your whole kitchen here, but you can get some awesome, awesome gadgets and conversation pieces.

Note: I’m in no way affiliated with Bobble Water, just someone interested in cutting down my plastic use and carrying nicely designed things.

Sorry the oil tracker was up there for so long– let’s move onto something a bit more positive, okay?  This week I picked up our first CSA share from the good folks at Evensong Farm. I picked this farm for a number of reasons: 1) it’s owned by women (and you know I’m all about the girl power), 2) it’s near Antietam Battlefield (hello 19th century history, my favorite), and 3) they don’t use “synthetic fertilizers, pesticides or genetically modified inputs.”  Oh, and if you’re confused by what the hell a CSA is look here.

We’re just doing a half-share; Jon and I can barely plan when we’re doing laundry let alone an entire week’s worth of dinners-at-home (between classes and lectures and friends and work happy hours we eat out more than I care to admit).  Anyway, this week we got an enormous head of romaine lettuce, a “spicy” greens mix, peas, radishes (yum), bok choy,* green onions/chives, cilantro (yessss!), and garlic scapes.  Sorry, does that read like I’m bragging?  I kind of meant to.  Kind of.

A recipe for the excellent and 100% vegan dip I made from the radishes is after the jump…

This recipe is a variation of one in this month’s issue of Martha Stewart Living.  I can’t find it online yet, but it’s in the one with the hamburger and person in a blue checkered shirt on the cover (by the way, looks like there is a $1 off coupon on the site– wish I’d seen that).  Anyway, here is my variation on her garbanzo and radish dip– it is a bit more garlicy and I used cilantro instead of basil because a) that’s what we had and b) we are BIG cilantro fans in this house:

Ingredients:

2 cans unsalted garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed (keep about 1/3 cup of the liquid)
2 Tbs olive oil
Sea salt, pepper to taste
Cilantro to taste
9 radishes, chopped
2 cloves garlic
juice from 2 fresh lemons
Pita chips and/or bread for dipping

Instructions:

Lightly mash garbanzo beans, oil, salt, and pepper in a bowl until creamy but still chunky.  Stir in the lemon juice, radishes, garlic, and cilantro.  Stir in some of the reserved garbanzo bean liquid until dip holds together.  Refrigerate at least 30 min before serving.

Note: I tried mushing up the beans with forks and a blender.  The blender did NOT work well– spewed beans all over the kitchen.  If you have a stick blender like you use for soups I’d suggest using that.  If not, one of those things you use for pie crusts.  I have no idea what they’re called– the semi circle of like 4 wires on a handle.

*If you play your cards right, maybe I’ll share Jon’s insanely good recipe for spicy Asian noodles with Bok Choy.  I have no idea how he makes it, so actually paying attention for once might be smart.

It’s a bit outside what I normally do here, but the events in the Gulf this past month seem to be going from bad to worse to downright awful.  In fact, it’s been tough for Jon and I not to loose hope in humanity’s future (too dramatic?) the Gulf’s ability to recover. The oceans are so important to human health, and the Gulf in particular is so important to the US for so many reasons.

As someone who owns a car, uses electricity produced by Pepco, uses plastic even though I do my best to minimize it, I’m sure that at least a little of my horror is confronting the profound costs of these items.  Of course, I’m also forced to confront that there are oil spills and coal mine explosions all over the world and in the US they barely register because they don’t impact our ocean or our mountains.

So, herewith, a list of things I’m reading to learn more about the spill and its impact, organizations I’m donating too, and small steps I’m trying to take to keep the oceans clean not as completely messed up:

For information on the spill

• PBS’ Newshour has a great special section on their site that has links to the widget you see above, stories, documents, etc.
• To get a sense of the scale of the oil spill, I highly recommend this tool that lets you “move” the spill to your area.
• Grist’s oil spill roundup
• The DailyKos’ blogger FishGrease’s information and take on the spill response (note: the language is NSFW but the information is interesting)
• SeaWeb also has a roundup of news stories on the spill
• The Twitter feed for BPGlobalPR because G-d knows that humor is important when you’re about to loose faith
• The Huffington Post has a lot of coverage

To clean up your act

• 10 ways to reduce your energy consumption from the Natural Resources Defense Council
• Make stuff yourself.  Here is a list of 100 things you can make yourself- without the packaging!
• Learn more about sustainable, low impact sea food
• Take a look up at the tips from Cause Cast (although, they focus a great deal on beach cleanup and if you’re landlocked…)
• How to Go Green guides from Treehugger and Discovery

Donating what I can to these folks

• The 5 Gyres project because you know how I feel about the trash island(s).
• The Gulf Restoration Network, an organization endorsed by SeaWeb, whose mission is, “to unite and empower people to protect and restore the natural resources of the Gulf Region for future generations.”
• The Gulf of Mexico Sea Grant program is running a number of programs to address the legal, economic, and ecological impact of the spill

If you have other resources, suggestions, or organizations leave a note in the comments!

A few weeks ago I listened to Louis Fresco’s TEDtalk on “Feeding the Whole World.”  By the way, if you don’t listen to the TED podcast please subscribe to it now).  I’ve been thinking about it ever since and have more than once used it as part of an argument on behalf of responsible corporate farming.

Two things really struck me about Louis Fresco’s argument and the audience’s response.  First, Fresco argues that by moving beyond subsistence farming the world has made a great deal of progress (in all kinds of fields, medicine, technology, etc) and that the tendency to romanticize the small farmer ignores what grueling, difficult work it really is.  She also suggests that mass produced bread can provide a large number of calories for many people in the developing world.  Now, we can argue about the associations between bread and obesity, large farming and resource allocation, etc. etc. etc.  However, I think she is absolutely right to suggest that a regional farming model that looks at the benefits of mechanization and better/safer/cheaper fertilizers in feeding a lot of people nutritionally.

“14799_2.jpg” via Thomas Barta’s Flickr Stream, licensed via the Creative Commons.

Second, I was struck by how resentful many of the TED Blog readers comments were.  I think she’s cutting against the grain (no pun intended) of much liberal/contemporary food practices, i.e. eat local, eat organic, eat from small farms.  She highlights the problem with the farmer’s market model, especially in major cities in the developing world where they are simply not practical.  Urban farming, what she describes as “fish ponds in parking lots,” will certainly help.  However, to feed entire cities of several million people with a range of incomes will require more than window herb gardens and rooftop veggie patches.  Although she’s marginally defending larger farms what she’s really arguing for is that we think about WHY industrial farming took off (and that probably isn’t because of evil business men alone)– it does feed a lot of people with comparatively low cost.

So… this all got me thinking, not just about calories in but also about the energy required when I make things I can buy that are mass produced.  I’m back at that place where I’m weighing costs, benefits, and harms.  For example, I started making my own yogurt so I could avoid plastic waste.  However, I’m using a lot of energy (about 48 hours from the wall socket) to make not much yogurt (about 3 cups at a time).  Would it be better for the environment if I bought mass produced yogurt (organic, RBGH-free) than making it at home?  What about the amount of energy I use to make 1 loaf of bread at home v. making 500 loaves at once at the Wonder Bread factory?  And then you’re figuring in transportation and that leads us back to the whole Eat Local command.

I’ll freely admit that I think Fresco’s logic is sound and the argument makes sense.  The hard part is how to balance the command to “think about where you are in the food chain” with what to prioritize: local v. regional, effecient production v. overuse, calories v. nutrition.  Actually, these aren’t even diametrically opposed pairs.  Yes, lots of confusion here now about what I should be doing re: my food choices.

As if we needed more evidence that I am an 85-year old lady: my new electric kettle makes me unbelievably happy.  I’ll freely admit that it is probably more electric kettle than I really need– I mean it isn’t like I can actually taste the difference in my 212 degree made coffee and 200 degree coffee but… it is nice to know that I’m really doing it right.

Not to mention, this kettle has a metal pitcher and you’d be amazed how few electric kettles actually have metal pitchers!

Anyway, this is a short post because all I can say about it is that it works great, I love it, and it makes my just add water breakfast (oat meal) and love affair with tea and coffee even more delightful.  Basically I’m just bragging.

A friend suggested I read Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” but promptly warned me that this book would probably terrify me and chill my soul.  She was right on both accounts.  There is little for me to add to the many, many articles and television segments that have been created on this book. It is a wonderful read, incredibly detailed even in its bleakness.  I felt the boy and the man were complete people and that I could at least imagine the man before whatever event burned the world to a crisp.  Don’t let the Oprah’s book club stamp turn you off– this is a dark and incredibly thought provoking book.

I found the book chilling, terrifying, and in a strange way motivating.  McCarthy never explicitly says what caused the world to die (perhaps an atom bomb, maybe an environmental event).  But I found myself thinking about how I can show more respect for the ecosystem in which I live.  George Monbiot wrote in the UK’s Guardian:

As the biosphere shrinks, McCarthy describes the collapse of the protagonist’s core beliefs. I sense that this might be happening already: that a hardening of interests, a shutting down of concern, is taking place among the people of the rich world. If this is true, we do not need to wait for the forests to burn or food supplies to shrivel before we decide that civilisation is in trouble.

I’m still trying to proess this book, but I enjoyed it– even if it did chill me to my core.  Perhaps I enjoyed it because it did chill me and force me to think about my own actions.

Ah!  And you thought I wasn’t going to make good on my promise from way, way long ago to make my own deodorant!  Well, I did it.  (Finally).  I used Angry Chicken’s “recipe” but substituted lavender instead of orange oil (I kept the ylang ylang).  It went together a little harder for me than for her, mostly since I don’t have a microwave and had to melt everything on the stove.  Plus, I’m now a little concerned that I put in too much lavender oil… oh well, at least I’ll smell like a pretty bouquet of flowers.  Right?

Also, I had no idea our stove top was as disgusting as it is (please, avert your eyes from the burn spots in the image after the jump)… 

Lately I’ve been relaxing a little bit on my “no plastic” thing…  Not because I am less concerned about the trash island, no no no, but more because I’m not completely stressed-out wacky insane any more.  I love being “no poo” (my hair has never looked better, I swear), going period positive was SUCH a good thing for me, and I’m really gung ho about this whole make-it-yourself deodorant…  But, really, I mean… sometimes it just has to be okay for me to buy yogurt in a carton instead of making it myself.

That said, as my Burt’s Bees cruddy spray metal bottle deodorant ran out, I had to face the fact that I’d bought all the ingredients for this homemade deodorant a few weeks months ago and needed to give it a try.  They’ve been sitting on the part of my desk where I keep the Projects In Waiting (PIW) for way, way too long.

Thus, my jar of E-vitamin capsules, bottles of essential oils and Cocoa and Shea butter finally left this part of my desk…  I’ll keep you posted on how this turns out.  I have high hopes, esp after Burt’s Bees let me down.  Plus, it is nice to have space for a new PIW.  Oh, wait… that is my Christmas cards, yeah… that was only like 20 min of empty creative space.  I really should get better at actually DOING my projects not just gathering the stuff and letting it wait for a long time.

So, a few months ago I talked about my desire to a) not be stinky and b) not be stinky while also not using plastic and/or toxic stuff.  Well, the Burt’s Bees just isn’t what it claims to be.  I mean, it is okay, but not great.  So, I’m taking the leap– I’m going to make my own.  Probably tomorrow…

Also, I fully recognize that not everyone takes photos of their deodorant or the raw ingredients they’re going to use to make their own.  Um, well this is what I do.  I find it charming and I do hope you don’t think I’m too much of a nut…  This photo doesn’t include the baking soda or the corn starch but you all know what that stuff looks like, right?

I’m planning to use this recipe I found over at Angry Chicken (her granola turned out so well that I figure she’s good for a deodorant recipe too– I don’t know why that makes sense in my head but it does).

I’ll let you know how it turns out.  Part of me is skeptical, but I was skeptical before I went no ‘poo and that worked out really well.  Plus, it makes me feel like an awesome super girl if I can legitimately make my own deodorant.  I mean, that is hard core…

I know a few months ago I mentioned trying to have a green road trip… well, this weekend I headed down to Williamsburg, VA with some members of H*yas for Choice to attend a Planned Parenthood Student Organizing conference.  The conference was amazing and inspiring (I wrote about it over on my other blog) but I did spend the weekend using plastic (and a few other resources) like it was going out of style.

At home we’ve switched to these stainless steel straws and somehow that made me feel like seriously tuff environmental stuff.  Washing my straws?  Hell-oh hippy town.  However, this weekend there was nary a stainless steel straw in sight.

We rented an SUV (!) to drive the crew down, there were 5 of us and some concern about squeezing into my Civic.  I did, however, kind of want to say “suck it up.”  The SUV got horrible gas mileage, I spent like $120 on gas in two days/300 miles (I mean, I’ll be reimbursed but seriously?  That is a lot of money for gas).  No wonder Americans are complaining about money and gas prices.  That is an absurd amount… of course, if you bought an SUV then you can’t really claim to be surprised.

Plus, we ate fast-food most of the weekend, used plastic cups in our hotel room, and then drank a soda out of a bottle.  I found it weird, actually, that William & Mary didn’t have many water fountains around to re-fill my water bottle.  Maybe everyone there actually drinks bottled water?  Plus, I have this weird thing about drinking bathroom water.

Anyway, I felt seriously bad about my eco footprint this weekend.  I’ve been slipping in general lately– with the school year starting its been getting harder to find time to do things like grocery shop (so I’ve been buying lots of lunches), and my schedule is really weird this year (so I’ve been driving a lot).  This weekend seriously re-lit the fire under me though.