What would happen if the chain between farm and table were as transparent as the gas filled plastic tub that encloses the hamburger I got yesterday at the grocery?

I’d have to look at some fairly unpleasant facts..and first and foremost is that the true cost of that pound of protein is a lot more than the price on the tag.

Consider the following, random and relevant:

• Cows burp up more greenhouse gas than our cars.  And the 130 gallons of methane they produce as they chew their cuds traps 20 times as much heat in the atmosphere as CO2.
• Livestock production produces 18% of all greenhouse gases, more than all forms of transportation combined.  So if we cut down on the number of meat based dishes we eat each week, there will be less demand for cows, and we can help reduce greenhouse gases.
• Cows are ridiculously inefficient protein factories.  It takes 10 calories of energy to produce 1 calorie of beef.  All that energy is expended growing, fertilizing and transporting the grain that comprises the diet of factory farm raised beef.
• Switching to a diet that is mainly fruits and vegetables would be good for the planet, the pocketbook and the pants size.

But beef tastes good.

I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been at a ski mountain with a huge LL Bean bag filled with sandwiches and chips and fruit, and have decided to chuck it all in favor of $14 burgers–lured into the restaurant by the irresistible aroma of a half pound of juicy deliciousness being pressed into a sizzling grill.

So what’s the answer?

I am going to try to adopt a year of moderate changes, and drag the (cave)men I live with along.

For the past couple of years we’ve been having a meat free dinner one night a week, which we call Meatless Tuesday.  (The name came from a ditty sung by an overall-wearing flea in a Looney Tunes cartoon as he scampers around the obscenely large hair follicles of some animated hound dog).  Did I mention I live with men and only men?  And that those men can name any Looney Tunes cartoon in 3 notes?  But I digress.

So far I’ve been using cheese as a substitute for meat — and everyone is happily distracted by Putanesca sauce, swiss chard panini, veggie calzones and grilled red pepper sandwiches.  All of which are loaded to the brim with cheese.  Tasty, and really helpful in getting all those veggies safely down their gullets without complaint.

But if the goal is to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses by reducing livestock demand, how can increasing our dairy consumption be any better?

This weekend I am planning an experiment: vegetarian chili without the usual accouterments.  I’m hoping  some crushed tortilla chips as a garnish might distract everyone from the lack of cheese and sour cream.

And I’m thinking I better try this Saturday.  No way in hell the people I live with could possibly watch the Superbowl without a spicy, saucy bowl of chicken wings.  Balance?  Baby steps?

I would love, love, love to hear ideas for meals that are

• completely animal product free
• happily eaten by children
• economical

ok, ok…how about two out of three?

If the road to hell is actually paved with good intentions, I’m certainly on my way.

Hopefully, the coffee will be hot….

But now that I think about it, if it’s going to be my own personal hell, it will be from Starbucks.

And lukewarm.

Am I the only one Trying To Be Mindful, Trying to Do The Green Thing…and is totally paralyzed?

Every time I crack open the internet I am assaulted by proof that I will never be as lean, green and in tune with the world as I should be.  And I am constantly shamed by the plethora of wrong decisions I am making.

Take milk for example.

I have 5 sons.

I know I know, I am solely responsible for exploding the population, but it is too late to send them back (and frankly, I don’t think they’d fit).

We go through more than a gallon of skim milk a day.
I know, I know, cows in pens, mucus, hormones, PLASTIC BOTTLES…

But seriously. If I had a local, organic dairy deliver to my house it would be, what, 14 glass half gallon jugs a week? Where would they go? And who would rinse them out? And how would I pay for all that?

The economic truth is I buy the store brand. I hate to even pay for the special milk in the light-block-bottles. So not only am I polluting the environment, torturing cows and generating gobs of mucus, but I am robbing my children of essential nutrients that are killed by light.

I’d like to think I am doing my part? Making a difference?

I guess it could be worse. I could be going through that many 2 liter bottles of Pepsi in a week.

Help?

They say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

I am on track to be the incredible hulk: really strong and kinda green.

YOUR LIGHT BULBS

(jk)

Never in my life have I felt so patriotic.

To be a witness to history, to be poised at the beginning of something new, to be so hopeful for our country; I am an American and proud of it.

There was a moment after September 11th when President Bush had the empathy of the world in his hands. Instead of calling for shared national sacrifice, he took all that good will and threw it away on a war that will not end. I think often about where we would be as a country if Bush had taken Thomas Friedman’s advice and had set a floor to the price of gasoline with the excess going towards maintaining our aging infrastructure and developing new energy technologies. Instead, we had a housing bubble and dopey magazines like In Style a magazine about shopping.

I am certain that America is poised at another such moment, a moment when President Obama can call on us, and the world, to make the hard choices and the prudent investments, that will bring us peace and prosperity and a sustainable society.  Can we do it?  YES.  WE.  CAN.

I think the best line of President Obama’s speech was about “returning science to its rightful place”.

I would like to think this means that our scientists will again be able to guide and shape public policy, and to help us to do, as a country, what we need to do: lead the world toward a more sustainable future.

We will need to make sacrifices and hard decisions and I know I speak for many when I say,

We are fired up and ready to go!

I’ve got a green hangover this morning.

Last night we hosted the Concord High Alpine team for a pre-race pasta dinner. 20 athletes plus assorted parents, coaches and siblings.

I tried to be really green: no disposable plates or cutlery or cups or napkins.

Oh, and also no water in the kitchen. The pipes to the sink and dishwasher are frozen — so now all this has to be carried into the mud room and hand washed in the utility sink.  Just thinking about it makes my already chapped hands hurt.  We’ll see how those Skoy cloths hold up to all this.

Despite the extra work, it was really pretty easy to green the team dinner right up. I have about 40 plastic dinner plates that I have bought on sale over the years for outdoor barbecues. I’ve already mentioned my giant collection of metal forks from the Salvation Army Store, and unlike a recent meat loaf disaster, the pasta didn’t require a hacksaw knife to get it into bite sized pieces.  Last year I picked up about 20 packages of cloth napkins at the Company C tent sale (four for two bucks!) and I bought soda in cans (and wine in bottles).

I’m also feeling pretty good about all the money I didn’t spend. I am thinking it would have cost at least $20 to buy disposable products for that many people, more for cute stuff.

Still, and I know it’s wrong, but a tiny part of me wishes we had just filled a couple garbage bags with paper plates and paper napkins and plastic forks and plastic cups, and had gone to bed with a spotless kitchen.

Greetings from New Hampshire.

Is it just us, or do you find it odd that the morning talk shows make a big fuss about the weather in the Northeast? This morning Matt Lauer was obsessing about the cold air swooping down from Canada.

Isn’t it winter?

Shouldn’t we savor the cold since global warming is going to turn NH into NJ and then NC?

I’m going to keep this photo around. Maybe all the white will help remind me to be green.

One good thing about starting GreenPoma.com is that I never again have to feel guilty about trolling the internet looking for interesting stuff.  It’s not surfing, it’s Important Research.

Squirrel feet earrings aside, I am now totally addicted to looking at all the projects posted on the blog at Craft Magazine.

There are some seriously crafty people out there.

I came across these bulb vases and thought they’d be a nice addition to the underside of the large market unbrellas we have on the patio in the summer.  Summer?  What are summer?  Oh, right, the time of year when I don’t always have to wear a down vest inside the house.

Anyway Victoria Peterson gives an easy (and mostly power-tool free) tutorial on how to make these charming vases at craftershock.com.

Back in the day, new businesses would take the first dollar and tack it to the wall behind the cash register.

What’s an e-commerce entrepreneur to do when they finally receive their first cyber-order?

Simple:

1. Snap a photo of Our Founder with the camera function on my Blackberry
2. E-mail it to myself
3. Open outlook and upload the jpeg
4. Tweak the heck out of it
5. Import it to my photo gallery
6. Open a new post in Wordpress
7. Switch the edit mode to HTML
8. Browse my computer for the image
9. Realize that I forgot to rename the photo to something other than a number.jpeg
10. Swear
11. Reopen the photo gallery and rename the photo: order packin petey
12. Resave the image with new name
13. Go back to Wordpress
14. Upload the image
15. Write the post
16. Publish the post.

Yes, I agree, computers make everything easier.

The Skoy cloths arrived from an E-Bay store, The Healthy Cottage, and my snap judgement (typically wrong) is that they are decidedly odd. Hyped by a bunch of green bloggers, Skoy is supposed to be the environmentally friendly alternative to paper towels. Allegedly each cloth replaces 15 rolls of paper towels.  I buy used to buy 2 rolls of the Seventh Generation brand a week for $3.00 so the 15 rolls would be $22.50, and the skoys were 3 bucks each.  Green and cheap?  Is that even possible?

Well…….

First of all they are kind of small, about 7 inches square. B: They have to be wet to work, which to my tiny brain seems counter-intuitive. That they are wet and floppy just adds to my perception that they are a new generation of the dreaded, ever-smelly Handi-wipes that my mother always had draped over the faucet in our 1970s kitchen. So I keep using them as a sponge and not as a paper towel.  and 4:  they are kind of clammy feeling.  I am so the old dog.

At least they are cute.

More once the stranger danger wears off…..

I think it was Maya Angelou who said “when we knew better, we did better”.

Over the past several months I have become increasingly aware of my oblivious spending and consuming habits and my sincere need to get a grip. Cushioned by my husband’s fairly well compensated corporate job, I’ve shopped my way through the past couple of decades with hardly a thought for the environment and my personal impact on the planet. Well those days are over. We are no longer getting the corporate paycheck, we are starting a new business and every time I hear that our ski seasons are getting shorter, and the sugar maples are retreating to Canada, I get a guilty twinge. It’s time for my Marcia Brady Eco Make-over.

Here are a couple of cringe inducing habits that I pledge to break in the new year:

Rewarding The Littles for behaving in the grocery store by taking them to the dollar store. The cheap plastic crap they buy last about an hour before breaking, and spend eternity in the landfill. Over the past five years I bet I’ve spent $600. Not a fortune, but sheesh.

Using paper towels for everything. And I mean everything. I ‘ve been known to pull them off the roll in an arc that looks like the ribbons those Chinese gymnasts use.  About six months ago I switched to the 100% post consumer recycled content ones from Seventh Generation but I am trying to slowly wean my family off the whole concept of paper towels.  I have plenty of dish towels.  Peter seems especially reluctant to give up the paper but since he’s been banned from doing the laundry since 1989 (bras+bleach=ban) I’m not sure why he cares.

Lunches with individual everything.  For years I was content to send in the money and have them get school lunch every day.  I figured it was far more efficient to pay the school for the food they were going to throw out rather than going through the whole shop, schlep, pack and toss routine.  Then I was invited to have lunch with one of my kids in the Kimball School cafeteria.  And they were eating BATMAN PIZZA POCKETS.  The hell kind of lunch is that?  So I started packing.  I got some reusable sandwich boxes but that was really just to keep the sammies unsquished, not for any concern for the daily garbage tally.  Every day I have been stuffing Little Debbies and juice boxes and baggies into their boxes and bags.  In 2009 we are going wax paper and Sigg.  At least until the Sigg bottles disappear.

I am stopping this list now; not because I can’t or won’t or shouldn’t do more, but this time I’d like to have a shot at keeping a resolution list intact past January 10th, my previous personal record, for  completely unrealistic resolutions like not having wine with dinner during the week, or exercising daily or other such nonsense.