About a month or so ago, we saw Food Inc, an incredibly eye opening documentary about the food industry and its harmful effects to our health and the environment.  It was so eye opening, I thought I should turn vegetarian.  Unfortunately, I don’t really think I can completely give up steaks, burgers and bolognese, so instead our family will join the Meatless Monday movement.

If you haven’t heard of Meatless Monday, Wikipedia describes it as an international campaign that encourages people to cut meat on Mondays to improve their health and the health of the planet. Reducing meat consumption by 15% (the equivalent of one day a week) lessens the risk of chronic preventable illness AND lowers greenhouse emissions as dramatically as every American switching to an ultra efficient hybrid vehicle.  Did you know that raising livestock for food is one of the largest contributors to global warming, accounting for 20 percent of man-made greenhouses gases emitted each year?  That statistic kinda blew me away.

If cutting meat out even for just one day seems daunting, may I suggest just tweaking the way you approach it… make Mondays a fun adventure into another country’s cuisine, for example.  Many ethnic cuisines such as Mexican, Thai, Chinese and Indian offer vegetarian dishes as a standard not as an option or afterthought.  I think the strong flavors make these dishes just as satisfying as eating meat.  I for one, am very excited about where Mondays will be taking us!

One last incentive, if improving your health and the environment is not enough that is… veggies are cheaper too!  For recipes and cooking information, check out the Meatless Monday site. This Monday’s dinner comes from The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook (by Jack Bishop) Crostini with Oven–Roasted Mushrooms and Baked Ziti with Tomatoes, Basil and Mozzarella… yummy!  So who’s on board?

Summer is just around the corner and for most of us, this translates to having the AC on auto 24/7, which is not as bad as just having it on full blast 24/7.  But still, the electric bill is bound to reach the triple digits!  So here’s an idea to offset our increased usage of valuable energy, let’s switch as many of our household light bulbs to compact fluorescent light bulbs (aka CFLs).  Here are some benefits:

• CFL’s use 50-80% less energy than incandescent bulbs.
• CFL’s last up to 10 times longer than incandescents.
• CFL’s produce about 75% less heat, so they’re safer to operate and can cut energy costs associated with home cooling.  So see, your AC may not be on as much!
• Replacing one incandescent bulb with a CFL will keep half-ton of CO2 out of the atmosphere over the life of the bulb.  If everyone in the U.S. used energy efficient lighting, we could retire 90 average sized power plants.
• CFL’s can be applied nearly anywhere that incandescent lights are used.  There are many types and shapes available now depending on the type of application.  Just make sure to read the labels.

Now, it may cost a little more to purchase CFL’s initially, but they last so much longer and the energy savings make them well worth it.  Ikea, I believe has them for less than most stores and you can dispose of your burned-out bulbs there too… in a few years!

This is easy, so let’s all do it!

I don’t know about you guys, but right now, I have a pile about a foot and a half high of catalogs I need to go through.  You know, while I am riding the exercise bike, while I am watching my favorite cooking show, while I am chatting with my 5 year-old!  It’s been in the same place for over a month growing roots, growing taller.  Did I subscribe to all of these?

Maybe a few, but many I’ve never even heard of, and they send stuff every month.  Not only do they clutter up the house, they are cluttering up my head because I feel the need to peruse them or something, adding one more thing on the To-Do list!  And come to think of it, with the times being as they are, do I really need to be buying more things I don’t even need?  That’s it, off to the recycling bin they go right now and I am stopping the madness… if you are experiencing the same, please join me?

So check out this website, www.catalogchoice.org, they will help us reduce the number of repeat and unsolicited catalog mailings cluttering our mailboxes (and lives) and impacting our natural resources.  They will contact the catalog providers and request that our name be removed from their mailing lists.  And they will do this for free.  It might take 10 weeks to see results so be patient.  Make sure to book mark it so, you can go back and unsubscribe to new catalogs if you get them.

Let’s do this today or this week then email everyone you know all month.  How about take it a step further and show your community how easy it is to reduce waste.  Catalog Choice has created a downloadable flyer that we can post at our local coffee shop, workplace, school or anywhere there’s a community message board.  Download the flyer here.

There will be 2 Olympic Villages: one in Vancouver’s Southeast False Creek area (Vancouver Olympic and Paralympic Village), and the other one within the scenic Cheakamus Valley (Whistler Olympic and Paralympic Village).  These have been built to LEED Gold standard and the community center will be built to LEED Platinum.  The buildings will be fitted with solar panels and feature green roofs. For irrigation of the green roofs and landscaping, rain water will be harvested.  In-slab hydronic system will also be used for heating and cooling of the buildings, and the latent heat of sewer pipes will be harnessed by an innovative heat exchange system.

For more detailed info on how the 2010 Vancouver Olympics is showing what positive things can be done for our environment, (and to keep up on the latest Olympic news and medals count) follow this link : http://www.vancouver2010.com/sustainability/

This month, let’s start bringing our own reusable bags when we shop at the grocery stores and the mall even.  Why?  Because an estimated four billion plastic bags end up in the landfills.  And do you know how long it takes for a plastic bag to decompose?  Up to 1,000 years.  As far as paper bags, while some use partially recycled paper, many are still made with well… freshly chopped trees!  Enough said?

I just keep the bags in the car, so I have it when I end up at the store.  Most grocery stores have cloth bags available for purchase and some give you a few cents off your total when you use them.  What I also try to do is use the bag as my shopping cart and just buy what would fit in one or two bag(s), because God only knows how much rotten produce I’ve thrown away!  Anyway, I would love to hear how well you do with this, so share, okay?

P.S.  Just in case you feel weird going to Nordstroms with a Ralph’s bag, we designed our own and are offering them below our cost.  Not trying to make money, just a difference.