Alternative Meats & Sweets

Other than veggie burgers (which are better than you think, depending on the brand) I have found some other products that make going vegetarian/vegan much easier, and tastier. One such product is by Gardein, which makes good veggie burgers and other meaty options. It is their 7 Grain Crispy Tenders, as pictured below, found in the frozen aisle. Their other products are just as yummy.

Other than packaged, pre-made food, a tasty option to keep your tastebuds happy is popsicles. You can either buy some, as pictured below, or make your own if you have a popsicle maker like I do.

Here is my current favorite cereal, with no bad ingredients. I didn't find them on the "Great Wall of Cereal" where you find sugar-packed options like Captain Crunch or aspartame-filled Fiber One (which I was very disappointed by). Y ousho p,re yoush op,re you shop, but at my Meijer I found them facing opposite the Great Wall of Cereal, in the itty bitty healthy section.

Here's a really great oatmeal that's got better ingredients than your average oatmeal. In fact, this one is "raw" oats (no difference in cooking) and it tastes great with maple syrup or agave nectar swirled in. But any steel cut oats are good, too, and Irish Oatmeal can help you fall asleep/stay asleep.

Speaking of sleeping well, a couple tablespoons of almond butter will make you feel like you had a more restful sleep.

Here's a great on-the-go option for those who like applesauce, made with no refined sugar and other pesky ingredients.

This is another great snack option, the Kashi granola bars, also without harmful ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, which is a modified sugar (and when in need of sugar one should turn to raw, unprocessed sugar like raw cane sugar or raw coconut sugar).

Or, you can turn to Stevia for your sugar needs. This is the brand I use, Pyure. Stevia is made from leaves.

You just won't know if you like the alternative options until you go out and try them!

My garden

I thought I would share pictures of my garden today, since we recently made it bigger. Here are before pics:

And here are after pics:

In the first photos you can see Brussels sprouts, which didn't end up forming until winter for some reason, tomato plants, rosemary and basil, although we also had oregano, strawberry plants, leeks, cabbage, eggplant, onions and peppers. This year we tore up the yard to make the garden go around the deck so that we could plant more tomato plants, Swiss chard, kale, two kinds of lettuce, cilantro, sage, purple and green basil, and some marigolds to keep the bugs away (although the moles are still here). I also plant some flowers around the house every year. This year I bought lavender so that I can try some recipes that call for it, some catmint to make essential oil and lip scrub out of, some primroses, dianthus, and carnations.

Now, last year was out first attempt at a garden so I am still a novice at gardening, but I can tell you the tomato plants came in real handy for making my own sauce, and the herbs were nice to add to dishes like my mom's Italian mozarella and tomato salad. Now that I've been adding Swiss chard to my pasta dishes, that will be nice, as well as kale, which I can make kale chips out of. I got those last two plants from the local farmer's market.

Anyway, taking care of a garden is really not that hard, you just have to water it every night (not during the day, or the plant will kind of burn) especially when the plants are still little. Trim the weeds, plant everything about a foot apart, sometimes more, then enjoy.

No Impact Man

My husband and I just got done watching the documentary movie "No Impact Man." We learned some stuff and enjoyed it until the end. There's lots of things we're now inspired to do, such as create a compost pile in the back yard (and I do love worms), make our own toothpaste and laundry detergent, shop locally for food, etc. I guess the big point of the movie was that one person's change can spur lots of change in others. It's all about environmental change, what we can do to stop contributing to the damages being done to the planet. So now I am going to research how to make my own home more sustainable and what I can do to benefit the planet (as well as what I do that hurts it). So far I have been recycling everything I can, reusing glass jars, growing a garden, and I switched my cat litter over to corn and pine based instead of carbon clay based (yes, your pets have a carbon footprint as well). My husband threw a fit about it when I switched around a year ago, but now he doesn't complain at all, and the cats can't tell the difference. This new litter can even be put in compost, although I am still learning if that's a good idea because of pathogens. Oh, and we also stopped eating meat, which as I've blogged about before, the world of meat is one of the leading causes of greenhouse gas emissions.

Anyways, there's a ton of stuff you can do to get started. Little things like switching lightbulbs, buying recycled products or recycling yourself, reusing things like glass jars and plastic or paper bags (but better yet, getting rid of plastic altogether), vowing to never buy paper plates, stocking up on cloth shopping bags, collecting rainwater, growing a garden, starting a compost bin, or even giving up meat.

Doing something like giving up meat or recycling is a lot like losing weight. In order to stick with it without it feeling like a burden, you need to feel completely sure that what you're doing is the best thing for you, that it only has benefits, and that you really want it. The more you want it, the more you know about its benefits, the easier it will be. And once you get going and it becomes easier, it will become second nature and you won't feel deprived. But everyone has their limits. For me, I would not be able to go without my computer/the internet. But I am still convinced that the number one reason people in general can't start being more sustainable and eco-friendly, and even healthier, is because of a severe lack of information. Therefore I hope to share as much information as I can get my hands on.

For those of you who want to know more, here is the blog: http://noimpactman.typepad.com/
And here is the project website: http://noimpactproject.org/

Homework

Go make yourself a smoothie! Put whatever you want in it. Let me know how it goes.