January 2020 – An Environmental Call to Action
By Kim Schwenk
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The statistics can be overwhelming. Scientists continue to study the effects of climate change and the media reports daily on pollution, extinction, mass migration, and the myriad ways humans are destroying the planet. Given the dismal reality, it can be tempting to throw our hands up and assume we can’t do anything to improve the situation.
But that’s where I hope we are wrong. While the most dramatic changes will need to take place on corporate and governmental scales, there are a number of ways the average person can make his or her daily routine more eco-friendly, with simple day-to-day actions.
The Harvest Moon will present articles like this one with ideas for actions we all can undertake to play a more active role in helping the environment. Start today.
Pick one thing, and start today.
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Action 1: Scale Back Vehicle Use
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Living in rural America means that many of us are very tied to our cars. Unless we live right in town, biking and walking to and from our errands is not really an option. We have little or no public transportation options. We often own AT LEAST 2 cars so that everyone can get to work, to school, to events. We own tractors, 4 wheelers, and trailers. The crops need to be planted, hay moved, firewood hauled in. What are country folk to do? How can we scale back on our vehicle use? This may be one of the more difficult challenges people living in the country contemplate in the coming days, months, years, but there are some choices to consider.
1~ Buy your next vehicle (new or used) looking for those that are smaller, offer better gas mileage and/or emit less pollution.
2~ Buy used when possible. Get the maximum amount of use out of everything being produced.
3~ Minimize the amount of time your car idles. Turn the car off when waiting to pick someone up. Don’t go through the drive through. Park and walk in. Try and select times to drive when there is less traffic on the road.
4~ Find a commuter buddy or two or three. Carpool. Carpool. Carpool. It takes a little effort to find these buddies and work out the details, but carpooling can have a big impact on reducing emissions. www.ridesolutions.org/
5~ Combine your driving errands. Take one big trip, but less often, to pick up groceries, prescriptions, hardware store items, tire rotations, make a delivery for Plenty!, etc. Surprisingly, taking multiple trips starting from a cold engine can use twice as much fuel as one longer trip with a warm engine.
6~ When and if possible, work closer to home.
7~ For the bravest of heart, consider car sharing or car renting. Car renting is becoming a very popular choice in areas of Europe where taxes on car ownership are astronomical (in an effort to promote public transportation) and where there is only one insurance company, the government (making liability issues a bit easier to manage). Imagine sharing the cost of a car or a tractor: only ½ to buy, ½ the insurance, ½ the taxes, ½ the repairs. Don’t buy a wood splitter, co-rent one with a friend over a long weekend. Split 2-3 years of firewood at one time. Or, as a friend of mine does, split all your wood by hand; he says it keeps him strong and in shape. As farfetched as these ideas may sound today, I think their popularity will grow in the not so distant future. No matter how well you know a potential vehicle sharing partner (yes, even your brother-in-law), and no matter how much you trust them, it is always advisable to write these types of arrangements down in a contract which all parties sign.
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Action 2: Reduce Food Waste
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Everyone’s talking about how much food Americans eat, but we hear less about how much food Americans waste. In the United States, we throw out about 40 percent of our food every year. In fact, the amount of global food waste produced each year is more than enough to feed the nearly 1 billion hungry people in the world.
Instead of filling empty plates, that wasted food usually ends up in landfills and eventually turns into a destructive greenhouse gas called methane. What’s more, wasting food means squandering the resources (like water and energy) that went into the production of that food. Luckily there are many easy ways to be more careful about our consumption and reduce the amount of food waste we produce on a daily basis.
1~ Track the food you throw away each week. Look for patterns of waste, and tweak your shopping habits accordingly.
2~ Start composting – recycling nutrients back into the ecosystem. It’s easy, not messy, and it doesn’t stink! Better than throwing food in the trash with a landfill being its final resting place, compost it. Here is an easy and inexpensive compost bin system. lovelygreens.com/easy-wooden-compost-bin-using-pallets/. At our house we built 3 side-by-side rotational compost bins using pallets: one to dump fresh waste into, a fully filled bin that is composting, and one to pull fully composted matter from to be used on the garden. This allowed for fewer pallets to be needed as they shared inner sides.
Don’t have the time, knowledge, tools or strength to build a compost bin? An older friend of mine buries her compost directly into her garden. Yep. She digs a hole in her garden, pours in a bucket of compost, covers it up and let’s nature do the rest. When there is a will, there is a way.
3~ Eat as much of everything you buy or grow as possible. Fruit and vegetable skins have a lot of vitamins and fiber. Stop peeling your potatoes, carrots, apples, etc. Eat those peels. They taste good, and they are good for you. Stems and leaves are your friend. Cook and eat those broccoli stems; they are tender and delicious. Celery leaves? Use them just like you would the stalk. Eat it all!
Are you a hunter? Do you buy a beef, pork, or chicken share? Don’t let anything go to waste. If you don’t like to eat the heart, tongue and organ meats, feed them to your dogs and cats. They will love it and you! Ask the butcher for all the bones you can get, and set out to make your family’s annual supply of bone broth. Did someone say chicken feet? They too are great for eating and making broth because they contain LOTS of collagen which helps your hair, skin elasticity, and nails.
4~ Donate your surplus food: eggs, milk, garden veggies, deer meat, etc. to local food banks such as Plenty! There are families right here in Floyd County who can make good use of your extra food.
5~ Learn to love leftovers; never throw them away. Get creative with your leftovers making soups, casseroles, or quiches. Our family is busiest during the week, and usually we are able to avoid preparing a full meal once or twice a week by having ‘left over nights’. Everything comes out of the fridge, and we all eat buffet style mixing and matching to our hearts content.
6~ What about those expiration dates? Sell by….Use by….Best by……Expires on….. There are so many dates, and it is not always clear what they mean. Most of them have to do with degree of freshness and product quality because manufacturers want you to know that you are eating their food at its peak. This may or may not always be possible. While you definitely don’t want to eat any food that smells rancid, tastes rancid, comes from a swollen can, is sporting a fine layer of fuzzy green mold, or has an expiration date of September 2002, there are many foods that have lives well beyond their expiration dates. Use common sense, good judgment and your nose. Non-dairy condiments can last a long time. Eggs too. Dried pasta, beans, and rice have a long shelf life. Be sure to put your fridge and freezer groceries away as soon as you get home to preserve and extend freshness. Keeping other items in the fridge or freezer will also extend their life, such as flours, coffee beans (www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/shopping-storing/beverages/store-coffee-pantry-vs-freezer), maple syrup, etc.
7~ Become a food waste advocate. Talk with your grocers about what they do with their ‘food wastes’, out of season and newly out of date products. Ask if they are donating these items to local food banks, homeless shelters, and to their own employees. If they don’t, ask them to consider doing it. There are many grocers who are moving beyond their liability fears in order to reduce waste and help others. Make sure the stores where you spend your money are behaving as good global stewards.
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Action 3: Use Less Packaging
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The bad news first: Food packaging makes up almost two thirds of total packaging waste in the United States. (All those cheese stick wrappers and yogurt containers!). That means a whole lot of waste ending up in landfills, which means more methane released into the air. The good news is that many companies are becoming more aware of how much food packaging they use and taking steps to reduce it (edible wrappers, anyone?). Individuals can help too! Check out the tips below to see how you can cut down on your packaging use pronto.
1~ Have coffee cup, will travel. Carry your own cup and stop using the disposable variety. There are many coffee shops, stores, gas stations that charge you less when you bring your own cup. It’s a win/win.
2~ Start an environmental ‘travel’ kit: cups, eating utensils, cloth napkins, and metal or bamboo straws—all the things you might need in the car to help you prevent using disposable items in the heat of the moment.
3~ Buy in bulk. The bulk bins at the Harvest Moon are filled from 10# bags of candy, 25# bags of rice and 50# bags of oats. Any one of these bags uses less packing material than 5 individual-sized comparable products. There are dozens of products you can buy in bulk: coffee, tea, spices, nuts, grains, flours, and the list goes on. Take advantage of this simple but effective option.
4~ Go ‘naked’ whenever possible. Look for products with minimal to no packaging materials when you shop. Also keep your eye out for packaging made from recycled materials. Buy your fruits and veggies naked, no packaging required. Be sure to recycle all the cardboard, aluminum and plastic packaging materials you do purchase.
5~ Reuse and repurpose. We’ve heard these words for years, and now it is time to get down to business. Save those 9# bulk peanut butter containers. They make great compost bins in the kitchen. Save those glass jars from pasta, spices, jelly and other condiments. They are great for storing many of your bulk food purchases: spices, rice, nuts, candy, etc.
6~ Donate your excess packing materials. Bubble wrap, packing peanuts, brown paper. Don’t throw them away. Find a friend, a local artist maybe, a small local business who ships some of their products. We have people in our community who can use these materials. Find them and reuse your packing materials.
7~ Become a packaging reduction advocate. Think about the brands you buy regularly. Contact those manufacturers and share your love of their products, and also your concern about too much throw away packaging. Imagine bulk shampoo. Imagine cardboard made without toxic glues and colorants so that we can use them as mulch in our gardens. Imagine packaging you can throw in your compost bin to decompose. Imagine………and ask. www.thinkstep.com/blog/top-9-sustainable-packaging-trends-2019
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If each of us acts thoughtfully on a local level, we can and will have an impact beyond our own front door. We can find ways to use less, waste Iess and still enjoy the pleasures in life. We can recycle, compost, stop using one-time throw away products and still find pleasures in life. We can begin to think and act differently about our vehicle usage and still find pleasures in life. I urge you to join in this call to environmental action. Start where you are with what you have, but start today.
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No Waste Cleaning Product
It Works!
Let 2020 be a year of big environmental changes for the better. Look for and implement ways to create less waste. Make a goal to replace 1 packaged product (cleaning supplies?) or 1 bad habit (using plastic grocery bags) in an effort to reduce your personal footprint. Make 1 attainable goal for the year, the quarter, or better yet, for each month; whichever option/s you can really make happen. The time for action is now.
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We would love to hear how you and your family are making changes to help the environment.
What has worked? What doesn’t work?
Please send any ideas, suggestions stories to us so that we may share them with our larger Floyd Community.
Send to: Kim at HarvestMoonFoodStore@swva.net.
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Sautéed Shrimp with Mango Salsa &
Coconut Cauliflower Rice
Easy. Healthy. Delicious.
Source: EatingWell.com, November 2017
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Total: 45 mins
Servings: 4
Nutrition Profile:
Dairy-Free
Nut-Free
Gluten-Free
Healthy Immunity
Low Sodium
Egg Free
Soy-Free
Healthy Aging
High Fiber
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Ingredients
1 large mango, chopped
1 avocado, chopped
½ cup chopped red bell pepper
1 medium jalapeno, finely chopped
1 scallion sliced
3 tbsp. chopped cilantro
3 tbsp. liquid coconut oil, divided
1 ½ tsp. lime juice, plus wedges for serving
½ tsp salt divided
4 cups cauliflower florets
6 tbsp. coconut milk (or reduced fat coconut milk if preferred)
2 tbsp. toasted unsweetened coconut flakes
1 lb. raw shrimp (16-20 count) peeled and deveined
½ tsp chili powder
½ tsp ground cumin
Directions
Step 1
Combine mango, avocado, bell pepper, jalapeño, scallion, cilantro, 1 tablespoon oil, lime juice and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a medium bowl.
Step 2
Place cauliflower in a food processor. Pulse until chopped into rice-size pieces.
Step 3
Heat 1 tablespoon oil, coconut milk and the remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the cauliflower and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl and stir in coconut flakes. Wipe out the pan.
Step 4
Toss shrimp with chili powder and cumin. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon oil and the shrimp to the pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until just cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes. Serve the shrimp and cauliflower rice with the salsa.
Nutrition Facts Per Serving:
387 calories; 21.6 g total fat; 183 mg cholesterol; 485 mg sodium. 25.8 g carbohydrates; 27.5 g protein
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Mexican Cabbage Soup
Craving something warm, healthy and filling?
Give this delicious soup a try.
Source: EatingWell Magazine, Soup Cookbook
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Total: 20 mins
Servings: 8
Nutrition Profile:
Dairy-Free
Nut-Free
Gluten-Free
High Fiber
Vegetarian
Egg Free
Soy-Free
Healthy Immunity
Vegan
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Ingredients
2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 cups chopped onions
1 cup chopped carrot
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped poblano or green bell pepper
4 large cloves garlic, minced
8 cups sliced cabbage
1 tbsp. tomato paste
1 tbsp. minced chipotle chiles
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground coriander
4 cups veggie-broth or chicken broth
4 cups water
15 ounces (2 cans) pinto or black beans, rinsed
¾ tsp salt
½ cup chopped fresh cilantro, plus more for serving
2 tbsp. lime juice
Crumbled queso fresco, nonfat plain yogurt and/or diced avocado for garnish
Directions
Step 1
Heat oil in a large soup pot (8-quart or larger) over medium heat. Add onions, carrot, celery, poblano (or bell pepper) and garlic; cook, stirring frequently, until softened, 10 to 12 minutes. Add cabbage; cook, stirring occasionally, until slightly softened, about 10 minutes more. Add tomato paste, chipotle, cumin and coriander; cook, stirring, for 1 minute more.
Step 2
Add broth, water, beans and salt. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, until the vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in cilantro and lime juice. Serve garnished with cheese, yogurt and/or avocado, if desired.
Nutrition Facts
Per Serving:
167 calories; 3.8 g total fat; 408 mg sodium. 27.1 g carbohydrates; 6.5 g protein
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DURING DECEMBER
We want to be YOUR store. Please let us know if there is something we don’t have that you want, and we will do our best to get it in!
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