I promised more posts spawned from my summer reading of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and I’m sorry it’s taken me so long. I have a notebook full of notes and am getting around to pushing them through the blog machine to get to you.

Cooking at home seems to be a dying art. Even ‘foodies’ often have a schedule that is too busy for a meal cooked at home. Parents are leaning more on pre-made, processed food instead of cooking for their families. When I was growing up, we ate together. Even with a single parent, and 3 kids in high school we ate together most nights. I think that had a big impact on my relationship with my family. It was in those times that we talked about life (and laughed until our stomachs hurt). My two sisters and I learned how to sit at a table and have conversations about our lives. We were taught (much to our shegrin at the time) that mealtime is not to be interrupted by the telephone, television or any other activity. It was an activity in and of itself.

Even in my own life, that is not the case anymore. Too often, I grab a meal and eat it on the run. Or Mollie and I will have dinner while watching a movie. It so easily can turn into a regular occurence. Mollie and I do deliberately eat most meals together and I really enjoy that. We have implemented some of the things that Barbara Kingsolver writes about (page 128) in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Her list (with my comments) is below.

• Cooking can be fun – Especially if you make it fun. Cooking can be a chore, but it doesn’t have to be.
• Rely on variations of simple recipes – There are tons of variations of a cooked protein with vegetables. Get a cook book and explore. Mollie and I make our weekly menu on Sunday for the upcoming week. We both grab a cookbook and have to choose something new. It helps keep us out of ruts.
• Save labor intensive (lots of prep) recipes for the weekend – My sister and her husband often use their weekends to prepare lunch foods for the week. They cook up a bunch of roasted veggies, or a soup that they can then use the rest of the week.
• Start a routine – We have a history of making homemade pizza on Fridays. It takes Friday off the dinner menu each week.
• Invite others to join in – For help and also to learn from them – The times that I have learned about cooking is when I have cooked with other people who know a lot more about cooking than I do. Either I was invited to cook with them, or I asked them to cook with me. Either way I always have an open ear to learn some new technique or recipe.
• Cooking at home will be more healthy – You have control over every ingredient that you put in your meal. You also are in control of portion size.
• Significantly cheaper – Once you are set up with basic ingredients in your pantry, home cooking is definitely a money saver. You can have a great (and healthy) meal that feeds a family of four for under $20 (probably under $10). You can’t get that at a restaurant (fast ‘food’ definitely doesn’t count).
• Buy whole foods (produce, meat) – Instead of buying boneless/skinless chicken breasts, buy a whole chicken. With a sharp knife you can turn that whole chicken into 2 breasts, 2 thighs, 2 legs, 2 wings, and a carcass that makes a mean chicken stock. To add to the cheaper point, organic free range boneless skinless chicken breast runs about $4.99/lb (at Trader Joes) and a organic free range whole fryer costs about $1.99/lb. So for the price you pay for 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (usually $6-$8) you can get at least one whole chicken. That whole chicken yields at least one (probably two) more meals.
• It builds family relationships – Like I mentioned earlier, families are built around the kitchen table.
• Teaches children manners and life skills – Because of family meals, I learned how to set the table, how to wash dishes, how to cook, how to shop for groceries, how to have a conversation and most of all to be involved with other people around me.

Apple unveiled it’s new campaign to promote it’s new line of laptop computers. They call it the greenest notebook Apple has ever created. They have also released their Environmental Report for 2008 which outlines and gives environmental information about their products and facilities.

Some highlights about the new line of MacBooks and MacBook Pro laptops (information provided by Apple).

• Arsenic-free glass
• Mercury-free LED-backlit display
• Brominated flame retardant-free internal components
• PVC-free internal cables
• Highly recyclable aluminum and glass enclosure
• Up to 41 percent smaller packaging

Apple has taken a lot of heat over it’s environmental practices in the past. A couple of years ago they pledged to remove PVC and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from all of their products by the end of 2008. CEO Steve Jobs says that they are on track to meet their goals.

It’s pretty cool when a company that has as much attention and mindshare as Apple makes these claims and then meets the goals they’ve laid out. This, along with many other reasons, is why our household is committed to buying Apple products.

The Seattle City Council approved a proposal (by a 6-1 margin) that will charge shoppers 20 cents for each plastic shopping bag they use. This is great news. The fee will go into effect in January.

Opponents of this proposal have said that it taxes those who cannot afford to purchase reusable bags. So to alleviate that cost, the city of Seattle will distribute reusable paper bags to all residents, also giving lower income residents additional bags to use.

The council also passed a ban on plastic foam food containers that is a two-phase project. The first phase will address take out containers and it will take effect in January as well. Restaurants will not be allowed to use plastic foam in their takeout containers. The second phase will take effect July 2010 and focuses on all plastic food containers and utensils. Businesses will be able to use only recyclable or biodegradable products for their food containers.

I’m glad to see that our city is taking steps to reduce the unnecessary waste produced by convenience. If you live in a place that is using plastic bags and you feel like you want to make changes to that, Bring Your Own Bag is a great organization that is fighting for that. They also recently posted to their blog specifically addressing the situation in North America.

So I just finished “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver, Steven Hopp and Camille Kingsolver. What a good book. It talks about their year spent on their farm in Virginia as “locavores”, that is people who are committed to eating locally. In their case, they planned on planting produce as well as raising livestock.

The story is woven beautifully by the very accomplished Kingsolver (author of the highly recommended but never read “Poisonwood Bible”). But the best thing about the book is the approachable way that she, and her family, discuss their reasons along with their results. A lot of their experiences and information that they report in the book has inspired me and influenced me.

Since Mollie began volunteering at Erewhon Farm, she and I have become increasingly interested in local and organic food. Mollie has really spurred me to think about where our food comes from and why it’s important. Recently we’ve watched some documentaries, read articles and books, it’s very clear that what we eat matters to our bodies, our communities, our economy and our planet.

I plan on writing a series of posts about food, why it matters and small changes we can all make to improve our diets, strengthen our communities and care for our planet.

Hello everyone, I just wanted to let you know that we’re still here, we’ve been traveling this summer. It’s provided us with a lot of different perspectives. Going to other places in our world helps us see our home in a different light, but also learn new and different things about the world.

It’s also allowed us time to slow down, and read for pleasure. I’m reading through Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” which a great read so far. Super informative and had me thinking of a bunch of posts. So keep your eyes peeled for those.

I hope everyone is having a great summer.

I’m happy to say that our hometown Seattle Mariners are doing their part in efforts to take responsibility for the carbon emissions related to their operations. This takes into account travel (for teams, umpires, fans and all people involved), electrical and natural gas resources used in operating the stadium, and all waste produced from the game.

To celebrate Earth Day on Tuesday the Mariners are going to partner with Cedar Grove Composting to stage the first ever carbon neutral Major League Baseball game. To accomplish this, the Mariners are going to purchase carbon offsets from NativeEnergy to account for the 230 short tons of carbon-dioxide produced at a Major League Baseball game.

As we all know carbon offsets are not the answer. Well, the Mariners agree with that too. Mariners chairman and CEO Howard Lincoln says., “we know that just buying carbon offsets isn’t enough”. The Mariners lead the charge in sustainability and conservation in Major League Baseball. They’re one of two teams who composts their food waste. They compost about 100 tons of food waste per season. Last year alone the Mariners recycled “342 tons of plastic bottles, paper, cardboard, cans and glass”. They have also made steps to reduce their consumption of electricity and natural gas (18 and 36 percent respectively).

Apparently there are also going to be many local and national organizations on hand to provide information about conservation and environmental responsibility. We won’t be able to make it to the game on Tuesday, but would love to hear about it from anyone who does make it out to the ball game.

image courtesy of kixandthecity.com

Last night Phoenix Suns guard Steve Nash debuted his new shoes. This time his Nike’s were a little different. They were made from scraps from other basketball shoes. I know that Nike has long been the bad guy in the world of footwear due to labor and environmental practices, but let’s give credit where credit is due. Nike has recently made a move towards more global responsibility and is now making the Nike Trash Talk which is the shoe model made from scrap material that is based off of their already popular Nike Zoom BB II model.

Nike footwear designer, Kasey Jarvis said: ‘I was really looking for a ‘here and now’ solution to footwear waste, and creating a performance product using waste materials felt like a very innovative solution. Using Nike’s Considered design ethos I was able to create a shoe that stands up to the stringent on-court performance requirements but is also more environmentally friendly.’

Steve Nash has been involved with environmental issues for a long time. It’s really great to see that he is taking that concern to his shoe company and that they are utilizing the waste that they create, and are making it usable. Nash said, “Any opportunity to promote the environment and preserve our planet is a step in the right direction.” If you’d like to get your hands on these, they will go on sale on April 22nd.

Nike still has a lot work to do to clean up it’s international labor and environmental practices.

Los Angeles-based design company Stolen, Inc. was researching a project they were working on and came across some staggering information.

came across “Life Expectancy at Birth.” Andorra was the highest with 83.51 years, and all the way at the bottom was Mozambique with 31.1 years

They decided to do something about it. They’ve created a line of tshirts to educate and raise funds. It’s called StatAttak. Stolen will be setting aside 20% of the money from the sale of the shirts to build an orphanage in Mozambique.

Since Mozambique was the country that inspired all of this, the Sons of Stolen are putting 20% of the money from the sale of the shirts towards building an orphanage in Mozambique. Instead of giving the money to a charity, we will go to Mozambique with a group of volunteers from the design industry and build an orphanage from the ground up. We hope that this will help us better understand Africa and that a personal interaction with the local population will inspire everyone involved to keep working towards solutions to the many problems facing that continent.

Not only is this a great opportunity to make a change in the world, the shirts are also beautiful. Mollie and I will both be sporting StatAttak tshirts.

Wednesday morning it was announced that the popular eco-site treehugger was acquired by Discovery Communications. This is really exciting for the folks over at treehugger. It will give them and their content a lot of exposure. According to the press release, Discovery plans on using the site in conjunction with it’s ‘Planet Green’ programming.

In related news, Jasmine over at Worsted Witch will be writing full time over there (starting in a couple of weeks). So congratulations to her.

Introducing to you our very talented guest writer for today, Kendall! You may already know Kendall as my husband. For those of you who don’t know him, I will tell you that he is a great man and the type of person that makes you better just by being around him. For this, and many other reasons, I am happy that he is joining us today. As an avid sports fan he shares both his extensive wisdom and passionate rants over at VIGILANTE SPORTS. While he writes about all things sports, he has a special place for Cubs and Mariners baseball, Michigan college football, and the Chicago Bears. Today we happily welcome him as a guest writer to One/Change.

I’ve not been without a TV in my home ever. When I was growing up I had a TV in my bedroom. A couple of weeks ago my wife and I decided to do an experiment to see what it would be like to remove the TV from our home. How would our interactions change? Would it be the pure bliss that we have heard about from people who don’t own a TV?

Well, let me start with this. Mollie and I don’t really watch a lot of TV. The TV is mainly used for watching DVDs and sporting events. There are a few shows that we’ve gotten into (we both like LOST, and I’m a sucker for Survivor), but other than that the TV isn’t really on. We knew going in that it probably wouldn’t be a huge change, but we wanted to see.

So what happened? Well, 2 weeks ago last Sunday we took the TV down to the storage unit in our basement and locked it up. It had been a pretty focal part of our living room, so we stacked books where it had been. At first it wasn’t a very big deal. We didn’t feel like we were missing anything because it was normal for us to go days without turning it on. There’s something about a long day of work, and a desire to just veg-out that made me long for our TV. Early on in the experiment I found out that I have turned to TV for an easy way to check out of the world. I don’t really like that, and spent the rest of the 2 weeks thinking about that and developing other ways to relax, sans television. I feel the need to confess that we did watch a couple movies on my computer during the experiment. But that really isn’t what the experiment was about.

I’d say that the biggest change was not watching baseball games on TV. Mollie and I both really enjoy following the Cubs and the Mariners, so this was a stretch for both of us. But this past weekend I went to the Mariners game on Saturday with a friend and then on Sunday Mollie and I went together. We decided that if they were in town and we wanted to watch the game, that we could just hop a bus, or walk to Safeco Field, and take in the game in person (bleacher seats are only $7).

So what have I learned from this experiment?

• My wife and I talk more when there isn’t a TV in the house. When it’s easy to just turn on the TV to watch a game, or a movie we’re more likely to do that than talk and listen to each other. This has been the biggest takeaway for me.
• Not having a TV forces me to be more creative. I have to think about what I want to spend my time doing? Going to the park? Going for a walk? Reading? Thinking?
• I really do enjoy watching sports on TV. I miss watching baseball.
• It wouldn’t be as big of a sacrifice as I thought to get rid of our TV.

As of right now (we’re 2 days past our original 2 week time period) the TV is still in the basement. There isn’t anything tugging at me to bring it up. I’m sure we will, but it does feel nice to have it not be something that MUST happen. I think the experiment has caused me to see television for what it is, a luxury item. I don’t need it. I do enjoy parts of having it (mainly watching sports, I can watch movies on my computer). I think the experiment was a success.

If something in you twinged, or tickled when you started reading this, I’d say think about making some sort of change to your TV habits. If you’re someone who watches a lot of TV and couldn’t even consider putting in the basement, maybe try to ration your TV watching. Or cover your TV with a blanket or a scarf to remove it’s prominence in your living space. If you already don’t watch too much TV, consider removing it for a short period of time. See how it makes you feel. What you like and dislike about it. It’s really helped me see my relationship with television more clearly.