Mommy Goes Green

Ever go to pick out a pack of eggs and wonder why there are 12 choices?  Always pick the one on sale?  I used to.  I didn’t have a clue what all the different labels meant like cage-free,  free range or vegetarian fed. I actually didn’t know why I would even care.Fast forward several years and after having a baby and realizing we needed a healthier lifestyle for ourselves and the environment – we don’t buy the cheapest eggs any more.  Here’s what you need to know about egg labels to choose the best ones for your family:      

CAGE FREE       

 According to the Humane Society, nearly 280 million laying hens in the United States are confined in barren wire battery cages so restrictive the birds can’t even spread their wings.  Cage-free hens generally have two to three times more space per bird than caged hens. Cage-free hens may not be able to go outside and may have parts of their beaks cut off, but they can walk, spread their wings, and lay their eggs in nests—all behaviors permanently denied to hens crammed into battery cages.  Many supermarkets like Wal-Mart and restaurants like Subway have started selling or using cage free eggs.      

CERTIFIED ORGANIC        

Animals must be fed 100% organic food and no antibiotics or hormones can be given.  All organically raised animals must have access to the outdoors – although the amount and length of time is not defined. Compliance is verified by a third-party.     

FREE-RANGE or FREE ROAMING 

No standards or third-party verification but typically means that they are uncaged inside a barn or warehouse and may have access to the outdoors.   There are no restrictions on what they are fed.    There is also evidence that free range eggs contain more 3-6x more Vitamin D, 1/3 less cholesterol, 1/4 less saturated fat, 2/3 more vitamin A, 2x more Omega-3 fatty acids, 3x more vitamin E, and 7x more beta carotene – than typical supermarket eggs.

VEGETARIAN FED    

Feed contains no animal by products.    

CERTIFIED HUMANE RAISED    

No antibiotics or hormones can be given to animals.  Cages, crates and tie stalls are among the forbidden practices, and animals must be free to do what comes naturally. For example, chickens are able to flap their wings and dust bathe.  Certified by Humane Farm Animal Care.    

COMMERCIAL VS. LOCAL 

One final note from the Humane Society: virtually all hens in commercial egg operations—whether cage or cage-free—come from hatcheries that kill all male chicks shortly after hatching. The males are of no use to the egg industry because they don’t lay eggs and aren’t bred to grow as large or as rapidly as chickens used in the meat industry. Common methods of killing male chicks include suffocation, gassing and grinding. Hundreds of millions of male chicks are killed at hatcheries each year in the United States.  

Instead of buying eggs from a supermarket, you can find a local farm or farmer’s market to buy eggs from or keep chickens in your backyard, also known as urban chickenkeeping. I would LOVE to have fresh eggs every day from my own chickens (unfortunately our city rules prohibit it).

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Spring is slowing making its way through the Northwest and I’m getting excited to plant my vegetable garden.  Depending on where you live and what you are planting, you may have already started planting.  I generally plant starts so I likely won’t plant anything for another couple weeks. Last year, I didn’t get anything in the ground until the end of May (which was a little late) but I ended up having a great garden anyway!  

If you’ve never had a vegetable garden, I highly recommend that you start one this summer – it’s easy and a great project to do with your kids. 

CONTAINER AND LOCATION
It can be as easy as using a pot for one tomato plant or you can buy or build raised beds.  The first summer that I grew anything, it was one tomato plant in a pot .  The next summer, my husband built me a raised bed for Mother’s Day.  Raised beds can be as small or large as you have space for.  Ours is long and narrow – 3 x 11 – between the edge of our grass and the fence.  Often, the container where you keep your vegetables will be highly influenced by the location you have available with LOTS of sun – preferably 6-8 hours a day.  

SOIL
Once you choose a container and location, start with some great soil.  We have a compost bin that we stock all year just to use when planting our vegetable garden.  If you don’t have a compost bin, you can purchase compost and/or soil mixes to use. 

CHOOSING VEGETABLES
One of my favorite things about my garden is experimenting.  I am NOT a gardener and I don’t have a green thumb.  I just try new things each year to figure out what works and what doesn’t.  The first summer I learned that we eat way more cherry tomatoes than plum tomatoes.  Last summer I planted more celery than we could eat.  I couldn’t give away all the jalapeno peppers we had and I planted beans and peas way too late to get anything out of them.  When choosing vegetables to plant, choose ones that you and your kids will eat.  Tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini are all easy to grow and you’ll get LOTS of them – with just one plant.  Talk to the growers at the local nursery or farmer’s market – they are a wealth of information about the different varities of every vegetable.  

WATER  
I tend to kill anything that isn’t automatically watered so we put a drip system in our raised bed. It was inexpensive and easy to hook up through our automatic watering system. You could also use a soaker hose or just get out there and manually water every day. 

For additional resources on planning your vegetable garden, check out Martha Stewart’s Vegetable Garden Guide or Better Homes and Gardens Edible Gardening Guide.

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The following is a guest post from Tracey Bianchi, author of the newly released book “Green Mama: The Guilt-Free Guide to Helping You and Your Kids Save the Planet.”

The Magnolia Tree just outside our kitchen window is the first to bloom every year. When I see these fuzzy little nodes erupt into flowers a soft smile creeps into my very soul. It is officially Spring, and Springtime in the Midwest is no small thing. This seasonal shift means emergence from a cocoon of duvets and wool socks. It means flip flops and pale white feet hit the pavement everywhere.

Come late-March, my children are like caged animals that have been released into the wild. Shrieks of joy, a flurry of sidewalk chalk and bike helmets litter the driveway. They rip open the patio door and dash outside still hopping and pulling on shoes along the way. It is bedlam and bliss all rolled up into one sunshine filled afternoon. The sign of many more to come.

And as a mom who has hollered and cajoled her way through the long winter I am just as giddy for fresh distractions and a reunion with big wheels and bicycle helmets. This change of place has been a long time coming and I find myself yelling less and playing hop scotch more.

Finally.

I am completely and utterly thankful for Spring (well, almost).

You see, all this sunshine and balmy weather means that I also need to plot out my garden. The fresh vegetables that will dance across our table all summer. Sugar snap peas, broccoli and beans. A web of crooked carrots that hide underground and renegade pumpkin vines that take over the lawn.

I need to find the garden gloves, shovels, stepping stones. I need to tie back the random rose bush that has cropped up in the middle of our little plot. And more than anything, I need to find time and energy.

Time and energy. Time and energy.

The hot commodities of motherhood. The thought of it all actually makes me long for February once again. Less pressure to perform.

I confess, I am a “green mom” but a reluctant gardener.

But I will forge ahead this year just as in the past. I will plunge my hands into the dirt as my toddler daughter drags behind me stomping on all the seeds I so gingerly settled into their homes. I will water and weed. I will stand with my earth-laden hands on my hips, brush my bangs from my face, and I will sigh.

I know people who love to garden. I envy them. I wish I had an eye, a heart, a passion for it. Sort of like I wish I was Rachel Ray on occasion. Oh to have food and festivity just splash out of a pan whenever I wanted.

Not me. I was born with a normal, peach colored thumb.

But I will carry on this Spring and begin planting lettuce next week. And if there is any part of you that can rally the strength to do the same I beg you to join me. Reluctant or not, there is no greater joy at the dinner table than eating the food your family grew in the backyard. There is no “greener” endeavor you can embark upon other than connecting yourself to the very plants that give us life.

To see my wiry son pull a handful of string beans for dinner, to watch my saucy little daughter pop a Roma tomato right off the branch and into her mouth beats pounding a bag of fruit snacks any day. And to watch my second child, with all his defiant middle-child-ness drag a cucumber into the house is to officially trump our industrialized food industry, the grocery store chains, and the picky-eater syndrome all in one glorious moment.

As Spring gives way to Summer I beg you to grow something. Even if you find yourself garden-challenged like me. Drop basil into a pot, toss cilantro on your window sill, or plot out that long awaited vegetable garden. Then sit back alongside your children, with sidewalk chalk and bubbles, and just watch it all grow. There is no greener endeavor.

Tracey Bianchi is a mother of three who lives in the Chicago area. She is the author of the newly released book “Green Mama: The Guilt-Free Guide to Helping You and Your Kids Save the Planet”. She is a freelance writer, speaker, and is the Coordinator of Women’s Ministry at her church. You can catch her musings on a more sustainable life at http://traceybianchi.com

Check back tomorrow for our review of Tracey’s new book and a great giveaway!

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I don’t know about you but sometimes getting dinner on the table every night is the most stressful part of my day.  It’s not the 2 kids, the messy house or the lengthy ‘to do’ list, it’s trying to put together a healthy, quick meal – at the last minute.  I don’t spend enough time planning for our family meals so we usually end up eating late because I spend too much time combing cookbooks looking for something compatible with what’s in the fridge and pantry.

I’m exactly the kind of mom that The Six O’Clock Scramble was created for.  It’s an online menu planner helping you to create a weekly dinner plan.   Once you choose the recipes you want to prepare, a grocery list is generated and you can shop once for all the ingredients you’ll need for the week.  This helps to eliminate multiple trips to the grocery store, pizza deliveries, and trips to the nearest fast food joint.

The creator of The Six O’Clock Scramble, Aviva Goldfarb, has taken meal planning one step further by creating SOS! The Six O’Clock Scramble to the Rescue: Earth-Friendly, Kid-Pleasing Dinners for Busy Families, a cookbook with over 300 recipes that take 30 minutes or less to prepare, with less than 10 ingredients per recipe.  One of my favorite parts of the cookbook is that its organized by season, I was first introduced to this concept when I read the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  At it’s simplest form, you cook with ingredients that are currently in season meaning they are fresh and less expensive.  It encourages you to eat local as you can find in-season ingredients at your local farmer’s market, co-op grocery store or farmstand. 

Each season begins with a 5 week menu and a glossary of recipes with the amount of time it takes to prep and cook the meal.   Individual recipes include nutritional information, flavor boosters (additional spices to add), and side dish suggestions.  There are great tips throughout the cookbook including:

• how to let your kids get their hands dirty in the kitchen
• 20 creative ideas for school lunches
• healthier Halloween snacks
• tips for freezing meals
• 10 best dishes for potlucks
• safest seafood for kids

For simple suggestions to be more eco-friendly in the kitchen, pick up a copy of SOS! The Six O’Clock Scramble to the Rescue!

WIN IT!

We are giving 1 reader the new cookbook by Aviva Goldfarb,  SOS! The Six O’Clock Scramble to the Rescue: Earth-Friendly, Kid-Pleasing Dinners for Busy Families !  You can enter to win in any of the following ways:

• Leave a comment asking the author, Aviva Goldfarb, a question.  Suggestions include: kids in the kitchen, recipes, eating seasonally and locally, planning meals or eating organically.  We’ll compile the questions and she’ll be responding to them in a future post.
• Follow us on twitter @mommygoesgreen.
• Retweet this contest.
• Become a Facebook fan.
• Blog about this giveaway and leave me the link.
• Follow Aviva Goldfarb on twitter.

Leave your comment by Sunday, April 25, 2010 at 11:59pm PST. Contest open to all U.S. residents, ages 18+. We will choose 1 winner, at random, and notify them by email. Privacy Policy.

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Last week I caught Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution for the first time.  I was appalled at the lack of basic vegetable knowledge by first graders amongst other poor eating habits displayed by the elementary school Jamie visited.

This week, Jamie visited the local high school.  Their lunches looked like the lunch I ate in high school – pizza, french fries and chocolate milk (which has more sugar than soda, if you can believe it).  Of course, none of the high school students thought anything was wrong with their lunch (and frankly, I probably didn’t when I was that age either).

One of the issues mentioned in the last 2 episodes is the increased cost and time that is needed to make fresh, healthy lunches as processed food comes prepared and tends to be cheaper.  As the grocery shopper in our household, I agree.  Processed food is generally cheaper.  I do spend more money on groceries that I used to because we buy more organic and fresh foods than we used to.  However, I believe our bodies are healthier and that is a money saver, in many ways.  [ tips for saving on organic groceries ]

The one thing that got me fired up last week was that first graders couldn’t identify a tomato!  A TOMATO!   This week, it was that french fries are counted as a vegetable – well that explains a lot about the American obesity problem.  The same thing happened to me this week when I asked my daughter’s preschool why they serve juice during snack time occasionally.  The response?  “I think it counts as a fruit”.  I’m sorry, but JUICE IS NOT A FRUIT.

I really hope this show shakes up parents, teachers and administrators about the food our children are eating.   Moms – we CAN make a difference.  If you have kids in school – find out what they are eating everyday and start asking why?

For 50 of Jamie’s 20 minute recipes along with other great functionality, you can download Jamie’s iPhone app.

If you missed this week’s episode, there are 3 more to go – tune in on Friday evenings!

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