Back to Nature: Possible Confusion

A while ago, I was running a weekly "column" called Going Back to Nature. After looking back over some of my posts, I wanted to make something clear. So I thought now would be the perfect time to do it.

Going Back to Nature has nothing to do with fighting global warming or any of the other nonsense propaganda out there. Although, some of my posts did seem to support that idea. It has to do with getting in touch with how things used to be before the television, modern "machines", and even cities changed the world forever. Sometimes it's just good to go back to your roots. To start growing your own food in your own garden or making your bread from scratch or being a good wife because you're supposed to be, not just when it's convenient.

Sometimes I think we would all be better off if we turned off the television and disconnected (cell phones, email, facebook, twitter, etc.) from the world for a while. We wouldn't have people telling us how we should feel or what we should do and maybe, just maybe, we would start listening to that little voice inside (God's voice) telling how we really need to behave.

It's easy to think that since all this "stuff" is available and at our disposal we should use it, abuse it, and throw it away. But what about taking care of the things God has given you? What about taking the utmost care of the most important thing in the world, you? Everything we have is from God. 1 Chronicles 29:15b For everything is from you, and we only give you what we have received from you. So we should treat everything with the greatest respect, including our bodies and what we put into them and what we do with them.

Just something to think about. Hope that cleared up any confusion.

Going Back to Nature: Reuse, Repurpose

I've been running a weekly "column" called Going Back to Nature. This week I'm talking about the final "R" - Reusing (which is really the second (Reduce, Reuse, Recylce), I've just been doing them out of order)!

So many things now-a-days are "one-time-use". You use it. You throw it away. You get another one. Here's some examples: sippy cups, flatware, cleaning wipes, plates, dusters, mop pads, storage containers, paper towels. The list goes on, but I'll stop there. The point is, there is so much waste in our society. Everything is expendable. When something breaks, we don't try to fix it, we just throw it away. When clothes get holes, we don't patch them; we pitch them.

Not only does this hurt the environment, but it also hurts your pocketbook! The cost to reuse and/or fix these items is minimal compared to the cost to replace them. When something breaks, start by thinking how you can fix the item instead of going out to buy another. Whether you can fix it yourself or you have to take it to a professional, most of the time the outlay will be cheaper than buying new. Go around your home and count how many "one-time-use" items you have. Think about buying reusable items when those run out.

If you're thinking about redecorating, shop at your own home. Just watch HGTV sometime and you'll see how often items are taken from other rooms and re-purposed to decorate elsewhere. A door can become a coatrack. Kitchen cabinets can become a storage bench or a toy chest. Old light fixtures can be transformed into indoor candle holders. Tons more ideas await at HGTV.com! Just remember, most things can have a second life if you'll just get creative and think outside the box!

Going Back to Nature: Reduce Consumption

I've been running a weekly "column" called Going Back to Nature. This week I'm talking about reducing consumption.

I still get amazed by the fact that Going Back to Nature (sometimes "going green") can save so much money! There are so many ways to reduce consumption - because there's so many things that could be/need to be reduced!

**Water - Wear clothes more than once so you're not washing as often; most of the time, they're not dirty anyway. Only wash full loads of clothes. Take showers instead of baths. Cut your shower time. Use only one glass (to drink from) all day so you're washing less dishes. Run the dishwasher only when it is full.

**Packaging - Buy in bulk (if you'll use it all) to reduce packaging. Drink filtered water from the tap instead of buying bottled for home. Buy a reusable bottle to take when on-the-go ... there's times when I get a soda or water when I'm away from home and end up throwing it in the trash because there's no recycling area around.

**Electricity - Use a clothes line to dry clothes; it can actually help whiten whites too! Use CFL or even LED bulbs instead of incandescent. Lower the temperature on your heater in the winter and turn up the temp on your a/c in the summer.

**Paper - Reuse paper that only has writing on one side; I use it for my grocery lists and random notes (thanks mom!). Bank online and use e-bills. Opt-out of credit card offers and junk mail.

**Gas - Carpool. Don't drive aggressively. Observe the speed limit. Properly inflate your tires; check them once per month. Empty your trunk.

**Other - Make or buy reusable shopping bags. Use rechargeable batteries.

Going Back to Nature: Cut the Clutter

I've been running a weekly "column" called Going Back to Nature. This week I'm talking about cutting the clutter.

Last year I got rid of car loads of junk, literally. Some of it was in good enough condition to donate. Some of it had to be thrown away. But overall, our house looks better for it. Our garage can actually fit a car with no problem. And we didn't have to pay any money for being over the weight allowance when we moved last year. Our closets are clean and I can find things when I want to.

I know it's hard to get rid of things. It took me years of living on my own carrying around most of that junk through five moves to get rid of it. But once I realized the fact that it was just taking up space and I really wasn't ever going to use it again, I was able to get it out of my house.

Now you're probably thinking - what does this have to do with Going Back to Nature? Ponder this for a while. One hundred years ago, how many families had closets, attics, garages, basements or even storage units full of "junk"? If you've ever been in older houses you've probably noticed that they don't even have that much closet space (if any at all) let alone room for piles and piles of junk. People just didn't have more than they needed back then. It was a principal, just common sense. No one really thought about it. It just happened!

Okay, you're probably thinking your stuff is not junk it's important ... but how much of it have you used in the past year? What about in the past two years? If you haven't used it in that long, odds are pretty good that you're never going to use it again! It's just taking up space and sometimes even costing you money to keep it. Think about how hard it is to find what you're actually looking for or how much you're paying for your storage unit or how much you're paying for extra weight when you're moving (and volume if it's a self-move). Get rid of it. Today!

Going Back to Nature: Reducing Trash & Recycling

I've been running a weekly "column" called Going Back to Nature. I've been working on reducing our trash and recycling a lot lately so I thought I would share some of what we do and what else we can all work toward.

**One of the easiest ways to reduce the amount of "garbage" you're throwing away is to recycle! In most cities you can recycle glass, plastic, cardboard, paper, magazines, and newspapers. Plus there are many websites out there to help you recycle almost everything else (such as electronics and hazardous materials)!

The best place to find a recycling center near you for almost any item: Earth911
Other websites: Yahoo! Green (recycling electronics), Recycling hazardous materials, stop junk mail, get rid of credit card offers

**The next thing you can do to reduce your garbage: stop using all those single use items (dusters, mops, wipes, plastic bags, etc.) You can buy a microfiber duster (which is essentially what the "Swiffer dusters" are) and wash it in your washing machine. You can use a regular mop with a washable head, rags with bottled cleaners instead of wipes, and washable plastic containers instead of plastic bags.

Robert and I employ as much of the above as we can into our day-to-day lives and I'll tell you, by doing that we went from having a full kitchen bag in a matter of a day or two to going most times over a week before the bag is full. Sometimes we have to empty it because of the smell and not because of the volume. I also empty our other small trash cans into the kitchen can - so the one bag a week is all the trash we have! Our recycling container fills up much faster than the trash can.

Some other ways to reduce trash that I'm hoping to apply in the future:
**Use cloth diapers and cloth wipes instead of disposable. It is amazing how much waste disposable diapers produce. It is estimated that 27.4 billion disposable diapers are used every year in the U.S. alone resulting in 3.4 million tons of waste added to landfills every year!
**Start using cloth napkins instead of paper. They're easy and simple to wash with the rest of the towels. Just don't get white -- they'll stain!
**Use rags for wiping up messes instead of paper towels.
**Use wash cloths instead of sponges to wash dishes (much more sanity and it reduces waste).

It's also unbelievable how implementing all these things can actually reduce your costs as well. While the initial outlay may be more expensive than just buying a single package of swiffer refills, cleaning wipes, diapers, napkins, paper towels, etc, the overall savings will really start to add up!

Going Back to Nature: Fast Food

I've been running a weekly "column" called Going Back to Nature. This week, I wanted to talk about fast food, especially since I ate it like three times this past weekend!

Some say that fast food isn't all bad. -- Was that supposed to be a joke?! Even if it's "nutritionally" acceptable, it was still processed and includes tons of preservatives.

A few weeks ago I saw this post through Amy at The Finer Things. Please view this ... it's an eye opener. And you can even click on the pictures to see them larger - if you dare! Just look at the pictures. Really look at them. In case you didn't read the post that went along with the pictures - It is a five year old Happy Meal. It was not refrigerated, just left in the pantry. For five years. It did not rot. It did not attract ants or flies or maggots. And it looks almost the same as what you get now!

This is what we put in our bodies, some of us on a regular basis! In fact, over 25% of Americans consume fast food every day!

Many meals (sandwich, fries, and drink) in today's fast food restaurants have at least 1000 calories and more than 100% of your daily intake of saturated fat, plus the occasional trans fat. In fact, nine of Hardees'/Carl's Jr.'s burgers have more than 100% of your saturated fat in the burger alone!

Since McDonald's is the most popular fast food chain, I looked at the nutritional facts for the typical Happy Meal (cheeseburger, small fries, and child-size Coke): 640 calories, 24 g fat, 7 g sat. fat, and 1 g trans fat. Yes - the McDonald's website says the meal contains 1 g of trans fat even though they say they have eliminated them! (And just to note, the cheeseburger contains 0.5 g trans fat and the fries and Coke says 0 g trans fat but the total is 1 g!) Another shocker - the french fries are prepared in vegetable oil containing "natural beef flavor" -- no wonder we all think they're so good!

I was debating whether to use the milk and apple slices for the Happy Meal nutrition facts, but decided against. Because, let's face it, how many of us actually get a salad (or something similar) when we eat at a fast food restaurant? I was trying to go for the "best" sandwich and fries combo, but again, how many of us order a kid's meal either?!

Other interesting fast food facts:
1. Every month, approximately 9 out of 10 American children visit a McDonald's.¹
2. Today the average American child sees more than 10,000 food advertisements on TV each year.²
3. By 2000, one out of eight American workers had at some time been employed by McDonald's.³
4. 96% of Americans have visited McDonald's at least once.³
5. McDonald's is serving an estimated 22 million Americans every day and even more abroad.<sup>3

1</sup> Spurlock, Morgan. 2005. Fast Food and the Supersizing of America. New York, NY: Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
² Ritzer, George. 2008. The McDonaldization of Society 5. Los Angeles, CA: Pine Forge Press.
³ Smith, Andrew F. 2006. Encyclopedia of Junk Food and Fast Food. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Going Back to Nature: Raw Milk

It took me days of research and writing to come up with the information here, but it's definitely worth reading. I tried to cut this as short as I possibly could while still including tons of valuable information!

Reasons NOT to Drink Pasteurized Milk:
--Pasteurization destroys vitamin B12, B6, beneficial bacteria (called probitics), damages fragile milk proteins, enzymes, and promotes pathogens (pathogens which cause pasteurized milk to rot quickly, rather than sour naturally). Pasteurization's main purpose today is to clean milk coming from dirty cows and to lengthen the shelf life of the product.

"Not only does pasteurization kill the friendly bacteria, it also greatly diminishes the nutrient content of the milk. Pasteurized milk has up to a 66 percent loss of vitamins A, D and E. Vitamin C loss usually exceeds 50 percent. Heat affects water soluble vitamins and can make them 38 percent to 80 percent less effective. Vitamins B6 and B12 are completely destroyed during pasteurization. Pasteurization also destroys beneficial enzymes, antibodies and hormones. Pasteurization destroys lipase (an enzyme that breaks down fat), which impairs fat metabolism and the ability to properly absorb fat soluble vitamins A and D. (The dairy industry is aware of the diminished vitamin D content in commercial milk, so they fortify it with a form of this vitamin.) (from Weston A. Price)

--Cows in almost all non-organic dairies are not fed grass. They are fed grain, animal by-products, and even waste materials which affects their health and the composition of their milk.

--It can cause allergies:

"After pasteurization, bacteria found naturally in milk are killed. During the high temperature heating process, cell bodies of these bacteria are ruptured and their contents are spilled, releasing intracellular proteins. This causes many milk drinkers to suffer histamine or allergic reactions. Almost all of these same consumers can drink raw milk and not have allergies. The high levels of bacteria permitted in milk intended for pasteurization are still found in pasteurized milk; they are just dead and not removed by the process." (from Organic Pastures)

--Homogenization is an unnecessary process that can result in heart disease and atherosclerosis.

"Homogenization is the process of destroying the natural butter fat cells found in raw natural milk. This process uses extreme pressure to break apart the soft buoyant fat cells, which cause the remaining small fat pieces to blend into milk and no longer float to the top making the cream line. Some European countries have studies that show that this process is dangerous and may strongly contribute to heart disease and arterial plaguing. Our FDA disputes these findings under pressure from the strong dairy lobby. Homogenization is not a required step, but rather a step of convenience to deny the consumer the ability to see how much cream is actually in the milk they buy." (from Organic Pastures)
"In its natural form, the fat in milk would normally be broken down and digested in the stomach, facilitating the absorption of the proteins and nutrients in the milk. But because homogenization has made it an abnormal, very small size, it is absorbed into the bloodstream instead. The fat globules now found in the bloodstream react negatively against arterial walls and a layer of cholesterol is then created as a protective lining." (from Vital Earth Minerals)

Reasons to Drink Raw Milk:
-- There is an immense amount of vitamins, minerals, probiotics (beneficial bacteria such as those found in yogurt), and enzymes found in raw milk. Most of these are destroyed in the process of pasteurization (as shown above).

--Enzymes (which are destroyed by pasteurization) make raw milk easier to digest and help in the absorption of minerals such as calcium.

--Many people who are allergic to milk or lactose intolerant find they are able to drink raw milk with no problems.

--Raw milk assists in maintaining a healthy balance of good bacteria in the intestines.

--Raw milk sours naturally but pasteurized milk will rot (as you've probably "smelled" before). Soured raw milk can still be consumed! Just put in some yogurt or kefir starter and let it sit for 24 hours at 80-85 degrees.

A few things you should know:
**Make sure you know where your milk comes from. Drinking raw milk can be dangerous (just as eating raw eggs or raw meat) if you don't know your source. But is completely safe and healthy from a clean source. In fact, pathogens can be killed by the living organisms in the milk:

"OPDC has demonstrated that even when high levels of pathogens were introduced into raw milk, they die off and do not grow (BSK tests). In fact, pathogen killing safety systems are hard at work, keeping raw milk safe even if it has been contaminated." (from Organic Pastures)

**A cow's diet, the seasons, and even the breed of the cow can all affect the flavor of raw milk.

**It is illegal for raw milk to be sold across state lines (therefore you will have to find a local source).

To Find Raw Milk sold in your area visit: Real Milk or Local Harvest

For more information: Campaign for Real Milk, Raw Milk Facts, Milk: It Does a Body Good?, Robinson's Farm, Organic Pastures

Going Back to Nature

Last week, I was going back through Laura's posts (yes, we have the same name) at Heavenly Homemakers and noticed her enthusiasm about raw food including milk and unprocessed sugars. I've been wanting to get Back to Nature lately in regards to our food and life.

So, I thought I would start a new topic. Each week I will discuss a new food or idea related to going back to nature.

Future topics I'm mulling over: raw milk; organic beef, dairy, and produce; sugar; processed foods; fast food; mineral make-up; natural cleaners; reducing trash, clutter, and consumption; reusing instead of wasting; and recycling.