Steady Progress Towards Major Change

On August 1, I announced to myself that I was going to stick to a "More with Less" vegetarian gluten-free diet. A few days later, I upped the ante and decided that I was going to purge my diet of all eggs and dairy as well. That would have made me some kind of grain-free vegan locavore or something. I was convinced that Sweeping Change was the way to go. Cold Tofu-Turkey, total elimination.

But guess what?

It did not work. Not even a little bit. I didn't really know what I was doing, and 3 days into spinach salad for every meal I revolted and went right back to cheese and polenta and sordid affairs with buttermilk biscuits. If I had been a little more self-aware, maybe I would have remembered that GRADUAL progress has served me pretty well, whether in training for and running a marathon injury-free, or waking up every morning, gazing at my painfully gray haired reflection and deciding to stick with my decision to NOT color my hair. Success from small decisions and small disciplines made over and over and over.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, I thought maybe some of you are feeling like I sometimes do when I think of all the BIG changes I want to make in my diet, my consumption, and my life. I feel overwhelmed. I start to despair and think that if I can't change everything, why bother changing anything? Not true, my friends. Don't listen to the haters in your head.

Just choose something, make the change, and then keep at it. You don't have to start with food. Here are some things that I have changed in my daily routine that have made small but hopefully appreciable dents in my chemical exposure, for example:

1. Home Made Mouth Wash

Which consists of a tongue scraper coupled with a gargle-and-swish of warm water with sea salt and a few drops of peppermint oil. I was skeptical, but this works for me! Just a little freshening boost. Husband approved, BTW.

2. Coconut Oil for dry skin

I thought this would be kind of gross too, but I LOVE IT. I smell faintly of Almond Joy all day, and it makes my skin feel smooth and soft. It is a little oily when you first slather it on (right out of the shower seems to work well for me so far), but it dries really nicely. No more nasty lotions. You're rubbing that stuff into your skin, people! eeeek. I may experiment with a few drops of essential oil mixed in to the coconut for a different scent. It makes me hungry to smell a little like candy.

3. Mechanical rather than chemical exfoliation

I confess that I don't use my dry brush every day. I should, though, because I really like that I can see the dry skin flailing off me in every direction. You use this stiff-bristled brush before you get in the shower. My English friends say that it is also excellent for reducing the appearance of cellulite, but I don't think I've used it often enough to see a difference. Doesn't hurt to try though, right?

4. Salad Dressing As  Oil Method Face Wash

Castor Oil + Extra Virgin Olive Oil makes a surprisingly effective face wash. Yes, it feels a bit like rubbing salad dressing on your face. And yes, I was scared about it because of my persistent adult acne, but I think it works as well if not better than any of the commercial face soaps I have tried. Our current apartment's bathroom sink does not get quite hot enough to make the requisite steamy washcloth used to steam up your pores and wipe off the oil, so I do sometimes use commercial face soap when I'm in a hurry in the morning. I can make the steamcloth work in the shower, but prefer a leisurely night time routine where I can wipe the grime of the day off with something ultra natural and not at all drying. Check out my whole post about the glories of the Oil Method.

5. Mason Jars for Everything!

We wanted to get away from storing stuff in plastic right around the same time that I started buying things in bulk whenever possible. We had repurposed some salsa jars and pasta sauce jars and love them very much in the cabinets. But if you have things out in the open, or need to freeze something, Mason Jars are the way to go. Plus, they only cost about $12 for a box of 12. Way cheaper than Pyrex. And unlike most glassware, many sizes of mason jars can be used to freeze stuff as long as you leave an inch or so of room at the top when you fill it up. I LOVE jars. I use them to take food to work for lunch, to store stuff, and even as portable mugs. Vessel + secure lid = endless possibilities with NO plastic.

Next up, hopefully, will be to permanently switch to natural toothpaste, home-made deodorant, Dr. Bronner's soap in the shower, and only replacing cosmetics with totally natural versions. I keep saying I'm gonna do that, but I keep not doing it.

Here's to baby steps! What are some of your small changes that have added up to big differences in your home, habits or budget? 

Random Green Efforts

Two little greeny things that make me happy.

1. You don't actually NEED a plastic, nasty, VOC-spewing shower curtain liner! Check it:

We thought we needed a new shower curtain liner when we bought this new shower curtain at Target. Because, you know, you have a plastic one sheet on the inside to keep the water from spraying all over your bathroom, and a pretty one on the outside to be pretty. But I wondered: what if you just put the fabric curtain inside the tub instead? Unless you have a really hideous rose-pink bath tub you are trying to hide, I highly recommend you try this next time you feel like it's time to retire your grimey, mildewy plastic liner (That never happens to your liners? We must be particularly nast around here.)

No new plastic! And no more looking despondently at the mildewy hems of the interior liner wondering where we went wrong.

2. Less packaged food, more bulk stuff stored in repurposed jars!

No need to buy more glass storage containers! Just save your pasta sauce or peanut butter or salsa jars instead. This makes me happy. Particularly their mixy-matchy sizes and shapes! (Type-A friends may want to lean towards collecting ONE type of jar).


And my favorite make-at-home vegan dish:

Sweet potato, avocado, and usually salsa, but I ran out.

Vegan MOFO has been much MUCH harder than I anticipated. Sigh. At least this is delish, easy, and cheap.

Giving Up the Poof

I, like many of you, have cohabited with a scruffy-looking plastic mesh body scrubber for much of my adult life. The basic idea is that you squirt some micro-beaded Moisture Magic Shimmering Cashmere Body Wash onto your poof, and the rough plastic poof rubs off your yucky dead skin cells while the Magic Cashmere rubs perfume and silk into your arms and legs and torso.  This process will make you look sparkly and sexy, smell delicious, and make your skin feel like smooth smooth pudding.

Well, it does. Doesn't it? I still remember the first time I used Caress Body Wash in college after years of muddling along with whatever Suave-generic-cheap stuff my mom would buy for us to use in high school. I couldn't stop petting my own shoulder or sniffing my own forearm. I smelled incredible. I felt like silk.

But now that I'm over the whole fancy body wash thing in favor of natural bar soap, my faithful poof has dangled forlornly from the shower faucet for weeks:

Sad. I'm going to give it one last tour of duty to scrub out the icky mildew in the corners of the shower tile with some baking soda before it gets the boot.

But now that I'm using soap instead of body wash, and I don't want any new plastic in my life, what am I going to do about exfoliating? Ashen legs and scaly elbows are unbecoming to even we the crunchy granola.
I'm glad you asked.

Meet my new frenemy:

This is my all natural Yerba Prima Cleansing Co-Worker.  You are supposed to use this stiff-bristled brush on dry skin to rub away all your flaky cells before you get in the shower.
It's super English. Apparently everyone in the UK scrubs themselves before they hit the tub. If you can remember the pre-book launch party prep scene in Bridget Jones, she's rubbing her thighs with a similar brush. The invigorating pressure is supposed to reduce the appearance of cellulite and help keep it from forming. Cleans, scrubs, and reduces cellulite? Naturally? Sign me up.

I bought this brush at Whole Foods for like $12 or something. It hangs on a nail near the shower, and I try to remember to use it before I get in. I don't know if it is beating up my cellulite or not, but I will tell you that rubbing this brush over your thighs and legs and butt in a firm circular motion feels somewhere between "Aaaahhhhhhh...." and "AAAAHAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"  It feels good, in a painful sort of way.  And you can tell that the dead skin is coming off, because it swirls around a bit like sawdust as you go to town on your wintry dry legs.

I will miss my happy orange body poof. There's nothing quite like a good, exfoliating scrubby-scrub with a poof and some magical chemical body wash. Nothing, that is, except some supernatural vegetable based soap and a cellulite-fighting Yerba Prima Cleansing Co-worker.

Plastic I Can Live Without

OK, so the blog schedule has been tougher to keep than I thought it would be. I have waaay more ideas than I have time to research these days, but I'm hopeful that that is starting to shift a bit for the summer.

But I did want to give you an update on my May project, which is to reduce the amount of plastic I use/allow into my possession. Some things, like switching to bar soap for face and body, and been a cinch. I love my new soap, and I love that I have two fewer plastic bottles in my life. Other things are going to require more work.

Here are some things that I am on track to de-plasticize from my life:

• Cheese - I can buy a limited but very tasty selection of slice-your-own cheese from the Co-Op in Evanston and bring it home in my own container.
• Bulk Stuff like rice, lentils, and beans - OK, so Les is really the lentil eater in our house. And we have yet to do the whole "Soak for a thousand years then boil for 5 days" bulk-bean thing, but we have the beans stacked up so nicely in jars, I'm sure we will hunker down and do this eventually. No plastic-lined aluminum cans or plastic bags.
• Shower products - In addition to the body and face soap mentioned above, I'm also ready to say goodbye to the cheerful orange plastic mesh poof thing that I had been using with my liquid body wash. I have a new skin sloughing tool, but I'm so amused by it that it's going to get its own post. I'm poised to begin easing my way out of commercial shampoo and conditioner as well, but I wanted to make it through the first wedding of the summer last weekend before going "no-poo".
• All manner of plastic bags - Armed with my dazzling array of reusable shopping bags (including some so cute and tiny that they can be snuggled into any decent-sized purse), I have no excuse for not being virtually plastic bag free. Don't believe the myth that your tomatoes and carrots and apples need their own plastic bag in order to come home safely with you. If the idea of them rolling around in your grocery basket or cart stresses you out, give them their own canvas bag for the ride around the store. You know you're going to wash them anyway, so don't wig out about there naked skin touching the checkout conveyor belt when you take them out to get weighed. See this cute little chico bag? Get one and stash it in your purse. Then you can say "I don't need a bag" for everything.
• Plastic lunch ware and utensils - My coworkers already think I am kind of weird, so it wasn't a big deal to start showing up to the break room with my own bowl, plate, cloth napkin, and real utensils. They fit into my desk drawer, and eliminate the need to reheat anything in plastic or use disposable cutlery. Now if only I could be disciplined enough to ALWAYS bring my own lunch rather than eating out 2 or 3 times a week, I could be making a dent...

So, some changes have been pretty easy to make. I'm definitely more aware of how much plastic there is everywhere, on everything. There are some plastic things that I just can't figure out how to reasonably give up/swap out. Like:

• Razors (not ready to be hairy-legged quite yet)
• The plastic that wraps our favorite pizza, organic carrots, bags of edamame, potstickers, etc...
• Doggy potty pads (These have seriously saved our sanity - and our floors...)

And lots of other stuff that I can't think of right this second.

But the awareness of all this plastic around me has helped me start to make some different choices. It's almost like a game now at the grocery store. Time to play "Get the Stuff With the Least Amount of Plastic!". The game has actually prevented me from buying things that I otherwise would have purchased, or at least hunt around for a non-plastic version. Like buying TP wrapped in recycled paper rather than plastic.

I'm still selfish and I still buy individually wrapped treats like fruit leathers (I COULD make these myself if I had a food dehydrator, but would I?) and sometimes string cheese. But I'm getting better. Little by little.

For some real inspiration, check out http://www.myplasticfreelife.com/. No whining about frozen pizza wrappers over there....