Plastic Bags – Recycle, Reuse, or Don’t Use

Mercado Hidalgo in Guanajuato
Photo courtesy of Shand Walton (c) 2006

For being such a progressive, liberal, and environmentally friendly city, I am surprised how few people in Austin take reusable shopping bags to the grocery store. Even at the farmers market, where shoppers don’t have a choice but to carry reusable bags (or baskets), they still wind up putting their vegetables in plastic produce bags. And if you have any Latin American blood in you – you, especially, have no excuse. Our forefathers and foremothers from the homeland have been ecologically conscious since the “mercados” first existed.

I’ve been using canvas bags to carry my groceries for the past four or five years. It’s a no-brainer. All you have to do is make it a habit to take them with you every time you go to the store, or stash a few in your car, just in case you forget. Even though I’ve managed to keep the larger, handled plastic bags at bay, the smaller produce bags – as well as the infamous Ziploc bags – still accumulate by the mounds at home.

Items like bananas and potatoes never get a plastic bag. Nature gave them their own built-in features to make transportation easy. But what about green beans? Or a pound of granola from the bulk bins? You can’t just throw those into your shopping basket, so you’re forced to take yet another produce bag off the roll.

Undercover Mexican Girl's Plastic Laundry Day

After watching the documentary Bag It and writing a review of the film on Popular Hispanics, it’s been at the front of mind to buy the reusable mesh or light cotton produce bags to carry loose vegetables or bulk items such as rice, beans, and nuts. It turns out I can buy them locally at Eco-Wise on South Congress, an “Austin resource for non-toxic, recycled, alternative, earth and eco friendly, natural supplies for building and life.” If there isn’t a place near you, you can always find them online at www.ecobags.com or www.reuseit.com, or support the Bag It documentary project by purchasing them on their online store.

In the meantime, you can do what I did. Rinse them out, hang them to dry, and give them a prolonged life before they inevitably wind up at the dump, and finally, in our oceans. Or instead of throwing them away, you have the following recycling options (via the City of Austin website):

• Many Austin retail grocers such as Central Market, H.E.B., Randalls, Wal-Mart and Whole Foods collect and recycle plastic bags. Look for the specially marked containers at these stores.
• Cycled Plastics in Austin is a public drop-off for plastic, including dry cleaner bags, newspaper sleeves and plastic bags that have had no food contact and have no labels or stickers on them. Monday-Friday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 10200 McKalla Place. 
• Many schools in Austin have organized plastic bag recycling projects. Check with a nearby school to see if you can drop off and support their efforts. 

Virginia Fleck Recycled Art

If you’re a creative type, you can make your own recycled plastic craft projects such as a throw rug, a beach bag, or a raincoat. Or maybe something a bit more artistic? Find inspiration by checking out the work of Austin-based artist, Virginia Fleck, who has been working exclusively with recycled plastic bags since 2002, creating site specific ecologically conscious art works. If you need a little help to get started, check out Austin Green Art, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness about important environmental issues via hands-on, creative, community-based programming & events.

What is Organic, Anyway?

According to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary:


DEFINITION OF ORGANIC
1 archaic : instrumental
2 a : of, relating to, or arising in a bodily organ b : affecting the structure of the organism
3 a (1) : of, relating to, or derived from living organisms (2) : of, relating to, yielding, or involving the use of food produced with the use of feed or fertilizer of plant or animal origin without employment of chemically formulated fertilizers, growth stimulants, antibiotics, or pesticides b (1) : of, relating to, or containing carbon compounds (2) : relating to, being, or dealt with by a branch of chemistry concerned with the carbon compounds of living beings and most other carbon compounds
4 a : forming an integral element of a whole : fundamental organic parts of the action — Francis Fergusson> b : having systematic coordination of parts : organized organic whole> c : having the characteristics of an organism : developing in the manner of a living plant or animal organic>

Let's look at definition 3 a (1) and definition 4 a: "of, relating to, or derived from living organisms" and "forming an integral element of a whole." If we think about our food being organic from this perspective, then we think of our foods as living - they are alive, pure, and in their natural state. Organic matter (or organic material), for example, is matter that has come from a once-living organism. My beef should come from a cow that was once alive, and my pork should come from a pig that was once alive - similarly, my carrots and spinach should also come from plants that were once alive and growing in the dirt.

What about the opposite of organic?

DEFINITION OF INORGANIC
a (1) : being or composed of matter other than plant or animal : mineral (2) : forming or belonging to the inanimate world b : of, relating to, or dealt with by a branch of chemistry concerned with substances not usually classed as organic
2 : not arising from natural growth : artificial; also : lacking structure, character, or vitality inorganic things, without individuality or prestige — John Buchan


Our American food industry, however, has defined "organic" not as something that came from a once living being - but rather "of, relating to, yielding, or involving the use of food produced with the use of feed or fertilizer of plant or animal origin without employment of chemically formulated fertilizers, growth stimulants, antibiotics, or pesticides" (see definition 3 a (2) of organic). Therefore, it is possible to eat "organic" beef that, as a cow, was not fed growth stimulants or antibiotics, but still ate grains its whole life instead of grass, or spent large amounts of time in confinement. True grass fed, according to the American Grassfed Association means:

• animals were fed a lifetime diet of 100% forage 
• animals were raised on pasture, not in confinement
• animals were never treated with hormones or antibiotics 

All three things must - and should - be true. Yet, as it stands, USDA grass fed standard only requires that animals have access to the outdoors during the growing season. (See USDA 2007 Press Release "USDA Establishes Grass (Forage) Fed Marketing Claim Standard.") The good news is that the USDA is apparently making progress. Before 2007, USDA standards stated that "consumption of [...] grain in the immature stage is acceptable." Animals are not biologically designed to eat grain and corn - they are designed to forage, to eat grass and bugs. Cows that are fed corn or grain are much more likely to be infected with E. Coli because eating this type of feed makes their normally pH-neutral digestive tract abnormally acidic, which in turn causes E. Coli to develop a resistance to acid.

There are various labels on meat out there: Animal Welfare Approved, Certified Humane, Global Animal Partnership, USDA Organic, and American Human Certified. Ironically, the one label using the "term" organic actually has the least strict standards. For a good summary on what all these labels mean, read the article Truth Behind the Labels: How Meat Eaters Can Find Out if Their Dinner Was Really Humanely Raised. In the United States, we have no unified standard on what "organic" truly means. So if you really want to know, you must investigate your food source.

Now, let's move on to fruits and vegetables.

I've been reading on various sources that the USDA Organic Rule states that "the use of genetically engineered organisms and their products are prohibited in any form or at any stage in organic production, processing or handling." The thing is, I have not been able to find anywhere on the official USDA site that states this. (So if someone out there reading this can point me to the source, I'd surely appreciate it!) Granted, I haven't spent hours digging into their site - only about thirty minutes. Still - the average consumer does not even have thirty minutes to find this information. I feel this type of information should be clearly stated and easily located on their website.

This brings us to the question of whether or not the "organic" fruits and vegetables we purchase are genetically pure, or genetically modified. And by genetically modified, I don't mean that two strains of tomatoes cross-pollinated and created an accidental, nature-induced hybrid. I mean those seeds which have undergone Frankenstein surgery to acquire super powers. Monsanto, a U.S.-based multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation, has created herbicide-tolerant genetically modified seeds called "Monsanto's Roundup Ready® crops," which are engineered to be resistant to Monsanto's broad-spectrum herbicide Roundup (Glyphosate). Whether or not the USDA National Organic Program has been allowing this in the past, it's hard to say. I am still tracking this information down.

But I do know this. If you visit the NOP website on http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/nop, you will notice right away that this program is being run by the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service. If you understand anything about marketing, then it should give you a fairly large clue that truth and integrity are probably not the foundations for this program. (Read Seth Godin's "All Marketers Are Liars.") Then again, they might not be hiding anything. After all, just recently - in January 2011 - the USDA stated they will allow the planting of modified alfalfa. This is on mainstream news. How this will affect the "National Organic Program," we've yet to see.

In a recent press release, however, also this past month in January 2011, the National Organic Program "Proposes Renewal of Twelve Substances for Use in Organic Agriculture." So really, who knows? At any given time, that "USDA Organic" label on your chicken breast or bag of apples could mean whatever the USDA has decided or ruled at the time. You have to keep up with it, and you have to stay informed, if you truly want to know whether your food is "dead" or "alive."

I'm a busy gal - I don't always have time to keep up with these news. Fortunately, the folks down at the local farmers market, where I do most of my food shopping these days, keep me updated. If you haven't yet visited your local farmers market, I highly recommend it. This is the easiest way to be sure that your food is truly organic - that is, not fed antibiotics, happy roaming, grass and bug fed, not genetically modified, not sprayed with pesticides, and handled with care. And most of the food is sold by the very farmers who grew it! Think you can't afford the higher prices for real food? I guess your health - and of the people you love - must not be worth it.

The Truth About Your Meat: It Used to be Alive

What did Mr. Fish do to deserve your disgust for his looks, especially if you're going to enjoy his flesh?
(Photo courtesy of Denise Chan, Flickr Creative Commons)

That beautifully buttered, seasoned, boneless, skinless filet of salmon you eat was once a slithery, scaly fish with googly eyes swimming in the ocean. So then, why is it so gross to buy a whole fish from the market to bring home to cook? Why was I tempted by the perfectly pink square slab of boned and skinned salmon, even though it was five times more expensive? Why did the girl at the check-out register cringe and squeal in disgust at the sight of the fish?

Because we are so far removed from our food, we forget that our meat comes from live, moving animals with legs, fins, eyes, and mouths. How many of us would kill an animal for food, if we had to? Would we be able to look the cute, furry lamb in the eye, knowing that hours later he or she will end up on our plate in broiled cubes with mint and feta? Would you be able to pluck the feathers off the chicken before putting it in the oven?

These situations don't even require us to kill the animal - they simply requires us to come one step closer to the animal's state of being alive. A fried chicken leg has become something we eat out of a box, not the part used by the chicken to walk around the farm (that is, if it's lucky enough to be a free-roamer). Sometimes, it's not even referred to as a leg, but as a drumstick. We call meat steaks and filets, not muscle and flesh. We eat beef, not cows. Pork, not pigs. Poultry, not chicken. Seafood, not fish. Yet, that's what it is. We are eating cooked, dead animals.

So, I resisted the temptation to buy the boned and skinned fish. And even though the whole fish had its tail and head cut off, and it had already been gutted, it still looked like a fish - not the kind you eat on a plate, but the kind that wiggles around in the water with pulsating gills and glub-glub mouths. It looked frightening, unappetizing, and monstrous. I decided to be brave and get more intimate with my fish.

At first, I didn't want to use my fingers to rip open the plastic wrap on the Styrofoam tray. I held one end of the tray with a paper towel and tried to remove the wrapping with a fork. When that method quickly proved inefficient and clumsy, I was forced to use my fingers. I tried not to to be bothered by the feeling of the slippery scales against my skin. And after a few minutes, I discovered the scales weren't as slimy as I had thought them to be. It was cold and clammy, but not slimy - and surprisingly smooth. Then I had to put the fish in the sink to rinse it.

Although I was comfortable touching it here and there, I couldn't bring myself to grab it firmly with my hands. I awkwardly slid it off the tray into a colander on the sink. I was able to rinse one side of the fish without touching it. But flipping it over to its other side - well, I was just going to have to go in there grab it with two hands. So I did. No choice. You can't spear a fish with a regular eating fork, and you can't use salad tongs to grab it.

After covering it in olive oil and stuff it with herbs, then wrapping it tightly in foil, I was becoming less and less squeamish about the fish. I had to keep reminding myself it was just like the salmon filets I purchased at the store, except one or two steps of preparation back in time - closer to its state of being alive. Otherwise, there was no difference. It's a great exercise, if you ever have the opportunity to choose a whole fish over the fileted fish. And if you find you can't do it - well, then, you decide - should you really be eating it? (For the record, this was some of the best fish I've ever had. Cooked on the grill. Highly recommend it. It's inexpensive, feeds many, and will impress your friends.)

Fighting Aphids the Natural Way

Aphids on Kale

After the 10-month drought and 100-degree heat finally ended in Central Texas, and a very measly spring vegetable harvest, we were excited to plant our fall garden in early October in our Austin home. This time, instead of trying to plant every kind of vegetable that can possibly be grown during the corresponding season, we decided to go with a more limited variety of hearty plants. We received a great tip from Resolution Gardens on planting vegetables that are not only seasonal, but also appropriate for the local climate and soil. Here is their recommended list of vegetables for October:

• Vegetable seeds – Beets, Carrot, Mustard, Onion, Garden Pea, Radishes, Spinach, Turnip (early October: Chinese Cabbage, Collards, Garlic, Lettuce) 
• Vegetable plants – Chinese Cabbage, Collards (and other Greens), Lettuce, Spinach, Turnip, Broccoli, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Chinese Greens (Lettuce and Spinach can be planted throughout the fall if they are given frost protection). 

We ended up planting carrot, chard and radish seeds, along with Chinese cabbage, broccoli, spinach, and kale seedling transplants from the The Natural Gardener. The first few weeks, everything was sprouting beautifully, until some of our plants – particularly the cabbage and kale – started developing holes and looking pale and withered. Upon looking closely and inspecting underneath the leaves, we saw mounds of these little dark green insects shaped like sesame seeds. I snipped off a kale leaf, dropped it in a plastic baggie, and we returned to The Natural Gardener to identify these bugs.

Once there, at first glance, one of the staff identified the problem as a combination of munching caterpillars (causing holes) and juice-sucking aphids (causing leaves to grow pale and withered). But just to be sure, they placed my specimen beneath their ultra-high-powered-digital-microscope. Who knew these little things had such life and personality! The one we saw in the microscope happened to be a loner hanging out on a remote section of the leaf, but normally aphids tend to gather and pile up in tiny areas by the dozens. And if that weren’t bad enough, they are born already pregnant. (Sort of alien-like, if you ask me.) These little buggers can multiply faster than rabbits!

Homemade Organic Pest Control for Aphids

At any rate, we didn’t want to use chemical pesticides, in an effort to maintain our garden completely organic and sustainable. So the folks at The Natural Gardener prescribed 1 quart of water mixed with 1 to 2 teaspoons of soft liquid (non-detergent) soap. They instructed us to apply the mixture right onto the leaf – it has to get on the aphids in order to suffocate and kill them. But those little suckers are stubborn. Even post-mortem, they cling to the leaf, so unless you want them their rotting carcasses on your vegetables, you still have to spray-wash them away after they die. (But don’t spray so hard that you pummel and drown your poor plants with cascades of water.)

Unfortunately, the soap and water mixture did not really help at first. As an alternative to Seventh Generation liquid soap, we tried Dr. Bronner’s lavender liquid soap. The aphids simply kept reappearing. (Fortunately, the caterpillars never came back after we applied one treatment of certified organic Thuricide.) The good news is that eventually, the aphids did finally disappear, but only after we lost both of our cabbage plants and one of our four kale plants, and left a slight bit of damage on the remaining plants.

I can’t say we did our best, though. There are many things we didn’t try. We didn’t try ladybugs. We didn’t try luke warm water (we had used room-temperature water). We didn’t try Neem oil. We didn’t try other liquid recipes recommended on various sites. We didn’t inspect as religiously as we should have. Some of our gardener friends from the farmers market have told us that if you go the organic route, you have to be out there every day and be persistent in fending off the pests. Sometimes, you have to resort to hand-plucking off the bugs if you want to get down and dirty, in order to win the battle.

Hand Spraying Aphids with Soap and Water (and then you still have to pluck off the dead ones)

Let me know if you try the soap and water solution we used from The Natural Gardener and whether it was effective in getting rid of your aphids. Or try some of these other natural aphid control solutions:

• How to Get Rid of Aphids 
• The Nerdy Gardener’s Organic Aphid Control Methods 
• Homemade Aphid Control – A Natural Way to Kill Aphids

Happy aphid killing!

Spring 2011 Garden - First Attempt at Growing Vegetables

Spring 2011 Garden, a set on Flickr.

We'd been going to the farmers market since October of 2010, so we finally gathered the courage to try our own hand at organic gardening this past spring of 2011. We purchased all the supplies at the Natural Gardener - the soil, fertilizer, mulch, seeds, and seedlings. Shand built the garden bed (2 x 8 feet) at home with his tools, using natural cedar wood. We spent about $200 by the time we got everything installed and planted.

Not too long after we put the garden in, we added a structure with netting to keep birds and larger animals away. We also built another contained area for the potted plants. Without any training or classes, we gave our best attempt at growing our own food, not realizing we'd be heading into the hottest and driest summer in recent Texas history. 


We did yield some crops, but the output was minimal. We definitely didn't get our money back, if you're doing a strict financial analysis - penny in vs. penny out. But if you look at the value of being able to eat home-grown produce, consumed within minutes of being picked, the value was priceless. Stay tuned for a recap of our attempt at fall gardening.