be well
 Greening
Your Kitchen
By Bari Cener
“Being green is contagious,” says Renée Loux, author of The Balanced Plate (Rodale Press) and host of It’s Easy Being Green on the Fine Living Channel. “You make one small change and then another–after awhile it becomes part of your daily routine.” Loux shares three ways to start creating your own eco-kitchen:
1. Choose biodegradable soaps like Planet or Method brands; one bottle goes a long way (due to the high concentration) and prices are comparable. “Regular dish soap goes down the drain and ends up back in the ecosystem–which is watering the plants that we’re eating!” A natural dish soap effectively washes dishes, is gentler on skin and it won’t leave a chemical residue on your dishes.
2. If you must use paper towels or tissues, choose paper goods that have been recycled or have been bleached without chlorine (try Seventh Generation, which uses 80 percent post-consumer materials). Recycled products require less energy and cause less pollution to manufacture–and bleaching without chlorine eliminates dangerous byproducts like dioxins, a nasty organic pollutant that builds up in our bodies.
3. Eat wisely by choosing seasonal, organic food: “When you buy a peach in the middle of winter in New York, it had to travel all the way from South America,” says Loux. “Not only did it require a lot of food miles–the time and energy it takes food to travel before you buy it–but the consumer is literally eating the cost of transporting that food to your table.”
Fashionably Green
These candy-colored Classic String bags from Ecobags® are perfect for bagging your organic fruits and veggies (you wouldn’t want to eat food exposed to chemical-leaching plastic, would you?). Eco-bags cost under $10 and reportedly last for years.
Find them at ecobags.com.
 a better bag
By Bari Cener
Did you know that Americans use almost a trillion plastic bags every year, most of which becomes litter and pollution? It’s true. And the contamination of our coastal land and waterways leads to the death of hundreds of thousands of animals and marine life each year, who are mistaking the debris for food. When these bags do decompose, they break down into tiny particles that infiltrate our ecosystem. Made from natural gas and petroleum, plastic bags are a strain on our energy resources. Paper bags aren’t innocent either- their production creates more solid waste and air pollutants.
Taking action has never been easier, as companies like Ecobags® and Bags on the Run are producing environmentally friendly alternatives to paper and plastic. “Our bags are made from natural and certified organic cotton, recycled cotton and hemp/cotton blends,” says Aliana Marino of Ecobags. “The bags are reusable substitutes for plastic bags and have the potential to eliminate hundreds, if not thousands, of plastic bags over its lifetime.”
Bari Cener, formerly of In Style magazine, lives in
Merrick with her husband and their two-year-old
daughter Caroline. |
