Baby steps towards Green

Having a kid has made me much more conscious of the health of my family and of the environment. For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to have a more natural-minded lifestyle, particularly in terms of my diet. But my willpower has always been weak. Even when I was pregnant, I wanted to eat a healthy diet but I often didn’t (Helllllloooo, Chick-fil-a!) That really began to change when I started feeding Calvin real food. The more I learn about food, the more I learn about the environment and the more I realize that the way I live is simply not healthy nor is it sustainable.

I am slowly changing that. I truly believe that for a change to stick, it has to be made slowly. Abrupt changes can be abruptly discarded, but a change that is slowly integrated and that becomes a part of you is going to stick around. Think of it this way: fighting many small battles is much easier than fighting one big war.

As part of this journey I’ve started reading wonderful blogs like Kitchen Stewardship, Keeper of the Home and Fake Plastic Fish. The plethora of information can quickly become overwhelming when there is so much that you want to do. I realize that I have a long way to go to revamp my life – especially if I want to make real change that will stick around.

A few things that I’ve been doing lately:

• Giving up soda. This wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be – I usually drink tea instead, but if I want something carbonated I reach for mineral water. If you’re drinking bottled water – give that up too. Get a reusable container for your water, like the awesome Klean Kanteen.
• Learning what is on the dirty dozen list and buying the organic version.
• Cutting back on processed foods.
• Buying organic cow’s milk – though I am thinking of either trying raw or giving it up completely.
• Switching to non-toxic cleaners as I mentioned in my spring cleaning post.
• Gardening – we’ve already had a vegetable garden for several years which supplies most of our summer produce.

All of these can be done relatively painlessly (well, giving up soda might be tough if you’re an addict – but try it for a few weeks and soon you’ll forget about it).

Ongoing/upcoming changes:

• Curtailing the amount that we eat out. This is tough because we have an 11+ year precedent of eating out a lot. We lack willpower here.
• Cutting back on plastics.
• Creating a year-round garden.
• Going shampoo-free.
• Line-drying clothes/diapers.

I am really having fun learning about all of these things and implementing them into our family life. Please join me in implementing baby steps in your own life! What has recently inspired you and what changes do you hope to make?

On Lactivism

Lactivism is the advocacy of breastfeeding. I consider myself a lactivist which should come as no surprise since I am nursing a toddler. Lactivists come in all forms and I try to remain mindful that I want to be the nice, helpful, non-judgemental kind of lactivist. I am unconvinced that militant lactivism is of benefit to anyone.

I wanted to share a few great lactivist links that I recently came across:

Newborn Breast Crawl – This is a really cool video of newborn babies crawling – yes, crawling! – up to the breast. Breasts shown, so you may not want to watch this one at work. Watching this I was reminded that babies are born to be breastfed.

Why Seeing Breastfeeding is Important – I’ve always nursed in public, though I find myself cutting back just a bit now that Calvin is getting older. I do believe that breastfeeding anywhere and everywhere is an important step in normalizing breastfeeding. I think nursing in public paints nursing in a very positive light: a content baby and a mom who can be anywhere she pleases.

Take the Risk and See – Give Extended Breastfeeding a Try – There probably aren’t too many first-time moms who plan to be in an extended nursing relationship. My personal set-in-stone nursing goal was to nurse exclusively for six months and to continue to nurse until the first birthday. After I made that goal, I would evaluate and move on from there. That was seven months ago and I haven’t even thought about weaning. Why would I stop giving him the perfect food? Why would I give up the ability to comfort and soothe him at the breast? And of course there is one of my favorite side benefits – why would I want to lose my ability to consume a little extra junk food?

If Calvin doesn’t show some interest in weaning soon, then I think I may end up tandem nursing. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about it. But I feel that the downsides to tandem nursing don’t even compare to the downsides of forcing a milkaholic toddler off the breast. The average human weaning age is somewhere between two and five years old. While I probably will not pursue a 100% child-led weaning method, I will certainly continue to use gentle techniques that show respect both to Calvin and to the nursing relationship that we have established.

Sprouting seeds

Last week I tried something new… sprouting!

These are lentils that I sprouted and subsequently used to make Spicy Lentil Soup. (The soup was pretty good… not spicy since I left out the red pepper. It tastes very much like something we would eat after church on a fasting day!)

But back to the sprouting. I got the idea and the instructions from this post on the Kitchen Stewardship blog. Why try this at all? My initial reason was just for my own personal amusement. But there are some better reasons here, which include:

• reducing carbs
• increasing Vitamins A and C
• increasing calcium, iron and other minerals
• decreasing calories/glycemic load

I haven’t read enough yet to truly become convinced that this is the way to eat seeds, but it was certainly an interesting little experiment! I would like to try sprouting a few other things, such as rice, sunflower seeds and something for sandwich sprouts – perhaps broccoli seeds.