Book Review and Giveaway: The Magic School Bus and the Climate Challenge

Have you ever tried to teach your kids about climate change? What a big topic! Luckily, the folks behind The Magic School Bus series are here to help us out.

The Magic School Bus and the Climate Challenge Review

Ms. Fizzle and her magic school bus are at it again. The students in Ms. Fizzle's class are preparing a play about global warming, and what better way to learn about the whats, hows, and whys of global warming than to visit the arctic, slide on a sunbeam, fly over a city, and search out renewable energy. Ms. Frizzle's unusual field trip inspires her students to go green and show others how they can help.

This past Sunday, we sat down as a family to read The Magic School Bus and the Climate Challenge. Scholastic recommends this book for ages 7 to 12, and I completely agree. My two-year-old lasted the first few pages. My almost-five-year-old lost interest halfway through ("This is a loooong book, Momma").

My very-above-average-intelligence six-year-old read the whole book with me and definitely understood all of the concepts. But he's also a very sensitive child (he gets scared watching Charlie and Lola), so I try to steer him away from doom-and-gloom topics. I appreciated that this book falls more into the "what can you do?" camp than the "we're all going to die" camp of environmentalism, but I'll probably still hold on to this book for another couple of years before reading it to them again.

Nevertheless, I think this book would make a great introduction to climate change for a slightly older child. Like all of the books in the Magic School Bus series, it explains a difficult scientific concept in a manner that's easy to understand, logical, and fun, and my kids are big fans of the pseudo-comicbook style illustrations. And in case you were wondering, it is printed on "100% recycled fiber of which 50% is post-consumer waste."

For more information, visit the official book page. You can also participate in a webcast with author Joanna Cole and illustrator Bruce Degen on April 20th at 1 PM ET.

The Magic School Bus and the Climate Challenge Giveaway

Scholastic is generously offering three prizes to readers of The Conscious Shopper. One grand prize winner will receive a kids organic "Go Green" t-shirt and a copy of the book. Two additional winners will each receive a copy of the book. Please note that this giveaway is only open to U.S. residents. Also, although this is a children's book, you don't have to have kids to enter. This book would make a great gift for a grandchild, niece, nephew, kid-next-door, etc.

To enter:

• Leave a comment on this post stating your favorite children's book or series (besides this one).
  

• You can earn up to two extra entries by sharing this post on Facebook or tweeting it on Twitter and then leaving a comment for each thing that you do. This is completely based on the honor system, and remember that each comment is a separate entry.

You have until Tuesday, April 27 to enter. I'll select a winner using a random number generator and announce the results on the 28th. Make sure you either plan on coming back to see the results or you leave a way for me to contact you if you've won. Good luck!

This contest has ended. The winners are Susan, Mia J, and Julie. Please contact me with your address at consciousshopperblog at gmail dot com.

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You have hereby been challenged to go green in a year without going broke! Check out the last challenge, or view the whole list of Challengicious Mondays. Sign up for my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, and join my "Go Green without Going Broke" group on Facebook!

• Disclaimer: Scholastic sent me a copy of this book to be able to write this review but did not compensate me in any other way. I was not under any obligations to write a positive review, and all of the opinions contained in this post are my own.
  

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Book Review: Cheap

I'm over at The Green Phone Booth today with a review of the new book Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture.

Like many young couples, my husband and I furnished our first home at Ikea and Target, but a year ago, I decided I wanted to start upgrading to "grown-up furniture," starting with our bookcases. I dreamed of solidly crafted bookcases that would last the rest of our lives. So when we moved to Raleigh, we sold our cheap Ikea bookcases, gave away enough books to be able to downsize to two bookcases, and then I went shopping.

Cue reality. Even though I am definitely a grown-up, I cannot afford grown-up furniture. Two hardwood bookcases from grown-up stores like Crate and Barrel and Pottery Barn cost upwards of $800. Ouch!

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You have hereby been challenged to go green in a year without going broke! Check out the last challenge, or view the whole list of Challengicious Mondays.

Like what you see? Sign up for my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, and join my "Go Green without Going Broke" group on Facebook! You can also find me over at The Green Phone Booth.

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Book Review: Nickel and Dimed

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
by Barbara Ehrenreich

Rating: ***

Synopsis:

In the late 1990s, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich sat down with Lewis Lapham, the editor of Harper's, to discuss possible future articles she could write. The conversation made its way to poverty, and Ehrenreich wondered, How do people live on the meager wages of the unskilled? Could someone really get by on $6 to $7 an hour? Lapham challenged Ehrenreich to find out.

Over the next year or two, Ehrenreich joined the ranks of the low wage worker, finding employment as a waitress, maid, and finally Walmart associate. She moved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, searching for the highest paying available work while struggling to pay rent and afford food. Along the way, she met women who bypassed the rent problem by living in their cars. She lived for almost a month in a hotel room with a window with no screen and a door with no bolt in a room with no air conditioning or fan. And she did physical, mind-numbing labor - sometimes holding down more than one job at a time while still barely making ends meet.

At the end of her experiment, Ehrenreich concluded:

I grew up hearing over and over, to the point of tedium, that "hard work" was the secret of success: "Work hard and you'll get ahead" or "It's hard work that got us where we are." No one ever said that you could work hard - harder even than you ever thought possible - and still find yourself sinking even deeper into poverty and debt.

My Opinion:

I bought my first car by doing temp work one summer at a factory - one of four factories that employed me during college. I saved up for my semester abroad by working as a maid for Motel 6. And I earned spending money during college as a sandwich artist at Subway. I have a lot of experience with unskilled labor.

So rather than opening my eyes to some hidden aspect of America, this book brought back a flood of memories of all of those past jobs. I've often compared working at a factory to snapping beans for canning. It's repetitive, dull, and requires no skill whatsoever. But imagine that instead of snapping beans in front of the TV, or with the radio on, or with a group of gossipy friends, you have to snap beans standing up in one spot for eight hours straight (or twelve hours at night, as in one of my factory jobs). There's no air-conditioning, you can't stop to pee without asking for permission, and every now and then, a manager walks by to tell you to move faster. And you do this every. single. day. all. day. long...

For years after, I went around saying that every person that worked in management should have to spend a day or two a month in the factory. Just so they would know what it was like. Just so they would give their employees a little respect.

Did I think we factory workers should have been earning wages equal to management? Definitely not. Our jobs were physically hard but took no skill and we were easily replaceable. But surely, we were worth more than we were paid. The lowest I earned at a factory was $7 an hour, the highest was $12. And we factory workers were lucky - at $12 an hour, you might be poor, but you could get by. Unlike at $5.50 an hour like I earned at Subway.

And I might have forgone any dreams of higher earnings if they would have at least let me sit down when I was doing a job that could have been done sitting down. Or installed air conditioning. Or at the very least turned on the radio.

My point is that none of Ehrenreich's descriptions of her jobs, co-workers, or bosses were new to me, and I'm sure they weren't new to many of her readers. Her experiment was entertaining, but beyond that, it was almost pointless. She didn't need to go undercover to find out if a healthy person with a middle class background could survive the physically intense demands of most minimum wage paying jobs. She could have asked me, or any number of people who've worked those jobs to get through college.

And struggling for one month to make ends meet on minimum wage doesn't shed any light on how millions of people do it every single month. Particularly single mothers with children. How do they get by? I still don't know the answer.

Overall, I enjoyed the brisk and light pace of this book. But it wasn't the expose I expected it to be.


Up next on my reading list...No Impact Man


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Book Review: Worms Eat My Garbage

Worms Eat My Garbage
by Mary Appelhof

Rating: *****

Synopsis:

Appelhof's classic guide to vermicomposting is the definitive resource for anyone interested in starting a worm bin. Short and easy to read with clever illustrations, Worms Eat My Garbage includes information on what kind of container and worms to use, how to set up a worm bin, how to feed your worms, and how to harvest your compost. As a bonus, Appelhof also includes frequently asked questions about worms, including how they eat, poop, and reproduce. This is definitely the only book about vermicomposting you will ever need.

Here's just a sampling of the information in this book:

Why choose a worm bin?

• Because of the worms' high rate of digestion, a worm bin can be much smaller than a regular compost bin, and you can keep it indoors, enabling you to compost year round. Composting allows you to turn your kitchen food waste into valuable fertilizer for your garden rather than adding it to a landfill. You can also save energy and water through composting by avoiding use of a garbage disposal.

What size container should I use?

• "Plan on one square foot of surface for each pound of garbage per week."

How many worms do I need?

• Appelhof recommends a 2:1 ratio of worms to garbage. In other words, you need 2 pounds of worms for every pound of garbage you produce a day.

What can I put in my worm bin?

• Yes!....vegetables, fruits, coffee grinds, tea leaves, pulvarized egg shells
• No!...too much citrus, meat, bones, feces, preferably no dairy (stinky and attracts flies, mice, ants, and rats)

How do I use my compost?

• top dressing
• transplants (sprinkle in the bottom of each hole)
• seed beds (spread in a row)
• potting soil (mix with peat moss, perlite, and sand or garden soil)

Note that this is just a tiny example of the information in Worms Eat My Garbage. I strongly recommend reading this book yourself if you are interested in worm bins.


My Opinion

This book was even better than I expected. It's a perfect introduction and guide to vermicomposting, and I now feel ready to get my worm bin started. Right now, the thing holding us back is the amount of newspaper we need. We don't subscribe to the local paper, so it's a matter of saving up the bits of junk newspaper that come in the mail. Appelhof says you can use regular printer paper but that newspaper works better, and since I've read of others who failed at vermicomposting, I want to make sure I do it right from the start. Would it be worth subscribing to the newspaper just to get paper for my worm bin? Or does anyone else know of a good source of newspaper?


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Quick Tip: Fruit/Veggie Swap

A few months ago, I picked up a used copy of Fresh Choices: More than 100 Easy Recipes for Pure Food When You Can't Buy 100% Organic by David Joachim and Rochelle Davis. I'm still testing it out as a cookbook. Sadly, it doesn't contain any glossy pictures of delectable dishes, one of my main qualifications of a good cookbook. But so far, the recipes we've tried have turned out very yummy.

But as a resource guide, I have returned to this book again and again. Besides the recipes, each chapter is packed with information about why you should buy organic foods and what to do if you can't.

The premise behind Fresh Choices is that the positive effects of eating a nutritious and diverse diet, especially large quantities of fruits and vegetables, far outweigh the negative effects of consuming conventionally grown foods. So if you can't afford to buy 100% organic, or if organic foods just aren't available where you live, you should focus on avoiding foods with the highest pesticide residues and instead consume more of the "cleaner" foods.

For example, the author describes a situation where he was developing a recipe for strawberry-stuffed french toast. But strawberries are on the EWG's Dirty Dozen. The solution was simple: use blueberries instead. Blueberries test much lower for pesticide residue but are comparable nutritionally.

All of the recipes in Fresh Choices use produce with lower pesticide residues and specify when you need to buy the organic version of the product. But you can accomplish the same thing in your own recipes using a couple of handy tables included in the book. When a recipe calls for an ingredient that you know is high in pesticides, swap it out for something that is nutritionally comparable. For example:

Fruit Swap

Swap peaches for canned peaches, grapefruit, tangerines, U.S. cantaloupe, or watermelon to get Vitamins A and C

Swap apples for bananas, grapefruit, kiwi, tangerines, or watermelon to get Vitamin C

Swap strawberries for blackberries, blueberries, grapefruit, kiwi, tangerines, or U.S. cantaloupe to get Vitamin C

Swap U.S. cherries for blackberries, blueberries, grapefruit, kiwi, tangerines, or U.S. cantaloupe to get Vitamin C

Swap Chilean grapes for U.S. grapes (in season from May to December) to get Vitamin C

Swap pears for bananas, grapefruit, kiwi, tangerines, or watermelon to get Vitamin C


Vegetable Swap

Swap peppers (sweet and hot) for asparagus, broccoli, brussels sprouts, carrots, romaine lettuce, or tomatoes to get Vitamins A and C

Swap celery for broccoli, carrots, radishes or romaine lettuce to get carotenoids

Swap spinach for asparagus, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, chard, or romaine lettuce to get Vitamins A and C and folic acid


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Book Review: The Creative Family

The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections

by Amanda Blake Soule

Rating: **1/2


Synopsis:

Amanda Blake Soule never considered herself creative. That is, until she was pregnant with her first child, and she got bit by the knitting bug. Suddenly, she found herself consumed with the passion to create. After her son was born, her creative desire was fueled by the natural creativity she observed in her child - the inherent creativity found in all children. Soule found that her own creativity and the creativity of her children fed into each other. She asserts:

Being creative (in whatever capacity) is important: important to me, because I feel myself to be a more complete person when my creativity is expressed; important to my children, who witness adults growing, sharing, and learning creatively; and important to my family, who grow and connect by creating together.

Soule began sharing her family's creative spirit on her blog, SouleMama, where she posts photos of her family and their projects, particularly sewing and knitting.

In The Creative Family, she continues to share ideas and projects from her own family in four categories: gathering (provide good quality materials in an accessible and inspiring location), playing (encourage opportunities for imaginative play and set aside times to be creative), living (find inspiration in nature and family rituals), and connecting (creatively celebrate family traditions and holidays).

These four sections are peppered with projects to stretch your family's creativity, including making a child's pants out of the sleeves of an old adult's shirt; teaching your child simple embroidery, sewing, and knitting; building homes for fairies; and sewing birthday crowns and garlands.

My Opinion

We drove the 1200 miles to Kentucky and back again this week, and I zoomed through this book on the long car ride. When I finished, my opinion of it was a casual shrug. It was okay. It wasn't the best parenting/education type of book I'd ever read, few of Soule's ideas were original or inspiring, and I had some criticisms. But overall, it was an okay book.

Then I visited her blog, and my opinion dropped down another half a star. The photos on her blog are gorgeous. Where were those photos in the book! And her sewing and crafting ideas on the blog are original and inspiring. Where are those ideas in the book?

I can only guess that she wrote the book before her photography improved and that she was targeting it at a beginner audience. Also, when she wrote the book, she had three children under five years old - meaning she was actually fairly inexperienced at creative living and parenting.

That last factor is probably the main reason I wasn't thrilled with this book - although I don't exercise my own creativity as much as I could, my children are already very creative. They are amazingly talented artists, they have a band called The Banders and have written some of their own songs, and they are developing a series of comic books starring their imaginary heroes Crack-a-Man and Gogog.

I don't need someone to tell me how to encourage imagination in a five-year-old. What I would like (and what I was hoping to get from this book) is someone who can show me how to preserve their natural creativity as they grow older.

Having said that, Soule did provide a few ideas that have stuck with me:

• Soule comes from the school of parenting that prefers natural, homemade toys to the plastic, electronic kind most children play with nowadays. However, her reason surprised me. Besides the common belief that simple toys encourage more imaginative play, Soule believes that providing your children with toys made from natural materials is another way to encourage a connection to the earth. She encourages letting your children play with wooden toys, fabric toys (or just fabric, yarn, and string), and "found" items such as rocks, shells, acorns, and pinecones. She also encourages using natural materials (like wool and cotton as opposed to polyester) in your children's art and sewing for the same reason.
  

• I enjoyed some of Soule's ideas for developing a child's love of nature by bringing nature into the home. We've long had a rule in our family - "no rocks or sticks in the house!" But Soule encourages her children to bring rocks and sticks into the house and even sets aside a table for them to display their rocks and shells and leaves. She also puts a "seasons tree" on the table - an empty branch from which they hang various ornaments depending on the season.

• Another intriguing idea from this book is the concept of craftivism, or activism in social justice or environmentalism through crafting. For example, sewing blankets or knitting caps for children in need. I'm not a crafty enough person to want to be a craftivist, but it's an interesting idea.

• Finally, I think this book is worth picking up just for the resources section. Besides providing a great list of other books about crafting and creating with children, she also includes a list of websites where you can find natural art supplies and materials.

As a final note, if you're really looking for ideas for creative projects to do with your kids, I think the best resources on that subject are any of the books by MaryAnn F. Kohl. My favorites are Preschool Art and Making Make Believe.

Up next on my reading list...Common Wealth by Jeffrey Sachs.


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Book Review: Cradle to Cradle

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
by William McDonough & Michael Braungart

Rating: **** (would have given it five stars but I felt like the book might be dated)

Synopsis:

The first thing you notice when you pick up this book is that it's really heavy. It's less than 200 pages and slightly larger than an average paperback, yet it weighs as much as a small textbook. That's because it's not printed on paper...it's made of plastic.

Now before you go all Fake Plastic Fish on me, let me explain why.

McDonough, an architect and designer, and Braungart, a chemist, met in the early nineties and quickly discovered that they share a passion for rethinking bad design. Why not design a shoe with a biodegradable sole so that instead of adding toxic chemicals to the soil as you walked, you added nutrients to the soil? Why not design packaging out of materials that could safely be burned for fuel? Why not design buildings to use fuel and water effectively, like a tree? Why waste precious trees on books when you could print books on plastic that could be infinitely recycled into new books?

McDonough and Braungart envisioned a new school of design that eschewed the old "cradle to grave" philosophy and began instead to design objects for a cradle to cradle lifecycle. They explain that products should be designed so that "when their useful life is over, [they] do not become useless waste but can be tossed onto the ground to decompose and become food for plants and animals and nutrients for soil; or, alternately, that can return to industrial cycles to supply high-quality raw materials for new products."

How could we achieve such smart design? (Or, as the authors prefer to call it, eco-effective design?) McDonough and Braungart offer a number of valuable ideas:

• Resources should be divided into two categories and never the two shall mix. The first category is made up of biological resources such as trees, plants, food waste - or those that will biodegrade and return to the earth. The other category they call technical resources, including metals, glass, and plastic. At the end of their useful life, biological materials should be returned to the soil to decompose and create new biological resources, whereas technical resources should be recycled.

• When they say recycled, they really mean recycled. Not downcycled. Products should be designed so that when they are disassembled, their original technical resources maintain their integrity. That way steel always remains steel, aluminum remains aluminum, copper remains copper - not a mixed and inferior composite metal.

• McDonough and Braungart suggest that this system could only be practical if we introduce a concept they call the "product of service." They explain that customers would "purchase the service of a product for a defined user period - say, ten thousand hours of television viewing, rather than the television itself. They would not be paying for complex materials that they won't be able to use after a product's current life. When they finish with the product, or are simply ready to upgrade to a newer version, the manufacturer replaces it, taking the old model back, breaking it down, and using its complex materials as food for new products."

Throughout the book, McDonough and Braungart provide examples of projects they've worked on that exemplify the ideas they explain in the book: furniture upholstery that is so safe, you could eat it; carpeting that can be infintely recycled into new carpeting; buildings that clean and recycle their water.

But the most visual example of their philosophy is the book itself. A book made out of "polymers that are infinitely recyclable at the same level of quality - that have been designed with their future life foremost in mind, rather than as an afterthought...The inks are nontoxic and can be washed off the polymer with a simple and safe chemical process...The cover is made from a heavier grade of the same polymer as the rest of the book, and the glues are made of compatible ingredients, so that once the materials are no longer needed in their present form, the entire book can be reclaimed by the publishing industry in a simple one-step recycling process....Books become books become books over and over again, each incarnation a sparkling new vehicle for fresh images and ideas."

Such a radical idea, and yet so simple and absolutely right.

My Opinion:

I loved this book. I would say that anyone in business, art, architecture, design, agriculture - pretty much anyone - should read this book, except that it's kind of old, and I don't know how much of what they say has changed in the past seven years. For example, they say that aluminum cans are downcycled, but I was under the impression that aluminum cans are highly recyclable and can be made right back into an aluminum can. McDonough and Braungart, maybe it's time for a new edition?

(Maybe this would be a great opportunity to put that "product of service" idea into practice and have everyone who bought a copy of this book upgrade to a new edition...)


Next up on my reading list...The Creative Family by Amanda Soule


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Book Review: In Defense of Food

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
by Michael Pollan

Rating: ****

Synopsis:

In his previous book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan took a detailed look at the American diet, revealing that most of what we eat has its root in corn and oil, and that the organic label is not all it's purported to be. His book has been called a wake up call for the hungry and left many people asking, "Now what am I supposed to eat?"

In Defense of Food is Pollan's answer to that question, and the first three sentences of this book sum it up: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Those sentences describe Pollan's philosophy so concisely, you could almost get away with not reading the rest of the book. Almost.

The problem is that those statements need some explaining, so Pollan spends the next 200 pages fleshing out what he means when he says, "Eat food" (real food, not the processed food that makes up most of our diet), "Not too much" (focus on quality rather than quantity), "Mostly plants" (more leaves than seeds).

Pollan begins by ripping apart food science, or what he calls "nutritionism." He asserts that the method we use to analyze food (categorizing its parts into fats and carbohydrates, nutrients and micronutrients) is flawed, and as we as a culture have succumbed to the ideas of nutritionism, we've actually become less healthy, replacing much of the traditional foods our ancestors ate with food-like substances fortified with the supposedly essential nutrients.

Pollan suggests that rather than dividing foods into their various parts, we should focus on the whole food, eating more plant-based foods, eschewing processed foods, and enjoying food as a social and cultural action.


My Opinion:

Pollan's ideas here are very similar to Nina Planck's Real Food, and both books could be summarized with the suggestion to eat more traditional foods. Pollan's book also had similar flaws to Planck's, particularly cherry-picking research to support ideas and overlooking lack of exercise as a huge factor in the Western diseases (obesity, diabetes, heart disease).

Nevertheless, I enjoyed Pollan's book more than Planck's because she focused so heavily on meat-eating. Pollan does not advocate a vegetarian diet (although he doesn't discount it), but instead he supports eating meat from pastured, healthy, well-treated animals.

Still, I thought a lot of this book was overly-wordy and repetitive, as if Pollan really didn't have much to say on the subject. And because of that, I think most people could skip the first two sections of the book and only read the last, where Pollan details his eating philosophy.

In fact, for those too busy to read this book, I'm going to go ahead and give you the Clif's Notes version. Here's what/how you should be eating:

• Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.
• Avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronouncable, c) more than five in number, or that include d) high-fructose corn syrup.
• Avoid food products that make health claims.
• Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.
• Get out of the supermarket whenever possible.
• Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.
• You are what you eat eats too.
• If you have the space, buy a freezer.
• Eat like an omnivore.
• Eat well-grown food from healthy soils.
• Eat wild foods when you can.
• Be the kind of person who takes supplements.
• Eat more like the French, or the Italians, or the Japanese, or the Indians, or the Greeks.
• Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism.
• Don't look for the magic bullet in the traditional diet.
• Have a glass of wine with dinner.
• Pay more, eat less.
• Eat meals.
• Do all your eating at a table.
• Don't get your fuel from th same place your car does.
• Try not to eat alone.
• Consult your gut.
• Eat slowly.
• Cook and, if you can, plant a garden.

This was another book where I felt like I already knew too much about the subject for it to grab me. I need some suggestions for a really thought-provoking, pushing-the-limits-of-new-ideas kind of book...


Next up on my reading list...Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough

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Book Review: Real Food

Real Food: What to Eat and Why
by Nina Planck

Rating: ***


Synopsis:

Nina Planck's advice about eating could be summarized with the simple statement: "Eat traditional foods."

As a manager of farmers markets in London, DC, and New York City, Planck had the opportunity to compare meat, milk, fruit, and vegetables from small farms using traditional farming methods to foods from industrial farms. Her experience led her to determine that a diet of "real food" is healthy (including raw milk, red meat, lard, and other foods commonly deemed unhealthy) while asserting that modern, industrial food is the true culprit for many of our modern health problems, particularly obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

To support her assertion, Planck presents a well-researched comparison of the nutritional values of traditional versus modern foods. Her research illustrates why butter is better than margarine, why pastured meat contains more vitamins than industrial meat, and why we should not be afraid of the incredible edible egg.

Beyond the nutritional analyses, Real Food is a fascinating look at the history of the food industry, charting how we moved from farm-fresh foods to the processed food industry we know today. Two examples that stuck with me:

• Butter from pastured cows is naturally yellow. When margarine was first invented in the late 19th century, the margarine makers tried to compete with the dairy industry by dying the margarine yellow. "With the help of friendly politicians, dairy farmers put a stop to yellow dye, and five states with dairy muscle even forced margarine makers to dye it pink, apparently intending to make it look ridiculous. Undeterred, margarine makers responded by selling the white blocks with a packet of yellow dye to mix in at home. This, presumably, would fool the family - if not the cook."

• Describing how eggs became taboo, Planck relates, "In 1968 food scientists met to sort out a safe amount of cholesterol to consume. Some were opposed to the very idea, while others firmly believed dietary cholesterol had a significant effect on blood cholesterol, and after much haggling they reached a compromise. The average intake of cholesterol was about 580 milligrams per liter of blood. Halving that, they settled on 300 milligrams - a political solution." Eggs contain 270-something milligrams.
  

Planck's overall conclusion is that we should return to eating the foods our grandparents ate: "Unlike industrial food, real food is fundamentally conservative. It is the food you already know: roast chicken, tomato salad with olive oil, creamed spinach, sourdough bread, peach ice cream. To me, that's a relief. When you rule out industrial foods altogether, it does simplify things a bit."


My Opinion:

A friend of mine recommended this book to me but then added as an afterthought, "As I'm typing, I'm remembering that she is an ex-vegetarian, and thinks that meat is important, so I don't know that you'd agree with her on everything." I think that statement, although written by a friend before I even read the book, could summarize how I feel about Real Food.

Planck was a vegetarian/vegan in her late teens and early twenties. She states that during her vegetarian years, she gained weight and generally felt unhealthy. When she started eating meat again, she lost weight and felt better. That experience led her down a path of nutritional research, culminating in her philosophy of eating.

I think her experience is valid, but I've also been a vegetarian for 11 years, have been able to maintain a healthy weight through three pregnancies, and have never felt unhealthy. Additionally, because of her assertion that vegetable oil (as a modern innovation) rather than saturated fats is one of the true culprits causing obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, you would have to conclude that vegetarians and especially vegans would have higher rates of those diseases because they would use more vegetable oil, less butter, and no animal fats. But how many fat vegetarians do you know?

Because much of her ideas were premised on her experience with vegetarianism, I read the rest of the book doubtfully. I completely agree that pasture-raised meat and eggs are better than industrial, that we should eat lots of fruits and veggies, and that we shouldn't be afraid of butter. But about other things, I'm not so sure. Raw milk, for instance. Or lard.

I also think that Planck's insistence that real foods don't cause heart disease could lead people to feel like they can eat as much meat and potatoes (slathered in butter and cream) as they want. But personally, I think that the biggest cause of obesity is simple overeating, and we have to remember that the traditional diet was combined with traditional hard work that kept people slim and fit. A meat and potatoes diet combined with sitting on your butt all day is not going to prevent obesity.

Since finishing this book, I find myself every now and then thinking about some of Planck's ideas. But whether or not it will change anything about the way I eat remains to be seen.


Next up on my reading list...In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

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Book Review: Your Money or Your Life

Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence
by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez

Rating: ****

You know that weird thing when you learn something new, and then suddenly you hear it mentioned over and over in a bunch of random places? I can never remember what that's called, but it happened to me with this book.

At the end of the Tightwad Gazette, Amy Dacyzyn mentions Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez and their former organization, the New Road Map Foundation. I can't remember if she mentioned Your Money or Your Life or if I looked it up later, but I casually added it to my "To Read at Some Undetermined Point in the Future" list.

A couple weeks later, I got an email from the New American Dream announcing the release of an updated version of Your Money or Your Life. Apparently, Vicki Robin was a co-founder of my favorite organization.

Then I stumbled upon a review of it by the guy that writes The Simple Dollar stating that of all the financial books he's read, Your Money or Your Life is his favorite.

The result was that I moved it from my "To Read at Some Undetermined Point in the Future" list to my "Must Read Now" list.

Joe Dominguez, the developer of the financial philosophy described in this book, realized early on in his fast-paced career on Wall Street that he didn't want to be stuck in that kind of job for the rest of his life. He began living far below his means and saving as much as he could until after only a few years, he was able to live completely off of his investment income of $6,000. He left Wall Street and began teaching his philosophy to others in collaboration with Vicki Robin.

In 1992, they published the first edition of Your Money or Your Life, which teaches readers how to live below their means to get out of debt, build up their savings, and ultimately achieve financial independence.

I can't say that this book had the same effect on me as it did on the guy at The Simple Dollar, but I would recommend it to anyone starting out on their frugal journey or looking to improve their relationship with money. The information is presented in a straightforward, step-by-step manner, and their belief that anyone can achieve financial independence is empowering to the reader.

Most worthwhile is the description of money as something you get in exchange for your life energy, leading to the three questions that are the crux of their philosophy:

1. Did I receive fulfillment, satisfaction, and value in proportion to life energy spent?
2. Is this expenditure of life energy in allignment with my values and life purpose?
3. How might this expenditure change if I didn't have to work for a living?

Another valuable section of this book was their "101 Ways to Save Money," which for some strange reason, Vicki Robin decided to leave out of the new edition.

My main criticism of their ideas is that they would work best for singles or couples with no children. Some of the methods that they suggest for saving money simply would not work for a family. No matter how frugal you are, you really can't raise children on $6,000 a year.

My other criticisms are minor and personal: I had trouble getting into the book because the first three chapters describe how to set up a budget, something I have always done anyway. Also, I am a stay-at-home mom with no income of my own, and when I asked myself, as they advised, what I would do with my life energy if I didn't have to work for a living, the answer was, "Play with my kids, read a lot of books, blog...Oh wait, I already do that." It would have been more valuable for my husband to read the book, since he's the money maker.

Overall, I think the philosophy behind this book is an important lesson that we could all stand to be reminded of. Are we spending our lives working for things that don't matter? Or are our jobs a means to the ultimate goal of happiness and independence?


Next up on my reading list...Real Food by Nina Planck

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Book Review: Children's Books

Many moons ago, I wrote a post about arming my children against consumerism. I mentioned that my library had ordered a book called The Berenstain Bears and the Trouble with Commercials and that I would let you know how it was once I got it. Well, if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm pretty slow about getting things done. I got the book from the library two months ago, and I'm finally getting around to reviewing it. But to make up for my tardiness, I've included two bonus reviews. A three for one!

The Berenstain Bears and the Trouble with Commercials
by Jan and Mike Berenstain

Synopsis: Every time Brother and Sister Bear watch TV, they start asking Mama Bear for the newest and latest candy and toys. They're excited when she indulges them...until another commercial convinces them they need the next new thing. The unused toys are piling up, there are boxes of super sugary cereal going uneaten, and Mama Bear decides to come up with a plan to teach her cubs they can't believe everything they see on a commercial.

My opinion: I laughed as I read this book because Mama Bear could have been quoting me. Her explanation for the trouble with commercials was almost word for word the same thing I said to First Son. But having Mama Bear say it must be more effective than when I do. Maybe it's coincidence, but First Son hasn't asked for Motts applesauce since we read this book.


Too May Toys
by David Shannon

Synopsis: Spencer has too many toys. They are taking over the house: every step his mother and father take, they land on a toy. Finally, Spencer's mother decides it's time to give some of the toys away. Spencer argues and negotiates and says he can't bear to part with anything, but eventually he and his mother fill up a box of toys to give away. But when his mother comes to get the box after a tea break, she discovers the toys all over the floor again. Spencer explains, "Mom, we can't give away this box. It's the best toy ever!"

My Opinion: I love, love, love this book because it is so true. The toys my kids play with the most: boxes, paper and crayons, an old keyboard and anything they can bang on (they're budding artists and rock stars).


Miss Rumphius
by Barbara Cooney

Synopsis: As a child, Miss Rumphius decides that when she grows up, she will travel around the world and then find a place to live beside the sea. Her grandfather tells her those are worthy goals, but she must also find a way to make the world more beautiful. Miss Rumphius does exactly as she planned: she travels to exotic lands and then when she is old, she settles in a cabin by the sea. But how can she make the world more beautiful? Miss Rumphius decides to fill her pockets with lupine seeds, and everywhere she walks, she tosses the seeds. The next spring, lupines grow all over the town.

My Opinion: I love the message of this classic book, though I'm not sure about Miss Rumphius' method for making the world more beautiful. Planting flowers is all well and good, but maybe she could have become a motivational speaker or an activist to save the oceans or something that would really make the world more beautiful. Either way, this is a lovely and fun book to read to your kids.

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Book Review: The Green Collar Economy

The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems
by Van Jones

Rating: *****

Van Jones proposes that establishing a strong green collar economy is the solution for both the climate change crisis and the economic crisis. His subject is timely as the economy continues to stagnate, prices continue to rise, and the effects of climate change become more and more evident. Ironically, Jones notes in his afterword that when he first began writing the book, "very few people had heard the term 'green collar job'," but by the time the book was published, it was a political buzzword.

I've been seeing this book mentioned all over the Internet, and at first I thought, "That is not a book that would interest me." I figured it would be a heavy read full of economic jargon (read: boring). I don't know why I had that impression because I was completely wrong. Just shy of 200 pages, this book is brisk and pleasant, but at the same time, thought-provoking and inspirational.

Jones proposes that to revive the collapsing economy, the government should establish a Green New Deal by building up the green collar jobs sector in energy, food, waste, water, and transportation. He details how investment in each category would lead to thousands of jobs in technology and labor, and as an added benefit, we would save the planet. Some examples:

• A group in Milwaukee has come up with a way "to retrofit practically every building in the city to save money and put lots of people to work...Property owners or renters (with landlords' cooperation) receive an audit listing all conservation measures that can be paid for out of energy savings in a given period. They repay the cost of the measures via their utility bill."
• "The first turbine on Native lands was installed in early 2003 on the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Reservation in South Dakota. It produces enough clean electricity to power over two hundred homes...Rosebud alone aims to produce 50 megawatts by 2010."
• LaDonna Redmond turned her backyard in Chicago into an urban farm. Neighbors got involved, "one thing led to another, and today the Redmonds' organization, the Institute for Community Resource Development, secures empty lots from the city, oversees a whole network of lots-turned gardens, manages a farmers market, provides technical support and nutritional education, and is planning the opening of a retail store."
• "A nonprofit in Baltimore called Second Chance launched its architectural salvage and deconstruction services in 2003. Over the next four years, the company grew quickly, filling a 120,000-square foot warehouse space and engaging more than 50 employeese - three deconstruction crews and a retail store crew."

The most inspiring chapter for me was Jones' analysis of the division between the environmental movement and the social justice movement. He asserts that the two sides need to come together, creating a powerful forward-looking group that would be able to solve both environmental and social problems. Environmentalists would benefit from the grassroots growth, and workers in social justice would benefit from the establishment of green jobs. He used the term "environmental justice activists," which is not a term I've heard before but perfectly describes the type of activist-thinking that I'm drawn to.

My only criticism of this book is that it focused so much on how the government (rather than the average joe) can build up the green jobs sector, boost the economy, and solve the climate crisis. Jones' ideas would make a great handbook for President Obama, Governor Bev Perdue, or Mayor Meeker, but they are less useful for the average person, like me, for example. I kept waiting for him to say, "If you want to see this kind of change in your area, you should..." Write letters to my congressman? Lobby my mayor? Establish my own non-profit? Go door to door handing out copies of The Green Collar Economy? Or just keep doing what I've been doing...

Overall, this was a great book, and I strongly recommend that you read it. And then maybe mail a copy to your mayor.

Next up on my reading list...Your Money or Your Life

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Book Review: The Complete Tightwad Gazette

The Complete Tightwad Gazette
Amy Dacyzyn

Rating: *****

I left my copy of this book sitting around one day at my sister's house over Christmas vacation, and when my mom noticed it, she commented, "I used to watch this lady on TV!"

The Complete Tightwad Gazette is a collection of all of the newsletters Amy Dacyzyn published about living a frugal life from 1990 to 1996, and although some information in the book is dated (don't listen to anything she says about computers), most of the book is perfect.

I devoured this 1,000 page book over Christmas. I read it like it was a crime novel, though I never could figure out what had me so hooked. The articles in the book range from the philosophical ("creative deprivation" of your kids so they will be more grateful) to the practical (how to make potholders out of old blue jeans) to the totally off the wall (detailed instructions on how to safely dumpster dive) interjected with tips and advice from readers of the Tightwad Gazette.

You could keep this book around as a reference guide for what to do all your old milk jugs (there are dozens of uses for milk jugs in this book), for advice on how to slash your grocery bill (Amy Dacyzyn spent about $175 dollars a month to feed a family of eight), or for cheap homemade recipes (universal muffins, anyone?).

But I think the ultimate beauty of this book for me was the overall philosophy change I felt myself experiencing as I read it. Dacyzyn points out that if you want more money, you can earn more, or you can practice frugality and learn to save. Most people don't have the option to earn more money, so they should learn to live frugally.

I've always thought of myself as a frugal person, but I realized while reading this book that it has mostly been what Dacyzyn calls "fake frugality." She describes this as the type of person who focuses on how much he saved rather than how much he spent. For example, someone who says, "I bought this shirt on sale so I saved $15," ignoring the fact that the shirt still cost $50 even being on sale, and that he could have gotten a perfectly good shirt for $3 at the thrift store.

Also, Dacyzyn promotes earning money and living frugally as a means to an end. She encourages readers to figure out what their monetary goals are and to work toward them through living frugally. For example, she and her husband decided when they got married that they wanted to buy an old farmhouse with an attached barn and have a large family, but they didn't want to have to rely on babysitters or day care while they worked. Through frugal living, they were able to save up a huge down payment and achieve their goals.

I realized that my husband and I are always talking about our goals, but we haven't made any real financial steps toward achieving them. Hopefully, the advice in The Tightwad Gazette will help us prioritize so we can save up for the things that really matter to us.


Next up on my reading list...The Green Collar Economy by Van Jones

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Conscious Reading

This is a list of books I've read since starting this blog. It will be updated on a regular basis as I read more. Click on the title for a review of the book.

Currently reading:
Big Box Swindle
by Stacy Mitchell

Cheap by Ellen Ruppel Shell
The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyzyn
Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
The Creative Family by Amanda Blake Soule
Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte
The Green Collar Economy by Van Jones
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
No Impact Man by Colin Beavan
Real Food by Nina Planck
Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Appelhof
Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez

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Last Child on the Urban Farm

This post is my submission for this month's APLS Blog Carnival. The subject is "children are our most precious resource." Check out all of the APLS bloggers on December 15 at Going Green Mama.

Yesterday was a fluke warm day (nearly hit 70 although the high was predicted at 57), so I took the boys outside to let First Son practice riding the bike he got for his birthday. We rode along the sidewalk in our apartment complex, and then the boys asked if they could park their bikes and play for awhile. There's an island of trees in a cul-de-sac-like part of our complex where the boys and I played in the leaves a couple of weeks ago. There weren't any leaves yesterday, so the boys played in the dirt, stacked rocks, and pounded sticks together.

I am pretty sure we are technically not supposed to play there, but I'm also pretty sure that the management of our apartment complex frowns on children playing anywhere on the complex grounds.

None of the apartment complexes we looked at within walking distance from Raleigh had playgrounds. This one was better than most with its pool, tennis court, volleyball court, and grassy areas, but people never pick up their dog's poop in the grassy areas, and a month ago, the complex put up a sign on the tennis court basically stating that the court was for tennis only. (I had been letting the kids play in there since it was a flat, fenced-in area good for bouncing balls and not getting run over by cars.)

There is a nice wooded playground within walking distance from our apartment, but we would have to risk our lives on a dangerous road to walk there. There is another small playground that's part of an apartment complex down the street (again I think technically we are not allowed to play there). The street to get there is not safe for small children riding bikes, but we walk there now and then.

My kids are five, three, and one, and because of the urban lifestyle my husband and I have so far chosen to lead, my kids are growing up with very limited outdoor experience.

I compare this with my own childhood and feel a deep sense of remorse. I can remember being as young as five and playing freely in the field in front of our house with my older sister. Later, my friends and I ran wild in the woods, building treehouses, climbing trees, occasionally falling into the pond, bringing home toads and frogs and snakes, getting covered in poison ivy.

I can't imagine letting my kids have the kind of freedom in nature that I enjoyed. Not only because the world seems less safe now, but also because there's just no place like that around here where they can play.

In Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv points out that children today are taught about the rainforests and global warming, but very few of them are having real, hands-on experience with the outdoors. They have an intellectual connection to their environment, but not an emotional connection. And when they grow up, they will have memories of books and pictures and classrooms, but not memories of tangible experience: swaying in the branches of a tree, squishing in the mud, being peed on by a frightened toad!

The modern disconnect from nature that our children are experiencing makes me wonder what the future holds for environmentalism. Without experiencing nature, will the next generation have any desire to preserve it? As Louv says, "No child can truly know or value the outdoors if the natural world remains under glass, seen only through lenses, screens or computer monitors."

While reading Last Child in the Woods, I contrasted the neighborhood I live in with some European neighborhoods that Louv mentions while describing Timothy Beatley's book Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities:

"He describes an astonishing array of European green-city designs: cities with half the land areas devoted to forest, green space, and agriculture; cities that have not only preserved nearby nature, but reclaimed some inner-city areas for woods, meadows, and streams. These neighborhoods are both denser and more livable than our own. Nature, even a suggestion of wildness, is within walking distance of most residences."

Louv goes on to describe several cities' greenways, city-encircling bike paths, and urban farms. My first thought when I read this was, "I need to move to Europe." That's not a very practical solution, though, and a better one would be to work to make that kind of green urban development happen here in the United States.

Here are some ideas on how to do that:

• You can get involved in your area by contacting your city's planning commission and letting them know of your desire for more green spaces, pedestrian and bike friendly streets, and natural play areas for children.
  

• You can attend town meetings and voice your opinions about green building and park planning.

• You can also join the 40 million Americans involved in the No Child Left Inside coalition, whose goal is to create outdoor learning opportunities in classrooms and schools across the nation.
  

• Or you could start a farm to cafeteria program at your children's school or help them plant a school garden, both of which help children understand the source of their food and provide them with a healthier alternative to typical cafeteria lunches.

• In Raleigh, city officials recently posted the Public Review Draft of their 2030 Comprehensive Plan, the plan for Raleigh building, growth, and expansion for the next 20 years. They are asking all Raleigh residents to review the plan and provide feedback at their Public Input Portal.

• Triangle residents can also get involved with the Triangle Emerging Green Builders, who host a Green Drinks every other month, including a local speaker on green and sustainable building.

I think it's simple and logical to say that children need to spend more time outdoors, but it's harder in our increasingly urban society to provide children with outdoor experiences. It's important, though, for us as environmentalists to find ways to increase children's connection to nature if we want our torches passed on to the following generations.

As one woman in Last Child in the Woods explains, "Connecting [our daughter] with nature offers...a place to learn about love and respect for all of life - to see, touch, and smell where it all comes from, and to understand why she'll be called to do her part to take care of things."

Photo by lepiaf.geo

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Book Review: Garbage Land

Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash
Elizabeth Royte

Garbage? Seriously?

The subject of this book makes it sound like it's going to be boring. The author decides to dig through her trash every week, meticulously weighing and organizing each and every item she throws out. Then she follows her trash after it has left her home, visiting the landfill, several recycling plants, and even the sewage treatment plant. Sounds really, really boring...

Unfortunately, it's not boring at all, so you have absolutely no excuse not to read this book. In fact, this book was so eye-opening that I would love to give a chapter by chapter synopsis, quoting all of the most interesting passages. But then you wouldn't read this book, and you really need to read this book.

I expected to be totally disgusted with the waste management in this country, and in some cases I was (we are our absolutely dealing with sewage in the wrong way!), but I was surprised to find some good points about our waste management system as well. Modern landfills have their problems, but they are not as bad as I thought, and the solutions are not always as good as I expected them to be. Recycling has its own issues, specifically that there isn't a huge market in the U.S. for recycled goods, so a lot of the products we try to recycle end up being shipped to developing nations that have fewer environmental protection laws. This is a big problem when there are toxic substances involved, such as when recycling technology like cell phones and computers.

Creating a market for recycled products would be one step to solving the problem, and a pretty easy step that most consumers can have a hand in. (Remember that recycled toilet paper I was talking about last week?) The harder step, and the one Royte thinks is most important and would have the greatest impact, would be to buy less. For every product we buy, there is a huge amount of manufacturing waste that we never think about. According to one statistic she cites, "for every 100 pounds of product that's made, 3200 pounds of waste are generated."

The biggest eye-opener that I took from this book was an awareness of how little an effect my trash has on the overall big picture. Royte cites a statistic from the EPA stating that municipal waste makes up only 2% of the total waste in this country. The other 98% of waste comes from industries! Here I am recycling my butt off while industries are making minimal effort to reduce their waste. They contaminate our water, fill our products with toxic chemicals, make crappy products that don't last, encourage us to buy disposables, and then expect us to clean up after them.

That just doesn't make sense.

Plus, every time Royte mentioned a developing technology or innovation that seemed like a good solution to some problem with waste management, she would follow it up by saying something like, "This idea cannot compete with the old way because of huge government subsidies to the XYZ industry" or "The lobbyists for the XYZ industry have fought against this action."

It's like they have no conscience.

I imagine them sitting around in a big board meeting:

Board: "We have decided to build our new factories overseas where we can pollute as much as we want to, hire children to work in unsafe conditions, and make them work long hours for almost no pay. This will save us mucho dinero."

Loner Bob: "Um, I don't think that sounds very ethical."

Board: "Bob, this is not ethics. This is business."

Loner Bob: "But-"

Board: "Bob, you liked that big fat bonus you got last year, didn't you?"

Loner Bob: "Yes..."

Board: "Then keep your mouth shut. This is the way things are done."

I feel frustrated and angry, and I also feel like there's not much I can do about it.

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