The Greening of Kelly

I’ve discovered something!

My tap water tastes really good! And I’m shocked!

In my effort to Green up my life, one step at a time, I’ve already mentioned that I am trying to quit my Diet Coke addiction. I also had a little bottled water habit. In my previous homes the tap water always tasted bad, really bad. If I was going to drink water, it needed to taste good. I was so sure that the water in my current home would taste bad, I never actually tried it.

I bought two glass jugs for the fridge, one for iced tea, the other for water. I vowed not to buy bottled water anymore. I wasn’t really happy with this idea because, “Ugh, tap water!” but I was wrong.

So wrong.

It needs to be cold, but otherwise I am very happy with leaving bottled water in my past.

I enjoyed the movie. It was funny, it was touching and it was informative. There was enough information presented to get me thinking, but not so much that I was overwhelmed. I actually thought that there could have been a little bit more information presented about the health implications of eating so much high fructose corn syrup and corn-fed beef, but over all I left the theater with positive thoughts about the movie and the message.

Here is the first paragraph from the review in Variety:

Further evidence that everything is bad for you is offered by “King Corn,” which reveals how the U.S. farming staple is much more present in our diet — and having much more of an effect on our ever-expanding national waistline — than consumers realize. No doubt inspired to some degree by “Super Size Me,” this equally engaging, slightly better-crafted docu deftly balances humor and insight.

The Sustainable Table also has a pretty good in depth review and description of the movie if you are interested.

Below is an extended clip (about 20 minutes) of the movie if you are unable to find/rent/watch it in your area:

KING CORN- Extended Trailer

Here are a couple videos that I found on the subject of HFCS and corn-fed beef:

High Fructose Corn Syrup–Still Not Sexy

Corn-Fed Beef and Sustainability

Things to think about!!

I am planning on going to a free showing of KING CORN tonight. I figure it fits nicely into my pay more attention and maybe I’ll learn something philosophy. Maybe I won’t learn anything useful, but I bet I will come home a little more ahead than if I stayed home watching Real World/Road Rules Challenge the reunion show!

From the KING CORN website:

Behind America’s dollar hamburgers and 72-ounce sodas is a key ingredient that quietly fuels our fast-food nation: corn. In KING CORN, recent college graduates Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis leave the east coast for rural Iowa, where they decide to grow an acre of the nation’s most powerful crop.

Alarmed by signs of America’s bulging waistlines, the filmmakers arrive in the Midwest enthusiastic about their new endeavor. For their farm-to-be, they choose a tiny town in Floyd, County, Iowa—a place that, coincidentally, both Ian and Curt’s great-grandfathers called home three generations ago. They lease an acre of land from a skeptical landlord, fill out a pile of paperwork to sign up for subsidies and discover the U.S. government will pay them 28 dollars for their acre. Ian and Curt start the spring by injecting ammonia fertilizer, which promises to increase crop production four-fold. Then it’s planting time. With a rented high-tech tractor, they set 31,000 seeds in the ground in just 18 minutes. Their corn has also been genetically modified for another yield-increasing characteristic: herbicide resistance. When the seedlings sprout from Iowa’s black dirt, Ian and Curt apply a powerful herbicide to ensure that only their corn will thrive on their acre.

By summer, their modern farm is thriving, and the Corn Belt is moving toward a record harvest of 11 billion bushels of corn. But where will all that corn go? With their crop growing head-high, Ian and Curt leave the farm to see where America’s abundance of corn ends up. As they enter America’s industrial kitchen, they are forced to confront the realities of their crop’s future. In Brooklyn, it sweetens the sodas of a diabetes-plagued neighborhood. In Colorado, it fattens the feed trough of a 100,000-head cattle feedlot. Ian and Curt are increasingly troubled by how the abundance of corn is helping to make fast food cheap and consumers sick, driving animals into confinement and farmers off the land. Animal nutritionists confirm that corn feeding can make cows sick and beef fatty, but it also lets consumers have fast food at low prices. As feedlot operator Bob Bledsoe says in KING CORN, “America wants and demands cheap food.”

As Ian and Curt discover, almost everything Americans eat contains corn. High-fructose corn syrup, corn-fed meat, and corn-based processed foods are the staples of the modern diet. America’s record harvests of corn are supported by a government subsidy system that promotes corn production beyond all market demand. As Ian and Curt return to Iowa to watch their 10,000-pound harvest fill the combine’s hopper and make its way into America’s food, they realize their acre of land shouldn’t be planted in corn again—if they can help it.

King Corn Trailer

I wonder if I can talk my daughter, Starr, into joining me?

I have been an avid Diet Coke drinker (um, addict) for years…and years! Diet Coke was my coffee and my constant companion. I rarely let us run out and if we did for some reason, I was climbing the walls until I could make an emergency run to the store.

I’ve known for years that it probably wasn’t good for me. I knew that it wasn’t real food. Chemicals and aspartame…yum! Those things can’t be good for me. I have quit several times over the years, but have always fallen back into the habit.

I have quit once again. I feel it’s important, but it won’t be easy. So far I have substituted with iced tea with sugar (about 1/2 the sugar of regular sweet tea) and water. Give me some time and I might move on to caffeine free varieties of tea as well as further reduce or eliminate the sugar, but not immediately! Like I said, it has to be doable and easy or it won’t stick!

It’s been a week and three days. Wish me luck!

I was so excited to make my own spray cleaner, I made two with different recipes. (I have found many and will be trying others) This one is my favorite so far. Based on the recipe I received from Laura at All Star Cleaning Services.

My mom, who was in town a couple weeks ago, and is a big Formula 409 fan, gave it the thumbs up. Which says a lot! Seriously, she used to ask me “where’s the 409?” while pawing through the cleaners that I had at the time. “At the store. I’m sorry, I buy whatever is on sale and if I have a coupon. It is what it is,” I’d answer. She would sigh and use the whatever.

This time she liked what I gave her.

All Purpose Cleaning Spray

32 oz water in a clean spray bottle

2 T natural dish soap, I used Mrs. Meyers Lemon Verbena

20 drops Grapefruit Seed Extract (which can be found in vitamin and supplement section of your local health food store) to disinfect

Optional: add 5-10 drops of essential oil for fragrance. I found that the Mrs. Meyers was fragrant enough, I don’t need to add any additional fragrance.

Give the bottle a shake and you are ready to roll!

Thanks Laura! We haven’t met, but my slow greening process is all your fault!

Microfiber cloths are my new favorite thing. I bought a pack of about 25 for less than $10 in the automotive department at Sam’s Club.

I wanted to try them, I wanted to like them. I didn’t expect to love them. I love them. I use them dry or damp, depending on the job I am attacking. I love the streak-free finish on windows and glass.

It is important to wash them in a load of microfiber cloths alone. If you wash them with other clothing or towels, particles and fibers from those items will cling to the microfiber and make them less effective. Also, don’t use fabric softener as the oils will attach to the fibers of the cloths taking away some of their awesomeness. I designated a bucket for clean cloths and one for dirty ones, once the dirty pile is large enough to make a decent load for the washer, I do a load. Simple as that.

Since switching to microfiber cleaning nearly three months ago, I have yet to use up the roll of paper towels that sits on my kitchen counter. I am very happy!

I have been trying for a few months to slowly change some of my habits and adopt better, healthier ones. It started with a speaker who came to one of our local mom’s group meetings. She talked to the group about natural cleaning methods. I missed that meeting, but was party to the flurry of excited emails from my friends that followed as well as a handout citing cancer rates and other reasons to remove potentially harmful chemicals from our daily lives as well as a few recipes to start us on the path to healthier homes.

I was intrigued.

This spring, my dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer and while we were still absorbing that bit of information, he had chest pains and ended up getting four arterial stints! He was always a healthy man, he loves to hike and golf, he keeps active rehabbing houses (painting, building…lots of manual labor) he didn’t smoke and he ate a decent diet. This was unexpected and made me think.

Personally, I have been suffering from chronic (24/7) headaches since my late teens. That is 25 years of never ending headaches. Between the headaches, my weight issues, depression and my fibromyalgia, I know that making healthier choices, real choices, in multiple areas of my life is a good idea. A whole life, whole body approach.

I want to take better care of myself, but it can’t be hard. I don’t have the energy or patience for difficult. I need to attack these changes slowly, I tend to get overwhelmed and quickly revert to previous behaviors. In addition to taking care of myself I am concerned with taking care of this planet. It is our only home, now and forever, and we have been abusing it. It is past time for us to take care of it. The last and least important reason I want to make some of these changes is money, homemade cleaning products and skin care products can be a lot cheaper than the commercial brands.

So far I have cleaned up, or greened up, 70% of the household cleaners and am ready to start making more changes.

This blog is going to be my journey: tips, tricks, research, recipes, information, along with my trials and errors. I plan to continue to make changes with household cleaning, with taking care of my body on the outside and possibly on the inside with food and diet changes as well as supplements. I also want to work on the mind-body-spirit connection. Exercise might come up, but if you don’t let that scare you, I will try not to let it scare me either! With my headaches, changes need to be simple and real. The bottom line it that I need to like what I’m doing or the changes won’t stick.

I am really excited about this project, I want it to be fun and educational.

Do ya wanna go “Green” (healthier, simpler, happier?) with me??

…but I am determined to green-up our lifestyle. Eliminating some of the toxins that we consume as well as produce. Welcome to the journey!!