There is a large, very active network of natural and holistic-oriented families here in San Diego, and one of the things that many of us do together is buy stuff cooperatively. Whether it is organic cotton kids clothes, non-toxic shampoos and deodorants, or a half-side of grass-fed beef, we moms group up to order anything that can be had more cheaply by buying it together. You can too.

Between rising food and oil prices and a depressed economy, organic, pasture-raised, and healthy, natural products are more expensive than ever. But you can make them substantially cheaper by throwing in with your friends and family to buy in bulk quantities. If you have a large enough group to meet the minimum order price on a relatively regular basis, you can set up a wholesale account with a lot of different natural product and organic food vendors, both local and out-of-state. This can save you hundreds—or even thousands of dollars a year!

Some of the benefits of buying clubs include:

Starting with just five or six families, the buying clubs here in San Diego eventually grew large enough to need tools like Google Groups to communicate and Google Docs spreadsheets to place and keep track of orders among dozens of families. Paypal became invaluable for ensuring that members pay for their orders in a timely fashion.

Eventually, we needed some administrative leadership and some formal rules to keep everything organized and accountable. Whether the leadership is formal or informal, static or rotating, paid or voluntary depends on what works for your group.

Ultimately we have grown to need a food scale and a few used, deep-chest freezers (bought off of Craigslist) to hold orders in someone’s garage until they can be picked up by members. Never buy a new freezer: There are simply too many used ones in perfect working condition to keep out of the landfill!

While I don’t think we want our buying clubs to grow so large that we need a storefront to hold all the products, if you wanted to go in that direction, know that most co-op grocery stores got their start as little garage and kitchen table operations like ours.

I’m proud to say that between gardening, buying clubs and farmer’s markets, we barely need the grocery store anymore—and we certainly never pay retail “Whole Paycheck” prices for expensive things like non-toxic sunscreen, organic almond flour or pasture-raised poultry.

And as an added benefit, we have the satisfaction of knowing that most of the money we spend on food, housewares and personal care is going to great small businesses and nearby family farms and ranches, instead of huge, unaccountable, corporate chains.

Once you get your buying club together, you’ll be amazed at the deals you can negotiate simply by having a group large and organized enough to regularly buy in bulk.

Here are some of the great national and regional vendors where our buying clubs have set up wholesale accounts:

• Azure Standard – From organic cereals, pasta, and yogurt, to bulk nuts and produce, if it’s a packaged food you’ve seen at a health food store, Azure probably has it. Only available in certain parts of the country.
• Frontier – Frontier is a national co-op that provides buying clubs with teas, coffees, spices, bulk food items, personal care items, household items, culinary accessories, vitamins, and supplements. They have thousands of Fair Trade items and carry all the major, natural brands like Frontier, Simply Organic, Aura Cacia, Ecover, Seventh Generation, Dr Bronner, and more.
• Benefit Your Life – Natural and gluten-free foods, including bulk, unpasteurized, organic almond flower at the best 25-pound price I’ve seen anywhere.
• Mountain Rose Herbs – An outstanding source for any and every type of herb, spice, tea, essential oil or traditional fat you might need for cooking or natural medicine. Their vast selection can’t be beat anywhere on the net, and their prices are great, even at retail. Working with a co-op to order wholesale is even better!
• Green Pastures Fermented Cod Liver Oil – Your grandmother was right: Cod liver oil is one of the most nutrient-dense foods you can add to your diet to ensure good health. If you ferment it in the old, Norwegian tradition the way Green Pastures does it, then it is even better.
• Wilderness Family Naturals – Sustainably harvested and produced coconut oils, coconut milk and cream, chocolate spreads and nut butters, sprouted nuts and seeds, soy- and canola-free mayonnaise and salad dressings, REAL wild rice, and more. One of my favorite traditional food stores!
• Ancient Organics Ghee – Yummy ghee. Mmmmmm.
• Green Virgin Products – Bulk soap nuts and mineral salt deodorant stones.
• Conscious Cookery – Organic beans, lentils, grains, soup blends and teas.
• Shelton’s Poultry – Pasture-raised, antibiotic and hormone free chicken and turkey. West Coast only.
• J&J Grassland Beef - A grassfed beef CSA with yummy steaks and really nice ranchers. Southern California only.
• Glacier Grown – Free-range bison by the half and whole animal (though butchered for easy sharing), raw honey. Southern California only.

We also bulk order a lot from small businesses, farms and ranches in our county:

• organic produce
• citrus, tropical fruit and avocados
• raw vegan ice cream
• raw honey
• raw milk and cheese
• olives and olive oil
• pasture-raised pork
• grass-fed beef
• pasture-raised chickens and eggs
• duck eggs
• fish and seafood
• stainless steel food tiffins
• diapers (both cloth and “eco-friendlier” disposables)

As a group, we also regularly go in together on online orders for clothing, housewares and more, whenever a member has a good coupon or free shipping. Clothing and toy swaps are relatively common too. We keep a member business list so that we can hire each other for services before we open the Yellow Pages to hire a stranger. But the best part for me, as a full-time mom and caregiver, is that order pick-up days are often lively social occasions and multi-family playdates.

It’s amazing how social, sustainable, frugal, and fulfilled you can be when you start working together and sharing resources with your friends and neighbors.

Starting or joining a natural food buying club this year just makes good economic and environmental sense. It can also help connect you with the farmers and food produced locally in your region, and build a strong sense of community and connection in your neighborhood, social group and family. What do you have to lose?

Here are some additional resources to get you started:

• Food Co-ops vs. Buying Clubs – Sustainable Table
• A Cooperative Food-Buying Club Primer
• Join or Start Your Own Buying Club – Organic Consumer’s Association

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Coconut milk is often a staple for people with food allergies, as well as an outstanding dairy replacement and healthy fat source for those who are adhere to a raw, GAPS or Paleo diet. Fortunately it is very easy and cheap to make at home.

Nutrition
Coconut is incredibly nutritious. Rich in trace minerals including manganese, copper, and selenium, it also contains modest amounts of calcium, iron, potassium, Vitamin C, Vitamin B6, thiamin and folate. Coconut is unusually high in healthy, medium-chain fatty acids like lauric acid (found otherwise only in human breast milk) and caprylic acid (a potent natural antiviral and antifungal). Oil from coconuts is shelf-stable at room temperature, making it resistant to rancidity and perfect for high-temperature cooking, baking or frying. Coconut oil is known to help reduce both your cholesterol ratio and your waistline, and if that weren’t enough, the water in a coconut has the same mineral and electrolyte profile as human blood plasma!

Selection
Most people use canned coconut milk in their recipes. However, canned coconut milk—like almost all canned foods—contains toxic BPA in the lining of the can which can leach into your food. Native Forest® coconut milk is currently the only brand that does not use BPA in their coconut milk cans, but they do add a bit of natural guar gum as a thickener.

Another option is to get coconut milk in Tetra paks or cartons. So Delicious® is a very good brand, but you should know their products contain natural guar gum, carageenan, and fortified vitamins and minerals, if that presents an allergy or digestive problem for you. You can also find coconut milk flash-frozen or in Tetra paks at any good Asian grocery store.

But, for fresher, more nutritious results—not to mention saving a lot of money—it’s easy to make your own coconut milk using dry, shredded coconut. Fresh, homemade coconut milk is far richer in vitamins, food enzymes and nutrients than coconut milk from a can or box. In fact, fresh coconut milk contains three times as much vitamin C as canned coconut milk and is richer in thiamin, niacin, vitamin B6, folate and panthothenic acid, too. And, if you ferment your coconut milk into yogurt, you’ll get even more protein and nutrition, as well as a lot of probiotics for your digestive health.

Homemade Coconut Milk

• Vitamix or good blender
• Nut milk strainer bag, paint strainer bag or fine cheesecloth
• 2 cups unsweetened, shredded coconut
• 4 cups hot (not boiling), pure water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
• 6 drops stevia (optional)

1. Place shredded coconut in a bowl of hot (not boiling), pure water. Let soak for 1-2 hours. Do NOT discard the water.
2. In the Vitamix or blender, combine coconut, soaking water, and vanilla and stevia, if using. Blend on the highest speed for about a minute.
3. Strain liquid through a nut milk bag, paint strainer bag or very, very fine cheesecloth, pressing out all the liquid you can.
4. Discard solids or save them for adding to baked treats.
5. Use immediately or store in the fridge. Good for 3-4 days. Since there are no preservatives or fillers, the fat in the coconut milk may separate on the top if stored in the fridge. Just shake or stir before using.

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Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, Americans throw away a million extra tons of garbage each week, including holiday wrapping and packaging, according to Robert Lilienfeld. Lilienfield is co-author of the book Use Less Stuff: Environmental Solutions for Who We Really Are. Here are eight ways to reduce your environmental footprint this holiday season. 

1. Make Your Own Wrapping Paper or Go Without
Most mass-produced wrapping paper you find in stores is not recyclable and ends up in landfills. Instead, here’s a great chance to get creative! Wrap presents with old maps, the comics section of a newspaper, or children’s artwork. Or use a scarf, attractive dish towel, bandana, or some other useful cloth item. Lilienfield, who has published a newsletter on reducing waste since 1996, notes that if every family reused just 2 feet of holiday ribbon, the 38,000 miles of ribbon saved could tie a bow around the entire planet.

And not all gifts need wrapping. “Think back to your three favorite holiday memories,” Lilienfeld said. “I’m willing to bet that they all involve time you spent with your family and friends.”

By giving gifts that can be experienced, like tickets to a baseball game, a trip somewhere interesting, or a homemade dinner, you can minimize wrapping and shopping, and still win points with the receiver. “People like these gifts just as much, if not more,” he said. (Indeed, I do!)

And even if you do buy physical gifts for the holidays, you don’t necessarily have to wrap them either. A Small Footprint Family fan recently told me that at her house, she hides all the unwrapped presents around the house, and holds a scavenger hunt for the kids to find them. What a fun, clever, low-waste idea!

2. Buy Energy-Saving Holiday Lights
Thanks to technology, you can now decorate your house with LED lights that use 90 percent less energy than conventional holiday lights, and can save your family up to $50 on your energy bills during the holiday season! As an added bonus, LEDs release little heat, and they last about 200,000 hours. In the unlikely event that one does burn out, the rest of the lights keep on glowing. Whew!

According to one U.S. Department of Energy study, if everyone replaced their conventional holiday light strings with LEDs, at least two billion kilowatt-hours of electricity could be saved in a month. The savings would be enough to power 200,000 homes for a year! LED lights are available at many major retailers.

3. Add Organic and Local Foods to Your Holiday Feast
Support local family farmers who grow sustainable meat and produce. Not only does local, organic food taste better, but you’ll also be doing your part for your community and the planet too. Find an organic turkey or humane ham and local vegetables for holiday dinner.

4. Get a Pesticide-Free Tree
Demand is on the rise for Christmas trees that are not covered in chemicals; some growers use 40 different pesticides, as well as chemical colorants. The good news is that there are now a number of tree-farms that sell pesticide-free trees, so ask your local Christmas tree seller, or search for an organic tree farm near you.

5. Recycle Your Christmas Tree
Each year, 10 million Christmas trees end up in the landfill. While your tree won’t fit in the recycling bin with your newspapers and bottles, you can recycle your tree: many cities offer programs to turn your tree to mulch or wood chips. Some cities even use your old trees to do important environmental projects like streambank stabilization. Call (800) CLEANUP or visit www.earth911.org to find the tree-recycling program near you.

6. Recycle Your Old Cellphone
Getting a new cell phone for Christmas? Not sure what to do with the old one? Now, you can drop off that old phone at any Staples store, as part of the Sierra Club cell phone recycling program. Each year, 130 million cell phones are thrown out, weighing approximately 65,000 tons. Recycling your old phone prevents hazardous elements like mercury, cadmium and lead from ending up in our landfills. Find out more.

7. Offset Your Travel
If you or your loved ones are traveling more than 100 miles this holiday season, try to reduce air travel whenever possible, and consider offsetting the fossil fuel pollution generated by your trip, no matter how you travel. These companies can help you get trees planted to reduce your impact.

• Terrapass – Provides carbon offsets for flying, driving, etc.
• CarbonFund – Provides a variety of carbon offset projects to choose from.
• Carbonify.com – Tree planting for offsetting carbon emissions

8. Donate Your Time or Money to an Environmental Group
Get into the holiday spirit by volunteering! There are countless ways to help improve your community—and the planet—from cleaning up a local river to helping inner city kids experience the outdoors for the first time.

How are you being green this holiday season?

We Wish You a Peaceful Holiday and an Abundant New Year!

—The Small Footprint Family

_{This post is part of  The Mommy Club, Healthy 2Day Wednesdays, Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Simple Lives Thursdays, and Fight Back Fridays.}

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These days, everyone is looking for ways to save some money. Fortunately for your wallet and the planet, the easiest way to save money in the laundry room is to make your own laundry detergent. If you are chemically sensitive or on the GAPS diet like we are, making your own laundry detergent will not only save you money, but will naturally avoid the toxic chemicals and noxious scents found in store-bought brands.

Laundry detergent ingredients pose a variety of health risks to humans, ranging from relatively minor—like skin irritation and allergies—to the severe—cancer, poisoning and neurological problems. These products can affect not only personal health, but also public and environmental health. The chemicals can go into the air, down the drain and into bodies of water, too.

I often wondered why my neighbor’s “April Fresh” aroma would give me migraines until a 2008 University of Washington study of top-selling laundry products found that the products emitted nearly 100 different volatile organic compounds. Results of the study showed 58 different volatile organic compounds above a high concentration of 300 micrograms per cubic meter. Of these, seven are regulated as toxic or hazardous under federal laws. All the products tested in the study gave off at least one chemical regulated as toxic or hazardous, but none of those chemicals was listed on the product labels.

Findings in a new 2011 study by the same researcher show that air vented from machines using the top-selling scented liquid laundry detergent and scented dryer sheet contains more than 25 volatile organic compounds, including seven hazardous air pollutants. Of those, two chemicals—acetaldehyde and benzene—are classified by the Environmental Protection Agency as known carcinogens, for which the agency has established no safe exposure level. 

No wonder laundry products make an estimated 10% of the population feel so ill.

The researchers estimate that in the Seattle area, where the study was conducted, acetaldehyde emissions from the top five laundry detergent brands would constitute about 6 percent of automobiles’ acetaldehyde emissions. In the U.S. we regulate automobile emissions, but completely ignore the toxic pollution coming from our dryer vents—at our own peril.

And if the toxic fragrances weren’t enough, conventional laundry detergents also contain phosphates, sulfates, ammonia, naphthalene, phenol, optical brighteners, EDTA, and more. These chemicals can cause rashes, itches, allergies, sinus problems, endocrine disruption, and have long term toxic effects on the environment. Lastly, the embedded energy, natural resources and waste involved in mass-producing and transporting billions of gallons of plastic-packaged, toxic laundry detergents is just too significant for small footprint families to ignore.

Believe it or not, in the U.S., manufacturers are not required to list the ingredients used in laundry products, air fresheners and other household cleaning products. Personal-care products often contain similar fragrance chemicals too, and although cosmetics are required by the Food and Drug Administration to list ingredients, no law requires products of any kind to list the chemicals used in fragrances and perfumes. Even “green” or “eco-friendly” cleaning products are not required to disclose their ingredients, and may contain toxic fragrances or petroleum-derived ingredients.

The safest bet for your family and the planet is to make your own less toxic laundry detergent. Costing just pennies a load, you can get all the ingredients in bulk quantities online (links below), at Costco, or in your grocer’s laundry aisle.

(Note: Many do-it-yourself laundry detergent recipes call for Fels Naptha, Octagon or Zote bar soap, but all of them contain highly toxic ingredients like napthalene that you really don’t want near your skin or in your environment.)

Both the powder and liquid versions of this recipe work well in cold water and are safe for septic tanks, and both HE and front-loading washing machines. I’ve found no difference in washing quality between the homemade detergent and store-bought brands, and this recipe tends to work much better than most eco-friendly brands.

For extra softness, don’t forget to add a cup of white vinegar to your rinse cycle to soften your clothes, and you’ll never go back to conventional, toxic detergents or fabric softeners again!

Homemade Laundry Detergent Powder
Makes enough for about 300 loads

Ingredients

• 4 cups Borax
• 4 cups Washing soda
• 2 cups Baking soda
• 4 cups grated bar soap (2-4 bars) (Choose a non-toxic, real bar soap—not a “beauty bar” like Dove or a clear glycerine soap. We use both Kirk’s Castile and Grandma’s Lye soaps for laundry.)
• Essential oil (Optional for scent. Tea Tree oil is especially nice if you use this detergent for washing cloth diapers.)

Directions

1. Cut the bar soap into large chunks with a knife.
2. Grate the soap chunks with a fine cheese grater or throw the chunks into the food processor and blend into as fine of a powder as you can make. Let dust settle before opening processor, so as not to inhale it.
3. In a large plastic tub or bucket, mix the Borax, washing soda, and baking soda together. Wear a dusk mask or bandana to avoid breathing in the powder while you mix. You will need to let the dust settle a few times before continuing to stir. If you can seal the container, you can shake it vigorously to mix with no dust.
4. Stir in the grated/powdered bar soap.
5. Stir in 10-20 drops of essential oil, if tolerated. Tea tree oil is great for diapers as it has antiseptic qualities.
6. Store in a covered, airtight container.
7. If your powder has trouble completely dissolving, try mixing it in a little hot water before adding to the laundry.
8. Use 1-2 Tablespoons per load. (Adjust for your machine.)

Homemade Laundry Detergent Liquid
Makes enough for about 80 loads

Ingredients

• Hot water
• Clean 5-gallon bucket with lid
• 1 cup Borax
• 1 cup Washing soda
• 1/2 cup Baking soda
• 1 cup grated bar soap (1-2 bars) (Choose a non-toxic, real bar soap. Do not use a “beauty bar” like Dove or a clear glycerine soap! We use both Kirk’s Castile and Grandma’s Lye soaps for laundry.)
• Essential oil (Optional for scent. Tea Tree oil is especially nice if you use this detergent for washing cloth diapers.)

Directions

1. Cut the bar soap into large chunks with a knife.
2. Grate the soap chunks with a fine cheese grater or throw the chunks into the food processor and blend into as fine of a powder as you can make. Let dust settle before opening processor, so as not to inhale it.
3. Place grated bar soap in a pot. Cover with water and simmer over medium heat until all soap is melted, stirring occasionally.
4. Pour melted soap mixture into a clean 5-gallon bucket. Add washing soda, baking soda, and borax. Stir.
5. Add enough hot water to almost fill the bucket. Mix very well until all ingredients are dissolved. (I use a long ruler for this.)
6. If using essential oil, AFTER the mix has cooled down completely, mix in 10-20 drops, to taste.
7. Let sit overnight to gel. The gel will be loose and very gloppy—like egg-drop soup.
8. Use a funnel to pour the gel into clean, recycled detergent containers or leave in the bucket. Cover with an airtight lid if leaving in the bucket to protect children and pets.
9. Stir or shake well before using. Use 1/2 – 1 cup per load. (Adjust for your machine.)

_{This post is part of Seasonal Celebrations Sunday, Monday Mania, The Mommy Club, Real Food Wednesdays, Healthy 2Day Wednesdays, Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Simple Lives Thursdays, Creative Juice Thursdays, and Fight Back Fridays.}

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Did you know that August 7–13 is Fluoride Awareness Week?

Me neither till, well, this week…

But I’m excited about it because the Fluoride Action Network has a plan to END water fluoridation in both Canada and the United States, and they are hoping that by spreading mass awareness, Fluoride Awareness Week will bring us a lot closer to that goal. San Diego (where I live) just began water fluoridation this year, despite significant public protest, so we need all the help we can get!

The producers of this provocative film are allowing a FREE full-length preview through August 13th! You can also support Fluoride Action Network and their important work by purchasing the Professional Perspectives DVD at a special price of $10 during Fluoride Awareness Week.

Now… Why exactly should you “be aware” about fluoride this week? Isn’t that the stuff that keeps our teeth from falling out?

Ever wonder why most kids’ toothpastes have no fluoride? Because kids inevitably will swallow some paste, and fluoride is extremely TOXIC. In fact, eating a tube of toothpaste will kill a child (and seriously harm an adult), so be sure to keep any fluoride paste or mouthwash out of reach, just like you do with bathroom cleaners and medicines.

For me, this begs the question:

Why are we putting a toxic chemical that everyone agrees should never be swallowed into our food and water supply in the first place?

Most people don’t know that the type of fluoride added to water supplies, most toothpastes, and many beverages and foods is typically a waste product of the nuclear, aluminum, and phosphate (fertilizer) industries. The EPA has classified fluoride as a toxin. Fluoride is so toxic that, in addition to being a primary ingredient in rat and cockroach poisons, pest fumigants and crop pesticides, fluoride is also an active ingredient in anesthetic, hypnotic, and psychiatric drugs, as well as nerve gas used by the military.

Do we really want this stuff in our bodies at all?

Under the U.S. Safe Water Drinking Act, it is illegal to dump fluoride in lakes, streams and oceans, but, for some strange reason, it’s OK to dump fluoride into our food and water supplies and then rub it into our teeth and gums twice a day. Hmmmmm.

How Did We Get Here? – A Brief History of Fluoride
According to journalist Christopher Bryson, author of The Fluoride Deception, getting large quantities of fluoride into the water and food system was the result of the massive public relations campaigns sponsored by industries who were saddled with getting rid of toxic waste.

Fluoride is necessary for the processing or enriching of uranium. Much of the original proof that fluoride is “safe” for humans in low doses was fabricated in the 1940s by Manhattan Project A-bomb program scientists, who had been secretly ordered to provide “evidence useful in litigation” against defense contractors for fluoride injury to citizens. The first lawsuits against the U.S. A-bomb program were not over radiation, but over fluoride damage. Their pro-fluoride propaganda was successful in convincing juries and the public that not only was fluoride safe, but that it was beneficial for kids’ dental health!

Fluoride was used by both Hitler during WWII and also by the Russians in order to make the population more docile. Fluoride is also a principal ingredient in many antidepression drugs such as Prozac because of its ability to numb the mind. And fluoride was key in the worst air pollution disaster in U.S. history in Donora, Pennsylvania that killed 20 people and hospitalized over 7,000 between October 26 and 31, 1948.

Because of the mind altering affects of fluoride, in the early 1950′s, the notorious spin master and father of advertising, Edward Bernays, continued the campaign for adding fluoride to water supplies as an experiment in engineering human consent! Then the ADA picked up on the dental issue and endorsed sodium fluoride’s addition to water supplies.

For the last several decades, any dissenting health professionals with studies and reports against fluoride were usually dismissed as quacks regardless of their credentials. Despite this, in 1999, over 1500 professionals at the US EPA, including toxicologists and risk assessment experts voted unanimously to oppose the fluoridation initiative in California because of the health risks involved. But politics trumped science, and fluoridation was approved in most California municipalities anyway.

Fluoride’s Affects on Your Health
The fluoride used for water fluoridation does not have FDA approval and is considered by the FDA as an “unapproved drug.” The proper use of any drug requires an understanding of how much is too much. As they say, the dose makes the poison. Since fluoride is already in many foods and beverages, it is estimated that we’re regularly receive 300% or more of the American Dental Association’s recommended daily amount.

Generally, most fluoride entering the body is not easily eliminated. It tends to accumulate in the bones and teeth. Recently, it has been discovered to accumulate also in the thyroid gland as well as the pineal and pituitary glands, located in the middle of the brain.

The most common and obvious consequence of fluoride accumulation is dental and skeletal fluorosis which permanently stains and pits teeth and bones, and leaves them brittle. The incidence of dental fluorosis among U.S. children has increased from 10 percent to 22 percent in the past 25 years, says the ADA. Yet, the American Dental Association continues to promote fluoride, refusing to admit that instead of preventing tooth decay, fluoridation causes even more dental harm.

The flood of fluoride in water and food also creates other more serious health problems that are not widely publicized—even suppressed. Nevertheless, in addition to fluorosis, independent labs and reputable researchers have linked the following health issues with daily long term intake of fluoride:

• Cancer
• Genetic DNA Damage
• Thyroid Disruption – the pituitary gland is greatly affected by fluoride, which, in turn, affects the complete endocrine system and leads to obesity. (People with thyroid disease are advised to avoid fluoridated water.)
• Neurological Impairment – The toxic effects of fluoride on the central nervous system is confirmed by previously-classified government research. Two new epidemiological studies confirm fluoride’s neurotoxic effects on the brain and have shown that children exposed to high levels of fluoride had lower IQs.
• Alzheimer’s Disease
• Birth Defects
• Cystic Acne – Also called fluoroderma.
• Melatonin Disruption - lowers immunity to cancer, accelerates aging, sleep disorders.
• Pineal Gland Disorder - calcification, which clogs this gland located in the middle of the brain.
• Osteoarthritis and Increased Risk of Bone Fractures - it is estimated that 1/3 of all osteoarthritis cases are caused by skeletal fluorosis.
  

Fluoride Proven Ineffective
You might be worried about how removing fluoride from our drinking water or toothpaste might affect our teeth. But you do not need to be.

All of the recent large-scale studies of water fluoridation have shown that there are no positive effects from the practice. According to statistics from the World Health Organization, the tooth decay rates of countries which do not fluoridate their water supplies are just as low, or even lower, than those countries which do. Further, several studies published since 2000 have reported that there has been no increase in tooth decay rates noted in communities which ended water fluoridation.

Fluoridation is illegal, banned or not used in an overwhelming number of countries, including many industrialized countries. Despite pressure from the dental industry, 99% of western Europe has rejected, banned, or stopped fluoridation due to environmental, health, legal, or ethical concerns. And yet, their children’s teeth are just as healthy as children’s teeth in the U.S. In fact, in many parts of Europe, they are healthier.

The good news is that the voice of concerned, unbiased science is beginning to overwhelm the voice of pro-fluoride industry propaganda. For example, in November 2006, the American Dental Association actually advised parents to avoid giving fluoridated water to babies or using it to make formula.

Take the advice, and protect yourself and your children by avoiding fluoride.

Reducing Fluoride Exposure
Fluoride can be found in tap and bottled tap water, soft drinks, juices and foods made with tap water, vitamins, non-organic produce, non-organic poultry, and of course, toothpaste and mouthwash.

One way to avoid fluoridated water is to buy spring water from a water service, but this is not always economical or environmental. Buying a filter that can remove fluoride from your tap water is the more cost-effective choice over the long term. You can even buy a whole-house filter and have fluoride-free water for cooking, drinking, bathing and toothbrushing!

• Reverse Osmosis Filtration. This is used to purify several types of bottled water (not all), so some bottled waters are not fluoridated. Reverse osmosis filtration systems are a bit pricey, but they remove fluoride, chlorine and most environmental toxins found in municipal tap water. However they also leave water flat, without any beneficial mineral ions, and are not the best choice if you want water that is nourishing, and tastes crisp and refreshing.
• Aluminum Oxide Defluoridation Filter. These filters often require frequent cartridge changes, but can be quite reasonably priced. Here is one of the better brands.
• Distillation Filtration. There are commercially available distillation filters that can be purchased to remove fluoride from water.

These Do NOT Remove Fluoride

• Brita, Pur, and most other water filters. Some websites about fluoride removal state otherwise, but I checked the product descriptions on the companies’ websites to confirm that fluoride is left in the water.
• Boiling Water. This will concentrate the fluoride rather than reduce it.
• Freezing Water. Freezing water does not affect the concentration of fluoride.

Steps to Reduce Fluoride Exposure

• Don’t take fluoride supplements. Read the labels on your and your children’s vitamins carefully.
• Read labels on bottled beverages and juices. Unless they are made using spring or reverse-osmosis water, they are probably made with fluoridated public tap water.
• Eat organic. Fluoride is a primary ingredient in several crop pesticides and warehouse fumigants, so you can find lots of fluoride in both conventional produce and also concentrated into conventional poultry, meat, eggs and dairy.
• Be wary of tinned fish and canned food items. Fluoride may be used as a preservative.
• Avoid using chewing tobacco. Ew. There are many, many reasons to avoid this, not just the fluoride.
• Avoid long term use of medication that contains fluorine. Certain antidepressants and medications for osteoporosis contain fluoride.
• Consider using fluoride-free toothpaste. There are many great brands like Tom’s of Maine, Weleda and more that contain no fluoride. Some can even be found at better drug stores. We usually make our own toothpaste (see recipe below), but when we run out or travel, we prefer Toothsoap as our all-natural, tooth hygiene alternative. Because it has no glycerine, Toothsoap leaves teeth “dental-visit” clean and ready to be remineralized via a good diet. It does taste a bit soapy though, so I usually make our own.

Homemade No-Fluoride Toothpaste
This is our family recipe for fluoride-free toothpaste. It helps remove stains, leaves a fresh feeling in the mouth, helps relieve sensitive teeth, and saves money.

• 3 Tbsp. baking soda
• 1 Tbsp. finely ground sea salt
• A few drops peppermint, wintergreen, anise, clove or cinnamon bark essential oil, according to the taste you want (be sparing, they are very strong)
• 1 tsp. xylitol or a few drops of liquid stevia (optional)
• 1/2 tsp. finely ground sage (optional antimicrobial)
• Extra Virgin coconut oil, softened but not liquified

1. Mix all ingredients but coconut oil to taste.
2. Mix in a teaspoon of coconut oil at a time until you find the right consistency for you.
3. Put into a small, sealable jar or squeezable container.
4. Brush!

How You Can Help Stop Water Fluoridation
Please, join the anti-fluoride movement in the United States, Canada and New Zealand by contacting the representative for your area below.

U.S. Communities Fighting Fluoridation:

1. New York City, NY:With the recent victory in Calgary, New York City is the next big emphasis. The anti-fluoridation movement has a great champion in New York City councilor Peter Vallone, Jr. who introduced legislation on January 18 “prohibiting the addition of fluoride to the water supply.”A victory there could signal the beginning of the end of fluoridation in the U.S. so it is a really big deal. The point person for this area is Carol Kopf, at the New York Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation (NYSCOF). Email her at NYSCOF@aol.com.
2. Austin, Texas: Join the effort by contacting Rae Nadler-Olenick at either: info@fluoridefreeaustin.com or fluoride.info@yahoo.com, or by regular mail or telephone:
   

   POB 7486
   Austin, Texas 78713
   Phone: (512) 371-3786

3. San Diego, California: Contact Patty Ducey-Brooks, publisher of the Presidio Sentinel at pbrooks936@aol.com .

Canadian Communities Fighting Fluoridation:

1. If you live in Ontario, Canada, please join the ongoing effort by contacting Diane Sprules at diane.sprules@cogeco.ca.
2. The point-of-contact for Toronto, Canada is Aliss Terpstra. You may email her at aliss@nutrimom.ca.

New Zealand Communities Fighting Fluoridation:

1. New Zealand: Contact Mary Byrne if you would like to be involved in stopping fluoridation in New Zealand. Email her at: mbyrne64@yahoo.co.nz

In addition, you can:

• Tell the EPA you expect them to uphold their duty to protect you and your children from this toxic food fumigant.
• Make a tax-deductible donation to the Fluoride Action Network to help them fight for fluoride-free food and water.
• Check out FAN’s Action Page, as they are working on multiple fronts to rid our food and water supplies of fluoride.
• Join the Fluoride Action Network Facebook page.

This post is part of Fight Back Fridays at Food Renegade!

These days, it’s almost impossible not to feel angry about the role that Wall Street and the Big Banks have had in crashing the economy and tanking the housing market. We seem to be living in a Robber Baron-era paradigm wherein the harder Americans work, the more into debt we collectively descend.

While Bank of America, BB&T, Citigroup, Chase and their friends gave themselves grotesque raises and bonuses paid for with taxpayer bailout money, Americans have endured subprime mortgage fraud, merciless or even fraudulent foreclosures, and losing their retirement money, their jobs and their dignity. And while most of us lose more of our health, wealth and security every day, Big Banks and Wall Street corporations are enjoying record profits.

But if that isn’t enough to make you mad, you should also know that environmental and human rights violations are widespread within the banking industry due to the unsustainable (and often downright immoral) way in which they invest your money in order to make a profit for their shareholders. According to Green America, the worst social and environmental offenders are Citibank, Bank of America, Fidelity, JP Morgan, Vanguard, Suntrust and Wells-Fargo.

For example, speculation in China’s oil industry—whose proceeds directly fund the Sudanese army and Janjaweed militia which carries out the genocide in Darfur—is perhaps the most heinous of the banking industry’s current investments. Here in the U.S., Citibank and JP Morgan have been accused of helping Enron doctor its books. These banks have also been criticized for profiting from apartheid in South Africa and supporting other abusive regimes around the world.

It seems that wherever in the world people and planet are exploited for the sake of the easiest profit, you’ll find a Big Bank in partnership with a corrupt regime.

Additionally, the banking industry finances development projects that are devastating to the environment but lucrative to shareholders, such as the construction of coal-powered energy plants, mining in the Amazon River basin, mountaintop removal projects, oil and gas drilling in pristine wilderness and tribal lands, and more. In fact, almost every major, for-profit, environmentally-destructive project on the planet was funded by Big Banks.

This means that Americans who bank at large institutions like Suntrust, Citibank or Bank of America, etc. are, in effect, funding these human and environmental atrocities.

To get away with all of this, the Big Banks also use your money to support policies, laws and candidates that deregulate their industry and protect their profit-at-all-costs agenda. How do you think we got into this mess in the first place?

But you don’t have to stuff your mattress with cash to escape the Big Banks and their shenanigans. Instead, you can do a lot of good with your money by investing it right in your community, right now.

Credit Unions
When I moved to San Diego, I was so happy to find that California has many credit unions. Credit unions are financial institutions formed by an organized group of people with a common bond. There are credit unions for teachers, members of the military, people who live in a certain area—almost every affiliation you could imagine.

Members of credit unions pool their assets to provide loans and other financial services to each other on a not-for-profit basis. This allows credit unions to pay dividends to their members (not shareholders) and offer them lower loan rates, higher savings rates and fewer service fees. Credit unions have the smallest environmental footprint of all types of banks because they exist only for their members and are supported only by their members.

As opposed to large, national banks, you can be sure that the money you put in a credit union is not going to be invested in corporations that pollute the air and water, remove mountaintops for mining, make genetically-engineered seeds, tear down the rainforest, maintain concentrated livestock feeding operations, or anything else destructive that you might not want to financially support.

Here are some of the main differences between a credit union and a regular bank:

State and Public Banks
Once you have moved your bank accounts to a credit union (or even a local, community bank in your town), consider advocating for the creation of a State or Public Bank in the state where you live. The one state with the foresight to have their own bank and create their own credit (rather than beg Wall Street) is North Dakota: the only state with a growing budget surplus and low unemployment in THIS economy. North Dakota is such a model for success that other states are working on opening their own state-owned banks, including Oregon, Washington State, Massachusetts, Arizona, Maryland, New Mexico, Maine, California, Illinois, Virginia, Hawaii and Louisiana.

In California, a State Bank would save about $5 billion in interest costs every year with at-cost credit. This would potentially re-hire 20,000 laid-off teachers at $70,000/year and still have $1.5 billion left-over. At-cost credit could also mean at-cost public mortgages (think 1-2% interest rate). Here’s a video about it:

If you’d like to help end irresponsible lending and ensure that your money is only invested in sustainable, local projects, then vote with your dollars by banking at a credit union or community bank, and then vote at the polls for the creation of a state-owned or public bank where you live.

You can find other ways to green your finances by visiting Go Green.

These days, making homemade broth seems to be an anachronistic, if not redundant, thing to do, given the abundance of boxed, packaged and canned proxies available on grocery shelves. But if you look at the nutrition label on a box or can of store-bought broth (Yes, even the organic ones!), you’ll quickly realize that the industrially-produced version is an empty, processed food—barely deserving of the term that our grandparents and great-grandparents understood as a healing and nourishing culinary treasure: Broth.

Homemade broth has a reputation for curing what ails you, and that reputation is well-deserved. According to “Broth is Beautiful”:

Science validates what our grandmothers knew. Rich homemade chicken broths help cure colds. Stock contains minerals in a form the body can absorb easily—not just calcium, but also magnesium, phosphorus, silicon, sulphur and trace minerals. It contains the broken down material from cartilage and tendons–stuff like chondroitin sulphates and glucosamine, now sold as expensive supplements for arthritis and joint pain.

Additionally, when properly-made homemade broth is cooled, it congeals due to the gelatin that was cooked out of the bones in the pot. The use of gelatin as a therapeutic agent goes back to the ancient Chinese, although it enjoys worldwide reknown:

The French were the leaders in gelatin research, which continued up to the 1950s. Gelatin was found to be useful in the treatment of a long list of diseases including peptic ulcers, tuberculosis, diabetes, muscle diseases, infectious diseases, jaundice and cancer. Babies had fewer digestive problems when gelatin was added to their cow’s milk formula. The American researcher Francis Pottenger pointed out that as gelatin is a hydrophilic colloid, which means that it attracts and holds liquids, it facilitates digestion by attracting digestive juices to food in the gut.

Research on gelatin came to an end in the 1950s because U.S. food companies discovered how to produce meat-like flavors in the laboratory. Following the Second World War, food companies were introduced to monosodium glutamate (MSG), a food chemical invented in Japan in 1908 to enhance flavors by stimulating the meat-taste receptors on our tongues.

Once Big Food learned how to synthesize the flavor of meat in the laboratory using inexpensive proteins from grains and legumes, the door was opened to a flood of cheap, new products like bouillon cubes, dehydrated soup and sauce mixes and frozen dinners. These products became so ubiquitous that today, the “homemade” soup found in most homes and restaurants is actually a reconstituted, powdered soup base containing MSG—often hidden in ingredients called “hydrolyzed proteins” or “autolyzed yeast extracts.”

In contrast, homemade bone broth starts with whole food: meat, fat, bones. Add a few veggies and herbs, and you have a tasty bowl of MSG-free, bioavailable nutrition.

Consuming homemade bone broth daily is the basis of the GAPS Medical Diet, because the gelatin and amino acids glycine, proline and glutamine present in homemade broth help to heal and seal the lining of your gut, which in turn can relieve food sensitivities, digestive disorders, autoimmune conditions, and even psychological issues like autism and schizophrenia.

Since Babyzilla and I experience eczema, digestive issues, insomnia and irritability when we eat certain foods, I try to get broth into both of us every day. Fortunately, broth is an outstanding base for making soups and sauces, simmering meats and veggies, and even cooking beans and grains.

After a year of working on my recipe, I finally found a way to make chicken broth that satisfies my rigorous requirements:

1. The broth must gel, every time. For me, a good broth must be so thick after a day in the fridge that I have to spoon and scrape it out of the jar to reheat it. So thick, it could stop a bullet. This was the hardest part to master consistently until I got the ingredients right, but a good gel on your broth is a measure of its nutrition.
2. It must be low allergen. Babyzilla has a lot of trouble with celery, and I am very sensitive to garlic and bay leaf, so this broth has no mirepoix, but is very yummy nevertheless.
3. It must be simple. I put all my ingredients into cotton mesh bags in the stockpot, which makes straining my broth very easy. And with this recipe, after the initial boil, you can ignore your stockpot for 4 or 5 hours. Or, if it’s too hot this summer to make broth in your house, you can make this in a slow-cooker or thermal pot camped in your garage!
4. It must be yummy. I use pasture-raised hens with feet for this recipe, not only because they are small, and provide a greater ratio of bones to meat in my broth, but also because they simply taste better. Once you’ve mastered homemade chicken broth made with hens that foraged outdoors most of their lives, you’ll never go back to store-bought again.

I get pasture-raised hens either from my farmer’s market, when they are available, or from Whole Foods. The hens at the grocery store don’t have feet, so I buy a package of chicken feet from my favorite online meat vendor, U.S. Wellness Meats, just to make this recipe correctly.

Beautiful, Bulletproof Chicken Broth
(Makes 8-10 quarts)

• 2 (Yes, 2) pasture-raised hens (These are often quite small, and you should find 2 that will fit inside your stockpot or slow-cooker.)
• 4 organic or pasture-raised chicken feet (This is a crucial ingredient. If they didn’t come already attached to your hens, you can buy them bulk here.)
• 1 medium yellow onion, quartered OR 3-5 large leeks, roughly chopped
• Small handful (10-20) whole peppercorns
• Small handful (10-20) whole allspice berries
• 1-2 Tbsp. sea salt, to taste
• 1 tsp. white or other mild vinegar (optional)

1. Wash your hens, making sure there are no residual feathers, organs or packing materials remaining.
2. Place all ingredients except sea salt inside 1 or 2 cotton mesh bags, pull or tie them closed, and place them so they sit low in your stockpot. (You can buy Soup Socks for this purpose as well.) Alternately, you can strain your broth with a china cap when it is done.
3. Fill the stockpot or slow-cooker with fresh spring or filtered water, making sure the hens are fully submerged. Add salt and then vinegar, if using. Cover.
4. Bring to a boil, then turn down to simmer for 3-5 hours. I simmer longer for better gel. If you are using a slow-cooker, put it on low for 6-8 hours, though test it the first time, because slow-cookers can really vary.
5. After the broth has cooled a bit, remove the ingredient bags/Soup Socks and empty them into a large bowl. The chickens will completely fall apart. Separate the meat from the skin, sinews and bones and set aside to use in soup, salads, or other dishes, as you wish.
6. Once the pot has cooled enough to lift, start transferring the broth to Mason jars for storage in the freezer and fridge. If you like your broth particularly clear, you can strain it again through cheesecloth as you fill your jars. If you plan to freeze your broth, leave at least an inch of room in the jar for expansion, so your jars don’t break.
7. Check your broth after a day in the fridge to see how well it gelled! The thicker the better. You may also have a nice, yellow layer of chicken fat (schmaltz) on top, which you can skim to cook with, or stir into soups and sauces, as you like.
8. To add a nutritional boost and a deeper flavor to your dishes, use your broth wherever you might use water to cook veggies, meats, beans or grains.

Here’s a delicious, easy way to use your chicken broth to make an already outstanding summer dish even better for you!

Easy Summer Gazpacho
Makes about 4 servings

• 1 organic cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
• 1 small onion, minced (Try a Vidalia or sweet onion for a milder gazpacho!)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 large, meaty, organic tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and diced (heirloom or fresh-picked, if you can get them)
• 1 organic, sweet green or red bell pepper, seeded and diced fine
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 Tbsp. fresh oregano leaves, minced (or 1 tsp. dried)
• 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, packed, then minced (or 2-3 tsp. dried)
• 3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4-1/2 tsp. hot pepper sauce of your choice, to taste
• 1/2 tsp. salt, to taste, depending on saltiness of the broth
• 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
• 6 Tbsp. red wine or apple cider vinegar
• juice of half a lime
• avocado wedges, for garnish

1. Stir together all ingredients in a large bowl until very well combined; chill for at least 4 hours, until thoroughly chilled.
2. Quickly and gently pulse the chilled mixture in a blender until puréed, but still with a little bit of texture, to taste. Add more broth if the purée is too thick.
3. Reserve some of the chopped vegetables and avocado wedges for topping.
4. Enjoy on a hot summer night!

This post is part of Fight Back Friday and Real Food Wednesday!

“People are so worried about what they consume between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they consume between the New Year and Christmas.”

—Unknown

I like New Year’s resolutions. They provide a great opportunity to reflect upon the successes and shortcomings of the past year, and set goals and intentions for the new one. I don’t believe in making the kind of resolutions in January that ensure I will be self-flagellating in February, but I do think it is important to set progress benchmarks for doing things I care about over time.

Really, a resolution is nothing more than a firm decision to do or not do something. This year, I’ve made four firm decisions for the Small Footprint Family. We will…

#1 Do something physical in the sun with my family as often as possible.
The older I get, the more it seems that the aches, pains and dis-ease of modern life are really the result of deficiencies in sunlight, regular physical activity and nutrient dense, whole foods. These are three essential things we were evolutionarily designed to require in large, daily quantities. And they are also three things American consumer culture has almost completely designed out of our lives over the past 50 years.

I have always been happiest and healthiest when I have been doing regular outdoor work, whether that be tree care, greenroofing, farming, or at least puttering outside daily in our food garden. Since leaving my greenroofing business to have Babyzilla, I have gotten away from fulfilling this biological need, and I am really feeling the effects physically and mentally. (Not to mention the fact that my Vitamin D levels could use improvement.) So, this year, I resolve to complement our already very healthy diet with daily sunshine and enough outdoor physical activity to get our heart rate up. Babyzilla is very excited about this—as you can imagine any toddler would be!

What are you doing in 2010 to make sure you get enough sun and activity?

#2 Increase our local food consumption by 10%.
We currently get about 75% of our produce, meat and eggs from local organic farms and ranches as members of two CSAs and weekly visitors to the farmers’ market. But here in California, finding local produce year round is very easy: We grow a majority of the nation’s organic fruits and veggies after all. Nevertheless, I’d like to increase the amount of local food we eat by 10% in 2010—including finding a local source for pasture-raised pork bellies, so I can learn to make my own bacon this year!

If you’re wondering why choosing local food is so important, and how to get started with eating more locally-produced foods in the new year, please read Why We Should All Eat Locally.

How can you eat 10% more local foods in 2010?

#3 Reduce our trash output by 20%.
We eat few packaged foods, and compost most of our food waste, but somehow we still produce at least two tall kitchen bags of trash every week. The biggest single sources of trash in our house are disposable coffee cups from the corner coffee shop, spoiled leftovers that contain meat and so can’t be composted, and plastic food bags that can no longer be washed and reused. This year, we will strive to get the thermoses washed more regularly, among other waste-reducing measures.

If you’d like to learn more about composting or reducing your waste output, please read Waste Not, Want Not and Compost Happens.

What can you do to reduce your trash output by 20% in 2010?

#4 Quit extraneous spending and buy second-hand. This resolution is dear to my heart. Some would argue that consumer spending will get the economy going again, so we should all go out and do our part for the country by buying stuff. Never mind that many of us no longer have the money or the credit to keep buying things we don’t really need that were designed to be provide only short-lived satisfaction anyway.

Rather, I believe it is all the stuff we buy—as part of a consumption-driven economy dependent on limitless growth—that has brought us to the brink of the greatest economic and environmental crises humanity has ever seen. The wanton, subsidized exploitation of natural resources and fossil fuels that brings us $5 radios and ripe tomatoes in January simply cannot be sustained. We cannot maintain an economic system or a culture requiring infinite growth on a finite planet. We cannot endlessly consume from limited and vulnerable resources—and we are destroying or running out of a lot of things we’re gonna need in the future. You know, like fresh water.

It’s not enough to recycle your bottles and cans, install CFL light bulbs and bring your own bags. It’s time for a new economic paradigm: one where return on investment is not measured just in dollars, but also in how a product or service benefits regular people, communities, and the fragile land, water and air we depend on—a “triple bottom line” of economic, social and environmental sustainability.

In such an economy, many industries, products and services we take for granted today would no longer be considered profitable or ethical, and they would be replaced by new closed-loop industries, social entrepreneurship and relocalized community economies.

And yet the endless quest for Stuff is not only damaging to the Earth and threatening to our very survival, it is also spiritually debilitating too. Since when did spending money become an American pastime? For all our wealth relative to the rest of the world, Americans are not a happy people. In fact, we are becoming quite depressed, impatient, despondent, and diseased, despite—or perhaps because of—how much stuff we consume.

I believe our unhealthy and unsustainable cultural relationship to earning/spending money in order to acquire material things is supplanting what really matters at the end of the day: strong, authentic relationships with our family members, friends and neighbors; nutritious, whole food meals enjoyed with others; daily sunshine and physical activity; and ample time for recreation, contemplation, reflection and rest.

For this reason, in 2010, I want to spend my money in support of the new paradigm. We will severely curtail buying things we want but do not need, and anytime we do need to acquire something, we will try first to get it from a local, second-hand source before buying it new. Fortunately, San Diego has many, many outstanding thrift stores, and other resources like flea markets, FreeCycle, CraigsList and eBay are available too.

This spendfast means a year-long experiment in not buying any more clothes, shoes, books, DVDs, magazines, excess toiletries, stuff for the kitchen, stuff for the house, stuff for… the sake of Stuff. Should be an interesting challenge. I’ll keep you posted…

To learn more about “spend-fasting,” please read The Story of Stuff – Reducing our Consumer Footprint.

What are you doing in 2010 to trade quantity for quality in your life?

Installing solar panels to generate your home electricity has many benefits:  

• Protects you from escalating energy costs – Electricity gets more expensive every year. Over the last 35 years, the average annual rate increase has been 6.5% (high energy users have seen substantially greater increases).
• Supports clean energy – The average solar PV residential system (based on 5kW), would save nearly 175 tons of carbon dioxide over its 30-year lifespan, equivalent to removing 32 cars from the road. It takes approximately 4,487 new trees to absorb that much CO₂ produced by fossil fuels.
• Adds value to your home – The value of a solar system is added to the appraised value of your property and does not increase your property taxes. Solar is one of the few home improvements that can be justified in terms of return on invested dollar.
• Provides unlimited power - Solar is a true renewable and sustainable source of energy. Reduce the dependency on fossil fuels and produce your own electricity while reducing your carbon footprint. One of the side benefits is that with photovoltaic panels, homeowners have the ability to generate excess electricity during the day and sell it to the utility company through “net metering”, i.e., you run the meter backwards.
• Reduce the need for additional power plants – Your utility company’s peak demand is during the day. Meeting peak demand is how utility companies justify more power plants. On the hottest days, the oldest, dirtiest power plants are cranked up. Through net metering, you’ll sell the output of the photovoltaic panels to the utility. With enough of us net metering, we will reduce the need for additional power plants that are only used to meet peak demand. That will protect the environment for everyone and help keep rates from rising too fast.
• Rebates and tax credits are available – Various financial incentives are available from the State and Federal governments to encourage investment in solar energy.

Solar photovoltaic panels for your home can be expensive, requiring up-front investments of thousands of dollars. Even after federal and local tax rebates, it can take years for that investment to pay itself back to the homeowner in locally generated electricity. Fortunately, more and more states are authorizing solar leasing companies, making solar energy as affordable as your monthly electric bill!

Lease Solar Panels for Your Home
With a solar lease, you lease photovoltaic panels for your home, hassle-free. Someone else will install them (and not charge you for it). Someone else will make sure the components all match. Someone else will maintain them. Someone else will take them down and put them back when you need a new roof. Someone else will even move them to your new house when you move. Since your electricity is virtually free, the monthly payments for solar leases are often lower than your current electricity bill.

Each state has its own rules regarding solar leasing programs, and there are several states now with incentive programs available, so check with your local Department of Energy to see what they offer. There are also many different solar companies out there providing services with many different lease terms and fee schedules. Be sure to read the fine print on any lease and do your homework on any company you choose to do your installation. Here are a few national companies to get you started: (Though don’t forget to look up local companies in your state!)

• Citizenré
• Solar City
• Sun Run
• SPG Solar

Installing solar panels on your home can make a real difference in reducing your bills and the ecological damage our dependence on fossil fuels creates—which is not only important for the planet, but is absolutely vital for the health of our families and communities too. With solar leases, clean energy and greater self-sufficiency is within reach of more people than ever.

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex… It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.” —Albert Einstein

When the continuous operation of a system relies on a long and complex chain of crucial suppliers and resources, all running smoothly, that’s pretty much a textbook example of an unsustainable system. Put another way, the systems we take for granted to deliver everything from plasma-screen TV sets to store-bought apple pie are more vulnerable than we may think. 

According to Keith Farnish, “We have been sold The Complexity Myth: the idea that something is only good if it is a product of a complex set of processes, in order that it (or we) can be controlled. We are kept in check by this idea and do not question it because we have forgotten how to live simply; we have been brainwashed to love the world of the complex, and as a result we are prepared to defend the thing that is causing the collapse of the natural world, and our own basic humanity.”

To put it bluntly, we’ve become so utterly dependent on highly complex machinery, bureaucratic social structures and byzantine systems to provide for nearly every aspect of our living, that if a crisis happened (like extreme weather, diminishing groundwater, or running out of oil), we’d be up the proverbial Shit’s Creek.

I mean, would you be prepared if you lost electricity to your home for even a couple of weeks?

The alternative: Radical Simplification

From Culture Change:

Simplification has so many benefits that it would not be possible to list them all here in detail, but I can outline four of them which I think capture the essence of simplicity, and show up the myth that complexity is a good, indeed an acceptable thing:

1) Simplicity requires less energy: This is self-evident, for the fewer stages there are in any process, the less energy will be consumed overall. You could argue that heating a house with a load of wood and a hole in the ceiling is more energy-intensive than a combination gas boiler, bu—taking aside the difference between renewable versus non-renewable forms of energy—in order to manufacture the combination gas boiler in the first place requires a similar number of processes as to manufacture a television. If you want more efficient heating, hammering out a rocket stove from a few sheets of metal is relatively far simpler. In addition, the more stages involved in anything, the less accountability is possible, and thus the more opportunity for energy wastage.

2) Simplicity is connected: Following on from the previous point, accountability isn’t really about economics, it is about knowledge. If I were to buy a cord of wood that had originated from a forest far away, then it would have had to pass through a number of stages to get from the source to the user: the felling of the tree(s); the sawing and preparation of the timber; the movement to the port and subsequent transportation by sea and/or land to the point at which it is available to me, or at least the person who gets it to me. Through these different stages I have progressively lost connection with the origin of the wood; I have no sight of the trees, I cannot feel the soil, I cannot smell the air where the tree once stood. I do not care. That is the way of the civilized. Compare this to a person who cuts her own wood from a tree she felled, and uses it to build a shelter. [sic. Connected people do not shit where they eat.]

3) Simplicity is stable: As Thomas Homer-Dixon described so vividly in The Upside Of Down, complex societies are inherently unstable, for they rely on a multitude of different stages and processes connected by an equally complex set of linkages, any one of which can be critical to the efficient operation of the system as a whole. Bring down a major power line to a processing plant, shut down a distribution computer, or blockade a port, and the whole dependent system may break down, particularly one that is already under stress, as so many systems are in the just-in-time economy. If you grow your own food, or ideally are a member of a small growing community, then you may be vulnerable to seasonal aberrations or pests, but so long as you do it right then your food supply is safe, and not subject to the hazards of complexity.

4) Simplicity is democratic: Complexity is used to enforce the systems of control that the Culture of Empire uses to keep us subjects of that culture. One man with a sword can control perhaps half a dozen people without swords; one man with an agenda, and a military establishment under his control can control entire nations. Within a cooperative society, a simple society working on egalitarian principles, no one can wield power without challenge. You have a say, as does everyone, for there can be no ivory towers or impregnable fortresses in the simple society—you need complexity to build them.

According to Farnish, the mindset that brought us the equation “civilization = better living = mind-boggling complexity” is flawed and should be reconsidered in a 21st-century post-peak world. “Unless we are prepared to once again embrace the simple then we have no future as a species…except, perhaps those few remaining people who still live simply.”

Get Real Simple.
There is no singular correct way to simplify our complex way of living. The challenge is to add a bit of radical simplicity and self-sufficiency to your unique life every chance you get. Here are some ideas:

• Plant an organic vegetable garden, or yardshare with a neighbor and harvest more together.
• Grow fruit or nut trees.
• Raise some backyard chickens.
• Get rid of your TV, and in its place, take up something like making homemade yogurt, homebrewing beer, beekeeping, quilting, etc.
• Do any of the above with children.
• Join or start a Transition Community.
• Cloth diaper. Hang your clothes to dry outside.
• Install a composting toilet, solar system, wood stove, etc.
• Quit eating foods that come in cans, bags and boxes.
• Buy local as often as possible, especially local food.
• Commit to walking or biking everywhere you can.
• Try to buy nothing new for a year—except food, toiletries, socks and underwear. You may buy second hand, when needed.
• Join a food co-op, CSA or a credit union (or all three!).
• Contact your local and federal legislators and demand strong and swift action on climate change and renewable energy in your community.

What will you do to radically simplify your life in 2010?