A Healthy Choice

Living in the Treehouse has me thinking about the lifestyle choices I make. With the New Year, many people create resolutions to eat healthier and/or exercise more. They aim to take care of their health. I have found that by thinking about the environment, I automatically take care of my health. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Take, for instance, what you eat. Look at the ingredients in your food. I’ll admit, I was not pleased the first time I did this. It forced me to make some serious changes in the way I thought about food. And I am most definitely not perfect now. But at least I am very aware. Fresh, non-processed foods are the best. Not only do they taste the best, but they also give you more energy and fill you up more than processed foods. Want to eat healthily? Read the ingredients. It’s scary how much extra stuff is in our food that we don’t need. My approach to cooking and choosing what foods I eat has transformed since I started reading the list of ingredients.

What about that other New Year’s resolution? When it comes to exercise, there are easy ways to take the environment into account. By exercising outside, you expose yourself to the sun, letting your body take in important vitamins. When I exercise in the great outdoors, I find myself appreciating the view of nature around me. Whether it’s hiking, running, biking, walking, skating, skipping, zumba, or tai chi in the park, nature’s beauty is here for us to enjoy.

Cleaning is another great one. Many of the products we use to clean with today have toxic chemicals in them. They’re not great for us nor the Earth when we dispose of them. There are EASY ways to make cleaner at home, which works just as well as anything a person can buy from the store. Don’t want to make your own cleaner? Try an eco-friendly one.

Energy is the last category. It might seem like a hassle to have to open and close the shades everyday. Aside from that wonderful connection with nature I previously mentioned, opening the shades brings in warmth from the sun. So you save energy and money on your heating bill. Free coupons!

All of this can be overwhelming. So pick one thing you want to change and work on that for a little while! (That’s my secret to environmental success.)

Lily

No space to dry your herbs? Think again!

I had once thought that in order to successfully dry herbs you needed a large country house with plenty of places to hang your herbs artistically across the walls, such as seen below.

Being a college senior living in a small house with 3 other girls, such spacious locations were not an option.  We don’t even have access to our basement or a garage (school policy), so there is nothing even resembling a root cellar.  However, with the herb spiral producing magnificent amounts of basil, parsley, lovage, calendula, rosemary, sage, and anise hyssop I was determined to find a way to dry all of these herbs to be able to still use them throughout the winter and early spring.

There are several ways to dry herbs.  My grandmother’s favorite method is to simply lay the herbs (after picking the leaves off the stems) on cloth napkins and keeping them in a dark, cool place until they are entirely dried.  While I did not have large table spaces to lay out my herbs, there was space under the futon in my room!  It definitely provided a floral aroma to my nightly studying!

Under the futon!

Another method (which is quite convenient when you may not have large areas to lay out herbs), is to keep the leaves of the herbs attached to the stems and placing them in paper bags with holes cut into them. I used this method in our coat closet (turned into a bike closet).  I found this to be one of the most effective method as it aids in space-saving, and the herbs retain more flavor as they are not exposed to the sun.  Generally, exposing dried herbs to light causes them to lose flavor as the compounds that provide such savory flavors begin to degrade.

If you do not have paper bags, or run out of them (like I did), you can also just keep the leaves of the herbs attached to the stem and hang them upside down, allowing them to dry.  This method I used in my closet in my room (who doesn’t want dress pants that smell like lovage?!).  Since my closet was dark, the herbs did not lose much of their flavor although they were not in bags.

In my closet!

Once the herbs dried in any method, I placed them into Ball jars and sealed them.  Ideally, amber-colored bottles should be used to prevent light from reaching the herbs that will cause them to lose their flavor.  However, being on a tight budget, Ball jars were the most cost-effective option for me (and can eternally be re-used!).

An herb pyramid!

Each week I continue to find new places that I had stashed and dried herbs..and which I proceeded to forget about soon after.  I feel this is a testament to how easy it is to preserve your food to continue to eat locally throughout the year (and provides an exciting scavenger hunt to find where you were able to dry your herbs!)

~Amanda

 

Healthy study foods

Recently I attended a workshop on foods that are better to eat when studying. What I noticed was that many of those foods were healthy and better for the environment since they were not highly processed.  For this blog entry I would like to pass on that information I learned to you.

Tip 1: Take your vitamins: Meeting daily vitamin and mineral requirements will make doing your best much easier. Iron and B vitamins are especially important to maintaining the physical and mental energy necessary to study well. Iron-containing foods include red meat, cereals and spinach. Foods that contain B vitamins include whole-grains, wheat germ, eggs and nuts. Fish and soy are other foods that are said to help boost your brain by providing the nutrients it needs. Dietary supplements are good, but real food is better. An orange contains not only Vitamin C, but also fiber, beta carotene and other minerals — so it can’t be replaced by a pill. When you’re heading for the library, pack whole-food items like apples, bananas, clementines, carrot sticks or dried apricots.

Tip 2: Eat regular meals: Eating regular meals helps keep nutrient and energy levels more stable, curbing the temptation of empty-calorie snacks in the vending machine. Breakfast is essential, but you must eat smart in the morning. Coffee and a donut just don’t cut it. The idea is to get some protein, calcium, fiber and a piece of fruit or a vegetable in there. So, a bowl of cereal with milk and a piece of fruit would do the trick. Or try a cereal bar with milk. As for snacking, sometimes a smart snack while studying may help you retain more. Try to get two food groups into your snacks to balance the nutrients and keep your blood-sugar level stable. Some smart snack examples are banana with peanut butter, a small baked potato with cottage cheese, or an English muffin pizza.

Tip 3: Fruit and vegetables, enough said: Fruit ranks high among the best foods you can eat for your brain. Blueberries get a lot of attention because they contain powerful antioxidants and other nutrients. The natural sugars in fruit offer clean energy, so you don’t experience the crash that follows consumption of refined sugar. As for vegetables, not all vegetables are the same. The darker the color, the higher the concentration of nutrients. For example, spinach has more to offer the mind and body than iceberg lettuce. Other great vegetable choices include bell peppers, broccoli and sweet potatoes.

Tip 4: Drink Water: Stay well hydrated. Choose your beverages well, though. Caffeine and sugar should be kept to a minimum. Since too much caffeine can make you jittery, try to drink moderate amounts. Better choices include water, fruit juice, milk, and anti-oxidant-rich green tea.

Fruits, veggies, proteins, and grains are all smart choices when it comes to food and studying. Skip the fried foods in GQ. Eating better can lead to optimal energy levels and stress reduction. When you give your body what it needs on a consistent basis, planning to eat well during exams won’t even be an issue. And that means more time to study.

For more information visit http://startcooking.com/10-tips-for-healthy-eating-during-exams

It’s Freezing.

Okay, I guess if we were to measure the temperature, it is not actually freezing, but sometimes it can sure feel like it. Isn’t it the worst when you feel like that INDOORS? The first thought that comes to all of our minds is, “Turn up the heat.” But that’s not always the best solution for you and your wallet.

Our wallets like sweaters and sunlight, so let’s give them what they want! Heating expenses can be lowered tremendously by just throwing on another shirt rather than turning up the heat. I’m always surprised at the significant difference a few degrees makes on the bill.Using the sun, which carries a whole lot of heat, is super cost efficient because it’s, well, free. I like to open the shades to let the warmth fill the room instead of making my wallet do the work.

My goal is to think more about sweaters and sunlight this winter before I touch the thermostat. So far, it’s been quite successful. “Yes, wallet, you’re welcome.”

Lily

What should you do when it starts to get cold? Drink native teas!

As it gets colder and we reach for that hot mug of tea to try to warm up – think about what is really in that cup! It ends up that there are quite a few human rights and environmental issues related with tea.  A great article summing them up can be found here: http://files.theecologist.org/Pdfs/Whats_in_your_cuppa.pdf  To sum up some of the main points – most tea is grown in a monoculture, meaning that the biodiversity of the area is entirely obliterated.  For instance, Ethiopia recently sold part of their rainforest to become a tea monoculture – clearly the animals that would leave in a rainforest can’t live in fields of tea!  Also, the pesticides sprayed on tea have been found to kill animals that normally that live in those areas – including elephants!  The work to pick tea involves extremely long hours for minimal pay, causing the workers to be stuck in an endless cycle of poverty, and often the women (who make up the majority of the work force) are subject to sexual abuse.

So. what can YOU do?

One option is to buy organic, fair trade tea.  This helps to mitigate many of the terrible issues.  However, even when something is grown organically, it is often still grown in a monoculture.  Instead, you can grow your own tea! AND it can be with native plants!  This is what we are doing at Muhlenberg’s Permaculture Edible Forest Garden.  Detailed below are some of the plants that we are growing, and the surprisingly many nutritional benefits of drinking tea made with them!  Many of these plants were used traditionally by Native Americans and also by colonists during the Revolutionary War.  These plants have such rich flavor – often even similar to teas that you could buy at the store!  For instance, Spicebush tea (Spicebush is a native shrub found almost everywhere in somewhat moist woods in PA and NJ) is made from the branches of Spicebush that are boiled for about half an hour.  The resulting tea tastes surprisingly like Chai tea! Some of these plants, such as Wood Sorrel, you may even find growing as a weed in your lawn or garden!

Take a look at the information below (or here: More than just tea!), see what you already have growing by you or that you could plant, or stop by the Tree House to pick some for yourself!

-Amanda

Hurricane Sandy: What can we eat now?

With the hurricane upon us, instead of going out to buy processed, bagged foods, I decided to made homemade snacks that can hold me over in case of a power outage. Simultaneously, the save electricity by heating the oven up once, I cooked pumpkin seeds and crunchy granola. With a pumpkin left over from Halloween, once seasoned and baked, the seeds can make a delicious snack. I am into a lot of seasoning so put garlic, cinnamon, brown sugar, salt, pepper, onion powder, and oil on my seeds. Although, the brown sugar did start to burn, so luckily I checked on them regularly as they cooked. Crunchy granola is a stereotypical snack for people who care about the environment, yet this was my first time cooking it. I mixed together oats, honey, walnuts, craisins, an apple, sunflower seeds, cinnamon, brown sugar, vanilla, and an egg white. I added the egg white after the mixture cooked for some time because the granola would not stick together.  Also after my granola was fully baked, I added sugar to sweeten eat crunch.  Both recipes sound like a lot of work and ingredients, but I actually just mixed together materials I already had lying around the kitchen.  To make your own quick snacks that can last a power outage, you can do just the same. You can save also money and stay warm by cooking some easy snacks with what you have lying around like granola or pumpkin seeds.

 

 

H2-uh 0h

So it’s been over a month since my last post (I may have accidentally forgotten what week I was writing the post for.) Over this vast amount of time, in which I seemed to have finished a surprisingly meager amount of school work and gotten little sleep, I’ve ascertained a few more facts for living green. Barring the story about learning that our stove doesn’t have the red light telling you that the top is still hot, the second most important thing I’ve learned has been concerning water. Recently, I’ve started to feel like the murderer in that Edgar Allen Poe story, the Tell-Tale Heart. Not because the police found that body under my floorboards, but because I think I’m going to go insane when I see people turn on the tap and leave it running. I have a hard time focusing on maintaining a conversation as I watch water just pour out of the tap and down the drain. I mean, if water was an unlimited, infinite resource that everyone had, it would still seem like a waste. But when you consider the fact that 780 million people lack access to an improved water source, which is approximately one in nine people, you really start to think. I recall the scalding, half hour showers I used to take and cringe.

Personally, I spend most of my free time on the computer on Tumblr or checking to see when Brand New is going to be playing in Pennsylvania again. These are clearly important uses of my time, but considering that we live in an era when you can Google anything, I can’t believe how long I was ignorant about this topic for. The lack of water is a real issue, in contrast to my real issues, which usually pertain to what I’m going to try to cook for dinner. There are so many websites that have information about water issues and what everyone can do to help.  http://water.org/ is where I started, but that doesn’t mean you have to. Acknowledging the fact that there’s even a problem is really the biggest step. Once you realize it, it’s like seeing an optical illusion. After you finally see the illusion, you can’t un-see it, and it’s hard to believe you didn’t see it in the first place. Similarly, after you start to see how much water you could be conserving, you’ll turn into a neurotic water hound like me. Really, who doesn’t want that?