Green Homes in the Tribune!

Check out today's Chicago Tribune to see Green Homes' tips: 5 ways to make your home healthier.  

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-healthy-high-rise-side-1026oct26,0,5310860.story

My friend Julie Deardorf, who wrote the article, covers health and fitness for the Trib.  She's also in my book club.  Well, she never comes, but she's always welcome.  Anyway, Green Homes is thrilled to lend our expertise to the subject at hand.

Julie sent an email a while back  asking for tips to make your home healthier as a sidebar to a larger story entitled "Is your highrise healthy?"  Healthy.   It's a tricky topic.  Does healthy mean green? Non-toxic?  Active?   So Catherine and I decided we'd combine all of the above.   Here, again, are Green Homes' five tips on how to make your home healthier.

1.Get rid of toxic cleaners. Why would you put on your floor something you need to lock up under the sink?

 - Simple truth, right?  There are a lot of good, all-natural cleaners out there, but we are partial to Shaklee's Get Clean products, (http://www.shaklee.net/greenhomes) which we also distribute.  They work, the company's carbon-neutral, and the stuff smells good. 

2.Buy local food. Avoid excess packaging, eat fresh food and eat together as a family.

- Try to buy like the europeans do.  Go to the market regularly, buy fresh food that's in season and build your menus around it.   And everyone's healthier and happier if you have a family dinner as often as possible. 

3.Wash your hands regularly with regular soap. Don't use anti-bacterial soap that contains chemicals such as triclosan. (Waterless hand sanitizers are OK.)

-It's the best thing you can do to stay healthy, especially if you live in cold weather climates.  And some germ exposure keeps your immune system on its toes, so to speak:  good old fashioned soap does the job just fine.  

4.Ditch the plastic food and beverage containers. Never reheat in plastic, don't use plastics No. 3, 6 & 7.

-In sum, plastic leaches dangerous chemicals when its temperature fluctuates.  Don't heat plastic in the microwave.  Don't leave plastic water bottles in the car.  And get rid of all plastics 3, 6 & 7 in your house.  It's not worth it.

5. Leave your shoes at the door. So you don't track in the pesticides and pollutants from outside.

-It's the best way to improve your home's indoor air quality.  We track in tons of toxins, dirt and pesticides that eventually turns to dust and settles on your stuff and, eventually, into your lungs.  Ick.  Take 'em off.

It's the little things.  They add up.  

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Lunch Duty

Let me be clear: I hate making lunches. Loath may be more accurate. Abhor. Every morning when I take that ten minutes to put my kids' lunches together I get grumpy. But while I would love the convenience of hot lunches, the options at both of my kids' schools are below par at best. And it's important to me that my kids have a decent midday meal. 

So while the lunchable, pre-fab meals would solve these problems, I just can't do it. They're a crime, in my opinion, both nutritionally and environmentally. They're over-packaged and over-salted. So what's a lunch-packing person to do?

Consider the average elementary school lunch. If you're lucky your kid uses a reusable lunch bag. But there is where many, if not most of the waste reduction stops. Plastic baggies for sandwiches, ziploc baggies for snacks, individual containers of applesauce or raisins, plastic spoons, paper napkins; does any of this sound familiar? The amount of food that gets tossed each day is bad enough, but the packaging that goes into the trash with it is cringe-worthy. Yes, those disposables are convenient, and on field-trip days there's just no getting around them, but on a day-to-day basis, we can do better.

That brings me to the next Green Homes Challenge:  

No disposables in our or our kids' lunches! 

We can do it! I promise!

The key is making it easy. And with a little effort out front, it is. Green Homes has found some lunch containers that virtually eliminate your need for disposables.


You can buy 'lunch kits' that have compartments for all the different food groups, or you can buy loads of reusable plastic containers in varying sizes. Here are a couple places to find them:

http://order.tupperware.com/pls/htprod_www/tup_show_item.show_item_detail?fv_item_category_code=21808&fv_item_number=P10055361000

 Your classic Tupperware - never goes out of style!

                    

http://www.laptoplunches.com/products.html

            Aren't they cute??

Locally, Healthy Green Goods on Main Street in Evanston carries the laptop lunch kits featured above.


So buy a couple kits, fill up the compartments, and send a cloth napkin and real silverware with their lunch. It's easy, it virtually eliminates any waste and maybe it'll catch on in your school cafeteria.  Most importantly, bring your kids into the process.  Tell them we're trying to have zero waste.  Maybe ask them to challenge their friends to do the same.   Remember, when you throw something away, there is no away.  It goes somewhere!

Small steps.  Big impact.  

Good luck!