An Eco-Vegan Halloween - Tips from around the web

It has been so much fun to read up on how everyone is greening their Halloween and preparing their vegan treats and feasts. Here are some tips from around the web to help us have an eco-vegan Halloween.

Listed under each heading are our favorites.

Grab your favorite beverage, check these out, and take time to explore the rest of each site.

Sophie Uliano at Gorgeously Green: 3 Sensible Halloween Tips

1. Get your kids to recycle candy wrappers with Terracycle’s Candy Briggade program.

2. Find "conscious candy"ideas.

Carolyn Scott at The Healthy Voyager:  (2 links)

Healthy Halloween - Food and Frenzy

1. Use foods of different colors to get the Halloween feel.

2. Choose non processed sugar like Brown Rice Syrup and Stevia over white sugar.

Conscious and Crafty Costumes

Homemade Zombie costume

Amanda Willis at Earth911.com: 10 Tips for an Eco-friendly Halloween

1. Give organic goodies

2. Costume swap

The Environmental Working Group (EWG.org): Tips to Green Your Halloween

1. Non-toxic make-up, haircare, and fragrances.

2. Eco-friendly candles made from palm or soy wax.

Chef Chloe Coscarelli: Killer Halloween Desserts

Haunted Halloween Layered Cake - Yum!

Other tips:

1. Make some vegan cupcakes and top with halloween themed sprinkles

2. If using paper goods, choose biodegradable products. 

Have a safe, green, and healthy Halloween.

Any tips, links, and resources you have to share are welcome here.

(Adapted from my Examiner Article)

Making an Itty Bitty Impact with a Green Wedding - Part 3

Hand painted signs add their personal touch

As part of their green wedding plans, Mike and Tonia had their honeymoon on beautiful Kauai. 


They have made it a green honeymoon by staying at the vacation home of friends and by cooking most of their meals. Don't grimace yet, they do have plans for dining out. 

They are making it even greener and helping our economy by shopping at a local farmer's market they've located ahead of time. This in turn rewards them with fresher and better tasting produce.

It's good practice to "shop where you stay" when on trips. You can shop where they sell local produce - grocers, farmer's markets, and health food stores. You can also shop where the sell local retail and wholesale items.

What I appreciate most about Mike and Tonia is their pre-planning. It allowed room for when things didn't go as planned so they still had time to make changes. I call that sustainable planning and living.

Read more about the last week of their green wedding plans at: Itty Bitty Impact - Getting Married the Green Way III 

Check it out:

Getting Married the Green Way Part I

Getting Married the Green Way Part II

Itty Bitty Impact - website

Itty Bitty Impact on Twitter

 Itty Bitty Impact on Facebook 

Photography by:

Sydnee Bickett

Making an Itty Bitty Impact with a Green Wedding - Part 2

Mike and Tonia have already said their “I do’s” and on their beautiful honeymoon. They’ve been married a whole wonderful 4 days. It must bring back many memories for those already married.

In Part 1 we introduced their plans for a green wedding. Here in part 2, you’ll be taken through some of the challenges they faced. For example, choosing not to use disposable papergoods left only one caterer choice. 

On the other hand, they stuck to their choice for low-impact and found great rewards. In making some of their own decorations, there’s time spent together. Online save-the-date sites and rsvp’s by email help eliminate paper waste.

Let’s not tell all. Read about Tonia’s ring and all they finished planning at her website. 

Read all about it:

Getting Married the Green Way II - by Tonia Simeone of Itty Bitty Impact

Itty Bitty Impact on Twitter (Tonia)

Itty Bitty Impact on Facebook (Tonia)

(Adpated from my Examiner article)

Mike & Tonia have already said their “I do’s” and on their beautiful honeymoon. They’ve been married a whole wonderful 4 days. It must bring back many memories for those already married.

In Part 1 we introduced their plans for a green wedding. Here in part 2, you’ll be taken through some of the challenges they faced. For example, choosing not to use disposable papergoods left only one caterer choice. 

On the other hand, they stuck to their choice for low-impact and found great rewards. In making some of their own decorations, there’s time spent together. Online save-the-date sites and rsvp’s by email help eliminate paper waste.

Let’s not tell all. Read about Tonia’s ring and all they finished planning at her website. 

Read all about it:

Getting Married the Green Way II - by Tonia Simeone of Itty Bitty Impact

Itty Bitty Impact on Twitter (Tonia)

Itty Bitty Impact on Facebook (Tonia)

(Adpated from my Examiner article)

Making an Itty Bitty Impact with a Green Wedding - Part 1

Engagement Photo by Sydnee Bickett

We hear about decreasing our carbon footprint, being environmentally friendly and wonder, “how?”. Well, Tonia is owner and creator of Itty Bitty Impact website. She has found many ways to help us discover the ease of going green one step at a time. Even featuring video on how to easily make your own cleaner.

Green, budget-friendly, and a few days away:

A “Green, budget-friendly, off-the-hook-awesome party for 300 people” is exactly what Tonia and Mike are having. They set out to make it as low-impact on our planet as possible and a beautiful celebration with loved ones. Well, they have been more than successful.

As you are reading this article, they are at less than one week before their memorable day and Tonia is off to her last cut and color. She and Mike have just finished a Triathalon over the weekend.

She takes us along on their “green wedding” adventure. She shares other resource sites that will be of help along with tips for dinnerware, email announcements, and even favors! I’m already getting great ideas for parties, gatherings and the like.


Thank You Mike and Tonia for letting us follow along on your awesome adventure :D

Getting Married the Green Way - Part 1 (Tonia's post)

Itty Bitty Impact on Twitter (Tonia)

Sydnee Bickett Photography 

(Adapted from my Examiner article)

Our 1st Arbor Day

 Sorry for this post being a bit late.  I'd like to label myself as a perfectionist but that would be a big fat fib.  Perhaps I can convince Jeri that procrastination is the conservation of energy... heh heh... anyway...



Celebrating Arbor Day this year was a 1st for our family.  As it coincided perfectly with all that we've been learning about a plant based diet, the environment, our earth and all, this occasion set the perfect stage for us to jump in on starting our garden!  We aren't green thumbs (actually Reid & Jeri are pretty good, I'm more of a gangrene thumb), but the thought of being able to harvest some fresh basil, organic none the less, makes for some exciting anticipation.  So yeah, we planted two types of basil (seeds) and re-potted Jeri's roses.

Oh yeah, we know that Arbor Day is about "trees" but we felt that planting these herbs was well within the spirit of the occasion.  lol, btw, although the package of soil was labeled "organic", Shadow helped us out in certifying it... by eating a mouthful... yikes!  =0P

Jeri's First Published Article - Your Daily Vegan Spin

One of my dreams is to write articles about issues or subjects I'm passionate about. Through my e-Cornell course that came alive again. They encourage us to be proactive as part of our assignments and to submit our letters and articles.  God's is opening doors for us all. Such a privilege to learn and share it.  


I had to share KD's with you.  I was jumping up and down.  She sounds like such an exciting person. I'm keeping in touch with her.  I can't believe the article is the first guest post in the spin!  aaaaaaah! I know you're celebrating with me and thanks for that.

"Hi Jeri!

Heck yeah!  Thank you for your submission.  Here's what's next.  I've gone ahead and read your post and approved it.  That means that I found it awesome, of course, and that we're going to get it posted for you.  That will happen tomorrow, Wednesday 5/5/10, and will be posted in The Daily Vegan Spin.  Incidentally, it's the first time we've posted a guest post in the Spin- I'm extremely excited to do so.  It's refreshing to see that other people "get it" :) from:  KD Traegner"

I'm blessed with the privilege of  learning because others are proactive enough to learn and then pass it on. We all have a voice in our passions. Keep learning and practice sharing so the fire in our bellies stays lit. People are pouring into our lives so we can pour into others' lives as well. God connects us with people and points us to resources all the time...we just have to be "awake". Voice your passions and bless someone. It may be an article, one-liner, a letter...do it your special way.

God Bless You all and Let's Rock this Gift of Life we've been given....YEAH!

 


http://www.yourdailyvegan.com/2010/05/05/vegan-a-lifestyle-of-compassion/

Did Ya Know #3 (DYK): Safe & Unsafe Plastics

Did Ya Know? ... that there are "safe" and "unsafe" plastics? You can tell if a plastic container is safe by the number stamped on the bottom? #'s 2, 4 and 5 are primo and #1 is good for a single use (ex. bottle of water).

Now Ya Do
Check for the symbol on the bottom of your water bottles, storage containers, etc. How ya doin'? Share what you find to the comments/shoutouts.


Resources:
I googled "plastic recycling numbers" and read some good links @ planetgreen.discovery.com thedailygreen.com and ecovillagegreen.com. Also, some interesting info at more mainstream sites like wikipedia and snopes.

Remember ... 2, 4, 5... stay alive =0)

Our First Shout Out in Another Blog

Meet our friend Donna. She writes an awesome blog called Champuru Mommy Blogging and More.  In today's post she mentions and links our blog in relation to healthy eating :D. What a privilege.

Our boys are grown, yet I love reading her posts.  It's full of fun stories, info and transparency.

Her latest blog post is entitled: Why Is Healthy Eating So Hard and asks about the high cost of organics in addition to the battle of making organic choices.  She uncovers many more questions that arise as she contemplates eating healthy.

Jeri's learned truth: Government subsidies are part of the high cost of organics. They subsidize land for overgrowth of corn to feed the overabundance of animals including fish to make meats cheap and maybe unknowingly overfeed America. The animals barely have space to move around inviting disease. Yes, the farmed fish too.  America is diseased and can't explain it.  Go figure!

I have to give a shout out to the farmers and fisheries that do use safe farming practices like Snapper Farm.

There is hope. We can research, learn and write about these issues to our legislation to stop the abuse of subsidies. Better yet, fax it to them. It is much more economical to subsidize organic farming that will remain sustainable for generations. As we learn, we can share it with others.

Enjoy Donna's blog and participating in answering her questions. You could be helping her and many others by doing so.

As T. C. Campbell and Brendan Brazier always say, "There is always hope". 

God Bless You All.

The Ocean, The Land, and The Atmosphere is Ours...Together

Before I share with you the video link at the end of this blog, I wanted to give you a summary of my plant-based nutrition class and how amazing it is.  To clarify, plant-based is vegetables, fruits, legumes in their whole and natural state.  Animal-based is meat, poultry, pork, fish, egg, and dairy.  Now I truly believe that Earth Day should be practiced everyday.

I'm toward the end of a 3 part plant-based nutrition class at e-Cornell.  It is so much more than I thought it would be.  We not only learn about plant-based nutrition, but also about it's positive effects on the world environment in atmosphere, land, and ocean.  We've also learned how animal-based diets, in excess, effect other populations of the world, specifically 3rd world countries, by taking their own resources from them for profit.  I'm astounded by the amount of information that we're not made aware of that is publicly available... and... all the government studies that prove and disprove many nutritional and environmental issues but are not publicized.  There will be many other blogs to come that will cover all I learn in greater detail.

Dr. T. Colin Campbell, author of The China Study is the developer of my nutrition program. I've had the privilege of being lectured by Dr's. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr. and John McDougall who are making huge progressions in the medical field just by changing their patients diets and seeing them get off medications and become free of heart disease and diabetes, Nutrition and Lifestyle practitioners, professors of ecology and oceanography, psychologists, and upcoming will be elite athlete Brendan Brazier, Author, medalled-vegan triathlete and creator of Vega Sports Nutrition. They share with us detailed tests and studies, videos, graphs, etc.

I finally gave in and decided to share at least this video with you provided by Bruce Monger, Professor of Oceanography at Cornell University. If you could only hear him lecture. He has such passion! He says that the ocean is ours, the land is ours, the atmosphere is ours. They have to ask our permission to do what they're doing (polluting and exploiting it). He further says that we should not stand by like helpless sheep and do nothing. Our assignment is to write letters to our representative and congressman. I'll post that later, but for now...

The people responsible for this 2007 video you are about to watch is Randy Olson and Brian Skerry (underwater photographer). See the effects of our diet choice on our oceans.

Global Fisheries Crisis - Sights and Sounds - National Geographic Magazine

Grantee Story: Jonny’s Green Shield « Pepsi Refresh Everything Blog

This 14-year-old boy is making a difference. Story just in time for Earth Day. We can do anything small or big. Pass this story on.

My favorite part: “I know I’m just a kid in Chicago, and that fitting a couple buses won’t make that big of a difference,” Jonny says. “But I really think the idea could spread.” If it does, we’ll see school districts saving money on fuel costs giving some much needed relief to ever-stressed budgets, while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions. How’s that for a win-win solution?

Grantee Story: Jonny’s Green Shield « Pepsi Refresh Everything Blog

God Bless,
Jeri

40 ways to tastefully celebrate Earth Day

Someone sent this on twitter. Great ideas. Let us know what you decide to do.

Our plans:
*making a recipe from Vegan Pandamonium (vegan eating sustains the planet)
*ordering a product from KissMeImVegan to support her blogsite (which in turn supports so many other animal and environmental causes)
*get all our recyclables together and make run to the elementary school near us...did you know certain shampoo bottles, and tissue boxes are recyclable too. I had no clue! that's the list so far.

See 40 ways to tastefully celebrate Earth Day for more and don't forget to check out what's going on in your city. We found a link for Hawaii and it's filled with concerts and events. Personally, I really want to go see Hawaii's Jack Johnson.


God Bless You all and Love
Jeri

Hawaii's turned back the Climate

Photo0697
Originally uploaded by sunsmavsfan
We were invited to post this picture for Earth Day 2010. It was awesome. It totally made our day. Our first celebration. This pic was taken with my samsung camera phone. So very cool. And we helped our environment.

Our Very First Earth Hour Day

We had an awesome time, tweeting, FB updates, and celebrating our sons birthdays. One son, 26-year-old was out for his bday. We caught the younger one, 24-year-old, before he went out. Click here to see pics and the b-day video.

Earth Hour Day -This Saturday 8:30p

Just for one hour on Saturday, March 27 - 8:30p-9:30p we can do that right? Plan ahead for non-electrical lighting and have fun.