Road trip- do's and don'ts.

We have been traveling cross-country now for 4 days, by car, with our dog. Here is a brief list of things that have worked, and things that really did not go so well, when it came to food, and finding food on our trip. I decided to group them into DO's and DONT'S so as to make it simple and practical. Here we go...

WHEN TRAVELING BY CAR...

• DO bring water with you, in your stainless containers. You save a lot of money not having to buy stupid little plastic water bottles, and avoid an incredible amount of waste and trash thrown away. After all, I have not seen so far, between Florida and Utah, a single recycle bin in any gas station or hotel. So, again, if you don't want to generate more waste than necessary, bring your water. 
• DO bring some apples with you. They are nice and red, fresh, juicy, and keep remarkably well in the car for days. Wash them before the trip, so they are ready to go.
• DO bring flat bread with you. They are already stale anyway, so they never go bad. Rye-Vita, Havli... they are all great, and go pretty much with anything. They are full of fiber and very nutritious as well, as opposed to most road-trip car snacks.
• DO bring a little (good quality) chocolate with you- for those moments of desperation when you've driven for over 12 hours and you are still not there...
• DO bring some good cookies with you- they give you energy and a smile, specially when you eat them for lunch! I found a recipe in Joy of Cooking for chocolate-chip/oatmeal cookies (or maybe it was just raisin/oatmeal, and I changed the raisins for chocolate?), and changed the regular white flour for whole wheat flour. Those cookies were awesome! They had the melted chocolate, they were soft and chewy, but since they were made with whole wheat and good quality (raw, grass-fed) butter and eggs, they were nutritious as well. That recipe is definitely a keeper for future road trips- I was eating 3, 4 cookies at a time!
• DO bring some nuts with you. In a pinch, they will save you.
• DO bring a good, sharp knife. Not to kill yourself, but to slice and share fruit and veggies like cucumbers and/or peppers. But it is wise to use it when not moving in the car, as I have cut myself with it before- badly. You know, little bumps in the road...
• DO bring your coffee thermos. You can always fill it up at your favorite coffee shop, and save it for later. Nice to have when you get sleepy- with your cookie or chocolate, or both.
• DO bring a few boiled eggs- a couple is good, 6 a bit much though, especially if they crack... then they end up as dog food. But they were great as long as they remained cold. If they are in a cooler with ice, make sure they don't get wet, because then not even the dog will eat them. Nasty stuff.
• DON'T. Speaking of nasty stuff, the cheese also did not do so well. It too got wet, and became a mess. That was very unfortunate, as I was counting on some nice cheese on flat bread for dinner... ended up with boiled egg and flat bread instead, but do regret the waste, since it was such nice cheese...
• DON'T bring junk food. It makes you feel greasy, tired and gross. Not worth it, especially since it also makes you fat. Yes, Snickers taste great when you are tired, but the minute they are gone, you are back to square zero in the tiredness scale, plus the extra fat/sugar/crap you just ate.

Bringing these items saved us a lot of money on potentially expensive and crappy meals at places that we would normally never step foot in. We spent $50 on food for 3 days. Not bad, huh? We went one morning to Whole Foods and got brown rice sushi to go (vegetarian, so you don't have to worry about fish going bad...), meat for the dog, bread to nibble during the morning, and coffee... we also went to a couple coffee shops in different towns (not Starbucks, local coffee shops) and got a salad for a late lunch, scones for the morning, more coffee... that kept us going for 3 days. We also brought a nice pasta salad from home for the first day. At first I thought that it was silly to bring food in a glass container, but it kept well, and now we have the container for the summer to use for left overs and whatever we may need a spare container for. 

I also do bring a reliable beer opener- if all else fails, you can always have a nice, cold beer.

IS MY TRIP NECESSARY?

Jacksonville is at the forefront of innovation. We have private cars to take people to work, shop at the mall, to the beach. We don't need old fashioned, gas guzzling buses, since we can just chop down trees and widen our roads. No need for trains either, what with the tracks all over our roads, and the thought of having to ride them with other people. When it comes to transportation, we are in-de-pen-dent. We drive our own, and the bigger the car, the more patriotic we are. Bicyclers, stop wasting your time and energy pedaling away, private transportation is the way of the future, and road building forever the path to a stronger and more stable economy. Who cares about those birds anyway? Please contact your representative today, and ask them for more opportunities for oil. More roads, more cars, more progress.

Where Do Chemicals in Our Food Come From?

To me, healthy eating simply means removing, or limiting, the foods in your diet that could be harming you; and eating enough of the foods that contain the nutrients essential to your health. So, what foods could be harming you? Ones filled with chemicals. Here are some of the main sources of unhealthy chemicals in our food:

Chemicals and drugs used in raising livestock:
Researchers feel that this is probably the biggest problem and none of these are required to appear on the label. Over 70 percent of all antibiotics used in the USA are used in raising livestock to prevent infection because theanimals are kept in cramped inhumane conditions.

Steroids are also given to increase milk production and speed growth. The feed given to these animals is full of chemicals as well and pesticides and chemicals accumulate in the fat of these animals that we then eat. So if you do eat dairy or animal protein, eating organic is important to decrease your chemical burden.

Chemicals used in pesticides and fertilizers:
Although the use of pesticides has made our food production more efficient, it has placed a huge/large toxic burden on us and the earth. In 1995, more than 5 billion pounds of pesticides were sold worldwide, more than 1 billion pounds in the USA. FDA inspections have found legal residues on two thirds of food sampled, therefore these pesticides remain on our food.

According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), you can lower your pesticide consumption by nearly four-fifths by avoiding the 12 most contaminated fruits and vegetables and instead eating the least contaminated produce.

Chemicals used in the production of our food:
Over 12,000 chemicals are used in the production of our food. Many are used intentionally as “direct” additives, but some are “indirect” contaminants or used accidentally. As of 1995, complete health risk assessments were available for only 5 percent of food additives.

The food industry uses about 3,000 different food additives in various packaged and preserved foods. These include (preservatives), emulsifiers, buffers, natural and artificial colorings and flavorings.

And then there are the genetically modified foods, which are now turning up all over the show. Here is a great guide on how to avoid foods made with genetically modified foods.

Chemicals we create in processing foods:
Trans fats or hydrogenated fats would be the most common.

Contaminants associated with processing of foods:
During shipping and storage, chemical cleaners, food sprays and fungicides are used.

Chemicals absorbed into our food from the way we cook, store and serve our food:
Non stick pans, pots, bake-ware and utensils contain Teflon, which is made from perfluorinated compounds which have been linked to cancer and reproductive problems. And then we store and serve our food in containers that leech chemicals into our food, eg plastics and styrofoam.

And please remember this is only a list of chemicals in our food, not our water and personal care products, which are also full of chemicals.

Follow Dr. Frank Lipman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lipmo .

Frank Lipman MD, is the founder and director of the Eleven Eleven Wellness Center in NYC a center whose emphasis is on preventive health care and patient education. His personal blend of Western and Eastern Medicine combined with the many other complimentary modalities he has studied has helped thousands of people recover their energy and zest for life. He is the author of the recent Revive: Stop Feeling Spent and Start Living Again(2009) and Total Renewal; 7 key steps to Resilience, Vitality and Long-Term Health (2003).

Natural Ways to Get Rid of Ants in Your Home

By Colleen Vanderlinden, Planet Green

Each and every summer, we do battle with the ants that make their way into our house. They are drawn here by the myriad dropped Cheerios my toddler leaves them, as well as the flour and sugar canisters in the kitchen.

The most common way to deal with an ant problem is to buy one of those small ant traps that contain both a lure and a pesticide that the ants will carry back to the nest, killing the rest of the colony. The problem is that those little traps seem to attract small children (hey, what is this thing?) and they’re not something I want any of my kids touching. So I started looking for some more natural solutions to the problem. I hope these help:

Natural Ant Control

• Baby powder, dusted on both the ants when you see them, and at their entry point into your house.
• Spray white vinegar mixed with water to get rid of the ants’ scent trails – if they can’t smell their scent trails, they’ll stop coming around.
• Even more ant-fighting power: vinegar and water, with about ten drops oftea tree oil mixed in. This is an excellent cleaner, disinfectant, and deodorizer.
• Place bay leaves or cloves at their point of entry. Ants hate the scent of these, and will avoid them.
• You can also try sprinkling cayenne pepper at their point of entry.
• You can make your own Borax ant traps to help get rid of your ant problem for good.

Ants can be a real annoyance (besides just being kind of gross — who wants to see ants crawling around on the kitchen counter?) but these tips should help you get control of the problem without resorting to harmful chemicals.

Oceans choking on CO2

http://us.mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/AnyArticle/p.rdt?URL=http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65H0LI20100618

Best of... coffee.

Of all the coffee roasters in or near town, this is by far the best one, and this is, hands down, the best coffee selection. Sweetwater, out of Gainesville FL. We like it so much we might take it with us across the country this summer. This is a 5Lb bag- cheaper to buy in bigger quantities, plus you get it in paper instead of plastic. Keeper? Definitely yes, and for the next order I'll try to get a few friends to go in together to purchase 50 Lbs and receive free shipping.

Best of... purchases.

After lots of reading- and horrific findings... many things around the house and kitchen had to be changed of course. Some were easy and surprisingly cheap to do, others required quite a bit of patience and research in order to be adequately replaced.

• The coffee maker: I was in the middle of reading ''Slow Death by Rubber Duck", when I came upon the chapter named ''Coffee". I closed the book, and it took me a couple weeks to be able to open it again and read on... I knew what was at stake: my coffee maker. Think about it: it's plastic all the way, inside and out. You can't escape it. So we have replaced it with a Melitta porcelain cone and coffee pot. Eventually I found a cloth (hemp) coffee filter, and that is what we have been using since. It tastes delicious, and actually better than the electric maker. Keeper? Absolutely yes!
• Snack containers: switched everything from plastic to stainless steel. At first I was a bit confused about the different sizes, but eventually managed to figure out what our family needs were, and buy enough of the appropriate sizes. They are cheap enough that one can buy a few to have handy and carry around in a purse with your favorite snacks.
• Cookie sheets, muffin pans, cake pans, cooking utensils: those are so cheap to replace that it is really a sin not to. Amazon.com has pretty much any bake ware you'd wish to find in a stainless steel version. Get rid of your Teflon junk and stop poisoning the air that you breath with it! You can also get glass versions of it even at the supermarket. Chuck your Teflon- yes, that does include your scratched up frying pan and all those ''nice'' Calphalon pots... and while you are at it, chuck any plastic or silicone cooking utensils, and buy wood or steel ones! Keeper? Forever, and never have to worry about scratching it again.
• Wipes: rags. Ok, you do have to wash them, but not that often. I wait until I have enough of them to fill the washing machine to wash them (separate from our clothes of course), so as not to waste water/soap/energy and my time. Keeper? Yes.
• Light bulbs: slowly switching them from incandescent to the more efficient ones. Purchased a few LED's, but they are expensive. Keeper? Yes, but it will be great when they finally manage to make some that are a bit cheaper.
• Broom: what better way to keep your arms ''buff''? A great workout for the arms, and it spares me the incredibly loud, deafening noise of the vacuum cleaner. Keeper? I have been using the broom instead of the vacuum for a while now, and I am pretty happy with it. Not to mention that now I don't have to drive all the way to Sears anymore,to buy the ''rare'' and expensive correct bag for the super-loud vacuum cleaner. Hate that thing- and hate changing those bags too.

Best of, pick of the day

The garden: it has been a great asset this spring, and something that we intend to keep for the fall. It gave us lots of salad and braising greens, and continues to give us herbs and tomatoes at the moment, as well as bokchoi and collards. Those tomatoes were picked today before school. The only plant that did not do as well was the zucchini. We needed more sun for it; but we still got some zucchini and, something we had never eaten before, the zucchini (male) flower. Keeper? Absolutely. 

Best of...

Last day of school. Time to look back at what we have done since January 1, 2010. Time to decide what to keep, and what to let go. So here are the ''best of'' decisions that we have made in the household this winter/spring, and how they have affected us.

• Keep the thermostat down: helped us save on energy of course. We would dare to see how low we could go, but that can be difficult sometimes with kids. We kept it at 68ºF when the kids were in house, 65º when just us adults, and turned it off at night. Definitely used more blankets, and a lot of times long underwear beneath all the layers of fleece, which can make it quite cumbersome to practice cello or even hug your husband. My hands were so cold that I ended up using a space heater right next to me to keep my hands warm enough to play. That and huge amounts of hot tea kept us going, and the electric bill down. We ate a lot of soups, and used the oven almost every night, which also kept the living spaces warm and fragrant. Bread, scones, cookies, roasted potatoes, roasted vegetables, chicken, meat... Anything I could roast, I put in the oven. I also insulated the hot-water heater to make it more efficient, and put it on a timer. Keeper? Yes, but if I can find some way to better insulate the house for next winter, I will.
• Clothesline: at first, it seemed like just more work. Instead of just shoving everything in the dryer, you have to hang one piece at the time, arrange them... with a few repetitions, though, I got the hang of what goes where (same clothes, after all...), and it gets done in a few minutes. I especially enjoy when my bed sheets dry in the sun; they smell fresh, and feel like they have been pressed. The only thing I have to make sure is to leave the clothes outside only during the day, and with good sun, so they don't mildew instead. The kids complained a few times about the towels being stiff, I must say. But between laundry on cold cycle only, no dryer, and low thermostat, our electric bill this winter/spring was cut in half. Less electricity, less coal burned, right? Keeper? Definitely a keeper. Wash at night, hang in the morning.
• No AC: here in Florida, once the heat and humidity hits, it is almost impossible not to have AC. If we don't keep a minimum, everything in our house mildews. So... I put it on when it hits 86º (usually around 3 or 4pm at this time of the year), which is when the kids get back from school. And turn it off and open all the windows to get cross ventilation and a nice breeze before we go to bed. We use ceiling fans, which are fantastic and keep the mosquitoes away as well. Keeper? Yes, as long as we can use AC as needed. A couple more ceiling fans would also help.
• CSA (Community Supported Agriculture): we tried 2 different CSA's this year, and I was not very happy with either of them. I know it is more convenient, but I do like to chose, touch and smell the vegetables before I buy them. Keeper? No.
• Farmers Market: I love going to the farmers market, with or without family. I love buying all the vegetables and fruit there. They are always fresh and beautiful. I also get local raw milk, raw-milk cheese, plants, herbs, eggs and bread. You can ride there and make it a workout, or you can make it a family event that the kids look forward to- their chance to spend their own money on treats, as well as ride their bikes to and from there... we've also walked there, but I will not do that again unless I have some kind of little cart... Keeper? Definitely yes!
• No processed foods: that is definitely the choice that was by far the hardest to implement. Because that means no cereals, no packaged orange juice or milk, no packaged bread, no packaged snacks and cookies, no packaged vegetables (canned, frozen etc), no packaged meat, eggs, chicken, chicken broth, butter, cream cheese, yogurt... the kids did complain loud and bitterly about the lack of cereal, orange juice and snacks. I started to make granola, scones, muffins and bread. The kids also found, to their own surprise, that they really like oatmeal with raisins, nuts, and super sweetened with honey or maple syrup. They ask for it in the mornings, which is amazing to us adults who actually don't like it as much... we also make them eggs sometimes, and of course pancakes and the like on weekends. We made orange juice almost every day during the winter (lucky us, we live in Florida after all!), much of it from our own orange tree. I also gave them fresh (raw) milk instead of packaged OJ, and hot cider or chocolate on cold days. Now that the oranges are gone for the season, we've had strawberries, cantaloupe, watermelon, blueberries... and we have still more blueberries, blackberries and peaches coming up. So instead of OJ, I've made them smoothies and other types of juices- as long as it is sweet, they seem to like almost anything! The school snacks can be a real problem if you don't give it some good thought ahead of time, and the kids get bored of the same things as well. I've tried to keep lots of different things on the cupboard, so as to keep the complaining to a minimum. Lots of different nuts, cookies, scones, muffins, cut up fruit and vegetables, cheese, bread, pop corn, kibbies, croissants, pieces of grilled chicken, quesadillas... anything you can pack that will keep and look attractive enough to eat and enjoy after a couple hours- nothing that gets mushy for sure. Keeper? Yes, definitely, as long as once in a while I can cheat and buy them (and myself...) some Oreos, M&M's or potato chips for a ''little'' change...
• No supermarkets: keeping with the non-processed theme, there is almost nothing you can buy in the super market that is not processed or super-double-packaged. So... the choice is to head to a store where you can buy in bulk. The easy thing about it, as long as you don't forget your bags, is that you only need to go get bulk items once in a while. Nuts, raisins, flour, grains, beans, nut butters, pasta... they all keep for a long time, so you can go as long as 2 months before you need to step foot in a store. And trust me, the least you go into a store, the less likely you will be to buy packaged cookies and anything else that looks so great when you are hungry. Don't forget to ask for the discount for your bags. Keeper? Definitely yes- worth my money, time and peace of mind.
• Make your own: you know what goes into it, and better yet, you can control what goes into it. Nothing funky. It is definitely more work. But certain things taste so different, and so much better,  that I feel I cannot have it any different. I will continue to make butter and yogurt from raw milk, because they are nothing at all like what you find in the store. Bread was great to make during winter, but definitely not now that it is this hot. So I am happy to buy it for a change. Keeper? Yes, and keep the recipes coming.
• Hand-washing dishes: worst idea of the year. I hate washing dishes. No matter how much alcohol  I try to drink while doing it, it does not go away into forgetfulness. Even if it saved me on electricity, it drove me absolutely crazy. So I put the hot-water heater on a timer, and now run the dish-washer when/after the hot-water heater is on to save on electricity. Keeper? Absolutely not. Same goes for hand washing clothes.
• Cleaning products: I am slowly switching, as I finish whatever products I still have, to more and more use of vinegar. I use it for the floors, for the glass and mirrors... haven't tried borax yet, but maybe I'll give it a try once I finish the Bon-Ami we still have. I will not use bleach, it is way too toxic. Keeper? ''Love that fresh vinegar smell!''
• No kibble: I will not lie, at first it was incredibly hard. I did not know what to give the dog, the ratios and how much to feed him. On top of it, this dog came from the city pound with heart worms and skin problems. It was very stressful and frustrating to go to a regular vet who chastised me for giving the dog raw meat, and offered me nothing but kibble, antibiotics, antihistamines and cortisone shots. The dog would get better, but shortly after it would get even worse. It's been a journey, but I finally found a vet that is knowledgeable in both western and chinese medicine, and who can help me treat not just the symptoms, but the underlying conditions as well. The dog is finally responding and starting to get better. Keeper? Yes. Once you get the hang of it, feeding your pet raw food is very easy and simple- you just take a piece of meat,  give it to him and he scarfs it down, basically. It is just meat; it is not made from other sick animals such as dogs/cats euthanized at the vet and turned into animal food, plus rotten GMO grain and vegetables pulverized and treated with preservatives to make little pellets that vets say is what dogs an cats should eat.
• End note: we have been told that raw milk is dangerous, and that full fat milk, yogurt, and butter are bad for cholesterol. We have used nothing but whole milk, butter and olive oil since I found a dairy farm in January. Both my husband and I just had our blood checked as part of the yearly wellness exam, and found our cholesterol are at optimal levels. His cholesterol had been high in the past. We also just visited the dentist, and our gums are the best they have ever been. Curiously, our trash has also been reduced to 1 bag every other week. Keeper? Yes, because it is a win, win, win: less trash produced, less energy wasted, and more health as a result.