The Great Paper Chase

You know, there's so much buzz about "green this" and "green that" going on in this country, it gives the impression that we're really shaping up in terms of mending our environmental ways. But before we get too hearty about patting ourselves on the back, let's take a step back and look at ourselves through the lens of reality.

I had a chance to do just that this week. My husband and I run a small retail music store, and I've started sending out a monthly newsletter to our regular customers. Legal sized paper folded in thirds works really well, because it allows me more space to ramble on. (Don't laugh - the customers love it 'cause I talk about stuff that's of interest to THEM. Too many marketers only think about their own interests.)

Anyway, we ran out of legal sized paper pretty quick, so I hightailed it down to the local office supply shop to pick up more. I figured they might not have recycled in stock and I was right, but I wasn't prepared for just how right.

This shop has a special-order catalog the size of the New York City phone directory (HUGE.) they've got everything in there you could possibly think of - and more than a few things you probably never would - for your office.

But they didn't have a single type of legal-sized 100% post-consumer recycled paper. Not one.

Now I know 8 1/2 X 14" paper isn't all that commonly used. But it's standard enough to be an option on every copier and printer I've ever come across. So what gives?

All the ads we're bombarded with now on a daily basis, about how this company cares about future generations, and that one is looking out for Mother Earth... how much are they really taking to heart? Not too much, by the looks of it, if all their words won't even produce enough demand for one measly sustainable option in a multi-thousand-page tome.

We may be making progress, but friends, we have a long way left to go.

Sprout Your Own Salad

Our great-great-grandparents would have turned green with envy if they could see the huge produce sections of our typical modern supermarkets.

It's true - having access to such an abundance of yummy fresh veggies and salad ingredients all year long is great for healthy eating - but it may not be the best for the Earth.

Next time you shop, take a look at where all this food is coming from. Mexico, Chile, Ecuador, Morocco... many items are shipped from thousands of miles away. Even domestically produced produce is frequently trucked hundreds or thousands of miles to its final destination. Considering that most salad veggies consist of 90% or more water by weight, this represents a tremendous amount of fuel burned just to keep our salad bowls filled.

One way to get around this is to grow your own. Home-grown veggies don't just cut down on greenhouse gasses - they're much fresher, which means they're tastier and healthier, too! Just one problem if you live in a cooler climate - it's pretty hard to garden in the winter.

Fortunately, there's a solution to the seasonal salad dilemna: sprouts! Sprouted veggies are easy to grow, tasty, and packed with vitamins and minerals. They're great both raw and tossed into stir frys, or even in meatloaf or smoothies, depending on the type you grow.

Getting started is easy. All you need is a glass jar (wide-mouth quart or larger Mason jars work great), some cheesecloth, a rubber band and seeds to sprout.

You can turn just about any kind of veggie seed into sprouts. Alfalfa is the most popular, but if you want to avoid the toxic saponins associated with them go for clover seeds instead. Anything in the cabbage family is great. Mustard or radish sprouts will provide a nice zip to your plate, as will onion. And sprouting beans and grains such as lentils, garbonzos and quinoa will make them more nutritious and cut down on cooking time.

Pour a tablespoon or so of the small seeds, or half a cup of the larger ones, into your jar and cover well with filtered water. Let them soak overnight. In the morning, fasten some cheesecloth over your jar with a rubber band and drain. Rinse with more filtered water, drain again, and let them sit in a darkened location with the jar propped so excess moisture can drain out.

Be sure to repeat the rinse and drain procedure twice a day so your little sprouts don't start to rot. Within one or two days you should see a little swelling at the bottom end of each seed. This is the tip of the radicle, or embryonic root, of the seed. Now you have sprouts! Some sprouts, such as garbonzos, lentils, and grains, can be used at this stage. Others can be allowed to grow for a few days longer, until the seed leaves are developed. If you're using them as greens, you'll want to expose them to light during the last day to encourage chlorophyll formation. This will turn them a nice green and add to their nutritional value.

Once you're used to it, sprouting your own salad takes very little time and is a great way to add interest and nutrition to your winter salad plate!

What to Do With All Those Shoes?

Why wait for Spring? Early February falls midway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, and it's a traditional time for house cleaning.

I've been doing my best to live up to tradition. Room by room, I've been going through each area of our home and getting rid of anything we no longer love, need or use.

With two growing kids in the household, one item that keeps cropping up is...shoes!

My son seems to have finally reached his full foot size, but for a couple years there I swear we were getting to be personal friends with the shoe store guys. And now my daughter's approaching the age of maximum foot expansion.

So now we are the proud owners of an impressive collection of shoes and boots of various styles and sizes. We'll never use most of them again. What to do? Are they doomed to take up landfill space forever?

Not necessarily. By chance, I stumbled upon a link to a couple really cool programs that address the issue:

• Soles4Souls is a non-profit dedicated to putting shoes on the feet of needy people around the world. You can drop off your gently-worn footwear at a participating retail drop-off points, or mail them to one of their three U.S. warehouses. You can also donate new shoes or make cash donations. Visit www.soles4souls.org for more information and donating instructions.

• Got worn-out sneakers? Don't toss them in the trash! Instead, send them to Nike's Reuse-a-Shoe program, where they will be ground up into new material and used to make new sports surfaces like soccer and football fields, basketball and tennis courts, tracks and playground surfacing. (One would hope they're deodorized in the process!) Visit www.nikereuseashoe.com to find out where to send your used-up athletic shoes (any brand), or to find a convenient drop-off location near you - and to check out the impressive number of shoes donated to date!

How 'bout you? I'd love to hear about other creative solutions to the worn-out shoe problem. (Especially if it'll convince my husband to get rid of his!)

New Green Copywriting Website

Yippee! I got my Green Copywriting website up! Check it out at www.GreenInkCopywriting.com - and be sure to let me know what you think!

The Healing Power of Music

I found out about it by accident.

One day I was suffering considerable pain, and something told me to go sit down at the piano. Now, I'm no concert pianist, but I really enjoy playing. About 45 minutes later I realized that the act of making music had instantly and completely wiped out the pain - at least while I continued to play.

Curious, I decided to look into it.

I found several studies that show that music really does help reduce pain. Not only that, it helps fight depression and stress as well.

• A 1996 study of 60 arthritis patients showed that individuals who listened to music for an hour a day showed a 21 percent reduction in pain and a 25 percent reduction in depression associated with pain perception.(Journal of Advanced Nursing, June 2006)
• A Stanford University study revealed that 20 seniors who practiced stress-reduction techniques while listening to music during an 8-week study period enjoyed better moods and reduced depression. A control group who used the stress-busting techniques without the benefit of music saw no improvement.
• A review of four studies on music and pain relief led by M. Soledad Cepeda, M.D., a faculty member of the anesthesia department at Tufts-New England Medical Center, indicates that on average, music has the same effect as about 325milligrams of acetaminophen (Tylenol) - about half a regular adult dose.
  
• A study of 236 pregnant women at the College of Nursing at Kaohsiung Medical Universityin Taiwan found that listening to 30 minutes of calming music a day significantly reduced the women's psychological stress.

Many other studies and anecdotal evidence indicates that music can indeed help manage pain, improve mood and mobility of people with Parkinson's disease, reduce the need for sedatives and pain relievers during and after surgery, decrease nausea during chemotherapy, shorten hospital stays, ease anxiety, lower blood pressure, relieve depression, enhance concentration and creativity...the list goes on.

And the best thing is, there doesn't seem to be any one particular type of music that's better or worse for healing. Whatever people enjoy listening to seems to work.

So in tough times, when you find yourself stressed out, bothered by pain or just plain tired, remember that one form of relief is always close at hand.

Just open your mouth and sing!

P.S. I didn't find any studies comparing the benefits of actually making music vs. just listening. But in my own experience, music making beats out listening hands down.