My definition of green — at least as it relates to a product or service — takes into account many characteristics. If it’s a product, I believe it should be manufactured using renewable ingredients and components. It should also be free of petroleum-based components and anything would harm the environment (or the people who use it) such as phosphates, lead, hormone disruptors (think BPA or phthalates) and antibacterial elements — especially triclosan. Other ingredients I try and avoid are VOCs, poisonous or toxic additives, nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs), DEA (which has been found to cause cancer), and formaldehyde. “Green” food products should be organic and contain actual food — nothing that is developed or produced in a lab. A rule of thumb that I’ve heard over and over again: If you can’t pronounce it, don’t ingest it. Packaging for all of the above should be recyclable or renewable, and use as little plastic as possible.

Dictionary.com defines green as “environmentally sound or beneficial.” I would agree. Green products should have as little impact on the environment as possible. And that’s where this whole discussion gets cloudy. How green is organic coffee grown in South America once it gets to New York? Sure, it might be grown organically in a way that supports local growers, but how can anyone overlook the fact that it has to travel via airplane or boat to the U.S. where it’s put into a truck that guzzles gas and spews carbon monoxide along the way?

Of course, thinking like this could make you crazy. So, what’s your definition of green? How does it affect how you shop and live? I’d like to know.

Our waste-free snack tin.

One of the most wasteful places, in my opinion, is the school lunchroom. Lots, and I do mean LOTS, of single-serve containers, wrappers, and packages.

Take fruit leather, for example. They usually come in a box, each fruit bar individually wrapped. The boxes cost $4 for eight. (Or about $.50 each.) Recently, I came upon the best alternative to individually wrapped snacks: Trader Joe’s Ends and Pieces. Basically, Trader Joe’s packages lots of those individually wrapped bars. The leftovers are now packaged up. It’s especially nice because you get plenty of different options — apricot, raspberry, passion fruit — in one bag. You can also pick the Fiberful Fruit leather ends, a nice option for people trying to add more fiber to their kid’s diet. And the eight ounce bag only costs $2.49. This is a huge bargain.

Okay, so I decided I was going to buy them and phase out the .7 ounce bars that cost $.69. (For those without a calculator: The bags provide about 12 bars worth or $8.28 worth of fruit leather.) But how would I send them in? I didn’t want to use plastic bags, obviously. But they are sticky. They would muck up my reusable bags. And then, this weekend, I found my solution in Whole Foods. Little, cute stainless steel containers called LunchBots. Pricey, yes, but SO perfect for what I needed it for. I bought one, and on our fourth day in I have no idea how I lived without LunchBots until now. (Full disclosure: The LunchBot people have no clue who I am; I paid $14.99 for my LunchBox. I just tend to get excited about things that help me help the environment.)

I love that it’s segmented into two sides, and the fact that it’s welded down all the way across so I can put wet stuff in and it won’t make the dry stuff slimy and gross. I love that it cleans up really quickly, and that it fits into our lunchbox side-by-side with a sandwich. Finally, I love it because it’s helping me cut down on waste and keep my kid BPA-free. The thing is made out of food-grade 18/8 stainless steel, which is what silverware is made of. Oh, and it’s really easy to wash. The manufacturer says it can go right into the dishwasher, but I’m just rinsing by hand every night. Seems to be working for me!

I recently looked around so I could buy one for Little Girl, and one for myself. I found the LunchBot Duo on Amazon.com for $14.99. I also found the sandwich-size LunchBot, too. Saves me a trip to Whole Foods, and I can use my American Express Blue points to pay for everything.

And so now, when the lunchroom trash gets put out, there are a few less pieces of plastic in it. No, it’s not going to make a huge dent in today’s trash heap, but if more moms and dads make the switch to reusable packaging we all have the ability to change the world. One fruit leather wrapper at a time.

This post is how I am participating this week in Real Food Wednesdays and Fight Back Fridays — two awesome campaigns to get people eating real food again.

According to the post Addressing the Gulf of Mexico Spill, which was written by Ken Cohen, ExxonMobil’s VP of public and government affairs, it’s important to realize how much we need all that deep sea oil, and how infrequently these things actually blow up and wreck the planet. (And thanks, Mother Jones for pointing this out to me.)

Read the post. Basically, it’s ExxonMobile distancing itself from BP saying, in effect, we’re not like THEM. From the post: “What we do know is that when you properly design wells for the range of risk anticipated; follow established procedures; build in layers of redundancy; properly inspect and maintain equipment; train operators; conduct tests and drills; and focus on safe operations and risk management, tragic incidents like the one in the Gulf of Mexico today should not occur.”

Ummm. Okay, maybe your wells haven’t blown up lately, but what about that little blip called the Exxon Valdez? Remember? It’s that little boat accident that has gone down in history as one of the worst environmental disasters ever. You couldn’t have forgotten that already, could you? It was only 20-odd years ago!

That spill has something BIG in common with this spill — the fact that there was little outside oversight of what your company was doing, at least according to a 1990 report prepared and released by the State of Alaska. From that report, written by the Alaska Oil Spill Commission: “Industry’s insistence on regulating the Valdez tanker trade its own way, and government’s incremental accession to industry pressure, had produced a disastrous failure of the system.” Sounds vaguely familiar, no?

I’m sorry, Mr. Cohen. You’re wrong. Your company can’t distance itself from BP. You’re all in this together. As Alex Baldwin wrote in his June 7 Huffington Post op-ed, the oil industry along with the U.S. government is just plain wrong. “When it comes to the oil industry, we have no government,” he wrote. “We have just a bunch of drunken, thieving whores…”

Tonight there will be a prime-time Oval Office address. The president will hopefully give us some answers. Yesterday, he announced members of the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling Commission, charged with “providing recommendations on how we can prevent – and mitigate the impact of – any future spills that result from offshore drilling.” I was especially excited to see that Frances Beinecke, the president of Natural Resources Defense Council is on this list. And yet that well is still leaking. And the oil industry is still yapping away. Wonder which one will stop spewing crap first.

DJ Lance spins for the babies!

This week we spent the early evening at Brooklyn Bowl, which, to me, is really just a club that happens to also have bowling lanes. It was a launch party event for Yo Gabba Gabba’s live show. My big girl has watched the show. My baby, who won’t turn two until the end of June, hasn’t.

We went inside and saw throngs of people — kids, moms, dads and babies — milling around. All the characters were there, too, as was DJ Lance, who was actually using a turntable and spinning records. (Yes, actual vinyl! Each one encased in its sleeve and the sleeve encased in plastic.)

My big girl was excited to be there. The little one was a little scared. The noise, the darkness, the flashing lights. Once she settled down, however, she loved the music. Only ten minutes after we arrived, she stopped clinging to my shoulder and started dancing. Then she started clapping her hands.

It was a fun even even though I had to snag a bracelet from someone leaving (I was told at the front door they had no more to give) so we could get onto the dance floor. Once we stepped down onto the floor we participated in the meet and greets with everyone. I think my husband, who I am technically not allowed to write about anymore, was most excited. He really wanted to meet DJ Lance, who turned out to be one of the nicest, most down-to-earth people I’ve ever met. I asked him to do a video intro for the blog. Not only did he do it, but he did it twice since he didn’t get the name right the first time. The video will go up over the weekend or on Monday. (Have to let hubby work his technical editing magic on it.) In the meantime enjoy the photo, the following Favorites and the rest of your Friday!

Leafware = I have a new compost bin. I entertain a fair amount during the summer. I hate plastic.

I’m hoping this statement — if I was doing a truth table — would come out all true. (I’m expecting a sample some time soon, so I will let you know.) Leafware, as the company says is  “leaves of specific trees and vines, sewn together with bits of stem” to form plates, bowls, and trays. If you buy them in bulk they come out to about $.50 each. I’m personally willing to give it a try, especially since I can throw it into my compost when I’m done. Again, I’ll let you know what I think.

BetterWorldBooks. I am a reader. I’m also someone who writes stuff that goes into newspapers and magazines. And yet I hate the thought of how many trees I’ve probably killed doing what I do for a living. This is why this site may be one of my favorite new haunts. Every book it sells ships free in the U.S. (the international shipping fee is $3.97), and the company offsets its shipping by buying carbon offsets from Carbonfund.org. It also collects old, unwanted books and sells them to support literacy efforts. To date, the company says it has diverted 33,082,876 books from landfills. Not bad. Now do they have my next book club book?

Let’s Go Chipper! app. I got a press release about this one. Sounded pretty neat, so I checked it out. It’s an educational storyline (books, movies, activities and iTunes downloads) for kids ages 2 to 6 that teaches them about ecology. With the summer coming up — at least here in the northern hemisphere — the stories explain how to keep the environment the way you left it. A plus: Chipper, who is a chipmunk, is pretty cute, too.

That’s it for now. I’m back to work. Another few interviews to do today and then we’ve got a birthday party and I have a flip-flop party to go to. Whoohoo! What are you up to this Friday night? p.s. See that little brown box over to the right? The one that says Top Mommy Blogs? I am trying to move up in the rankings. Would you pretty please click on it and then click to vote for my blog once you get to the landing page? Thanks in advance! I only need 30 clicks through to move into the top 10 in the Eco category.

The organization assessed 17 different perfumes, which listed “fragrance” on their labels. On average, there were 14 different unlisted ingredients in each of the perfumes. The reason: manufacturers are not required to list the chemicals they use to make perfumes fragrant. And some of the perfumes had many more than average. For example, American Eagle Seventy Seven had 24 unnamed ingredients, Coco Mademoiselle Chanel had 18, and Britney Spears Curious and Giorgio Armani Acqua Di Gio both had 17 unnamed ingredients. Almost 2/3rds — 66 percent of the ingredients — have not been tested for human safety. “According to EWG analysis, the fragrance industry has published safety assessments for
only 34% of the unlabeled ingredients,” says the report.

From the report: “The fragrances tested contained, on average, 10 chemical sensitizers, which can trigger reactions such as asthma, wheezing, headaches and contact dermatitis when they are breathed in absorbed into the skin.” (Check out page 9 of the report to see the full list of chemicals.)

It’s not like this all over the world, though. In fact, it seems like the folks in Europe are better protected than those in the States. In Europe, there are 26 ingredients that must go on the label if they are in perfume. According to this week’s report, those 17 perfumes tested by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics had 22 of those ingredients. And 12 of the 17 perfumes tested also contained phthalates: diethyl phthalate, known as DEP, specifically. Phthalates are hormone disruptors that mainly affect the reproductive organs and the brain. Nasty little chemicals. Not something you’d want to be rubbing on your skin or inhaling into your lungs.

An April 2010 study out of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University has linked prenatal exposure to phthalates found in personal care products and perfume to childhood ADHA. Another Mount Sinai study linked phthalates to early puberty in girls. This is a big deal, according to researchers, because it may cause a higher incidence of breast cancer later in life: “”Exposure to these chemicals is extremely common,” Dr. Mary Wolff, Professor of Preventive Medicine and Oncological Sciences at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. “As such, while the association between chemicals and pubertal development seems small, the impact on the overall population is significant.”

So what’s the take-away? We, as consumers, should be able to avoid phthalates and chemicals that have the potential to hurt us. We can’t do that unless we can see everything that goes into the products we buy. The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics wants Congress to rewrite the Federal Fair Packaging and Labeling Act of 1973, forcing the perfume manufacturers to list every chemicals that’s in a perfume or cologne. It’s tough, though, since the FDA lacks the authority to make this happen. I agree something has to change. What do you think?

Do you wear perfume every day? I don’t — only on special occasions — but this still scares me. My girls have been lying on my mom’s chest since they were born. My mother-in-law’s, too. They “smell like Grandma” when both grandmas leave.

Not sure where you are, but I’m in New York. It’s hot here. Summer hot. Lazy day in August hot. It was 81 degrees at noon. My electric thermostat says it’s 76 degrees. Yep, my office is mighty warm. I’m sitting here dreaming of my central air conditioning unit. I’d love to flip the switch and turn it on. But then I remembered how I grew up in a house where we didn’t get air conditioning until I was in my late teens and I realized how selfish that would be.

Running a big central air conditioning unit like the one I have takes a lot of energy. How much? Well, my electricity bills go up about 50 to 100 percent during the summer months, depending on how hot it is. So I decided to figure out other ways to stay cool.

First I had to change my clothing. Instead of my usual pants and shirt I’m wearing shorts and a t-shirt. And no shoes. Then I had to get hydrated. I filled my reusable water bottle with ice — lots of ice — and water. I’ve been taking slugs all day. My lights are off, of course, and I turned off my printer. The blinds are drawn to keep the sunlight from warming up the room even more. My door is also open for a change to encourage the breeze from our open bedroom window to make a visit in here as well. It’s definitely helping, but I may look into getting one of those little fans for my desktop. And I’m definitely open to suggestions, too. Have any?

How are you keeping cool? How do you decide when to turn on the air conditioning? Do you have any get-cool-quick ideas? I’d like to know.

Better than a diamond ring or a trip to the spa -- at least to me!

My husband came home from the store today with a surprise. One that made me smile really widely: A compost bin! Finally!

He gave it to me right before dinner so all the non-meat scraps that are sitting on the table will soon find a new home. I can’t wait to see how this is going to affect our garbage output. Now almost everything old and moldy sitting in the fridge will get tossed in the compost as well as grass clippings and leaves. I will also toss in our old egg cartons (the paper kind, of course), paper towels, tissues and napkins. And I can even throw in my shredded documents.

Experts say that those who compost can reduce the amount of trash they send to a landfill by 30 to 50 percent. I guess we’ll see, but in the meantime I’m off to clean out my fridge. What an exciting way to spend a Saturday night. Thanks, Chris!

Do you compost? Any tips for me? If you do compost have you seen a big reduction in the amount of garbage you’re putting out every week?

Earth Day meets 45th Street

I spent Friday in the city at the ASJA Writer’s Conference, which took place at the Roosevelt Hotel. Great conference, I was excited to see all the people I talk to on Facebook and on our online forum. Once I left the hotel, though, and made my way down 45th Street I was really excited. Right outside the hotel was EarthFair Outdoors, a celebration with music, booths and characters. As I walked through the crowd enjoying the beautiful weather and relaxed vibe I found a few things that have the possibility of becoming my favorites. I thought I’d pass them along…

Wicked, the play. Okay, I lied. This is already on my list of all time favorites. Still, what does Wicked have to do with Earth Day? I’ll let them explain. (From the tag on the cute baby evergreen they gave me to take home and plant: “Green. For Good. This tree has been planted in tribute to Elphaba and all the green things on earth.” So basically my favorite play of all time was giving out free evergreens for Earth Day. Outstanding!

Seed Body Care. I am a sucker for a sweet-smelling cream. And if that cream happens to have shea butter and be scented like my two favorite herbs, lavender and sage? Swoon. Seriously. And if it’s paraben-, phthalate-, presevative-, petrochemical-, and artificial color-free? I may be tempted to shell out the cash. They were showing three products — a body bar, a lotion, and a shampoo bar. I’m thinking I need to buy the body bar. (I kept sniffing my hands, scented from the tester, all the way home on the train.)

Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. What happens to livestock that isn’t well enough or hearty enough to be slaughtered? Some of the chickens, turkeys, cows, pigs, and goats end up at this place, a home for the animals that don’t make it to your table. The sanctuary gives tours daily from April 1 through October 31 where children and adults can learn about how and why the animals arrived there and what we as human beings can do to reduce our meat consumption. Sounds like a nice day trip…

The New York City Compost project. Okay, so you live in a small house or — in this case — an apartment. Still, you cook. You eat. You have non-meat food scraps. What can you do to recycle them? This project, funded by the New York City Sanitation Department, teaches apartment-dwellers how to create an indoor compost bin with worms. You can learn, too, by clicking through on this link. (Yes, there were worms at the event, but no, I didn’t get a photo!) Okay, if folks in apartments are composting I will finally make it my business to create a compost bin at my house. And I plan on doing it this weekend.

The components that go into the Sprout watch.

The Sprout. I got sucked in by the tubs of bamboo, cotton, and corn pellets, which reminded me of the tactile boxes at my big girl’s Gymboree classes. Once I got closer I saw that the bin contents represented what the company makes its watches out of. The watch body is corn resin instead of plastic. Straps are made of organic cotton instead of leather, while the watch face is made of mineral crystal — a type of glass — rather than plastic. The dial is natural bamboo. The result is a watch that is either 80 or 86 percent eco-friendly. Not bad. And they’re cute, too. At $30, it was a steal, but I didn’t have any cash on me. Sigh.

Matthew Modine wants people to ride bikes -- not drive cars.

Bicycle for a Day. Hey! I know that guy! He was the guy in Married to the Mob! (I’m talking about Matthew Modine.) A celebrity hanging out in the middle of the city? Yup, and for a good cause, too. Modine started a non-profit called Bicycle for a Day to help people get out of cars and on to bikes. A noble cause, and one I should be doing myself. I love spinning so much I should be jumping on my bike when I need milk rather than jumping in my car.

CommuterLink. How do people living in the Tristate area get involved in a carpool? This is a good place to start. The site helps you find people to carpool with. Then, once you’re signed up, guarantees that if you miss your ride because the driver has to leave early, they will help you get home free-of-charge. Nice.

How was your Earth Day? Hope you have a fun, relaxing weekend!

It’s Saturday, so I’m not going to write a long blog. I’m sure you don’t want to read a long blog. But I did want to put this out there: Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution is great. But while we’re at it how about fostering some love and concern for our earth? Jamie says he wants real, unprocessed food, but where are we going to grow that food if we keep polluting our waterways and killing our ground with plastic and chemicals like Bisphenol A (BPA), which NEVER go away. Never.

So on this Saturday evening I say can we take it to the next level? While we’re teaching those kids to love what is found in nature, how about we show them that it’s important to protect nature. We must find a way to eat while at the same time avoiding waste. Kids should be recycling and — if they have to use disposables — they should be using more earth-friendly options. Companies like BioSmart Packaging are a good example. But I still think that the best option is to teach kids how to go completely green by using metal utensils and ceramic plates and cups like they do in Nashville or some of the other schools that have taken the waste-free lunch challenge.

Because the real revolution is more than just eating the right foods. The real revolution keeps our bodies and our environment clean and healthy.

Hope you’re having a good weekend! How does your school handle the environmental issue of food service? Would you consider advocating for a waste-free cafeteria?

Why do I always get weird injuries?

Anyone who has been reading for a while knows that when I get hurt it’s usually in some weird, obscure way. Something that prompts an insurance letter being sent out. The letters always want to know if someone else is responsible for the injury. Because hey, how else could you get a black eye and contusions or a cut on your chin unless someone actually hurt you? I had another wacky accident yesterday, one that will probably result in another letter.

I have been working non-stop so I decided I would go to half of a mommy-and-me class with Little Girl. The place is right up the block. I could hang out for 30 minutes, I thought, and make it back in time for my noon conference call. So I get there, and we were doing circle time sitting on the floor. Little Girl, like most of the kids, was getting on and off my lap. At one point, she runs away from me. On her way back, she trips. I put my arms out to catch her, and her two front teeth met my thumb. I knew instantly we had a problem. Her teeth sliced my thumb open. Blood gushed. I picked Little Girl up and carried her out while holding my thumb airborne as not to drip and blood on the kid. She (and her teeth) is fine, thank goodness, and was able to go right back into the class with my mom, who was in the waiting room. But I was a different story. I ended up in front of a doctor getting liquid stitches and steristrips. So today’s Favorite Things is going to be short and sweet. My thumb is still throbbing. I can’t use it to type, and I have three more conference calls today. Sigh. So here, in an abbreviated format, are my favorite things of the week.

Clif Z Bar for Kids. I won a prize in a Twitter party. (Thanks, @Healthy_Child) Part of it: 20 of the chocolate chip variety. Yum. Big Girl loves them, too, so it’s given me another snack option for her lunch box.

ThredUP. I hate throwing clothing away. I hate buying it new, too, especially for the kids. This new site is part eBay, part Craigslist, part Freecycle. You go on, put a “box” of clothing up, and someone will claim it. And you can do the same. All you pay is the shipping on the clothing you’re claiming. Everyone wins. Clothing is reused. You don’t spend a fortune. Love, love, LOVE this, and plan on trying it out this weekend.

MatterofTrust.org I love using surplus in an innovative way. Who knew that human hair from the floors of salons could be reclaimed and reused for oil spills and oil slicks? But it can. This organization helps collect human hair and get it out in the field when there is an oil spill. They also do a ton of eco-education. Ask your salon if they are participating in the program. It’s worth it.

That’s it for now. I’m going to try and add two more things by late Friday. Have a great weekend in the meantime!