Earth Day Month

It’s the last day of April, a month that begins with a fools joke and lot’s of really bad weather, at least here in Chicago,  and ends with a huge whew…. I got my taxes done and more bad weather!! 

I have been setting aside my nutritional supplemental advocacy for green awareness throughout the month of April now since 1997. This year I noticed that Earth Day in some circles has turned into Earth Month, and that makes me wonderfully happy.

From a business perspective selling and sharing green clean is a different beat, a different focus and truthfully not nearly as lucrative as the nutritional side of my consulting. See, I work for points. One bottle of remarkable all purpose cleaner that has 1001 uses and will last you approx 4 years gives me about 5 points.  My bonus and profit = something like $6. It’s not going to feed my family, provide a vacation, or prepare me for retirement. Heck it can barely buy me 2 Starbucks latte’s. With the turn around or potential for a repeat sale of 4 years, now that the products has been remarkably doubled in it’s concentration, it means my follow up has to be pretty darn superb. ( not to worry, I am darn good at follow up!) I vow to continue to introduce the line, one person and one household at a time - just like the founder of our very fine company did when he created this product in 1956  

In my world we’ve been celebrating earth day every day for some time, the flux of eco friendly, green marketing this and that, green washing has me very frustrated, the message is mixed and the trends arising and misconception make me wish we could just go back to being hippies and sing kumbaya 

At the same time the awareness is rising and the messages are perculating and people are beginning to shift their ideas about what it means to really be green. For that I am also happy.

I tried to share as much information as I could this month to offer you a breadth of ideas to assist you with your very own greenness – I admit that the pile of ” to write ” in my green file is still bursting and so I will continue to share when I can. In the meantime I thought a great way to bring closure to April would be to provide you with a recap:

Five Ways to Go Green

Vinegar vs Organic Green Cleaner

Rachel Ray Says…

The Self Cleaning Bathtub

Gatorade or Pine Sol

Illinois Green Clean Schools Act

Green Fundraising

All Things Bridal – Green Gifting

Thank You for Our Trees

How Green is Your Village?

Natural Pest Control Rocks

Scour Naturally and Phosphate Free Dishwasher Powder

I am also would like to mention a group of green bloggers that I have befriended. This mention is long overdue, especially as we have continued to get to know each other.

Through an initial invitation from La Marguerite, one of my first bloggy friends, we are now all working together to share the green message.  Each of us has a different approach, message or style.  I am deeply privledged to say that I am part of this think tank and devoted green messengers.  I am incredibly proud of all of them. I am also very clear that the reach would not be nearly as viral if it weren’t for the blogging medium. Most of us started blogging as a hobby are completely hooked!!  Besides being huge advocates for the planet we are all part of pioneering this 21st Century method of communicating. 

In Woman We Trust
Green Talk
Talk Climate Change
Greenadine’s Weblog
Organic Mania
Scream to be Green
Philly Eco City

* note my dear green friends that there is a section now in my blog role that will highlight just you…soon. I promise.
( Did I miss anyone? )

ME …. writing green 

Karen Hanrahan ~ Wellness Educator/Nutritional Consultant/Blog Author
708.482.0678 ~ Websites:
Nutrition Weight Loss, and Green Clean
 
How do you celebrate Earth Day?
If you’re not cleaning green – what’s stopping you?

 

Roasted Beets Rich in Betalains

Today this very fine April day…you know spring in Chicago and all –  it was snowing when I took the dog for a walk. I was wearing a hat, gloves and my winter coat. Excuse me? The term brisk walk had new meaning. Snow and flowers – does that make ANY sense to you?

Short Post.

I adore beets. I have never had much luck making them, seemingly they don’t taste very good when I have tried, usually undercooked, not seasoned well. Something. I don’t have a beets 101 booklet or anything.

Nutrient rich in betalains or naturally deep ruby red pigment, their antioxidant value is just superb. Carotonoids and Flavanoids are also a dynamic nutrient combo also derived from the strong pigmented foods they are derived from.

I thought I’d do some experimenting. This week I bought golden beets and got 4 huge organic ones for just $2.00. I have been grating them raw in my salads – love that and boy is the color lovely.

I made a roasted one tonight while baking a turkey breast.  I rubbed the beet with balsamic vinegar, sea salt and olive oil and wrapped it in parchment. It roasted a good hour.

It was positively delicious!  

I found two recipes here I’d absolutely love to try, I’ll do that when I get some ruby ones!


sunny beet flickr image credit

Karen Hanrahan ~ Wellness Educator/Nutritional Consultant/Blog Author
708.482.0678 ~ Websites:
Nutrition Weight Loss, and Green Clean
 
How do you celebrate Earth Day?
If you’re not cleaning green – what’s stopping you?

Products of the Week: Scour Naturally and Phospate Free Dishwasher Powder!


With this earthy green-centric focus this month coming to a close I decided to share two products of the week this time

I remember once I was cleaning the bathtub using an ordinary scouring powder, somehow I got some in my nose and about lost my mind with how much it burned, I thought to myself how much damage did I just do to myself.

I have mentioned before that when I decided to go green, one of the things that frustrated me was the fact that the natural methods;the lemon, vinegar, baking soda approach required alot of muscle power to get things clean – I felt I had to suffer to be green. Not to mention my house smelled a lot like a salad!  I thought gosh there has to be a more efficient non-smelly way to clean green

Phosphates are what had me originally search for a green alternative. I wanted to say no to detergents that would foster the overgrowth of foul-smelling algae from choking lakes and rivers. I could not find a phosphate free or chlorine free automatic dish detergent anywhere.

The automatic dishwasher powder I use now has absolutely no chlorine. 

One container of our product equals 2 – 1/2 boxes of Cascade! Wow!! 

AND it was the only thing on the market at the time that I could use in my dishwasher that was phospate free.

Got something really tough to scour off ?? Try a cleaning paste that smells a little like something between bubble gum and cherry Kool-Aid. Gentle in that it won’t scratch, but mighty in that it works really well! Every single person I know who I have shared this product with is equally astounded by it.  You need a very small amount to get the job done. Pick your very toughest stain and let this green alternative scouring paste take it on!!

It even cleans burnt – on food in your oven yet doesn’t burn off your nose hairs in the process

Need to review why we are avoiding these nasty chemicals in the first place ? Here are some Toxic Household Chemical Facts and Statistics.


too much algea flickr image credit

Karen Hanrahan ~ Wellness Educator/Nutritional Consultant/Blog Author
708.482.0678 ~ Websites:
Nutrition Weight Loss, and Green Clean
 
How do you celebrate Earth Day?
If you’re not cleaning green – what’s stopping you?

Collages: My Blog Commercial for SOBCon08

I am attending my very first Blogging Conference this weekend in Chicago. I am so excited about SOBCon08, I can hardly stand it.

Besides being able to meet people that intrigue me, impress me, and tug at my intellect, my heart and my creative spirit.  I also am going to dig into the trenches with other like minded individuals, bloggy folks and all, and learn and develop what might be next for my blog.

One of the activities for the conference is to make a commercial for our Blogs. Utterz Herd is sponsoring the contest and everyone who participates has the chance to win a Nokia N95  Man – that phone is pretty darn sweet. 

As you can see the guy at Utters Herd is a total video dude. Personally it’s going to take me a while to do video anything. I completely appreciate video as a medium, however for me I prefer something a tad more organic.  I have no idea if this is on track for a commercial, since I am rather non - commercial in spirit and all. However this idea kept coming up in my head so I went with it.

I made these collages and applied a new technigue so that it took me only about an hour to complete all 4. Isn’t that the coolest thing?

I am rather pleased with them as a series. 

I have access to software that can add fonts right into the image, just can’t install it into my system right now, hopefully I can get some help with that before the weekend.

Otherwise this is my commercial – what do you think??  

Best of Mother Earth Blog Commercial:   

I Never Knew….

 

That what I think about and what is important to me

Could make a difference for so many …. SIMPLY by speaking it outloud.

My Blog:  All Things Wellness

Best of Mother Earth: 
www.bestwellnessconsultant.com

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Collages by Karen Hanrahan

Karen Hanrahan ~ Wellness Educator/Nutritional Consultant/Blog Author
708.482.0678 ~ Websites:
Nutrition Weight Loss, and Green Clean
 
How do you celebrate Earth Day?
If you’re not cleaning green – what’s stopping you?

L.L. Bean's 100% Guarantee

I recieved a check today for a zipper that broke on a backpack from L.L. Bean. I simply ordered a replacement, sent in the defective backpack and they sent me a new back pack and a check. How cool is that?! This isn’t the first time I’ve utilized this guarantee, as a matter of fact it’s the 6th time I’ve exchanged a back pack. ( mostly for broken zippers )

The first time I processed a return was for a back pack that I had for 25 years, that completely fell apart in the washer. The back pack was fine when it went into the washer, but when it came out it had disinegrated. I called the company and they said send it to us and we will give you replacement cost. The sent me $50 for a 25 year old back pack.  I couldn’t believe it.  Smart on their part because I went straight back to them and got another back pack which is about 8 yrs old now!

I was first introduced to L.L. Bean when a co-worker had donned a pair of “ducks” , he was an east coast dude and I had never seen boots like those before, even then he mentioned the selling point of the guarantee.

On a recent trip to the Museum of Science and Industry, there was an exhibit of business marvels, along with the likes of Sears, Mary Kay, and Coca – Cola,  was L.L.Bean- started by one man in 1912, now a gloabl company, known for it’s catalog sales, quality and of course its 100% guarantee.

LL Bean fosters social responsible business practices, advocates conservation alliances and has partnered with many outdoor organizations too.

I try to choose carefully who I give my dollars too. If I am going to spend I want to spend with conscientious companies. LL Bean is one of them.


flickr image credit for picture of L.L. Bean storefront

Karen Hanrahan ~ Wellness Educator/Nutritional Consultant/Blog Author
708.482.0678 ~ Websites:
Nutrition Weight Loss, and Green Clean
 
How do you celebrate Earth Day?
If you’re not cleaning green – what’s stopping you?