GPB: Glowing: Soulful Skincare Review

Who here has issues with their skin? Yes?

Peeps, I have just finished reading a fabulous book by one of my fav bloggers/natural beauty product lovely: Yancy Lael. It has forever changed my views on my skin and my health.

On top of that- it was the perfect "eco+Yoga" fit for my skincare journey.

So. Curious? Click over to the Green Phone Booth for my review:

Glowing: Soulful Skincare- A Paradigm Shifting Book

Happy New Moon :)

Adventures in Gardening: An Edible Hedge

This gardening thing is HARD.

About a month ago Andrew and I managed to sell the pool (not "ours" since we bought the house DESPITE the pool). Yes, we sold the pool. Why? Because we don't have pool obsessed, splashy kids, neither of us like swimming in pools (ocean and lakes please!) and they are an energy and money drain (the previous owner's electricity bill went up over 200$ over the summer months).

Put an ad up on kijiji and the next weekend a dude and his friend came and tore down the fence (it was so rotten it really just needed a good push) and took off with our pool for 800$.

We now have a giant summoning circle in our yard. Yay!

My plan would be to have a gorgeous (I can dream right?) firepit area with a small food garden on the side and pretty flowers. This plan has a few hiccups:

1. We have no idea what is currently growing in a mini garden that was in front of the rotten pool fence (we send photos to Andrew's mom since she knows stuff about gardening- sadly everything looks pretty to me. I can't tell a weed from a flower).
2. We need to collect flat stones from somewhere since I don't want to pay for them. This will mean several trips to a beach where we will hopefully go unnoticed when we lug flat rocks back to my car. Friends: flat stones as gifts are welcome.
3. We no longer have privacy from the driveway.

The last one we decided to target a few weekends ago after some inspiration from Niki Jabbour.

Supposedly, we live near a very famous winter gardener, Niki Jabbour (maybe she lives in this amazing house that has a cool triangular hot house, solar panels and bubbles on the roof? I drool every time we drive by). So. I purchased her book, 73 Groundbreaking Food Gardens, cuz we have gardens and I have no clue and hey, I heart local right?

It's an amazing and inspirational book (and I'm really excited about her winter gardening book, the Year Round Gardener) but I was especially excited about the plans for an Edible Hedge (and the cocktail garden, but yeah know).

An Edible Hedge is exactly what we needed!

What is an edible hedge? It's a hedge made of berry bushes... cool beans, I know. The plan in the book was pretty large and with berries that weren't necessarily local to us. Thankfully Niki is super responsive and supportive on Twitter and she suggested: Blueberries and a few options to source them.

 Our cart of edible awesomeness at Baldwin Nurseries!

That Saturday Andrew and I hopped in the car and drove over an hour to a little out of the way nursery, Baldwin Nurseries, to purchase our edible hedge. The guy thought I was crazy, but gamely suggested a few blueberry options and Haskaps (honeyberry) as our other "berry". I learned that for best results you should have two types of each so we purchased 3 blueberry bushes (2 Duke:1Blue Gold) and 4 haskaps (2 Tundra:2 Blue). When I told him we'd then have to buy a shovel and some dirt I swear he thought "crazy hipsters".

(Haskap bush close up!)

One shovel, four bags of dirt (peat moss and shrimp compost, we already had bags of black earth left over from previous owners-thank you!) later and we were ready to plant! Except... it was almost 6pm by the time we got home. I guess gardeners get up EARLY. It was giving rain for the next day, though, so we had to plant that night.

Within 15 minutes the black flies were swarming our bodies and eating us alive. By the second plant we hit bedrock 2 inches in. An hour and we abandoned ship, leaving the potted bushes on the deck and running screaming from the voracious, insatiable black fly horde of death. (that week I made "black fly soap" with citronella and it smells awful. Hopefully it works).

We swore we would get up extra early on Sunday and finish the job. Which I am proud to say, despite getting dirt all over my arms and face, we did.

(Our edible hedge completed, shovel abandoned: WHAM )

(from from behind the summoning circle towards the driveway immediately after planting. The middle blueberry bush was named Nicolas Cage. I have no idea why.)

In the end we had two rows: back row closest to the road were the taller bushes: the blueberries. Closest to the summoning circle firepit were the smaller bushes: the haskaps. We ended up having to do two raised beds for two of the bushes due to bedrock. I spent an hour finding rocks on our property (not even caring about the ants crawling all over the bottom at that point) to create a small bed. They actually look kinda cute.

 (Edible Hedge tonight, two weeks post planting. Status: STILL ALIVE!)

 (these are the flowers on Nicolas Cage, aka the middle Duke Blueberry bush- kickin' butt as would be expected)

 (Cutest little blueberry flowers on all three bushes! Plus isn't that purple bush pretty? We can take zero credit as we had no idea what it was until it flowered last week...)

Two weeks later and the blueberries are actually flowering and nothing died! Score! We should hopefully have a few blueberries this summer and this edible hedge should be low maintenance and extremely hardy. Whether we eat the berries or they manage to attract wildlife (which would be amazing), it's win:win.

GPB: The True Foodie Read: The Stop Book Review

Hey y'all! Sorry I've been a bit MIA, but I just wrote a fab piece at the Booth on a recent transformative book review on Food Banks and I have some fantastic blog posts in the works bumping around in my head. (A follow up of the "Strong is the new Skinny" post, rave workouts, yoga in Halifax... stay tuned!)

Go on over and check out my review of "The Stop" by Nick Saul and Andrea Curtis and stay tuned!

"The True Foodie Read "The Stop": Beyond Food Banking Book Review"

Eco Library: 3 Book Reviews (& 1 Must Have)

You may notice that a lot of my posts have "Ecoholic 2006" cited therein. Adria Vasil's book, "Ecoholic" was the impetus for most of my Greenie changes as well as the subtitle for this blog. I loved that book, her writing style and the way the information was well researched. Unfortunately, Ecoholic-Home, her second book, although good, wasn't the bowl-you-over amazing eco-resource that I had used countless times.

As a stickler for research and citation, though, the 2006 tag-year was getting a bit worrisome. Anything past the 5 year mark in quantitative research isn't really worth mentioning- as science moves so quickly. (Although, I still strongly recommend "Ecoholic" for anyone wanting an intro in all things Green. Just don't read it all at once... it may be a bit overwhelming!). 

Weirdly, in the past few months there have been THREE major "toxin-beauty-health" related books that I've purchased and (at least attempted) to read. As I feel books are sacred, I don't regret purchasing them, and I'm far from a book critic, I'll share a few thoughts on these Eco-Resources.

(My three newest additions to my Eco Resources Library!)

1. The Non-Toxic Avenger- Deanna Duke (aka Crunchy Chicken). 
I will admit, I was very excited for this book to come out. Mostly because like many green bloggers, I've read her blog and it felt like supporting a fellow blogger to purchase her book. I read so many fantastic reviews in the Crunchy Chicken circle of bloggers, that I had high expectations.

Unfortunately, I barely got through the first few chapters. I'm stuck at p.52.

The reason: I'm going to be honest- it's her writing. I feel like maybe this is a personal preference- long sentences and paragraphs with repeating ideas and circular arguments don't really make me happy. Lots of bloggers loved how the feel of the writing was like a long blog post, but it really wasn't my cup of tea.

I also wasn't so happy with her sweeping scientific claims without consistently citing any research sources. Some of her statements were really quite alarmist (i.e. choosing not to wear earrings of unknown metal origin in case they might rub against her skin and leach said metal into her bloodstream... which honestly is highly unlikely. I would choose not to wear jewellery made in China because of labour ethics and carbon footprint...) Also, a personal preference here.

I know I'll get through this book- and read it through the end, but the cynic in me is a bit wary. Although I wasn't a huge fan, that doesn't mean that you, dear reader, may not enjoy this book. If you love Crunchy Chicken, her blog post writing style- you may very well love her book.

2. Ecoholic Body- Adria Vasil. 
This JUST got released on Tuesday and I quickly scooped it up today. I was happily humming a tune, so excited to give it a read.

After about an hour of reading and quickly perusing all chapters, I'm mildly disappointed.

The good stuff: Adria's still keeping it Canadian, which is awesome, and her writing is still as witty and engaging as ever. I love that she's so fantastic at keeping up to date with regulatory body information, legislation and research. Adria's also brought forward her nifty product review summary that she used in Ecoholic Home, which I found extremely accurate and reliable. There's also a wealth of product options discussed and/or mentioned which is pretty darn convenient.

You know what else is cool? A downloadable "Mean 15" wallet guide to the top 15 worse beauty product ingredients.

The disappointing stuff: Maybe it's because I had just read "There's Lead in Your Lipstick", but I felt like the chapters were almost a vomiting of product information and naming. Each sentence named a different product and it was overwhelming trying to situate myself with the choices put forth. "If you need this, try this, this, or this product, but if you need that, try that, that or that product". I was also quite disappointed with the orange text boxes, honestly the font was in such a light orange colour that it's tricky to read.

This book is still a definite buy just for her amazing writing and research skills as well as the ridiculous amount of product information, labelling information, plastic guide and city by city shop guide. I'll just need to use it that way instead of reading it straight like a book.

3. There's Lead in your Lipstick- Gillian Deacon
I devoured this book in less than a week. Love, love LOVED this book. Gillian Deacon used to be the co-host for Daily Planet and has a succinct but engaging writing style with sufficient research citations to back up her claims.

I adored that there was no BS with her: the product was either green or it wasn't. I gather this is a result of her greenwashing pet peeve, which also happens to be my pet peeve so that worked out very nicely.

Unlike other resources, "There's Lead in Your Lipstick" is completely beauty product oriented 100%. Which means she truly goes into detail regarding beauty products, ingredients found in them and potential dangers currently known in the research world. Her introduction stating that she's a Breast Cancer survivor and her honest approach to all things carcinogenic is moving and refreshing. When she reviewed aluminum links to breast cancer from anti-perspirant, admitting that research is tenuous on the connection at best, she won me over. I knew that she was reporting the research from a passionate yet as unbiased as she could be perspective.

Like Ecoholic Body, Gillian provides a wallet downloadable tip sheet with best brands and toxins to avoid. Fun!

Another aspect of this book that I loved so much was her absolute penchant for all things DIY. Instead of encouraging the purchase (and consumerism) of Green beauty products, this book actually focuses more on DIY recipes that she's actually tried at home. She goes into detail about different natural and easy to find products that can do the same thing and none of her recipes appear that difficult to make. This book is the reason why I tried my own body lotion (which has been a huge success I might add).

For someone who's easily intimidated by all those "natural DIY" beauty product mavens, this says a lot.

If you haven't guessed already, "There's Lead in Your Lipstick" is a Must-Have for your DIY/Eco-Beauty resource shelf!

article and photographs copyright of EcoYogini at ecoyogini.blogspot.com

Permaculture- it's not just about dirt and gardening

Spontaneous permaculture talks. I mean- what else could be more titillating? Do we live on the wild side or what?

You may be asking (as I did): 'What the eff is permaculture?'

Well... honestly if the talk were any indication, besides something that radical hippies/hipsters (hey, not that I'm not a tree hugger myself, I just happen to own a fridge) buy into, permaculture has something to do with agriculture. Permanent Agriculture is a term that has grown into, over time, "Permaculture".

Clear right? (Let's just say that the presenter wasn't the best at clearly defining topic and explaining the "what" in "What is permaculture").

Ok, so it's actually a lot more than simply a closed loop, sustainable agricultural system... which is what I originally thought permaculture to be. A quick search on wiki reveals that modern permaculture is:

...a system design tool. It is a way of:

1. looking at a whole system or problem;
2. observing how the parts relate;
3. planning to mend sick systems by applying ideas learned from long-term sustainable working systems;
4. seeing connections between key parts.... (wiki source)

(interested? More info on permaculture at Permaculture Principles)

A friend of mine had informed me that morning that the talk was occurring at a tiny bookstore-cafe two seconds from where we live (The Trident). As we'd never been there before, and hey I like ecological topics, we decided to attend. First of all, being type A, it was a little stressful to discover that the time was a little fouffy, no one (even the staff at Trident) really knew when it was starting and seating was haphazardly assigned. I had a few deep breath moments.

The presenter was an experienced and obviously passionate farmer, Alex. He had a beautifully hand drawn "Permaculture Flower" taped up against the book shelves and I could still see the soil beneath his fingers. Although there were a few key aspects of his presentation that were a bit wonky (ridiculously poor organizational and explanation skills and some obvious biases against all government and traditional educational settings, and several conspiracy theories thrown in for good measure), Alex reminded me of a few key and inspirational Eco-Musts.

Firstly, to my surprise, he did not in fact begin talking about soil, plants or compost- but Peak Oil. Nothing new here- oil sequestered by the sun for millions of years is a finite resource, we're chewing through it at something like 80-something million barrels a day and have passed the point of the peak amount of oil available on our planet. It is something to consider, because unless we start investing in something else for energy, our fuel costs will just continue to skyrocket in the long term.

As I sat there, surrounded by large framed glasses wearing, huge beard and "trying to look authentically like a trucker hat even though I obviously have never lived outside the city my entire life" wearing early twenty somethings who chimed in at the end how "parents are the WORSE man", I kinda felt a bit out of touch. Ya know, I have visual evidence of me hugging a ginormous tree in Stanley Park (Vancouver BC), and truly have grown up in rural Nova Scotia where I'd come home regularly to a new deer gutted and hung up in my grandpy's barn to be shared with everyone, but I kept having moments of "please give me something practical and useful hear" instead of Mr. Alex's passionate advice to build a rocket stove or a root cellar.

I kept picturing Andrew and I attempting to cook grilled cheeses in a brick makeshift stove with the fire started by the twigs we gathered and an increasingly large black burned area in our living room floor. I figured it would be 5 minutes before our neighbours would call the fire station... and we'd get evicted.

After the first hour I had a harder time tracking his jumping bean train of thought and connecting all the dots. I found myself gazing lovingly at the beautiful Permaculture Flower.

Now this flower has some interesting community and life implications. 

It looks an awful lot like a pagan diagram. The spiral, the connection with nature and the ethical concept that we're here to care for our planet as stewards.  I wondered on the Goddess or probably pagan roots and connections. There is definitely something spiritual connected here.

At 9pm my face was so red, my heart and mind a bit heavy after such a long, disjointed and impassioned speech (we'd been there since 6:30pm), that I was very much happy to go. Even though I really wanted to directly challenge a few of his statements (that university brainwashes you, that parents and the baby boomers know nothing about conservation, that environmental organizations really don't do squat, that urban gardening is a waste of time, that cooperation and community has been lost in rural and urban settings alike...), I just got up and left. The thing is though, I'm fairly certain he would have listened respectfully and been a great conversation partner.

Ahh well- the following post on cooperation and community: why it's important to begin thinking about and how to start one in your living area, were worth the entirety of that 2+hour talk. :) That and it was so moving to see someone completely passionate and caring share his thoughts and ideas.

The one book I've read that mentions permaculture? The Earth Path by Starhawk. An amazing book btw that teaches you how to make seedbombs. Oh yeah.


article copyright of EcoYogini at ecoyogini.blogspot.com

The Revenge of Gaia

Sounds pretty scary eh?
 
It's actually the name of a book by James Lovelock; a British inventor, independent scientist, environmentalist (to put it lightly) and futurologist.

I honestly bought the book for the ridiculously awesome title, the look (what can I say, I'm a superficial book snob) and an extra bonus- the theoretical premise. Ah, ok, the premise was kinda essential.

Sadly the writing is not that fantastic- it's wordy, very defensive and a bit over the top with analogies. It really feels like I'm reading a spoken transcription of some random conversation-monologue he may have had. I can actually *hear* his British accent while reading. It's a bit creepy to have an old British man in my head.

Besides that, the actual 'Gaia Theory' is mind boggling and perfect. If that makes sense.

James Lovelock, with the support of the IPCC, has formulated a theory of how our Earth works. Essentially, instead of viewing our planet as a non-reactive, material based object in which living things use in a one-way relationship, the Earth is a reactive, dynamic 'organism' which influences the carbon based life forms just as they influence it.

The Earth has a system and essentially self-regulates for optimal living environment and has been keeping it this way specifically for billions of years. He even goes on to postulate that an Earth System completes a Darwinian approach to evolution: Life forms are selected not only for their ability to survive, but interact directly with their material world and are influenced in an evolutionary sense by it.

If that sounds confusing, it's because I still haven't quite wrapped my brain around it.

Despite my personal mental space for this theory, viewing our world as a system that influences each part dynamically as a whole has always been commonsensical. Our world is filled with so many unknowns. Why would we even begin to think that by understanding one portion in isolation of it's climate, it's resources, it's surroundings and the way they influence each other would accurately reflect natural functioning is ludicrous.

In one of his recent books, A Sacred Balance, David Suzuki discusses how everything is interconnected (not quite at the macro level as the Gaia Theory) in a much more eloquent manner. Examples ranging how our Red Wood forests actually depend on salmon spawnings each year to survive... how our ocean algae affects our land animals and crops. 


James Lovelock, with the Gaia Theory, takes it a step further to draw connections between geology, climate and atmosphere with the living organisms. Although we know that climate affects living things, I never thought about how an animal or plant may be essential for our Planet.


Mr. Lovelock actually believes that it is too late to save our planet from becoming devoid of life in any form. Those limits that are thrown around by the IPCC, the carbon limits in the atmosphere? Yep, he believes that we've surpassed the point of no return. The book, if nothing else, is a strong message that we need to do something extreme and immediately.

Now if only I can get past the fourth chapter....

Blessings

article copyright of EcoYogini at ecoyogini.blogspot.com




 

Fessin' up; Boho Style

In honour of Boho Mom, being Honest and Open, I thought I'd share a peak into the non-eco part of EcoYogini and Andrew's lives... Because as she so aptly pointed out, we all like to blog about our awesome attempts at healthy living, but I'd be remiss if I were to pretend I was 'eco' 100% of the time. It's part of the journey. :)


So here's my share today:

• While cleaning the yoga studio today I used the non-eco spray to clean the gross toilet and sinks... along with WHITE WHITE paper towel since there *still* isn't a toilet bowl brush (ew!)
• During the cleaning process I really did not think about how wonderful an opportunity it was to be connecting and helping the studio. Instead I thought about how the instructors really had no idea how to sweep the studio, tidy up or actually clean the Black Mat they practiced on. Ick.
• Instead of walking downtown to check out the sights, Andrew and I drove... cuz we were lazy.
• We also drove all the way out to Bayer's Lake to go to the Ginormous Chapters.
• We bought starbucks in the PAPER cups, all the while I scorned their terrible recent attempts at greenwashing (ugh, renewable material cups? come on)
• I bought two brand new books. I really love new books. They are my achilles eco-heel...
• I had a moment of road rage and may have said some chosen words, perhaps a few gestures, to another driver.... Andrew was a little concerned lol.

A silly picture: Me and the 'test tube light' hanging during Nocturne this year

There you go! The two new books I bought today? Anatomy of Hatha Yoga by Dr. H. David Coulter and Organic Crops in Pots. I'm really excited about reading Dr. Coulter's book, mostly to see how my education in Anatomy and Physiology will mesh with his view of Yoga. I'm hoping I'll be able to apply what I know of physiology, as simply knowing the structures, without understanding how they work, is never enough. :)


How was your Sunday?


article and photographs copyright of EcoYogini at ecoyogini.blogspot.com

Nevermind the mascara, re-thinking my role with Carbon

What a ridiculous week. It would seem that my busy life+snotty clients has finally caught up with me and I was left to sneak in "sick" time at the end of the day when no clients were booked. I had this entire post planned about the complexities and myths of bioplastics and "compostable" products. (picture from zerocarboncanada)

Then, last night Andrew and I had the opportunity to attend a free lecture at Dalhousie University by Andrew Weaver, Climatologist at School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at U-Vic BC. Despite my raging migraine, dizziness, nausea and the fact that I had barely eaten, I WAS going to this talk. Andrew Weaver is a BIG WIG global warming scientist with a ginormous dossier of scientific journal publications on climate change and global warming. He's a lead author in the International Panel of Climate Change and a Canada Research Chair in Climate Modeling and Analysis. He's the author of 'Keeping our Cool' which I am most definitely going to buy (or take out at the library).

As we sat in the very back of an extremely packed auditorium, I saw a few people take out notepads and pens. Crap. Why didn't I think of that? Pair this with Dr. Weaver's extremely dysfluent manner of speaking with several repetitions (whole word AND phrases), tangents and disjointed sentence structure and I can only sadly give you a portion of how very awesome his lecture was. If you'd like a small taste- check out this Tar Sands info video by Greenpeace.

He began with discussing why the public still believes there is a debate on whether climate change-global warming is human caused or natural. With a fantastically self-deprecating attitude he spoke about the disconnect between scientists and the media, from both sides. He pointed out that journalists are strongly encouraged to provide a "balanced" view in all articles in order to assure both sides of the story are represented, whereas scientists report (hopefully) factual information. For this matter, when several researchers in a quest to discover why the public is so confused about climate change, searched media databases, only 6% of all articles stated global warming was human caused. 50% of these (I think something like 900 media reports were randomly selected) had both views; climate change exists and some say it doesn't.

When peer reviewed scientific journal articles were randomly selected (again, number in the high hundreds, darn not having a pen a paper!) every single one concluded that climate change was human caused. Every. single. journal article. It was great to hear him directly address the "grassroots" (or as he called them "astroturf groups") anti-climate change movement by giving examples of faulty science, wording and supposed 'expert' studies published in online mediums (and not peer reviewed journals).

It was validating and at the same time shocking to have this firm: YES climate change is happening and YES science resoundingly states that we need to change something now. For some reason, although I do believe global warming is a threat, I had allowed myself to have doubts from the many media articles implying some sort of scientific debate. All of a sudden I couldn't view global warming as something that "might" happen someday. It will and is happening.

That's when Dr. Weaver got into some truly interesting points on how much carbon could we burn without breaking the 2 degree temperature increase (which he pointed out was a number chosen to be the maximum allowable temperature increase without irreparable ecological and environmental impact). Graphs of probable outcomes should we continue to burn the same amount of carbon. What our planet would look like from a heat chart with three possible 'carbon emission' paths. How anything above two degrees (celcius) increase in temperature would actually have HUGE impacts on our planets ability to sustain life as we know it.

Suddenly, my thoughts on eco-mascara and eco-skin care products, my 'the rock' deoderant, our CFL light bulbs, our glass food containers... all looked pretty frivolous. Dr. Weaver's solution was that over our lifetimes we should become completely carbon neutral worldwide. Completely.

Oh my- he's right. This is the solution- not a decrease in dependency, not an adaptability (who can 'adapt' to live in an uninhabitable planet??), but a complete non-dependence on carbon. We have to change the way we live, change what we believe is our 'right' as North Americans- the convenience of carbon. Of course, it is completely feasible, economically and practically. New sources of energy could be highly profitable. Changing the way we live doesn't mean existing in caves, but using sustainable resources, public transit (or walking and biking), using alternative energy and eating sustainable and healthy food. I think the biggest changes are those of convenience- having plastic in our lives for one.

The most thought provoking aspect of his presentation, however, was his quote of the U.N.'s human rights declaration. He calmly pointed out that we as North Americans do not truly believe this paragraph. We don't really believe that all humans are equal. If we did, we'd stop assuming that developed nations have some strange 'right' to continue polluting and destroying the planet at the expense of non-carbon emitting nations. That we as Canadians have more of a 'right' to do as we please with this planet than humans living in Sénégal.

The atmosphere does not care if the carbon comes from Halifax or Bombay. Neither should we.


Article authored and copyright of EcoYogini at ecoyogini.blogspot.com

Sleeping Naked Is Green: A Review!

I'm in a funny mood today. The sun came out in perfect timing for some recovery yoga in the park (Andrew is not as receptive to the amount of surya namaskars I like doing- "5?? really?? of EACH? OK." It was beautiful and thankfully the birdies outsang the cargo ship loaders and we didn't get yelled at by a park ranger for practicing on the "keep off!" ancient Fort.

I just finished Vanessa Farquharson's "Sleeping Naked Is Green" (or SNIG- hehe, she is so cool!) last night. She's part of the first "green" bloggy crew (such as Crunchy Chicken, Fake Plastic Fish and No Impact Man) over at Green as a Thistle and I actually was not aware that she had a 366 (leap year) challenge! Came into this a bit late, but no matter! I love her "post-challenge" blog, so I knew I'd like the book, and I wasn't disappointed.

I've just come off a "green-book" binge and feel a bit cynical and irritated with all the extreme-isms of greenability out there. My favourite part of Vanessa's book- the normality and sense of groundedness (with excellent adventures!) she managed to keep throughout her year. I also loved how she confessed to snippets of hyprocrisy when a green "rule" was broken. It gave me a sense of "you are not alone" (I still need to update you, my eco-yogi/ni's on how the Preserve shaving razors turned out... or rather didn't and now I switched back to Venus...: confession done in honour of SNIG).

It was fun reading about the background surrounding her posts, her struggle with justifying eating meat and flying and her references to other blogs that I read regularly. I also had no idea what "rennet" was. Trust me, it's gross.

The most essential aspect that I took away from her ridiculously entertaining book: Balance. If you are new to the green-y movement, love to read excellent books and feel a bit overwhelmed trying to live up to some media fabricated "eco-ideal" I highly recommend "Sleeping Naked Is Green". In fact, I will be lending this book (as soon as Andrew is done reading it) to my friend H. and participating in Crunchy's bookclub next month!

Blessings!