Jonah Lisa Land

Travels with Children: Fort Worth Zoo

I've been invited to do some guest posts on a really great blog.  Travels with Children follows the adventures of a Minnemom and her 4 kids (all under 7).  She takes then everywhere!   She provides tips for traveling with kids and great reviews of all the places they go.  Most of her adventures are in Minnesota and the Dakatos but she sometimes goes farther afield and is beginning to expand through contributors from other regions.

I'll be posting a few of our Texas adventures there, with links here, so you can check them out.  And now that the snow has melted, I may even have some Idaho and Wyoming adventures to add to her growing list of places to visit with your kiddos!

Click on over to Travels with Children for a full review of our great trip to the Fort Worth Zoo and keep up with the growing collection of adventures I've posted there with the new "Travels with Children" category in my sidebar.

The weather is gorgeous so grab the kids and get out there!

The Precautionary Principle

Who the hell doen't love a good old unifying principle?  I simply adore one.

I ran across this one a while back while doing some search on some potentially toxic substance or another and found that it really brings into focus why I'm cautious and gives me a true blue theory to hang my reluctance to use certain products on.  Sweet!

The Precautionary Principle states (and I am paraphrasing) that if an action or policy might cause harm to the public, we should act to avoid the potential harm even in the absence of scientific certainty as to the likelihood, magnitude, or cause of the harm.  It's basically a response to uncertainty and is most commonly applied in the environmental and biological sciences.  

So let's use Bisphenol-A for example since it's been in the news a lot lately.  This substance is in everything--baby bottles, Nalgene water bottles, the lining of canned foods, dental sealants.  The FDA says this substance is safe.  They say it's safe because there are no studies that conclusively link it to disease.  However, besides all the plastics that contain Bisphenol-A, it can also be found in...YOU AND ME!  That's right, it's in your breast milk and any tumors you might be currently growing.  Freaky-deaky.

So by applying the Precautionary Principle, the Canadians are moving to label this substance as toxic and ban it's use in products because its safety is uncertainn.  This is how it works in many countries.  Canada, and Europe most definitely.  They are way out in front of us on issues involving potentially dangerous chemicals and GMO foods.  

The US of A looks at things a bit differently and has gone ahead and labeled Bisphenol-A as safe because its toxicity is uncertain.  Considering some of the other things the FDA has approved and then pulled off the market because of the true public health threats (DDT, Thalidomide, Phenphen) I like Plan A better. 

The Precautionary Principle also means that the burden of proof is on the those who advocate FOR use of a substance, not the other way around.  You have to conclusively prove that it's safe, not dangerous.  Again, here we do it the other way around.  Me no likey.

So, call me Continental, but I try to apply the Precautionary Principle when it comes to substances my family and I ingest.  Frankly, it makes things easier.  I don't have to research every single threat.  If a study pops up that says there's some evidence for concern, I just go with it.  I must admit, when I was younger, I didn't think this way.  I was a little more damn the torpedoes.  And maybe that's our collective problem--we're a young, we'll live forever kind of country.  Feels like the tide is kind of turning though, doesn't it?  Like maybe we're growing up?

Perhaps more people will start applying the Precautionary Principle and it will trickle up.  Things happen that way in this country.  The people often drive policy that way.  Things just have to reach critical mass before the bureaucrats pulls their heads out of their asses and notice.

Discuss.

Organic on a Budget: Cut out the middle man

You all know that a big chunk of what your paying is for packaging and advertising.  And we've talked about the ways to get around that.  But another thing factored into the price at check-out is store mark up.  For dry goods that you use on a regular basis you can save on the markup by cutting out the middleman. 

Don't buy them from the store, buy them from the supplier.

Suppliers

Most organic brands have websites and offer their products for direct sale at reduced price, often by the case.  You certainly have to factor in the shipping to make sure it's a savings, but it usually still is.

This system works great for things you can store like cereal, crackers, muesli, oatmeal, chicken stock cartons, laundry & dish washing detergent, etc.

Case Discounts

As a side note to this idea, my health food store will always give me a Markup Discount if I buy an entire case of something.  I place my order, they get it with their next shipment and give me a call to pick it up.  My big grocery store does this too in the form of Case Lot Sales, which they usually do in the Spring and Fall.  I have to add that the Case Lot Sale could be a regional thing.  We do have a lot of folks with bunkers up here.  Ask your grocery store manager about it or check at the customer service desk.

Amazon Grocery

Another way around store mark up may be through Amazon.  I haven't used this service but I know they offer a ton of food online by the case for cheaper and with no shipping.  It's probably worth looking into.

Local Farms

And finally, maybe the best way to cut out the middle man is to join a CSA or buy from your local Farmers Market.  Local Harvest provides a pretty good list of organic farmer, farmers market and other organics growers and seller throughout the country.  We've even recently startd buying our organic milk from a local dairy.  It's $3.99 a gallon!  A huge savings over Organic Valley at $4.29 a HALF gallon. 

Where's my Search Engine!

A tragedy of epic proportions!  Well, at least a huge annoyance and at least in the small sphere of my little life.

My search engine has totally and inexplicably disappeared from my hard drive (read: my husband did it).  All of my hundreds of bookmarks wiped from the planet.  All my links to cool crafts and ideas, green tips and awesome but obscure blogs, accounts with my passwords remembered, 101 things to do with apple cider vinegar and the photo chart of childhood rashes.  

I feel totally unmoored.

And yes, simultaneously disgusted that I'm actually upset about it.  What a loser.  I've become such an information junkie.  My internet habit is really no different that other people's TV use.  I've been trying, with some success, to cut back on my daily "must reads," but still.  I'm an over bookmarker.  I admit it.

I guess I should look at this as a new beginning.  [Sigh]

Deception

For those times when you sit in front of the TV
all day
with your kid
 but you don't want anyone else
(like your husband)
to know.

Organic on a Budget :: Choose Wisely

Like most things in the world, going organic doesn't have to be an all or nothing venture in order to make an impact on your health and nutrition.  I mean, just because you don't feel like you can go vegetarian doesn't mean you can't reduce your meat consumption by 10% and still make a difference. 

The basic fact is that many conventional foods have higher levels of pesticides than others. In fact, some have very low chemical exposure.  Knowing which conventional foods are relatively natural and which are heavily sprayed really can save you some money at the store.

Here's a list I've pulled together from a few different sources (Agriculture Department, FDA & some independent greenie sites) of the fruits and veggies with the HIGHEST LEVELS OF PESTICIDES:

• Apples
• Bell Peppers
• Celery
• Cherries
• Cucumbers
  
• Imported Grapes
• Nectarines
• Peaches
• Apricots
• Peanuts
• Summer & Winter Squash
  
• Pears
• Potatoes
• Red Raspberries
• Spinach
• Green Beans
• Strawberries
• Cantaloupe

Some of the SAFEST CONVENTIONAL FOODS are:

• Asparagus
• Avocados
• Bananas
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Kiwi
• Sweet Corn
  
• Mangos
• Onions
• Papaya
• Pineapples
• Sweet Peas
  

And due to pesticides, antibiotics, hormones or industry practices, here are a few other foods it's worth going organic on.

• Ketchup
• Peanut Butter
• Dairy
• Meats

So if you can't go whole hog, or you find yourself having to cut back on organics because of the high price of groceries these days, you can still feel good about protecting your family from a ton of harmful chemicals by at least avoiding the conventional foods from high pesticide lists.

My Meat Sack is here! My Meat Sack is here!

My good friend Kate from Blue Turtle Baby is a pioneer.  She's the creator of The Original Diaper Wallet and as if that wasn't enough she's just created a new product called The Meat Sack! 


If you're like me, once you've gotten yourself off plastic grocery bags it just drives you up the wall to use a plastic bag for your meats and vegetables.  We'll it clearly drove Kate nuts too because she made the first meat sack for herself and was soon known throughout the Sunshine State as "Meat Sack Girl." 

What I wouldn't give for a nickname like that. 

Imagine the peels of joy, "Hey, the meat sack girl is here!" as you enter your local supermarket.  I was so eager to become known as the meat sack girl of my small town that I hounded Kate until she promised me the first ever Meat Sack made for sale!  Isn't it cool?

And YOU can get one now, too.  She had some meat sack slots open on Blue Turtle Baby but they sold out immediately.  But I heard a rumor she might be putting up a few more slots for June.  I also hear that later this summer she's stocking her new Etsy shop, Blue Turtle Collection with meat sacks and some adorable mesh produce bags.

I've used my meat sack once already and it definitely got some raised eyebrows from the checkers.  It also did a great job and kept one less plastic bag out of my house.  Yippee!

So if you want to take your reusable bag habit to a new level go check out Kate's great green gear!

Have a nice day!

News Flash

Did I say News Flash?  I meant Hot Flash.

I'm hot and my panties are too tight. 

And I mean both of those in the unattractive literal sense.

It's so bad it wakes me up at night.  It's so bad I have to strip down immediately after coming in from being outside for any length of time ad lay under the fan.

I've basically just gone native and eschewed clothes (definitely underwear) for the time being.  Stephen says it's like living in a Tahitian village.  Funny, but it's really more like a Scandinavian nudist colony since I'm about as pale as they come and I keep my slippers on.

And all that outside work this weekend?  Landed me a lovely case of prickly heat all over my torso and thighs, which you other ultra-white pasty chicks know is as comfortable as it is alluring. 

So, I'm pregnant, splotchy, itchy and naked. 

No wonder he's having sympathetic pregnancy symptoms.  Barf.

Spring is here!

At last! 

We've spent much of the last 2 days outside--potting herbs and flowers, shoring up our creek bed before the water started running (it's really just a seasonal irrigation ditch, but we think creek sounds so much nicer), reclaiming the deck and putting the furniture out, hanging all the bird feeders.  Huck "helped" us all along the way. 

We even washed the windows and put all the screens back in.  I'm not sure if this is regional but up here we take screens out in the winter--you know, for unobstructed views of the beauty. 

Oh, and we had to pick up a gazillion thawed out poopcicles. 

With the exception of poopcicle photos, here's a look at our sunny weekend in paradise--ever notice that I call it paradise when I'm in a good mood and the middle of nowhere when I'm cranky?  Hmm.