So you’re making a quick dinner of it with a pot of pasta and a jar of your favourite prepared sauce.  Great!

How are you heating the sauce?  The microwave?  A saucepan?  I recommend a different approach.

If you have a double boiler, you’re in good shape, but even if you don’t, you probably can pull this off just fine.  As your pasta boils, get ready for heating your sauce by emptying the contents of the jar into the inner container of the double boiler.  Go ahead and add your spices or balsamic vinegar — whatever your routine for a jar of sauce — if you’re like me, you do so just to feel as if you made it (somewhat) your own.  If you do not have a double boiler, directions are found below.

Once the pasta is al dente, strain it so that enough of the water ends up in the bottom part of the double boiler to heat the inner container of sauce.  Place the container with the sauce into the double boiler.  If you’re patient, there’s likely enough of a heat transfer from the boiling hot pasta water to heat your sauce to a pleasant temperature within about five to ten minutes.  Spend that time finishing draining the pasta, stirring your favourite olive oil throughout, serving drinks, maybe enjoying a first glass of wine.  After a few minutes, check to see the progress of the sauce’s temperature.  Use the stove’s heat only if it’s not quite hot enough, just to finish getting it up to the correct temperature.

If you do not have a true double boiler…

…Make one! You can do so with a larger- and a medium- sized stainless steel bowl, ones that have about a two-inch diameter difference.  Pour the water into the bigger bowl as described above and place the sauce into the smaller bowl, heating it as described above.

How is this greener?

Simply put, you are not using a stove or microwave for the amount of time it would have taken for those appliances to heat the sauce.  You’re taking advantage of the already boiling hot pasta water to transfer its now unneeded heat to the sauce.

“Hi, my name’s Randy, and I just really love beer.”

My name is not actually Randy, but I do in fact really love beer.  So much so that my wife surprised me with a variety pack for my birthday, which happened to include an organic amber ale courtesy of the Clipper City Brewing Company out of Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

Now, I’ll admit, I’m no beer connoisseur; however, I know what I like and I know what I don’t.  When I drink a beer, I’m looking for full flavor, texture, and a certain “this is new, unique” that you don’t find just anywhere.  This is perhaps how I could best describe my first swig of Oxford Organic Ales – Amber Ale.  Hold the artificial sweeteners, flavors, and additives–give me an all-natural, 4-ingredient organic beer and I’m a happy man.

That’s right 4 ingredients: water, organic barley malt, hops, and yeast.  The way I see it, this is the way God meant beer to be: straight from the earth, simple, and delicious.   The beer is certified organic by the Maryland Department of Agriculture and by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

What does the USDA Organic certification mean?  Getting an organic certification (according to Wikipedia) typically means that a product follows the following standards:

• avoidance of most synthetic chemical inputs (e.g. fertilizer, pesticides, antibiotics, food additives, etc), genetically modified organisms, irradiation, and the use of sewage sludge;
• use of farmland that has been free from chemicals for a number of years (often, three or more);
• keeping detailed written production and sales records (audit trail);
• maintaining strict physical separation of organic products from non-certified products;
• undergoing periodic on-site inspections.

So if you get a chance to get your hands on one of these killer brewskis, don’t pass it up!  Not to mention you might enjoy it that much more knowing that you’re drinking it the way God intended, all natural Organic!

Sure, freezing food that might otherwise go bad is a great way to save money and environmental costs by not wasting perfectly good foods.  But how many times do you need that food, get it out of the freezer, and plop it into the microwave for ten to fifteen minutes for defrosting?

Considering that your microwave uses a lot of energy, you’re actually taking away a lot of the environmental good you did by saving the food in the first place.  But behold, a better, more envirohumanly friendly way to defrost.  It just takes a little extra pre-planning, and you’re set to go!

So, when you decide that tomorrow you’re going to have the chicken breasts you lovingly stored away in your deep freezer last month, get them out of the freezer and put them into the fridge to defrost.  No, it’s unlikely that they will be fully defrosted the next day, but if you plan two days out, you’re likely to have them fully defrosted.

Also, the fact that they are still partially frozen is not so bad, because the microwave will not have to defrost them for quite so long.  Additionally, the cold temperature from the frozen chicken breasts (or other frozen items) is conducted and convected throughout your refrigerator for a (albeit slight) reduction in refrigeration-related electricity use.

No, your refrigerator will not shut down during this time, but it will certainly help to have the frozen item in there helping to keep it cool.  Better that than using your “I need this to happen right now!” microwaving, and you’ll actually (albeit slightly) reduce your electricity consumption, meaning not just saved environment, but some money saved.

Okay, I know, “I do not like green eggs and ham!  Sam I am!”  Ahh, Dr. Seuss.

But everyone’s gotta love some green toast every now and then.  I grew up with an upright toaster (the old style toaster) but when I moved out on my own, I ended up with both an old fashioned one (a hand-me down) as well as a toaster oven (okay, so both were hand-me downs), but both were headed for the landfill if I didn’t take them, and both actually do serve a purpose.

I loved the toaster oven at first, and many told me it was much more environmentally friendly than heating up an entire oven (and less costly) because it was essentially heating a smaller box.  If you had to make a sandwich toasty, it has been great!  I ended up putting the upright toaster away, not using it for a couple of years because, well, why should I have two toasters around?  Packrat as I am, I of course didn’t throw it out, give it away, or other such things.

Recently, however, I found the old upright toaster, got it out, and began using it again?  Why?  For greener toast.

Sure, the toaster oven uses less energy and heats up faster than my normal oven.  If I’m toasting a sandwich, it’s great.  But for toast, well, it’s actually a pretty long time to wait — a good four minutes or so.  And while parts of the bread is well done, other places are rather pale.

My old upright toaster?  Gives me evenly toasted bread, every time, in under two minutes!  Oh, and it’s greener because I’m not heating up that box, the elements are not cooking as long, and the wattage is less overall.  The elements are much closer to the bread and are more evenly distributed across the heating surface.

So now, though I still don’t like green eggs and ham, I like my green toast just fine.  If you’re using a toaster oven exclusively, I recommend you think about digging your old upright toaster back out!

SMFFFFFFsssttT, AHHHHH…HOT!  And ohh, so good!  You already know what I’m drinking…

That was me, sipping my first cup of coffee in a quite a while.  Well, actually, I had coffee this past weekend, but it was of the freeze dried variety — samples I received in the mail at some point and had saved for just such an emergency.  They tided me over, but really, blech.  So it’s actually been a while.

And I’m actually using a cup and saucer, like in the picture, which I never do, but this cup of coffee is special, you see.  No, I’m not — I just liked that stock photo.  Alright, yes I am, but it’s just a coincidence.

I had run out of coffee (which just should not happen; I love coffee!) a couple of weeks ago and I had planned to replace this item with a more sustainable, socially responsible coffee.  I just had not gone to my local Trader Joe’s since then, and after work yesterday (after work, going home is often the best option — but is it home without coffee?), I bit the bullet and made the actually short trek to the store. Not that I couldn’t go to a few other stores for such coffee, but I had already paroused those at Trader Joe’s a while back, and frankly, I was sold.

When I arrived home, I wanted to brew some coffee right away, but managed to hold myself back for I knew it would be better in the morning, and if I were to drink it at night, I would not get enough sleep in order to awake soon enough to actually brew and enjoy my morning cup of joe.

I found many Fair-Trade, Organic coffees at Trader Joe’s, but finally settled on an extra dark roasted bean, Trader Joe’s Organic, Fair Trade Café Pajaro Blend, from small family farms in Nicaragua, Peru, and southern Mexico (just to give some detail of exactly what it is), which I ground in the same aisle of the store (I really should get my own grinder for fresher coffee, but then again, more consumption, sigh…).

I brewed my coffee using my French press, so it’s extra strong, and I of course employed my tea kettle for boiling the water.  Yeah, I’m about to make myself puke for patting myself on the back, but just as a reminder, using a tea kettle can save energy!

I just wanted to share this because, not only is the cup extra good because it’s been so very long since I had a cup of coffee, but I also feel good about the purchase because the coffee was produced organically, meaning less environmental degradation due to chemical use, and because the small family farms were paid fair price for their crop, which is the socially responsible thing.

No, I don’t feel like I’m better than anyone for drinking this coffee (still consuming a coffee shipped from far, far away!), and I am very reluctant to write soft posts like this one, but I share this just to encourage you to make similar decisions.  The next time your coffee runs out, consider switching over to a fair trade, organic variety.  Make other changes of products in your life: organic really is better for the earth. No, I’m not better, but the coffee sure is!

My can of coffee cost me a similar price to other brands I have bought in the past, but because of the way it was grown and the way the farmers were paid, I literally am enjoying my coffee even more.  The more small changes in your life you make like this, the bigger changes you will be prepared to take on, the more positive influence you can have on your peers who will likely follow at least some of the examples given.  While the sensation of that first sip of coffee after a long drought is likely to tire, the luster of a more envirohumanly friendly coffee will unlikely fade.

SmfftthhT AHHHHH…Coffee!!!

Rubber Scraper? Really? It will make my life greener?

Okay, so this is not the biggest, greenest change you could make to your life. But it is greener and here’s how.

How many times do you have leftovers? Be it from take-out or home-made meals, baking cookies or cake, you have something left on the surface of the bowl/pot/skillet that took energy to make. So the sun had to shine down on plants to grow them, they had to be harvested (often by machine), they were transported to a store, you bought them, and finally transported them home.

It might seem paradoxical to think that you could spend significantly more money at the grocery store and come out spending less money overall, but you can. Take a look!

Organic food is better for you and definitely is better for the environment. What does organic mean? (Because it says it more succinctly than I probably can), Wikipedia tells us that, “Organic foods are produced according to certain production standards, meaning they are grown without the use of conventional pesticides, artificial fertilizers, human waste, or sewage sludge, and that they were processed without ionizing radiation or food additives.^[1] Livestock are reared without the routine use of antibiotics and without the use of growth hormones. In most countries, organic produce must not be genetically modified.”