Monday A La Mode: September 23, 2013

I hand pick the news, products, websites and more that I believe will interest MMC readers most and compile it all into one easy to read weekly post.

Go to work on Monday morning with something to talk about!

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This week on Monday A La Mode...

I love stats...

• WhatsYourHealthy.com is a site sponsored by Aetna. While I am in no way promoting Aetna, you'll find some great info here and even some interesting stats, like the survey results below. I've given up fast food and sweets except for the rare treat. Where would you fall on this survey?

Cool new product...

• Chick Beer is a exactly what the name implies. According to their site, 25% of beer drinkers are women, so these "chicks" designed a beer with women in mind and they donate 5% of profits to women's charities.See more of their story and find out where you can buy it at http://chickbeer.com.

Farm fresh...

• 'Tis the season for apples and pears. If you don't have your own fruit trees, don't be afraid to ask neighbors for a bag. Often the fruit falls to the ground and rots because families can't possibly eat it all. You're bound to find plenty of fresh ripe apples and pears at farmer's markets right now, too. Ask your grocer for local and know that you can get it elsewhere if they don't carry local. If you wonder where to find local produce in your area, check out www.localharvest.org.

How can you argue with this...

• Global warming continues to sneak up on us. This surprise is scary but a little cool at the same time. An ancient forest has been exposed by melting ice. Check it out by clicking here to see the full article, complete with pics, on yahoo news. 

Coming soon...

• Breast Cancer Awareness Month is in October. You are likely to be inundated with pink. But, hey, it's just another excuse to flaunt pink, right? Next week's Monday A La Mode will include a list of great ways to support Breast Cancer Awareness online, as well as helpful links for more information on prevention and early warning signs.

I'd love to hear your comments or questions on any of these issues. Share your opinion below. 

And if you love Monday a la Mode, please share this post using the buttons below. Have a wonderful week!

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More Changes

A little less than two weeks ago, we spent our first night in our new home. Moving from the city to a small town (population less than 400) would mean lots of changes and we knew it when we made the decision. But I was totally unprepared for such a disruption in the way we eat! Ironically, this area is full of farmers but doesn't sell any locally produced food! To get locally produced food, I will have to drive into the city, which is half an hour down the highway, too far to go more than once or twice a week. 

After several trips to the only local grocery store, a very small IGA, it became apparent that not only was I not going to see any local food, but there isn't any organic either! With the exception of Horizon Organic Skim Milk. I don't want skim milk! If I'm not buying raw milk, I prefer whole milk. Their egg choices are store brand or Egg and I Farm (which is local but is also your typical inhumane egg farm with miserable birds in tiny cages). If I can't have fresh eggs, I'd at least like to be able to buy free range organic eggs. 

No thank you! 

They also do not sell any natural cat food or any cat food with greens in it (I have an elderly, long-haired, indoor kitty). If you have a recipe for homemade cat food with greens that won't be hard to chew, please share!  



I just find it incredible that moving to farm country could make it more difficult to get fresh produce, meat, eggs, and dairy! I even checked MMC's most recommended website, localharvest.org and found nothing in my area!

My plan, for now, is to go to the small organic farmer's market in the city on Thursdays during my lunch and to make a list of things we need so that if I find myself there on Wednesday or Saturday I can pick up what we need without making a special trip on another day. I will have to pick up cat food in larger quantities, too, until I come up with a better solution. 

My plan in the long run is to build a coop and buy some laying hens, plant a nice garden, buy a deep freezer, and buy meat in bulk from the farmer I was using before the move. 

Do you live in a rural area or tiny town? Have you encountered similar obstacles? What did you do?

Photos in this post are courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net. 

10 Easy Ways to Get Greener Now (Part II)

Getting serious about going green can be difficult at times and sometimes requires us to get a little less comfortable. But other changes can be easier and don't require much of an adjustment at all. Here are 10 suggestions for simple changes you can make to get greener now:

1. Plant a fall garden, or even just one thing that's edible. What to plant and when varies depending on where you live, so if you aren't sure, try this interactive map from Mother Earth News. Just click the appropriate link to the right of the map and then click the month you want to plant for a list of seeds you should sow now. 
2. Buy local food. Go to the nearest farmer's market and save money by asking for seconds (the slightly less than perfect specimens of fruits and veggies). Be sure to ask where it was grown because many booths will have food that was shipped from other states. While you're there, look for milk, eggs, or pastured meats, too.
3. Freeze your leftovers. Too much food ends up in landfills that are already overcrowded. Save money too if you buy and cook larger quantities of meat, then slice and freeze the leftovers for sandwiches, soups, pastas and more. Leftover veggies can be frozen for a later pot of vegetable soup.
4. Re-use glass containers. Larger pickle and jelly jars make great canisters or use them to store buttons, loose change, kitchen utensils, etc. Smaller jars and bottles can be used as drinking glasses or portable water bottles. Even smaller containers can be re-used for dried herbs and spices or those miscellaneous screws and things that you find in your husband's dirty pants pockets.
5. Plant ivy. Use less electricity in the summer by planting ivy around the foundation of your house. It will block hot sunlight and keep your home cooler. 
6. Use the water while you wait for it to heat up. When you wash your face or shower, you let the water run till it's hot, right? Brush your teeth while you wait. Or capture some of the water in an old milk jug to water plants later. Get inventive with this one!
7. As the nights get cooler this fall, turn your ceiling fans on reverse. They will push the rising warm air downward and keep you comfy without turning up the thermostat. 
8. Stop junk mail. Register online at OptOutPrescreen.com to stop receiving unsolicited credit and insurance offers. You can choose to opt out for 5 years or forever. Stop unwanted catalogs by signing up at CatalogChoice.org.
9. Plug your electronics into power strips. Those electronics and chargers are drawing electricity even when not in use. This is called phantom energy. By turning off the switch on the power strip when they are not in use, you stop the flow!
10. Switch to CFL light bulbs. You don't have to switch all at once, which would be expensive and wasteful. As bulbs blow, replace them with CFLs, which use less electricity to put out the same amount of light. These bulbs cost a little more but, in addition to saving you money on the power bill, they also last longer, which means you purchase fewer bulbs in the long run and put less garbage in the landfills. 

For more ideas on how to go green without going crazy, check out the previous list of 10 Easy Ways to Get Greener Now. If you have your own easy ideas to share or any other comments, please leave them below. I always love hearing what you have to say!

Cash Mob

Cash Mob n. A group of people organized via social media and word of mouth that patronize a locally owned small business at a planned date and time in order to support the local economy. 


I am completely intrigued by this idea! This is a way to be proactive in supporting your local economy, whether you are the organizer or the consumer who participates. From what I have gathered, here's basically how a cash mob works:

1. The organizer sends out the date and time of the cash mob via facebook, twitter, and/or other social media outlets over a period of days or weeks leading up to the event. 
2. On the day of the event, the organizer sends messages naming the actual business that everyone is going to be patronizing, as well as a meeting place for after the shopping. 
3. Everyone shows up to the local business and makes a purchase. 
4. After shopping, everyone meets at the designated meeting place for food and/or drinks to discuss and celebrate the success of the day's cash mob. This is a great time to suggest ideas for the next location to be "mobbed."

Expect to hear more from me on this! I am getting in contact with someone who would be great at organizing this in my hometown. Then, if we can get this going, I will post information here and on the Mama Making Changes Facebook fan page. Like the page by clicking here to make sure you get updates. You can also follow Mama Making Changes on Twitter, Pinterest, Google, or via email, by clicking the appropriate button in the sidebar at right. If you are in Florence, SC, you don't want to miss this! If you aren't, you can start one in your area!

When Free is Really Free

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Right? Usually any offer that says "free" is just a gimmick. It isn't really free. You jump through a bunch of hoops only to find out that the registration was free and now you only need to pay $xx.xx to complete the deal. Sound familiar?

I recently learned about one way to actually get free stuff! Real deal, no jokes, no hidden fees, free stuff! Intrigued yet?

Freecycle.org is a grassroots, members only, movement that is divided into local groups where a few members are charged with monitoring and maintaining the local lists. There are more than 5000 groups and 9 million members who list items they no longer need but want to keep out of landfills. If you have an item that would be too much trouble to sell (or you just want to be generous), you can list it in your local Freecycle group and others can contact you via email if they want what you have. On the other hand, if you want or need an item that others are likely to have laying around the house, you can place a wanted ad and people who have that item can email you.

On Freecycle.org, free really means free! You have to be a member to participate, but membership is free. The rules are simple: the item or items offered must be local, available immediately, and free.

Ready to get started? I was! Just click on over to http://www.freecycle.org/ and type in your city and state in the box at the top of the page. It will look like the picture below. Once I got signed up and clicked the link to go to my local group's listings, I found browsing somewhat confusing. Then I noticed a link that said "advanced" search. Being an avid fan of eBay, I clicked immediately and suddenly browsing these listings was going to be much easier! I found ads for everything from kittens to televisions, all free! And the best part? All of it was right here in my hometown!

The only downside I discovered to Freecycle is that there seem to be far more want ads than offer ads. I decided maybe all that was needed to change that was a few more members like me... people who hate to throw away anything that somebody could use for something! So why don't you join me on Freecycle and lets clean up and clean out without sending the stuff to to the landfill? Share this idea with friends and you may end up seeing each other's posts and swapping junk! After all, one man's trash is another man's treasure, right?

Grass v. Grain: Why It Matters

Since starting this blog, I have learned so many things that I never even thought about before. For example, I always knew that there was grass fed beef and grain fed beef at the grocery store. The grass fed is typically from Mexico and has so little fat that it requires marinating to tenderize it. Therefore, I stayed away from it and bought the more expensive beef, especially when it came to steaks. Of course, I used to be totally unaware that I could get local beef, poultry, and pork. But even if you buy local, you should know what practices the farmer uses. Are the animals pastured, grazing at will on grass, or are they kept in stalls and fed a grain diet? Believe it or not, it matters! 

Now this topic is way too big for me to cover in a single post, but my reading has led me to be much more aware and I wanted to share with you, in a nutshell, why grass versus grain should make a difference in our buying decisions. I will try to summarize some of what I have learned. 

• Most grain fed meat comes from huge corporate confinement meat growers, like Smithfield. These are the places you see on documentaries and PETA commercials. The animals are crammed into stalls with hundreds or thousands of other animals and fed grain from bins because it makes them grow fatter and faster. They stand in their own feces and barely have room to turn around. Conditions are disgusting, so they are given high doses of antibiotics. If they get sick anyway, a bulldozer moves the animal (even if it's still alive) to be slaughtered. Yes, they still feed it to you. 

• If all cows were pastured, more grass would be grown on farmland. Land that is currently being tilled, could be used for pasture. That would be great news because grass collects carbon, just like trees do. 
• Cows cut grass without using petroleum based products like gas and oil. They don't leave grass clippings like your lawn mower does, and they eliminate the need for fertilizer because they fertilize the area themselves. Grain, on the other hand, requires one to till the grass under, fertilize the crop, sow and reap using machinery that requires gas and oil, and eventually destroys the land it's grown upon, which means more chemical fertilizer next year. 
• Chickens, cows, and pigs were not designed to eat grain. They were designed to forage. Cows should eat grass, pigs should forage for roots, chickens for bugs, larvae, and kitchen scraps. Did you know chickens are omnivores? Why feed them genetically modified grain? So they will grow fatter and faster, even so fast sometimes that their bones and organs cannot support them and they fall over and die. 

versus

• The current grain feeding model is not sustainable. It cannot last forever. New pathogens keep emerging, followed by new antibiotics. The fields become more and more eroded and sterile, requiring more and more chemicals. Quantities require more and more gasoline powered machinery. Petroleum is a limited resource. Why wait till this nasty system collapses of its own volition? Grass feeding and rotating pastures is a sustainable, economical, humane practice that builds land instead of eroding it, and it requires very little human labor and no gas powered machinery. 
• Grain feeding requires transportation of the grain from the field to the feed lot, which means carbon emissions and using gasoline powered vehicles. Grass feeding requires moving the herd ocassionally to the next pasture. Again, this method is more ecological because it doesn't require petroleum products and machinery to get from one place to another. 
• Grain fed meat is much higher in fat than grass fed, making it a healthier choice. In fact, grass fed beef is lower in fat than grain fed chicken!

In conclusion, if you are going to eat meat, the most eco-friendly choice is to buy locally pastured meat and dairy products. If you aren't sure where to find local meat, try asking around at the farmer's market. You can also look online at localharvest.org for organic, sustainable farmers nearby. Each listing on the website includes the items you can buy from that farm and you may be surprised at what you can find just down the road. 

Why Buy Local

I have another list for you. I do love lists. Does that say something about my personality type? Hmmm. That may be a topic for another day! Haha.

Ten Reasons to Buy Local

1. The Walton family doesn't need another mansion, but your local farmer's kid does need new cleats for baseball season. 
2. Local farms create jobs for many uneducated laborers who cannot find employment elsewhere. 
3. If your local economy is struggling, your job may depend on keeping your money local. 
4. Small family farms are less likely to use pesticides, herbicides, hormones, and antibiotics on the food they grow. 
5. Feed lots are disgusting. Thousands of animals crammed into small spaces, standing in their own feces, eating genetically modified grain, are given high doses of antibiotics because the conditions make them sick. You want to eat those animals?
6. Produce in America is shipped an average of 1500 miles to get from the grower to your table. Do you know how much gas those airplanes take? How much smog that creates? How much heat is produced by all those trucks driving lettuce cross-country? 
7. Local products typically have less or even no packaging because they don't travel far. 
8. Most produce is picked 4 or more days before it gets to the shelf, so it must be picked before it's completely ripe. Local produce is typically picked the same day and at it's peak, meaning it will look better and taste better. It will also have more nutrients.
9. Preserve open spaces. If local farms cannot create enough income, they sell their land for development. 
10. Strengthen your community. When you buy local, you meet the people whose products you buy and form relationships with farmers, artisans, bakers, shopkeepers, and more.