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Photo courtesy: Care2
Feeding a family (or just yourself) can be an expensive proposition. There is usually some food wasted every week; and, prices seem to just keep climbing. How to save money in the kitchen while still fixing nutritious, healthy meals the entire family (or just yourself) will enjoy for the lowest possible price? Read on, intrepid shopper.
1. Stop eating prepared meals: Consumers have been led to believe that they don’t have the time to cook and it simply isn’t true. You can have a healthy meal on the table within half an hour. Prepared meals have more fat, more sugar, more salt, more preservatives, and more garbage waste than anything you can cook yourself.
Not to mention the fact that you pay premium prices for sub-standard product. Someone has to pay for executive salaries and television advertising, why should it be you? There are many ways to prepare wholesome meals for your family in a minimum amount of time.
My mother did it, I did it; and, now, my children do it. What is it? We put many of our evening meals on to cook before we went to work. There is nothing more user-friendly or useful in a kitchen than a slow cooker. I would put our dinner (a stew, cabbage rolls, or whatever) into the slow cooker, season it, stir it, and put it on low. When I arrived home approx. 10 hours later, there was dinner beautifully cooked, tasty, hot and ready to serve. Of course, with 10 hours of simmering, I could get away with cheap cuts of meat. Cooked this way, even the toughest cuts could be cut with your tongue.
2. Plan ahead: Yes, this is going to take a bit of effort, but once you get going it will be easy. Make sure you have a well-stocked pantry. Dry legumes, rice, pasta, sun-dried tomatoes should all be on hand to make quick, nutritious meals. Everything I use is either dry or fresh, I avoid canned goods and frozen foods for health reasons.
3. Plan your week: Take the time to work out a menu plan for the week. Most people grocery shop once a week and they toss things into their carts without considering what they are actually going to use it for. If you know what you are going to eat ahead of time; and, you have the right ingredients, you’ll be less likely to resort to take-out or the nearest greasy spoon.
4. Cook more meatless meals: Meat will consistently be the most expensive food item in your grocery cart. The ready availability of other protein sources allows you to expand your food repertoire and have a healthier diet. There are many vegetable sources that give you a chewy, meatlike texture - porcini mushrooms, rehydrated shiitake mushrooms (one of my personal favourites), portobello mushrooms, tofu products, eggplant...
5. If you do use meat, use less: No one NEEDS the massive amounts of meat we eat today. In fact, it has been proven that diets heavy in animal protein and fats are not good for our health. Try cutting your meat portions by a third while adding a third more vegetables. Your body will love you and so will the environment. Consider going vegetarian for health and financial reasons.
6. If you do use meat, use a cheaper cut: This is where a slow cooker really comes in handy; or, prepare the meat beforehand and place it in the oven. Set the timer, temperature, etc. for the oven to come on at a preset time and temperature. When you come home the meat is ready; so, all you have to prepare are the veggies.
Alternately, you can prepare a stew on the weekend so everyone can enjoy the inticing, homey aroma. Make extra for a future meal.
7. Use your leftovers: If you are cooking instead of eating prepared foods, you are going to encounter leftovers. There are many different ways to use them up - add them to that vegetable soup you're having for lunch, toss them in the stew at the end or add them to a rice dish. One of my favourites was to save everything (veggies, that spoon of leftover spagetti sauce, mac & cheese, whatever) in a container in my freezer. When the container was full, it was defrosted and used in a from-scratch soup. All those different flavours, textures, spices, colours made my soups extremely rich-tasting and delicious.
8. Plan meals that will stretch through the week: If you make a spaghetti sauce one night, make enough to use in another meal. Use it as a soup base or make an eggplant parmigiana.
9. Make friends with your freezer: When I make something like spagetti sauce, stew or soup, I usually make enough for at least two meals; sometimes three. The other portions I freeze and drag out when I'm in a hurry - defrost, heat, eat. Again, this stops me from resorting to take-out or the local greasy spoon.
10. Brown bag it for lunch: Take your own lunch to school or work. Not only is it cheaper than going out for every lunch, it is much healthier for you as well. While there is nothing wrong with most restaurant food, there is nothing right with it either. Invest in a good thermos and enjoy hot meals at work or school.
11. Forget the pineapple: Unless you live in Hawaii, of course. Buy local vegetables, in season. Support your local farm economy by going to your local farmer’s market.
Via Care2
Photo courtesy: Pete Dungey
As I have repeatedly stated, I just adore creativity; and, Pete Dungey has proved himself to be a man of vision. His solution for bringing attention to the potholes in his home town of Oxford, England is nothing short of attention-grabbing while being totally non-aggressive. Everyone should protest in such a manner.
We have had match stick gardening, upside down plant holders; and, who can forget guerrilla gardening; but, this is unique - pothole gardening.
Pete Dungey has been patiently planting flowers in potholes to highlight "the problem of surface imperfections on Britain's roads." He says "If we planted one of those in every hole, it would be like a forest in the road". What a wonderfully environmentally-friendly to draw attention to a problem.
He relies heavily on common, every-day garden variety primulas. Despite the cold weather in Britain, primulas are out now. So far, Dungey is the only known pothole gardener; but, he hopes to have fellow gardeners join him in his protest.
With any luck, pothole gardening; and, the concept of creative, non-aggressive, environmentally-friendly protest will spread around the world.
Via TreeHugger
Photo courtesy: Care2
It's one of those snafus that only government authorities can create. One that causes you to shake your head and wonder how red tape can promote such idiocy.
Governor Schwarzenegger has always tried to do the environmentally-friendly thing when it comes to making decisions that affect Californians. Now it would seem that the bureaucrats in Orange, California are determined to undo a bit of the progress the Governor has made conserving some of the Earth's precious resources.
Quan and Angelina Ha recently had a baby girl. Along with the baby came a change of thinking for the Has. They started re-evaluating their lifestyle, their priorities, and their personal responsibilities in trying to halt global warming. Mr. Ha explains: "We've got a newborn, so we want to start worrying about her future."
Commendable, one would think. However, the city of Orange has threatened them with a lawsuit over the state of their lawn. What could they have possibly done to their lawn that would cause the city to consider a lawsuit against them, you ask. The answer will surprise you.
Angelina and Quan Ha walk through their frontyard with daughter Zella. After the city informed them that their property was not up to code, they added bark, fencing and drought-tolerant plants. Photo courtesy: Los Angeles Times (Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times / February 25, 2010)
It all started two years ago when the Has decided to remove all the grass in their yard in an effort to help safeguard their daughter's future. The city complained - the dirt was unacceptable. The Has, conscientious citizens, covered the entire yard with wood chips in an attempt to comply with the city's request.
Not having to water their thirsty yard had the potential to save tens of thousands of gallons of water and hundreds of dollars a year. It seemed the environmentally responsible thing to do. After all, California is one of the most drought-affected states in the USA. Three years of successive drought has lowered the reservoirs to a critical level.
Water is a key political and economic issue in California, as in other parts of the Southwest. There is ongoing wrangling between agricultural and residential water interests, and concern grows that water will be the new oil, a conflict-prone linchpin and threat for the long-term viability of the state.
But city officials determined the wood chip fix was not acceptable. They pointed to a city ordinance that says that 40% of the yard be landscaped predominantly with live plants.
"Compliance, that's all we've ever wanted," said Senior Assistant City Atty. Wayne Winthers.
Last summer, the couple tried to appease the city; and, still maintain an almost water-free yard by building a fence around the yard and planting drought-tolerant greenery -- lavender, rosemary, horsetail and pittosporum, among others.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Quan and Angelina Ha reduced their annual water usage from 299,221 gallons in 2007 to 58,348 gallons in 2009: an 80% savings. Quan Ha pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor for violating county codes.
Now, here comes the rub. A California Public Policy Institute report estimates that more than half of all residential water used is wasted on lawn and outdoor plant care. California's Water Use Efficiency website urges conservation efforts, including: "Water-efficient landscape designs using low water-use plants" and "Minimized turf areas."
Ironically, by abiding by the recommendations of the state water agency, the Ha family leaves itself open to prosecution by the city.
I wonder what Governor Schwarzenegger would think?
Via Care2 and Los Angeles Times
Here are a few bath ideas with specific concerns in mind.
Apple Cider Vinegar Bath: This helps relieve sore muscles, itchy skin, and sunburn. Vinegar helps draw pollutants out of the body. It is an acid medium and contains alpha hydroxy acids. It is also mildly antiseptic, antifungal and naturally deodorizing.
Athlete’s Bath: Use these ingredients to relax sore aching muscles. Bay leaf, Epsom salts, eucalyptus leaves, ginger root, juniper berries, lavender flowers, marjoram herb, mustard seed powder, rosemary leaves, and sage herb.
Baking Soda Bath: This alkalinizing and detoxifying bath can help calm allergic reactions, chicken pox, eczema, hives, itchy skin, insect bites, poison ivy, sunburn, and fungal infections. Use one pound per bath.
Cold and Flu Bath: Try these bath additions when you want to soothe deep muscle aches that often accompany viral infections. Epsom salts, ginger root, marjoram, mustard seed powder, pine needles, and thyme leaves.
Dry Skin Bath: Herbs can have a soothing lubricating effect from the outside. Moisturize with calendula flowers, chamomile flowers, comfrey leaves, elder flowers, fennel seed, jasmine flowers, lavender flowers, oatmeal, rose buds, and violet leaves.
Epsom Salts Bath: This method is lymphatic cleansing, relaxing for sore muscles, softening to the skin, and detoxifying after bodywork. Epsom salts help to get drugs, chemicals and pollutants out of body. Those with diabetes, hypertension or heart disease should rinse off after the bath.
Itchy Skin Bath: To calm itchy skin, resulting from insect bites, chicken pox, and poison ivy, use with apple cider vinegar, baking soda, chickweed herb, lavender flowers, oatmeal, red clover blossoms or violet leaf. Essential oils to use in an itchy skin bath include cedar wood, Roman chamomile, lavender, peppermint and sandalwood.
Oatmeal Bath: This calms irritated skin, poison ivy, dermatitis, high blood pressure, and stress, It is very simple to whiz plain uncooked oatmeal in the blender to make a bath powder. Or tie 1/2 cup into a bath bag.
Relaxing Bath: Take the edge off a stressful day with calming botanicals such as catnip herb, chamomile flowers, Clary sage flowers, hops strobiles, jasmine flowers, lavender flowers, linden flowers, neroli flowers, and rose buds.
Sunburn Bath: Adding black tea, or apple cider vinegar to a cool bath eases burns.
It is easy to create your own Bath Salts by mixing together 1 cup each of sea salt, baking soda and Epsom salts. Add 1 teaspoon of any combination of essential oils. Mix well and store in a glass jar. Add 1 handful per bath.
Via Care2
Talk about unlucky! German police detained a nightclub partier they caught trying to snort amphetamines off the top of their unmarked patrol car. The 26 year-old began lining up the powdered drugs on the roof of the car in a disco car park, when the two police officers surprised him, a Nuremberg police spokesperson said yesterday.
The man had no idea the normal-looking vehicle belonged to the police; and, it was coincidence that the officers – who were walking by their parked car – discovered him just as he was about to take the drugs.
The cow has one stomach with four parts, each holding the cow’s dinner through various stages of digestion. The four parts are the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abosmasum.
In Peru, archaeologists found 1,000 year-old popcorn in graves, and the popcorn was so well preserved it could still pop. Outdoing even that, popcorn that is 5,600 year-old was found in Bat Cave, New Mexico.
The golden orb-weaver spider, found in Papua, New Guinea, spins the biggest and strongest of all webs. Its web can extend five feet across.
"The real leader has no need to lead, he is content to point the way."
– Henry Miller
"Those who would attain to any marked degree of excellence in a chosen pursuit must work, and work hard for it, prince or peasant."
– Bayard Taylor
Having a routine MRI caused a 72-year-old man in California severe pain. Soon the Old Colorado City resident coughed up a one-inch nail that had been lodged in his sinuses for over three decades. The magnetic field in the scanner had pulled the nail loose, which was a huge surprise to the retired carpenter who never realized the nail was there. Health workers at the clinic were surprised by the discovery, too. He figures he must have inhaled the nail while on the job. He is planning to frame the nail.
Recreation of fossil.
Scientists have found a 67 million-year-old fossil of a snake coiled around dinosaur eggs and a hatchling. This is the first evidence of snakes eating dinosaurs.
“It’s a stunning, once-in-a-lifetime find,” said paleontologist Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago, who was not involved in the study. “We’ve caught one of the rarest moments in the fossil record, which is prey and predator, together.”
Geologist Dhanajay Mohabey of the Indian Geological Survey first unearthed the fossil 26 years ago in a rocky, limestone outcropping in the northwestern Indian village of Dholi Dungri. He thought all the bones at the site were those of dinosaur hatchlings.
But in 2001, University of Michigan paleontologist Jeff Wilson, took a second look at the fossils. The team then recognized they had actually found a snake coiled around a broken egg, with a hatchling and two other eggs nearby. The findings appeared Mar. 1 in Public Library of Science Biology.
The newly-discovered species of snake, Sanajeh indicus, measures about 11.5 feet long. The hatchlings, part of a group called titanosaurs, measured about a foot and a half long. Titanosaurs were the largest animal to ever walk on land, with adults that could reach up to 100 feet long.
Unlike modern snakes, S. indicus lacked jaw joints that allowed it to open its mouth incredibly wide, so it relied on its large overall body size to prey on the fledgling dinosaurs. Luckily for the snake, the titanosaur hatchlings had soft skeletons that “may have been somewhat collapsible, so you can fold their ribs up a bit and get them in your mouth,” Wilson said.
It’s likely a slow-rising flood or a storm caused adult titanosaurs to flee, abandoning their nests. The snake then slithered into the nest.
Once the babies start hatching, they begin to “pop their leg or arm out. There will be some kind of activity, and the snake is attracted to that. It will coil itself around the egg,” he said. “As soon as it came out of the egg, there’s a snake waiting for it.”
Unluckily for the snake, that moment was frozen in time because a landslide buried the site right then, Wilson said.
The team has found three or four other spots at Dholi Dungri where snake fossils were uncovered near dinosaur eggs, Wilson said.
The findings may offer insight into the origin of snakes. The reptiles first appear in the fossil record around 98 million years ago, Wilson said. But finding such a complete snake fossil is rare, with only a half-dozen well-preserved specimen from this period. “A lot of their early origins are uncertain. More fossils from an early time help put together a picture of snake evolution,” said Wilson.
The fossil find shows some modern animal behavior has very old roots, Sereno said. “Snakes have been at this eating egg-thing for a hundred million years. Before birds fell prey to these things, their ancestors did.”
Via Wired Science
Photo courtesy: Care2 
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