LILL's LIST

Eating better is a lot easier if you have a garden to provide fresh veggies. But if you’re like me and kind of jaded after gardening for many years, maybe it’s time for a garden makeover. One way to do that is with novel gardening techniques.

You’ve seen those upside-down tomato growing devices on TV. In spite of my aversion to infomercials, I have to say that I was fascinated the first time I saw one of them. However, I still have more common sense than money, so I searched the Net for homemade versions.

Here’s a link to a great site that will tell you everything you need to know to create your own gravity-defying tomato, pepper or herb plants. I’m planning to try strawberries, tomatoes, herbs and small cucumbers in mine, but I think they’d work with almost any fruit or veggie that isn’t too heavy.

If you try them, let me know how they work for you. Send photos.

If upside-down gardening doesn’t ring your bell, let me know that too. And if you can think of any novel gardening techniques that can revive longtime gardeners’ interest in digging and delving, I’m all ears.

Back in the late 60′s , when being green usually meant that you had sneaked a cigarette, I argued unsuccessfully with my mother over wearing makeup. I was for it; she was against it until I reached the magic age of fifteen. For some reason I never did fathom, in those days, that was apparently the age all parents had agreed upon as being appropriate for female cosmetic use. True, some of my more daring schoolmates snuck cocoa colored lipstick into their pockets and applied it on the bus, but most didn’t. However, like me, they couldn’t wait to apply the potions and polishes that their older sisters and cousins wore.

Now, I have a tween, an 11 year old daughter who is already begging me for nail polish, lipstick and anything else that will make her look like Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana. She and I are having some of the same discussions I had with my mother, but because I’m NOT my mother, we hold them a little differently.

Rather than forbidding her to “make herself up like a hussy”, which is what my mother did with me, we talk about why it’s not such a hot idea to paint, polish and perfect herself with the stuff that comes out of those little tubes, bottles and pots. For instance, we talk about what’s in all the glamourous potions that make you look better. We also talk about why it’s good to realize that it’s not necessary to enhance your looks on a daily basis and how looking like yourself is the best thing most of the time.

Recently, she found some water-based, “non-toxic” nail polish at a health food store and you might have thought she’d found the holy grail. Excitedly, she showed me the beautiful colors it came in and assured me that there was nothing harmful in it. Then I got her to look at the label and we saw that there was polyurethane in it.  She pouted. I went to look at organic honey. She came over to me and asked if she could get it and only wear it once in a long while for special occasions.

I thought about it and said she could. Her face lit up like the sun and she floated out to the car and then to our hotel where she applied two coats of the magic elixir to her fingernails and toenails. That was two days ago and most of it has worn off, but she hasn’t asked me if she can reapply it and the bottle is still in her backpack. If she does ask, I’ll remind her that it’s only for special occasions and has an ingredient that isn’t good to put on her skin more than once in a long while.

I’m sure I’m not the only one facing the cosmetic clash with a daughter. Now, however, girls start wearing makeup and nail polish when they’re toddlers and no one seems to think anything of it. I even know Green mamas who let their tots smear their lips with bright lip gloss that has artificial flavors, colors and petroleum products in it. These are the same mothers who won’t let their kids have anything with corn syrup in it. I don’t get it.

It seems to me that, along with issues about self-esteem, body image and feminism, girls need to know what kind of chemicals they’re putting on their skin. Educating them about carcinogens and endocrine disruptors like parabens, phthalates and BPA is just the start of it. What about the animal products in some cosmetics and the animal testing?  What about petroleum products, hormones, nano particles and all the other things that are on the label?

And it isn’t just girls. Boys use cosmetics too, even if the products have “manly” names and black, chunky bottles to make them more acceptable to boys. Even harmless-seeming things like hair gel, shave cream and deodorants have things in them that they need to know about and think about before using.

A bright spot in all of this is that most teens and tweens are eco-conscious and can be reached on that level. So, that’s where I’m trying to make a connection with my daughter. She cares about the planet and the animals and plants on it. She knows that what we’re putting into the air, water and soil is hurting the earth. She’s all for going green when it comes to products that we buy. I’m just hoping that it will carry over into her choices for personal care products and cosmetics in future, both for the planet’s sake – and hers.

Sometimes I feel like the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland, running just to keep up with developments in Green products. Bisphenol-A is discovered, then it’s banished, then we find out it didn’t really go completely away.

We learn which companies to trust – then find out that some of them have been lying on their labels or just leaving ingredients out of their label list. What’s a concerned consumer to do?

Take 1,4-dioxane, a known carcinogen and petrochemical. Now, wouldn’t you think that companies like Seventh Generation, Ecover, Method, Nature’s Gate and Aura Cacia – to name just a few – would do the right thing and list it on their products that contain it? And how can they get away with NOT listing it if it’s in their products?

Well, there’s a little loophole in the labeling laws – one that I wouldn’t expect ethical companies to take advantage of – but they do. 1,4-dioxane is considered a “contaminant”, not an ingredient. So, it doesn’t have to be listed as an ingredient. It’s produced as a by-product when a process called “ethoxylation” is used to cheaply make products milder when they contain harsh ingredients.

So, it’s in the product, but they don’t tell you it’s in the product, so you don’t KNOW that it’s in the product and that makes everything all right. Right? After all, consumers won’t mind when they find out that they’ve been putting this carcinogen in their dishpan, in their washer, on their kids, on their pets and on themselves.  And, so what if a little bit of it gets into the environment and filters through to the water table and into the soil. It’s not on the label, therefore, it’s not really there and it can’t hurt anyone, right?

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty burned up about this. If you can’t trust supposedly ethical, Greener than thou companies like Seventh Generation and Ecover, who can you trust? I’ve been paying more for their products over Clorox and other mega-companies who’ve just jumped on the Green bandwagon, because I wanted to support the companies who were Green before it was popular. Now, I’m rethinking that whole idea.

Do they really deserve my loyalty if they’re willing to lie by omission about a known carcinogen? I expect this kind of thing from mainstream manufacturers who have been doing it for years and getting away with it. It’s not a shock when I find that Dial, Lever, Johnson and Johnson, Ajax, Palmolive and Olay, for instance, also sell products with 1,4-dioxane in them and don’t list it on the label.

I need to hear from these companies that they’re not going to do this kind of thing again. I want to be assured that they’ll tell me everything – and I do mean everything – that’s in their products, no matter if it’s an ingredient, a contaminant or something that leeches out of the container into the product.

In the meantime, if you’d like to make sure that your personal care and cleaning products don’t contain 1,4-dioxane, The Organic Consumers Association, where I got most of this information, has a really nice Pocket Safety Guide to Personal Care and Cleaning Products that you can print out and take with you when you shop.They also have a lot of information on this and other subjects of interest to Green consumers.

Or, if you’d like to read about alternatives to products with carcinogens and hidden ingredients, you can stop by “Best of Mother Earth” where my friend, Karen recommends and sells several. I’d like to thank her for her post which alerted me to the 1,4-dioxane scandal in products from “natural” companies and for all the posts she writes about something she’s passionate about – the earth and all who live on it.

I was really chuffed recently to read that there will be a vegetable garden at the White House this spring. The Obamas want to grow food for their kitchen and provide a good example, especially to kids. As a matter of fact, a nearby class will be participating in the project. Students from Bancroft Elementary School will be on hand today as the First Lady breaks ground for the garden on the south lawn of the White House grounds.

One person who is really excited about the garden is Alice Waters of Chez Panisse Restaurant in California, where she’s been serving and lobbying for local food for decades. As a matter of fact, she’s also been lobbying in Washington since 1992 for a White House garden with a series of fund raisers where local, organic and natural food was on the menu to showcase its benefits.

Ms. Waters also supports something that could change the educational system in this country: sustainable, edible schoolyards. Instead of the blacktop that surrounds so many schools, how about gardens where children – and teachers – can raise their own food instead of the current bland, processed institutional food cafeterias serve? It would also get kids out of the classroom and into the fresh air and sunshine, which would boost their moods and probably their test scores.

One other piece of news I read this week, although it’s old news, reinforces this idea of gardening in schoolyards and backyards. I came across something I had read a long time ago but forgotten. Soil contains beneficial bacteria that actually make you feel good when you get it on your skin. Yup. Far from being a bad thing, getting down and dirty in the garden raises your serotonin levels and gives you that “feel-good” feeling. Who knew?

Well, to tell you the truth, I knew. Until I read about the bacteria, I didn’t know why gardening without gloves made me feel relaxed and happy, but I knew that I felt better, slept better and smiled more starting on the day I began to prepare my garden for spring planting.

So, let’s hope the Obamas and their children actually grub around in the dirt, rather than leaving the gardening to the White House groundkeepers. Along with eating the first tomato or radish, gardening’s bacterial benefits could go a long way toward counteracting the stress of the next four years for them.

Okay, now that the major baby bottle manufacturers have agreed to remove Bisphenol-A from their products, we can all rest easy, right? Well, if we live in the US where they’re doing that or in Canada where the gov’mint is making them do that, yes. However, if you live in a developing country, you might want to breastfeed.

Of course, you might want to breastfeed anyway, since it’s usually a better option than bottle feeding, but not everyone can or wants to and they should have that choice. And what if you breastfeed but want to expel milk and put it into a bottle? I’d recommend glass if you don’t live in the US or Canada, so that your babies aren’t exposed to this estrogen mimic.

But lest you think that BPA is only an issue for babies, let’s talk about beverage containers and food cans. Sure, you’ve ditched that water bottle, but do you still drink seltzer or soda also? Do you drink beer? Juice in plastic bottles? How about that chili you made last night with canned beans? Baked beans?

I can hear you saying that you’ll bite the bullet and spend the extra money to buy organic canned goods from now on. Well, that’s good, except that, as far as I can find out, only 2  brands of organic canned goods are lined with BPA. Yup. Unless you buy Eden beans, rice and non-tomato products or Henry and Lisa’s Natural Seafood products, you’re getting BPA in your canned goods.

What really bothers me is that some of our former favorite brands contain BPA. Daughter practically lived on Annie’s canned pasta for awhile and we’ve eaten an ocean of Muir Glen soups.  Zevia, a diet soda made with stevia, was the only soft drink I let my kids drink and I mixed it with half a shot of whiskey for my nightly “cocktail” throughout the winter months. I even recommended it to my readers, friends and family as a safe alternative to diet soda.

Eden uses a slightly more expensive can liner made from tree resin. Why can’t the other manufacturers do the same? As more companies create a demand for this product, the price will fall due to competition. Until that happens, my container of choice is glass. Santa Barbara Olives come in jars. So do Lucini tomato products.  I’m sure there are plenty of alternatives to canned products.

One I just found is Virgil’s Diet Cola and other flavors. My kids love the root beer. It’s made with stevia and while it’s not as tasty as Zevia, it improves considerably – as does almost any beverage – when I add half a shot of Jim Beam to it.

Recent revelations that very low doses of BPA still cause neurological and endocrine system damage and a very recent Yale study that shows that it stays in the body much longer than previously thought, just add urgency to the need to get it out of the food supply. Then we can work on getting it out of the CD’s, refrigerator shelves, auto parts and millions of other items that it’s in, so that it will stop leeching into our water supply and our soil.

But that’s another post.