Organic Food Savings: Tweeting at Trader Joes, Whole Foods & Giant

Note: The post below was written before the launch of the Green Moms Carnival on Global Warming. I almost didn’t post this because frankly, my thoughts are not on organic finds right now. But I thought I owed it to everyone who does come here looking for organic savings tips. So stay tuned for my next post, which will cover the aftermath of the Green Moms Carnival on Global Warming – how do you go from vision to reality?

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You’d think I had a family of eight, not four, with three trips to the market last week. I should be eating less, not more, with the great Tweet-2-Fit weight loss challenge underway this week!

But getting out to three different markets does give one a good perspective on pricing. It’s really tough to say which market has the best deals – it all depends on your family’s buying patterns. And of course, it makes no sense to drive around in search of great deals. Not only is it bad for the environment, but with gas prices hovering around $4 anyway, it’s unlikely you’ll save enough money to merit another trip. But, with some advance planning, you can take advantage of the bargain specialties of each store when you happen to be nearby. I live in an urban area – there are four Whole Foods close to my regular haunts, plus Trader Joes, Balduccis, Giant, Safeway, and numerous CSAs, co-ops and farmers markets.

If you haven’t signed up for Twitter yet, you can sign up here. I’m finding it so useful to send out live Twitter updates on my organic finds that I’m loathe to write-up everything again on OrganicMania, especially on a busy week like last week when I was working on the launch of the Green Moms Carnival on Global Warming (and closing new business for my consulting practice!)

C’mon, join in…you’ll learn where I found organic apples at 3 pounds for $5 (incredible deal when they’re usually more than $2.50 per pound), which “great deal” on bananas was really not a great deal and why, and even be on hand when Baby Boo says fish (or feesh!) for the first time. Plus, did you know you can give time-outs in Whole Foods?

Happy Shopping!

Lynn

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Green Moms Carnival Launches; Tackling Global Warming

Today OrganicMania is featuring some great contributions from around the green blogosphere. We’re blogging about how we can make a difference in the fight against global warming. Most of us are Green Moms (aka Eco Moms), but we’ve got a few “Mothers of the Earth” and “sons of Moms” joining us too.

And yes, I know that this is supposed to be a web log – and not a diary – but these posts were so fantastic, I got carried away! So sit back, relax, grab something to drink, and enjoy!

Why a Green Moms Carnival? Well, as La Marguerite so aptly puts it, “Moms need to have a bigger role in the climate discourse. We are talking about Mother Earth after all. The qualities that come to us as mothers, as in giving, protecting, nurturing, and sustaining life, are the same ones that are needed to remedy climate change.” Read more here.

It was that post from La Marguerite which inspired this carnival, along with some encouragement from Alana at Gray Matters. While there are many, many “Green Moms” or “EcoMoms” blogging about everything from recycling to gardening, very few of us have been blogging about global warming.

Jennifer – aka “The Smart Mama” came to the same realization I did. As she put it, “Okay, here I am trying to protect my children from toxic chemicals so as to reduce their risk of adverse health effects, but it won’t matter much if they don’t get cancer if they can’t live here on Earth. If you read the reports on what will happen if we don’t do something right now, it is frightening and depressing… being non-toxic isn’t always the same as being green, so I decided to pay more attention to being both green and non-toxic.” Jennifer shares 10 simple steps any one can take to fight global warming.

Beth at Fake Plastic Fish is known for her campaigns to reduce personal plastic consumption and to lobby Clorox to recycle Brita water filters in North America, as they do in Europe. In this post, Beth presents a well – researched explanation of how plastic use contributes to global warming.

MamaBird at SurelyYouNest muses about her grandmother’s Depression-era sensibilities and how a respect for the mundane may be the simple solution to shrinking our carbon footprints. Enter a comment to win a copy of The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Your Carbon Footprint.

Over at Green Bean Dreams, the Mommys are Roaring. Discover how you can find the strength to combat global warming and deliver a healthy planet to our children. Helicopter parent? Hover over something truly worth worrying about: global warming.

Wondering how to talk to your kids about global warming? Mindful Momma has some solid tips for you, as does MC Milker of Not Quite Crunchy Parent. And eco ‘burban mom shares how her kids responded to watching “An Inconvenient Truth.”

But get your act together first. Here are OrganicMania’s 10 Things You Can Do to Help Fight Global Warming. And Matthew, who is as he puts it, “the son of a mom” shares three things you can do to fight global warming over at Conservatives and Normals. Our other “token male,” Lane of veganbits.com, blogs about ways to reduce your carbon footprint.

Anna at Green Talk questions whether or not we as a society have changed our behavior in response to the threat of global warming. She is tired of waiting for change. She offers simple suggestions, and challenges you to do the same.

And while we’re all trying to reduce our fuel consumption, many of us are wondering how. Read these tips from “Big Green Purse” author Diane MacEachern and you may just save $20 to $50 per month on gasoline.

Leave it to Jenn of Tiny Choices, one of our Mothers of the Earth, to use humor to ask two very serious questions: Do you think global warming is generally accepted as truth by this point? Have you run into skeptics, and if so, what’s the conversation been like? While you’re thinking about it, check out the video Jenn posted of humorist Jill Sobule singing “Manhattan in January.”

Tiffany of Nature Moms brought up the “climate crisis hoax” issue in a poignant post that received more than 19 reader comments! Seems she catches a lot of flack from her neighbors for fighting global warming, but as she points out, she values her environmental actions on many levels. Its simply the right thing to do.

Mary Hunt of In Women We Trust points out that while making sense of green claims can be tough, as more and more products with Product Life Cycle Assessments like the SMaRT Sustainable Product Standard are brought to market, it will be far easier to measure and quantify the pollution and carbon footprint of a product across an entire supply chain.

And if all this talk of global warming stresses you out, remember gardening is a great stress reliever. Did you know that you can reduce your community’s carbon footprint through gardening? Ivory of Little House in the Suburbs shows you how.

Because remember, at the end of the day, don’t you want to be remembered for treading lightly on this fragile Earth, our island home? That’s the question Karen of Best of Mother Earth asked herself after reading an article in National Geographic which “took all the plastics found in a typical American home and put it all out on the front lawn. It was a 2 page spread of junk, or things at the time I didn’t even know were plastic or petroleum derived. I was shocked….I personally want to be remembered for the footprint I don’t leave behind.”

Well put, Karen.

Finally, a big THANK YOU to all the bloggers who participated in the launch of this carnival. Special thanks to Green Beam Dreams for making a cool Green Moms Carnival badge which you’ll see posted on many of the Green Moms sites participating in this carnival, and muchas gracias to eco burban mom for sorting through the many submissions that came in to the carnival mailbox. (Not all were on global warming, but we’ll add yours in if they match a future topic). There were even a few who helped along the way, but could not get a post up today – so Gray Matters, EnviroMom, and Crunchy Chicken, we still love ya!

This will be a monthly event, with topics chosen by each month’s carnival host. So on the second  Monday in September, join MamaBird at Surely You Nest to discuss green topics around “Back to School.”

Want to submit a post for next month’s carnival? The theme will be “Back to School,” and it will be hosted by SurelyYouNest. To submit, just go to the carnival submission link here.

Whew! Please leave a comment and let us know what you thought about the Green Moms Carnival.

— Lynn

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Ten Things You Can Do To Help Fight Global Warming

Global warming can seem like such a huge, depressing problem that it’s easy to wonder what one person can do to fight it. Sure, we all know that we can change light bulbs and buy hybrid cars.

But what else can one person do?

Here are ten ideas: Ten Things You Can Do. OK, maybe you think you can’t do all ten – at least not right now. But take a look at this list – I guarantee there’s something you can do to help fight global warming right now.

1. Sign up for alternate energy. Here’s how. Did you know that residential housing – not transportation – is the biggest contributor to global warming? In fact, globally the biggest contributor to global warming is US residential housing stock and the second largest contributor is Chinese heavy industry.

2. If you are renovating your home, or building a new one, insist on green building materials. This Green Home Guide from the US Green Building Council is full of helpful information.

3. When replacing your appliances, buy only those with the ENERGY STAR label. According to the EPA, replacing a 1990-vintage refrigerator with a new ENERGY STAR fridge would save enough energy to light the average household for nearly four months. Just remember to recycle your old one: RecycleMyOldFridge.com

4. Consider downsizing. Do you really need so much room for all that – stuff?

5. Move closer to sources of public transportation, or closer to your job. Better yet – see if you can telecommute.

6. Did you know carpooling has become chic? Start a carpool or better yet – walk or bike ride as much as possible.

7. Buy locally produced goods. They don’t need to be flown across oceans or shipped cross-country.

8. If the children in your community are bussed to school, ask why. Lobby your school district to open up shuttered buildings so that more kids can walk to school.

9. Ask businesses you patronize to turn down the a/c and to turn off the lights at night. Speak up. Customers matter.

10. The power of many like-minded people coming together is awesome. If your community doesn’t have a sustainability initiative like Bethesda Green, start one.

What do you think of these ideas? Do you have any others? I’d love to hear what you’re doing to make a difference. Leave a comment and share!

— Lynn

— Copyright 2008 OrganicMania

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