Read 'n' Seed 2: First quarter of "Newman's Own Guide to a Good Life"

So far, I have read the rest of chapter one, and finished chapter 2 in Newman's Guide which is pages 14-39. The main topics I have read about at the end of chapter one have been organic food: why we should choose it, statistics, and what to look for when buying organic food. I especially found this last part particularly helpful. She talked about how we need to look for certain labels when buying organic products. These include three terms of certified organics: "100% organic," "organic," and "made with organic ingredients." Additionally, she mentions the importance of buying local produce in season, eating lower on the food chain, avoiding over packaged products, and buying for whole food stores. Several parts of the chapter discuss her opinions on the affects of society; one particular quote I highlighted was after she mentions people complaining about how expensive organics are and it states, "In terms of money, we have to learn how to cook food that is really tasty using vegetables. I don't think we know how to do that, we are so meat dependent. But vegetables and grains are very affordable foods...you pay for your health, and I want to give my money directly to the farmer." Like she suggests, when we pay for foods that have been over processed and shipped they are less healthy but cheaper, therefore you are paying for the depletion of our natural resources, and sacrificing your health. I think we need more information in public schools teaching health and more information in general on why eating organic foods and buying from local farms is so important! Chapter 2 was less interesting to me, but it still had some good information as well as helpful tips, such as how we can help the environment by keeping with the speed limit to save on fuel, not stomping on the gas and speeding off, taking care of our cars, carpool as much as possible, take the bus when you can, and try to incorporate an eco friendly car into your life.

  check it out!

Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 2: Weekly Update

Week 2 of my lifestyle change has been going really well. My goal was to cut down on how much meat I eat, and completely rid my diet of red meat. The second part of my goal was to only eat 2 servings or less of chicken or fish per week, and that goal was also achieved last week. I actually made wild rice veggie burgers one day with an awesome recipe that I partially acquired and partially made up. *great success* 

For the most part, I have not faced too many challenges on my way to switching over to vegetarianism: I guess my main challenge has been the fact that my parents have a very small hobby farm and raise chickens, so of course my mom loves cooking chicken hot dishes and sending them my way, but at least it is organic and I can limit myself and save it in the freezer. I DO feel better about this choice I have made. Not only is it environmentally friendly and better for animal welfare, but also making wild rice burgers last weekend for my friends was awesome because they all really enjoyed them, and now they also have a healthy alternative to meat, that they can try it on there own as well. (specifically getting one of my stubborn roommates AND my brother to like them was a landmark occasion). I guess what I have learned so far was that once you put your mind to a huge lifestyle change like this, you realize that the hardest part is actually just making that decision ( I never thought I'd be able to give up meat), and I've hardly had any problem so far with my change.  My plans for this next week are just to keep up with what I am doing, I already believe I am challenging myself, yet I don't want to make it any easier. I would at least like to challenge myself to eat more organic foods. 

Here is an interesting website I found that has given me motive to keep up with my vegetarian choices.

21 reasons to become a vegetarian! 

( toothpastefordinner.com )

Eye Opener: CSPI

For this weeks eye opener, I chose to do the "Score Your Diet" activity. At Center for Science in the Public Interest, you can rate your diet using a drop down menu that rates the amounts of different food that you eat, and gives you a total health score, an environmental score, and an animal welfare score. The options also allow for whether you eat organic food or low fat foods. 
My score showed an overall excellent health score, but my animal welfare and environmental scores both need improvement. Vegetables were my highest score by far, fruits came in second and whole grains came in third, which makes sense to me because I do eat a lot of veggies and legumes to make up for my lack of meat. My worst scores were in the amount of yogurt and cheese that I eat, which is apparently too much, but I feel like my diet works well and I wouldn't really want to give up anymore dairy than I already have after switching to soy and almond milk (tastes better than it sounds!) 2 years ago. My lowest scores overall were under environment, and I am not sure how to make sense of this because I got negative points under environment for eating fruits and vegetables, and more negative points for grains, so this rating was slightly confusing. My total score overall was 52 which ranked "good."
 I do eat organic some of the time, so my goal will be to slowly incorporate more and more organic food into my diet. What this activity has shown me, is that there is always room for improvement, and you have to alter your diet in the areas that work best for you, as well as what works best for the environment. I believe my personal diet improvements have come a long way and they will only get better.  It wasn't that long ago that I would eat just about anything in the spectrum...

(obtained from toothpastefordinner.com)

Reflection: Weeks 3 & 4

The past two weeks have been very beneficial for me. During week 3, we figured out what book we wanted to read for our Read 'n Seed; I chose a book in which I had special interest. This book is called Newman's Own: Guide to a Good Life. We also made sure we had all blog requirements and learned how to use Google Reader. Week 4 started with questions we discussed in class, which benefited everyone because most of us had some uncertainty. Additionally, we watched An Inconvenient Truth which stars Al Gore. This movie is a documentary discussing the reality and seriousness of global warming. This movie was really an eye opener. The thing that stuck out the most to me, (it sounds weird because it's something really small..sort of) was an image of Lake Chad in Africa full of fresh water in 1963! I remember learning about this huge lake from 8th grade geography. The images below show how it has shrunk dramatically, nearly drying up! That really stuck out to me and made me sad. Moving on, Wednesday our Lifestyle Change plan was due, and in doing research on what my plan would be, I learned so many more reasons on why I want to be a vegetarian, as well as change many other aspects of my life to be more eco-friendly. This class has really been life changing even in the short amount of time I've been in it. This class will definitely be the push I needed to make all the lifestyle changes I have wanted to make. The ecological footprint activity showed me how disastrous my lifestyle really is, and that isn't my only motive. I have been researching on my own, as well as discussing with friends and classmates why we need to advocate these lifestyle changes and recruit as many people as we can! Even if its just simple things, like carpooling more often, taking shorter showers, and not eating red meat! Now, hopefully my mom wont be too disappointed when I don't eat her famous tator-tot, ground beef hotdish when I come home next weekend. 

Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change Week 1: My SMART Goal

Over the next ten weeks, I will reduce the amount of meat that I eat, more specifically I will completely eliminate red meat from my diet, secondly I will reduce my overall meat intake to chicken and fish: no more than 2 meals per week that include chicken or fish, starting today 10/6/09. 


I did some research on why becoming a vegetarian is eco chic, and I found many good reasons why everyone should! For example, many rainforests are destroyed in order to make grazing fields for beef cattle (more info here), much grain is shipped from countries over sea to feed our beef cattle and that takes energy to transport and could actually be used for starving people in these countries from which it is shipped, rather than to fatten our cattle. I also found this information from the same site: It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce one pound of meat. If the US meat industry wasn't supported by the taxpayer paying a large proportion of its water costs, then hamburger meat would cost $35 a pound. I found many more interesting facts at Vegan net, including this fact: According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the world's livestock herds are the largest source of human-induced emissions of methane which is a potent greenhouse gas contributing to climate change.
This particular lifestyle change is important to me for several reasons. One of which is because being a vegetarian is environmentally friendly as my explanation above suggests. Additionally, being a vegetarian has many health benefits for my personally. As quoted from a pro-vegetarian website I discovered, avoiding meat is one of the best and simplest ways to cut down your fat consumption. Modern farm animals are deliberately fattened up to increase profits. Eating fatty meat increases your chances of having a heart attack or developing cancer. Personally, the term meat usually makes me cringe; we don't always know what is in our "meat," especially "ground beef."  Also, we can avoid eating as many chemicals if we don't eat meat. For example, I know that cows are injected with loads of chemicals and hormones, it is terrifying that we can sell this poisoned animal as food. 
Overall, this change is something I have been wanting to do for a long time, and have been slowly stepping into; I have all the reason in the world to make the change now!

I thought this comic was funny, its definitely true. 

Eye Opener: ecological footprint

Ecological footprints are something I hadn't really thought about before this activity. It is scary to think that with our selfish lifestyles, we use  resources 1.3 times faster than Earth can regenerate them, and this number is doomed to get worse. "According to Redefining Progress’ latest Footprint Analysis, humanity is exceeding its ecological limits by 39%." I found this progress website to be interesting not only in the fact that we can calculate our own biological footprint, but it shows how to interpret results and how individuals and communities can take action to reduce their ecological footprints and inspire others.  We were asked to take quizzes and track our own ecological footprint. One website in which I took a quiz was at Earthday.net, my results were much worse than I had expected. Apparently we would need 4 planets if everyone lived like I do; this was a shock to me because I do recycle on occasion and don't feel like I use that much waste, but like I said, this was an eye opener! After seeing this, I looked at even simple everyday changes I can make by exploring other scenarios. For example, I can reduce the amounts of animal products I use, try avoiding products that use unnecessary packaging, and bring my own grocery bag when going to the supermarket. 

Read 'n Seed: Newman's Own: Guide to a Good Life

I have chosen to read two different books, but the book I will focus on for my Read 'n Seed is called Newman's Own: Guide to a Good Life. The link provides a website in which you can see details about the book as well as purchase this book or shop for other environmentally friendly products. Amazon provides a rating of the book, as well as a way in which you can view the chapters of the book for you to explore. Additionally, more specific information and a more in depth review of the guide can be found here. I chose this book because I feel I can use it as a personal guide to help me take steps in becoming healthier and more environmentally friendly. The first chapter I read is simply called "food." This chapter has so far been a reality check. I have tried incorporating organic foods into my diet in the past, but after reading this chapter, I now see even more importance to this goal. How many of us actually think about how everyday foods are delivered thousands of miles, packaged, processed, over processed some more, and the distributed with loads of plastic and chemicals. This not only hurts the environment, its slowly poisoning us and our families when we do not take that extra time to cook a fresh meal and spend a little more money on organic food. Another big problem with not using organic food is GMO's ! (a more precise definition by following the link). These are genetically modified organisms...which are a huge concern, but the have laid low until recently; they are largely unregulated, untested, unlabeled, and unannounced. I found the author's list of America's top contaminated fruits and veggies to be very beneficial. Topping the charts was strawberries and bell peppers, which in a way makes sense to me because when I grow strawberries they NEVER get as big as the ones in the store.  There are 227 pages in this book, and 9 chapters. I will finish the first chapter and move into the 2nd chapter for the first quarter, 2nd quarter will be 3rd, 4th and 5th chapters, 3rd quarter will be 6th and 7th chapters, and 4th quarter will be 8th and 9th chapters.  The other book I have purchased is called The Organic Food Guide. This one is more of a personal guide that I can use to make smart decisions when grocery shopping; it talks about how to "shop smarter, and eat healthier." If time prevails when I finish my first book, I would like to discuss what I learn in this 2nd book. In the pictures below I would like to compare a normal sized strawberry, like one I would find in my garden, compared to those I buy at the grocery store with GMO's. 
normal sized strawberry  at right  GMO strawberry below
(very large strawberry) just kidding, but you get the idea :)

Reflections: week 1 and 2

The first two weeks of Environmental Health have brought me new places in the blogging world. This being said, I have never had a public blog before, and feel like a child learning how to read; I’ll eventually get it, and hopefully recruit others.

I thought the Star Wars activity was a good way to start class; we were forced to work together as a team right off the bat. The in class discussions also helped me get a feel of what other people were like and what kind of opinions they had. I personally enjoyed the quotes relating to nature which gave me the urge to read some Robert Frost.

Blogging itself opened me up to a whole new world. Just learning how to personalize my blog let me use my imagination and creativity, forcing me to bust out some artistic skills as well. My goal is to connect my creative side to environmental change, and my personal focus on preserving the beauty of nature.

More cute environmental poems I found! 

(below) A recent visit to Gooseberry falls!  Check out the beautiful falls before it gets too cold!

Welcome to Danielle's Discoveries

I am Danielle Wall, an art and community health student, and I am all about discovering the beauty in our natural surroundings. So far I have highlighted my interests in art and nature, and I would like to tie that into my blog and doing my part in preserving our natural environment, and helping others become healthier, well informed decision makers!



Thanks for checking out my blog, I hope you enjoy!

Blogged for the Welcome Linky Party hosted by Amy@Eco-Chic with Amy

The Office: best quotes.

Starry Night