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Change The World Wednesday (#CTWW)
Welcome to Change The World Wednesday (#CTWW)! If this is your first visit, please click HERE for information and a complete list of all the challenges we’ve taken on so far.
There’s a lot of great information in this post and I encourage you to read through it … however, if you don’t have the time right now, you might find the following quick links helpful:
We’ve done challenges on meatless meals before but last week took it to new heights … we not only challenged ourselves to eat a vegan meal but we cooked that meal at home using local, seasonal offerings and Eco-friendly cooking methods … and then we took our time and enjoyed the food. From an environmental standpoint, plant based foods require less natural resources to produce that animal based foods. Cooking them at home has less of an impact than eating “out” (think transportation to and from the restaurant, the often inefficient cooking methods of commercial kitchens and the use of disposable utensils, cups, etc.). Of course, local and seasonal foods are Eco friendly because they don’t travel long distances to get to our plate and, typically, growing methods aren’t compromised to force growth out of season. Mindfully eating our food gives us an appreciation of the flavors and textures … it encourages us to value the care involved in growing the vegetables … and anything we value, we protect. Who knew that a simple meal could have such far reaching benefits.
The Honor Society are those people who help us spread the “green” word by writing an article about our challenges and/or leaving pertinent comments. Here’s what they had to say:
Green Gal dropped in and shared this, ” Ahh this literally coincides PERFECTLY with a date I have planned next week to cook with a friend. And I’m so glad you were inspired to make this week’s challenge about eating in 
“ By the way, if you have a minute, head over to Green Gal’s blog … she recently wrote a lovely post about being happy … it’ll make you … well … happy!
I loved EcoGrrl’s enthusiasm. She said “Heck yeah! I’m blessed to be in Portland where it doesn’t take a whole lot of effort to eat vegan. Even though I’m an omnivore overall, I end up eating veg or vegan the majority of the time, as I consider meat a treat, not a necessity. One of my favorite places to go out to casually here is Laughing Planet – it’s a great chain with tons of vegan options (the cuban bowl is my favorite), AND best of all, the way they do business, from start to finish – is phenomenal (http://laughingplanetcafe.com/values/materials-ingredients/). Oh and Prasad, it’d kill ya it’s so awesome and creative and tasty – http://prasadcuisine.squarespace.com/storage/Prasad%20Cafe%20Menu%208.02.12%20pdf.pdf You’ll have to come to PDX on a Blog-expedition and I’ll show you around!” Oh wouldn’t that be fun!
Mrs. Green admits to having a tough time with veganism but … she’s a trouper and came up with a delicious meal idea. Here’s a hint … it’s a “use it up” meal. Read all about it HERE. You might remember that on our seasonal challenge, Mrs. Green decided to put up some curtains to keep drafts out of her home. She wrote an update on her efforts and wow … she and Mr. Green created some lovely, thermal curtains. Check out this POST to see pictures and discover the unusual material they used as insulation. Nicely done, Mrs. Green!
The Accessory Lady (AL) accepted the challenge and had this to say ” I was already planning on baking some delicious organic almond meal peanut butter vegan cookies in my tabletop convection toaster oven so I can definitely ace this challenge! These will be more of a snack or complement to a meal. Finding new ways to use the byproduct of making almond milk ha been interesting so I’ll share what I come up with. Any suggestions? Almond meal scrub? Last week I also had a surplus of lemon basil in my grower so vegan lemon basil potato salad was in order. It was delicious so it must be repeated!” Hm … anyone have suggestions for using almond meal? AL also graced us with a lovely vegan recipe last week … if you missed it, you can find it HERE.
Argentum Vulgaris is a chef so creativity in the kitchen is his “forte”. He’s also a carnivore. So … was he able to come up with a vegan meal? Find out in this ARTICLE.
Clare offered us some very thoughtful posts on organic food. The first one, entitled Is Organic Food Better For You?, takes a look at the recent Standford study which concluded that no, it isn’t better for us. She picks apart the study’s methodology to discover the truth. What do you think about it. In a second ARTICLE Clare discusses whether or not organic food is healthy. It’s another interesting post! Finally, from our seasonal challenge, she offers us THIS. Thanks, Clare!
Health Beauty Life wrote an excellent article entitled Is Being a Vegan for You? After reading it, what do you think … could you be a vegan?
CelloMom took the challenge and had this to say ” This was surprisingly hard! We eat meat perhaps once a week, but there seems to be a lot of dairy around our house, between the raw milk & kefir, the eggs and all the cheeses.
Buy today I finally managed it: made a roasted-tomato salsa and a baba ganouch, all veggies from the CSA farm. Phew.”
Tina shared a very simple post … which is totally thought provoking. Check it out HERE. Now that puts a different slant on our food choices, doesn’t it?
Josefin is vegetarian but faces some challenges. In Eat your Vegetables she discusses them and talks a bit about a lecture she attended by the Western Sahara Resource Watch. The Western Sahara is the largest remaining colony in the world today and their natural resources are being plundered. Later in the week, Josefin share a wonderful recipe with readers … Vegan African chickpea stew … that’s definitely on my “to make” list.
Melandria offered us a delicious vegan recipe for Laing which features dried Gabi (Taro) leaves. If you can’t find Gabi leaves (which are poisonous if eaten raw), try substituting spinach. Thanks, Melandria … the flavor combinations look wonderful!
I always look forward to Alicia’s comments … she offers us such great ideas. Here’s what she shared this week: “Oh I like this challenge!! I cooked a spaghetti squash then I took tomatoes and basil from our garden added some sauteed onions and made a great sauce to put over the squash. All we had to add was a side salad and our meal was complete. The next night I made some homemade veggie broth then added tomatoes, basil, parsley,marjoram, and peppers from the garden. Then I added chick peas, spinach, green peas, onions and a little salt and pepper. We had a wonderful vegetable soup that was so tasty! For the next meal I used a recipe that I saw Ina Garten from the Barefoot Contessa cooking show make. It is a wonderful roasted potato salad with herbs. I used her recipe with just a little tweaking. I roasted the potatoes then added fresh herbs from the garden along with diced onions and red and yellow peppers. She used mayonnaise and mustard for the dressing. I used Tofutti and my own mustard blend that I make. Then just added salt and pepper to taste We had this with fried eggplant from the garden and some zucchini BBQ. I saw how to make this BBQ on several blogs and was amazed at how awesome it tastes. I know I got carried away a little on this challenge but I challenge myself every week to come up with tasty vegan meals. So I was just already in gear dor this challenge.”
Is yeast an “animal”? Can a vegan meal be quick, satisfying and economical? Can you have a delicious desert? Our friend Rewinn answers all of those questions in this POST. Towards the end of the article, he talks a bit about what he considers the biggest challenge in this activity. What’s your opinion?
Our Twitter friends had some great contributions to this week’s challenge:
From @givetreegifts
- After careful consideration, I realized that we don’t even eat out once a month. There’s no need…Ron’s an awesome cook! LOL
- Since we don’t eat out & we do eat vegan at least once a week. For this week’s #CTWW challenge, I’ll be focusing on savoring my food more.
- To Lose Weight, Savor Your Food http://www.cosmopolitan.com/celebrity/news/lose-weight-savor-food
- Stop and Chew Your Dinner The Benefits of Slowing Down & Chewing More http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/nutrition_articles.asp?id=963
- Mindful Eating For Health Mindful Eating Can Aid In Weight Loss and Stress Management http://stress.about.com/od/dietandsuppliments/a/mindful_eating.htm
- Don’t Eat So Fast! The Slow Food Movement Wants Us To Savor Our Food And Cultures http://www.gonomad.com/features/0105/axelrod_slowfood.html
- The Whole Foods Diet Savor foods in their natural form with this healthy eating style. http://www.dietsinreview.com/diets/the-whole-foods-diet/
- The Center for Mindful Eating: http://www.tcme.org/
From @live_esp
- this is a fun one! Love anything with food! Been travelling a lot these past 2 weeks, back now!
- Thinking about making spaghetti squash with roasted veggies tonight! #Vegan deliciousness
- @GGirlGGreen & @greenplaterule blogs have great #vegan recipes
From @rosieemery
- Change The World Wednesday #EcoFootprint Show: http://www.youtube.com/wgcucuriouskids
From @earthyurban
- How will you make a difference today? I try everyday, but I also understand how hard it could be when just surviving is hard enough.
From @ourtinyearth
- Prop 37 on November 6: http://ourtinyearth.com/2012/10/03/prop-37-on-november-6/
From @anitaadamsnc
- Greetings to the #CTWW Gang @smallftprints & many more! The veg. meal w/local produce is one I do regularly-go to the #FarmersMkt!
From @pinkladyapril
- Vegetarian meal tonight – Linda McCartney Deep Country Pies, mash & broccoli (I h8 broccoli)
From @rulesofgreen
- this week’s challenge was a fail, I thought I made a vegan dish but it turned out Quorn contains egg protein
- vegetarian I find easy to make but this week made me realise that vegan requires more thinking. Dairy always sneaks in
- I was also gonna present a yummy tortilla with salad and potato when I realised it contained halloumi cheese
The #CTWW Gang are those folks who share our challenges on twitter using the hashtag #CTWW. If you’re a Twitter member, I highly recommend following them … they have a lot of great things to say. Let’s meet them:
My favorite aspect of this challenge was that we improved on something which we’ve already accomplished. It reminds me that living “green” isn’t about making one change. It’s about continuing to improve … taking one action and then building on it.
Thanks, everyone! If you wrote an article, I have Stumbled, Tweeted, Facebooked and posted it on Google +. You can help spread the “green” word by using the share feature at the bottom of this post.
Special note … I’m going on vacation … WhooHoo! So our next challenge will run until October 31st at which time I’ll be back with a recap and a new activity.
This challenge comes from Joanne (aka @givetreegifts on Twitter) who said, “Going Green” Is So Last Season: The Future Is Zero Impact”. And that got me thinking (Uh Oh). Here you go …
If you don’t feel that you can achieve a zero impact on any of your activities, then please find at least one area where you can reduce your impact significantly. And yep, we want to hear all about it.
This challenge asks us to dig deep … are you up for it?
I’ll “see” you on the 31st. Until then …
WE’RE CHANGING THE WORLD … ONE CHALLENGE AT A TIME!
For additional green living tips and ideas, please visit Reduce Footprints at
reducefootprints.blogspot.com
2012-10-10 07:21:20
Source: http://reducefootprints.blogspot.com/2012/10/change-world-wednesday-ctww_10.html
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