Zojirushi Ms. Bento® Stainless Steel Lunch Jar
This is a blog post responding to a Back to School / Lunch Revolution Blog and Twitter Party invitation over on Fed Up With Lunch: The School Lunch Project.
The party organizers asked participants to answer one or more questions including “Does school lunch need to be reformed?”
Ehm, yes!
As I wrote in a blog post not too long ago, I’m an angry mom when it comes to school food. I’m angry that I can’t trust the food that is being served in the cafeteria. I’m angry that the school offers a la carte items like Pop-Tarts® and Doritos®. I’m angry about the stigma that is created from the different levels of income-based subsidies. And I’m angry that corporations are making a profit while their food is making our children sick.
Just wanted to let you know that I have a new page on this site! It’s called “Books.” Pretty self-explanatory…
This page contains some of my favorite books, most of them related to simplicity and making the world a better place. I plan to add to this as I finish reading awesome books (and more books become available in the Commission Junction feed).
If you click on the book cover, your browser will open a new page to let you buy the book over at BetterWorldBooks. I love this site because they work for literacy and save tons of books from landfills (34+ million so far).
I hope you enjoy my small, but growing collection.
Good Night.
A few weeks ago, my daughter picked up a copy of Teen Vogue to have something to read during an airplane ride. When she was done with it (within 15-30 minutes), she handed it to me. I was tired and thought that it would be a good break from the fairly heavy non-fiction book I was reading…
The first thing I noticed was the massive amount of advertising. In this magazine geared toward teen girls, the letter from the editor did not show up until page 70! Everything before that was advertising and index-type pages. Out of 228 pages, only 55 pages were advertising-free (and that’s being lenient – i.e., not counting clothes worn by celebrities, etc). My daughter even commented, “I wish they had more articles.” (I counted two real articles.)
Secondly, and even more disturbingly, I found myself wanting to go buy clothes while flipping through the pages of this magazine. Me, Ms. “Don’t-Buy-Anything-You-Don’t-Need!” I was heavily influenced by the images I saw even though I know all about how advertising works and what the advertisers are trying to do to me. Scary!
For the past several months, I have become increasingly disturbed by the school food situation in this country.
It all started when my 7th grader decided that it was inconvenient and uncool to bring a packed lunch from home. Initially, I didn’t think much about it and was actually quite excited about not having to pack her lunch every morning. I did fleetingly wonder about the sudden change in her culinary preferences, because throughout her entire academic career she’s always described the school lunch as “nasty.” Yet, I (foolishly) assumed she was eating the federally subsidized “hot meal.”
It was not until I figured out how to check her lunch account online (very nifty) that I realized she had discovered the “a la carte” line. I was under the impression that the a la carte program was an option to buy things like salads, sandwiches, and fruits. Well, it is. But the students can also buy cookies, Pop-Tarts®, chips, and bottled drinks (not sodas, thank God!). My child had been eating a lunch consisting of chips, an apple, cookies, and a bottle of Propel…
John Setyabule in Uganda.
Back in March, I wrote a post about Kiva and encouraged folks to join the Simply Enough team to raise $10,000 by the end of the year. Well, my team (of one) isn’t doing so great in reaching this goal, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not making a difference.
Just this week, I received an email from my Kiva account indicating that a certain amount of money had been repaid. Cool! Time to lend it to somebody else! I selected John Setyabule from Uganda. He wants to add more inventory to his store to increase sales.
Now, I know my money may not be going to John per se, but it is going to someone like him who dreams of a better future for himself and his family. A future where they have a self-sustaining business that can pay the bills and put food on the table. And once they pay their loan back, I can lend that money to somebody else.
Rather than spending all your “charity money” on donations, why not “invest” some of it in a microlending organization like Kiva where the money can keep working (and working) to help multiple people reach their dreams and pull themselves out of poverty.
Tiramisu - my guilty pleasure
Last night my husband and I went to our favorite Italian restaurant in the area. The chef makes pasta from scratch every day and cooks with fresh and local ingredients.
(Based on this description, do I need to tell you that it’s not a cheap place?)
When our server announced one of the chef’s specials of the evening, “Spaghetti Rustica” (with sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese), I just could not resist.
“Does it come in a half portion?” I asked hopefully.
“No, not the specials,” was the regretful response.
“How much is it?” I continued.
“Nineteen dollars.”
“Yikes!” was my initial thought. I feel guilty when I spend more than $15 on dinner. I quickly deliberated with myself and decided that it was still cheaper than most of the non-pasta entrées on the menu and I could go without a dinner salad. “Sounds good!”
Photo by "brainloc" at RGBStock.
One of my book purchases in Sweden was a book called Äkta Vara, which can be loosely translated as “Genuine Product.” It’s a follow-up to a book I read last December called Hemlige Kocken (or “The Secret Chef”). This ground-breaking book is investigative journalism at its best and outlines all the dirty secrets of the Swedish food industry. It definitely makes you think twice about buying/eating anything without taking a real close look at the ingredients list.
Äkta Vara is an A-Z guide providing information about 150 common foods with tips on how to find quality/organic varieties and what to watch out for. While reading the book, I had a really hard time stomaching any kind of processed food (I even said no to ice cream at one point…). It’s so insane what the food industry adds to our food to make it taste better, look better, and last longer.
Photo by Patrycja Cieszkowska-Krystosik at rgbstock.com.
Does everybody really need their own lawn mower? That is the topic of this post. Well, not just lawn mowers, but stuff in general. I’m talking about machines and tools that often cost a lot of money, but are not used all the time or are otherwise conducive to sharing. Like cars, swing sets, grills, pools, workout equipment, gardening tools, roast pots, steam cleaners, snow blowers, and, of course, lawn mowers.
We currently live in an apartment complex where we are at least able to share things like grills, a pool, and workout equipment. We don’t need much of the other “stuff,” because we don’t have a yard to take care of. However, I know that it’s possible even in a neighborhood with individual homes. It has been done.
Photo by Marja Flick-Buijs at RGBStock.
I love new months. I love the opportunity they bring for implementing new ideas and setting new goals. Maybe it’s a mental thing, but I have a hard time starting something new in the middle of a month.
One of my gurus, Leo Babauta, recently wrote a blog post called “the best goal is no goal.” Whoa! This is a pretty big departure from his previous advice of setting one goal per month and working every day toward that goal. His main reasoning is that “Goals as a system are set up for failure.” When you fail, you blame yourself. Rather, he proposes that you “simply do.” Do something you’re passionate about and see what happens.
I get what he’s saying, but I’m not quite ready to give up my goals. Perhaps I feel that partially achieving the goal is better than not trying at all. Or maybe I am passionate about the goals I set, so I’m more likely to achieve them.
And I like having many goals going on at once! Some related to health, some related to work, and some related to family.
Graphic by "sundesigns" at RGBStock.
In order to simplify my workout life, I decided sign up for Milwaukee’s Race for the Cure (click here to donate – it’s for a great cause!). The reason this simplifies my workout life is that it entices me to get on a training schedule and, thus, I don’t have to think about what workout to do every morning. I have an excellent 5K training plan from runnersworld.com that I’ve used with success in the past.
Since I am just starting out, the mileage is not super high, so today’s goal was 4-6 miles easy. I decided to go 4 miles (I was feeling a little lazy and also wanted to get on with my day). The first mile was OK – warming up is pretty fun. The next mile was boring. The third mile was even more boring. However, once I got toward the end of my run, I started feeling really good and told my husband (who was on the treadmill next to mine, cooling down from his seven mile jog – he’s a machine) that I’d decided to go an extra mile.
“That would be a good blog post,” he said. So here we go…
