Forgive me, Mother Earth, for I have sinned...

...it has been almost 2 months since my last entry.

BUT I'M BACK! Most (if not all) of you who read this are my Fb friends, so you know that I've been busy moving to Oceanside, touring Italy, visiting family, and settling into our new home! It has been a crazy two months and I'm so happy to finally be living in one spot for a long time.

So, where to start? Ah, yes.

Italy was AMAZING! I'll spare you the play-by-play and talk about the most important (and relevant) details - the FOOD. The food was to die for. Unlike in the US, all of the reputable restaurants use local and seasonal ingredients (very often from their own garden), making the simplest things taste so fresh. One night, in Rome, I ordered a pasta with sauce that was literally just crushed stewed tomatoes with a little salt and pepper. INCREDIBLE. We also visited Cinque Terre (pronounced chinkway terray, meaning five lands), which are five little beach towns painted on the side of a cliff, connected by hiking trails. This place has the best seafood I have ever had in my life. Think, resort town with the touch of grandma's cooking. So much care goes into every dish; fishing boats are going in and out of the harbor all day, and hiking around the towns you can see gardens growing fresh tomatoes, basil, squash, grapes, and many more. In fact, Cinque Terre is where pesto was invented, so of course I ordered pesto over homemade gnocchi, and I almost died it was so good. It made me wonder why people even bother with the crap that they serve in restaurants here.

Another cool, steffstainble thing about Italy was their toilets. Ok seriously, hear me out. On many of the toilets there are two flush buttons; one releases a small amount of water and the other releases more (comparable to a normal toilet in America). So, um, if you need a smaller flush, you push the little button. And, let's say, it might take a bigger flush, you push the big button. How cool is that?

Anyway, Italy was incredible, but I'm so happy to be back in America, which truly is the greatest country on earth. We are loving the San Diego area. In fact, there is a farmers market somewhere in the county EVERY DAY here! I'm loving it! We've been able to buy grass-fed beef from a local farm, locally-made snacks, and even homemade vegan cheesecake on top of the normal fruits and veggies you normally find at a farmers market. It's been amazing.

I have lots of new recipes to share with you, along with many other thoughts about sustainability and fitness. Welcome back to Steffstainability!

Drugs are Bad, Mmmkay?

Today my little brother turned 21 years old.

For over six months now, I've played today over and over in my mind. Around midnight, I give him a call and of course he is already drunk. I wish him a happy birthday but I know I'll have to call him in the morning/afternoon because he won't remember. My parents might drive out to visit him and take him to a nice dinner and buy him his first legal drink. He and his beautiful girlfriend, and all of his friends, share a great day together, probably ending in something so typically him, like watching the sun set over the beach or staring at the stars twinkling in the night sky. But we will never know.

My little brother passed away on January 28, 2010 from a heroin overdose.

This is not supposed to be my personal blog. This blog is supposed to be about sustainability, about keeping healthy. But this lifestyle is so intertwined with my life nowadays it is impossible to separate this blog from my life. So, as my life goes, so does my blog.

Illegal drugs are not sustainable. Most of our illegal drugs, such as marijuana, cocaine, meth, and heroin come from Mexico. This means quite a few things. First, like many of our "fresh" produce, these drugs have traveled thousands of miles, placing carbon footprints in the air, just so people can "escape" for a while. But more devastatingly (depending on who you ask), these drugs fund the drug war going on in Mexico. The money that you pay for your illegal drugs indirectly goes into the hands of the drug gangs fighting against each other in Mexico, killing innocent (and sometimes not-so-innocent, but no more deserving) people. Buying illegal drugs is environmentally and socially bad.

Not only that, most of the drugs I have listed literally alter your state of being. It actually changes the chemical balance in your body, so you are no longer who you once were. Trust me, I have seen it firsthand. Doing these drugs are bad for you body and your mind. For someone who cares so much about what I put into my body (and what others I care about put into theirs), I truly don't understand the reasoning behind consuming these products.

It's just not worth it. These illegal drugs can, more than likely, literally destroy who you are and take your family down with you. Your body is not what it was, your mind is not what it was, and the risk of putting your family through the pain can pull it apart. Even before my brother overdosed, my family had been through so much pain and strife trying to help him break away from this lifestyle. And we truly thought he had done it. Until one day, he left home just to buy some schoolbooks and he never came back.

Trying to make sense out of all of this, I've concluded that the only thing that can come of this is if it convinces other people to stay away from these horrid substances. My brother was a loving, caring person and I know that if he had realized the pain he was putting us all through, he would have never touched the stuff again. Please, learn from him. Don't wait until it's too late. Because he really died of an accident; it was just "one more time" of something he had done numerous times. But he either took too much, or got a bad batch, or some combination of the two, and because of this screw up, I'm sitting here with my family trying to push on, trying to fill this hole in our lives.

It's trivial and low-brow, but South Park really says it best when they say "Drugs are bad, mmkay?" There is literally nothing good that can come from it, whether environmentally, socially, or emotionally. It's just not worth it.

Rest in Peace, Mike, and happy birthday.

Because one bad choice leads to another

You know that Nutrigrain commercial? The one where the girl on one side of the screen has a Nutrigrain bar with breakfast and then during the day makes smart, healthy choices, and the girl on the other side of the screen has a donut (I think) and ends up making unhealthy choices all day long? That has basically been my life for the past 2 weeks.

I'm not perfect. I make mistakes, and I get lazy. I do things, like, say I don't update my blog for two weeks. Sorry. I also skip days at the gym, stop cleaning the house, don't go grocery shopping, and consequently eat out for dinner. Ugh. I'm upset with myself for letting it get this far. I don't mean to get too personal on here, but I'm just letting little things in my life get me down. I want to be settled, for goodness sake, and make a run to the grocery store without having to go to Walmart. This place is sucking the life out of me, and I'm letting the one thing I truly believe in, a healthy lifestyle, be taken away from me just because I'm frustrated.

It all started last Monday. It was August 2, and I just didn't want to go to the commissary (the grocery store on a military base, for you non-military folk). It's a madhouse at the beginning of the month, and although I do my grocery shopping on Mondays, I decided to skip and go on Tuesday instead, when it would be calmer. And that turned into Wednesday, and then Thursday, which then turned into this Wednesday and I STILL haven't been grocery shopping, except a few quick Walmart trips.

As a result, we started eating out more. I ate out more in the past week than I'd like to tell you. Because of that, my energy level is dropping and I haven't been to the gym in 3 days. I stopped caring enough to write on here, because I had nothing to say.

It's SO easy to slip out of a healthy lifestyle, especially when the town around you supplies you with unhealthy choices everywhere you turn. It's so easy to order a pizza instead of cook a good, healthy meal. Next thing you know, you're pounding down sodas and sitting on your butt all day.

You have to fight back! Losing your focus happens to the best of us, but it's up to you to realize it and pull yourself back into it. You owe it to yourself to take care of your body. Once you do that, your well-being improves; these past two weeks, I've literally felt it slipping away along with my dwindling energy level. You realize that the time you spent on your butt waiting on that pizza could have been spent making yourself a healthy meal that probably tastes better (especially if you live in Lawton, home of the crappiest pizza on the planet, I'm sure).

So remember, it's not just a sales pitch. One bad choice really DOES lead to another. So put that donut down and grab a banana instead. Now, I must head to sleep, because I'm going to the gym in the morning.

A Capitalist's Plea for Sustainable Food

I hate 24-hour network news. In fact, I hate most media outlets in general. I find them all so disgustingly dripping with partisanship it literally makes me sick to read/watch it. If this country comes crashing down, which I doubt but so many seem sure that we need to "take our country back" (from whom, I wonder?), I'm blaming it on the Glenn Becks and Keith Olbermanns.

I thought this was a blog about sustainability? I apologize for the digression, but I swear it ties into what I'm about to say. The one media outlet source I absolutely enjoy reading (but don't fully trust) is Fox News.

Just kidding. (that was for my father-in-law)

... is the Daily Beast. It's a conglomeration of bloggers and many of them are as fed up with partisanship in the media as I am. That is not to say that they aren't biased; one of the most important things I learned from my history education is that nothing is ever objective. But they are only moderately biased and I don't think they are pushing any political agenda on their readers. So today I was browsing the website and came across these two articles:

The 25 Worst Meals for Kids

40 Deadly Salads

Think your kids are safe if you order from the kids menu? Feeling like being healthy so you'll "just have a salad" when you are out for dinner? Think again. One problem about the expansion of sustainability is that businesses try to exploit the idea without actually following through. Think: BP's "Gas Friendly to Gas Free" slogan... yeah right. Be on the lookout for calorie-filled meals that are disguised as healthy!

Now, on to what I planned on writing about today before I had to share those articles.

I, like most Americans, am a capitalist. Now, in case you aren't like me and don't get excited when someone starts a theoretical discussion about economics, let me refresh your memory. People have been throwing around terms like "capitalist" "communist" and "socialist" in order to scare people about our economic climate. Since most people nowadays haven't taken an American civics course since 12th grade when they were probably daydreaming in the back of the classroom, the vast majority of the public doesn't really know what these mean anymore.

Capitalism - The form of economy (NOT government) in which ownership of companies is in the hands of the people. Like, Joe's Movie Theater is actually owned by Joe, and he makes the decisions for his company. Supply is determined by the demand of the consumer; if there is no demand for a product, the company will go out of business.

Socialism - The form of economy in which ownership of companies is in the hands of the government. Joe's Movie Theater is actually owned by the government, who pays Joe to manage the facility. But everything, from what is being shown at the theater, to how much popcorn is being sold, (supply and demand) is determined by the government.

Communism - is actually not an economic theory but a social theory, in which no one owns property, but is controlled by the community. Therefore, there are no social classes and everyone is equal. In fact, in true communism, there is no government at all.

Now that we have that boring stuff out of the way (which actually really excites me), let me get to my point. I am a capitalist. Private corporations and businesses have the right to determine their means of production and their products, and if the public doesn't like it, then their products aren't purchased and they go out of business. In a perfect world, that's how capitalism works.

But this isn't a perfect world, because corporations with less-than-ethical business practices and less-than-acceptable products make millions of dollars by "duping" their fellow Americans, or simply selling faulty products without realizing it. That's why we have things like the Food and Drug Administration; they prevent us from buying tainted meat or cereal with bugs in it.

However, there are many business practices, especially ones that go into our food, that are simply beyond the reach of the FDA. Like I said, I'm a capitalist. I don't want the government controlling every single aspect of how our food is made. First of all, there are always loopholes, no matter how hard the government tries. Second, my husband works for the government. I know exactly how screwed up bureaucracy is and how government regulation can just add pages and pages of paperwork (and we all know that isn't good for the environment!!).

But the problem remains. The big food corporations are trying to produce as much food as cheaply as possible. This means using pesticides that are harmful to the environment. This means packing chickens into an undersized, crowded room where disease spreads like wildfire. This means injecting chickens with hormones to make their breasts bigger while the rest of their body doesn't grow, making it impossible for them to have the strength to support themselves to take more than a few steps at a time. This means feeding animals cheap, massed-produced food, making them actually unhealthy. Animals standing ankle-deep in their own feces. Packing chickens and pigs into cages where they don't even have enough room to stand up and turn around. Having cows, who instinctually are supposed to be eating and living in grass, living in dirt-covered, barren dairies eating mass-produced corn. (All of this information comes from the film Food, Inc.) Going off on a quick tangent, mass-produced corn itself goes against the laws of capitalism. Corn is subsidized by the government; farmers are paid by the government to cheaply produce corn. Therefore, the price of corn is not determined by the market, as it should in a capitalist economy. The price of corn is determined by how much the government is willing to pay for it. By buying meat that comes from an animal who was fed mass-produced corn, you are supporting government subsidies and going against the laws of capitalism.

And it's not just the animals who are getting screwed here. The slaughterhouses are dirty and unsafe. Employees are underpaid to work in unsatisfactory conditions. The farmers who care for the animals we eat are underpaid from the corporations. In fact, according to Food, Inc., the average chicken farmer gets paid $17,000 a year to raise the chickens, but the upkeep and equipment to do so costs much more than that, which the farmers must pay out of pocket. Of course, the corporations don't tell them this before they sign their contract with them. And they make millions of dollars off of this.

This trickles all the way down to us, the consumer. Because of the dirty conditions in the slaughterhouses, it's very easy for tainted meat to reach the general public. Even if the meat isn't tainted, it's packed with hormones and steroids that get into our bodies, and according to some studies, can give us cancer. (See here) The antibiotics given to the animals (because they live in such close quarters) are still present when we buy the meat. Over time, the animals become resistant to the antibiotics, and since only traces of it are left in the food we eat, we become resistant as well. So when we get sick, the antibiotics prescribed to us won't work anymore (See PBS).

And to go against the basis of capitalism, we are paying for a product that isn't good! It doesn't even taste good. Try eating fresh, and I mean FRESH, meat instead of what you buy at the store. It's not just meat, either. A freshly-picked strawberry tastes eons better than the ones you buy at the store. And tomatoes? Go to your local farmers market and buy a fresh tomato. They are in season. Then go to the grocery store and buy a tomato. Eat them side by side. NO COMPARISON. You know why? Because tomatoes you buy in the store are picked when they are green and then injected with chemicals to ripen (See here). Even fresh onions taste better than store-bought. And the chemical-free, organic produce? It tastes even better.

My point is that our food production system goes agains the laws of capitalism. We are buying a substandard product that is based off of unethical business practices. Any true believer in capitalism should be against this. Does this mean the government should get involved? Honestly, I don't fully know the answer to that. The government is already involved, conservatives won't agree to more government regulation, and recently any kind of government "reform" has been ineffective, only creating hoops and red tape without actually getting to the root of the problem. But I also think that these businesses shouldn't be allowed to do what they are doing.

So what do we do? Spread the word! One of the reasons capitalism fails here is because people aren't educated on how their food is produced, so how could they know not to buy bad food? The capitalist way to solve this is to not buy the food yourself, and tell others not to buy the food as well. Encourage your friends and family to go to the farmers market and buy products that are in season. Spread the word about my blog (Did I just shamelessly advertise? Maybe.). Don't buy meat from mass-produced meat corporations such as Tyson or Perdue. I'm in the process of compiling a list of unethical meat producers, and a list of ethical ones.

I know for a fact that Harvestland products are organic. You can buy them at Walmart. *gasp* I know. Walmart doesn't seem to fit into the picture of sustainability. But it actually really does. They sell quite a few sustainable, organic products that frequent my shelves and fridge. Harvestland chicken are cage-free, steroid-free, and humanely raised. They also sell Stonyfield organic yogurt. Be on the lookout for more organic, safe, sustainable food producers. I'll be posting a list soon.

We can change this without, as I say, being a complete and total hippie. Use word of mouth, instead of the hand of the government, to fix this problem. It's problems like this one that make people search for alternatives to capitalism, which, in my opinion, are dangerous to our freedoms. Don't give people that chance. Change in a capitalist society has to come from the consumer. That's you and me. It's up to us to change this.

Sustainable Tips and a Little Bragging

I know that I've been MIA for about a week, and I'm sure that all (seven) of my readers (two of which are my mother and mother-in-law) are sitting at the edge of their computer chairs/couch/bed to find out where I've been. Worry no more, I am back!

Today is Ryan's and my first wedding anniversary. We decided to go all out for this anniversary, after all, you only get your first anniversary once, and we don't know if Ryan will even be in the country for the next one. So I've spent the last week prepping for the occasion. Anyone who knows Ryan knows that he LOVES Mustangs, and I was supposed to buy him a model Bullitt that he had found on the internet. Of course by the time I got around to ordering it, it was out of stock. So I decided to go with the traditional wedding gift, paper and clocks. I made him a model Bullitt out of paper and painted it myself. Anyone who knows me knows that I am NOT crafty, so this endeavor created quite a headache for me! I also framed one of our wedding pictures, and bought him a USMC wall clock.

Ryan went above and beyond! He planned an entire weekend in Dallas at the wonderful Palomar Hotel and the most delicious dinner at Stephan Pyles restaurant. It was amazing! We went shopping yesterday and checked out the Dallas World Aquarium today, which was completely awesome. But what really blew me away was my gift:

When we first got engaged, we were both poor college students and he didn't have a lot of money to spend on a ring. Not that my ring was cheap, but he has said ever since that he wanted to get me a bigger, better one. So that's what he got me for our anniversary! I wasn't expecting it so soon; I thought a few years down the road I would get an upgrade so this was completely unexpected! At any rate, I don't mean to brag a bit, but I seriously am so lucky to have my husband. I have gone through a lot this year and I couldn't have done it without his unconditional love and support.

Now for the actual purpose of this blog. Aside from advocating farmers markets and the random rant about the guy who left his car running, I haven't spent much time talking about how to protect the environment. I promise, I'm making up for that today. Here are a few tips to be a little friendlier to our planet. These tips don't inconvenience you, they don't cost you more money, and you don't have to change your life just to follow them. It is VERY easy to follow these tips.

• Buy reusable shopping bags. Plastic bags never decompose, so try to limit your usage of them! For years, I used the old "Oh I'll buy them but I would never remember to take them with me, so I just won't get them" excuse. Shame on me! It's very easy to get into the habit of remembering to bring them with you once you own them. No excuses! They are cheap, and if you buy one every 2 weeks or so, you can build up quite the arsenal.
• For your other shopping bags, ask for paper, every time. Paper is easily recycled. In fact, I use my paper bags to hold all of my recyclables.
• Recycle!! Growing up in the California suburbs, I took recycling for granted. It was so easy to just throw all my recyclables in a bin and have them picked up. Little did I know, that is not the way the rest of the country operates! But recycling centers are everywhere, and it doesn't take a whole lot of effort just to separate your recyclables and drive to the recycling center once a week. You can even make it a routine, and finish it off by rewarding yourself with your favorite treat.
• I never thought I would have to say this, but clearly, it needs to be said. Don't leave your car running while you run in to get a sandwich. Seriously.
• While on the subject of cars, refrain from using drive-thrus whenever possible. Especially when there is a long line.
• Keep your tires properly inflated to optimize gas mileage.
• If you have the time, bike to the grocery store/movie store. I know weather, distance, and time constraints can prevent you from doing this, but if it's within reason, there's no reason not to! You can even get a trailer to put behind your bike for your groceries. It can even be a fun family activity. Last weekend I saw a whole family walking to the grocery store together in the Oklahoma heat.
• Use natural light during the day. It will save you money and it's better for the environment.
• Shut off lights when you're not using them. Get in the habit of shutting the light off when you leave the room.
• Buy flourescent lights. They last longer and use less electricity.
• Unplug stuff you aren't using. If you are leaving town for a few days, even unplug your TV, microwave, stereo, etc.
• If you are running your A/C or heat, make sure all windows and doors are closed. Shut vents in rooms you don't frequent or are not being used.
• Only do full loads of dishes/laundry
• Skip the dry cycle/dryer and air dry your dishes or clothes.
• When rinsing or washing dishes by hand, don't turn the water on all the way. You can get the water you need at a low trickle instead of blasting it at full capacity.
• Take shorter showers. No one, and I mean NO ONE, needs longer than a 15 minute shower. I may seem rude with this one, but seriously. Stop being so high-maintenance.
• Use the microwave/toaster oven to reheat things. It uses less electricity than the stove and oven
• Instead of driving to the gym to use the treadmill (and more electricity), run outside if weather permits.
• Use recycled or biodegradable products. As more people are becoming concerned for the environment, recycled or biodegradable products are generally advertised by their labels.
• Don't buy individually wrapped candies... it's not like you need the sugar anyway!
• Buy domestic products. This includes water, coffee, alcohol, clothing, leather, cars (that are actually assembled in the US!), toys, and I'm sure there are more.
• This may seem silly, but limit your toilet paper consumption! Two or three squares per use should cover it.
• Replace disposable with reusable. Diapers, razors, batteries, ink cartridges, plates and silverware...

Alright, that is quite enough for one day. I want to thank my husband for sharing the last year of our lives, and all our years ahead, being married to me. =)

Photos courtesy of our wonderful photographer, Beth Armsheimer

Stephen Colbert goes Steffstainable!!

Below is a link to a clip from The Colbert Report last night. In his typical tongue-in-cheek fashion, Stephen advocates being healthy and eating sustainable seafood!

Enjoy!