The Crunch

Green Festival™, the nation’s largest sustainability event, returns to the Washington Convention Center October 23-24. This year’s Green Festival theme is ‘Engagement,’ with exciting new ways to shop green, be inspired, get engaged and give back. Community members enjoy informative, insightful speakers, incomparable green shopping, cutting edge eco-innovations, great live music, fun and educational family activities, hands-on workshops, organic wine and beer and delicious, local vegetarian cuisine. Ten stages and pavilions give attendees the opportunity to engage with 125 local experts and nationally-renowned authors, actors, leaders, educators, farmers and visionaries. Exciting keynote speakers include Ralph Nader, Amy Goodman, Gilberto Gil, Patti Moreno, Reverend Lennox Yearwood, Jr., Dean Baker, Bernardine Dorhn, Bill Ayers, Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, Daniel Pinchbeck, Ambassadors from Bolivia and Venezuela, Tracy McQuirter and many more.

Plus, our new admission options are geared to encourage everyone to get involved in their community with immediate dividends from Green Festival.

For more information about attending Washington D.C. Green Festival, please visit http://www.greenfestivals.org/wdc/.

We had lots of healthy happenings over the summer.  Not only did I complete the Standard Process cleanse to get to my fighting weight, but I also did a clean sweep of my medicine cabinet.  Turns out that I had a lot of beauty products (not cheap ones, either), that were chock full of nasty little things called parabens.  Parabens are found in everything from your shampoo to your shaving cream.  They are so common because they act as a preservative for these products.  Unfortunately, they also mimic estrogen, which unless this hormone is in balance, can wreak all kinds of havoc on your body. 

The good news is that more and more products are being produced “paraben-free” and you don’t have to go very far to find them.  One great site is www.cosmeticsdatabase.com.  At this site you can sort products by category (skin care, sunscreen, etc).  You can then read a list of the ingredients and comments on what others thought of the product.  It also ranks the product on a scale from 0-10 ( 0 being great, 10, not so good).   

I have also had a lot of personal trial and error over the summer testing products.  Some I love, some I don’t.  I know what you’re thinking.  I bet this paraben-free kick costs a lot of money- not true. Some of my favorite products are available at your local drug store.  St. Ives (www.stives.com) has a paraben and phthalate free body lotion that is creamy and moisturizing for $4.99 !  They also carry some” p-free” face washes and scrubs in the $2.99- 4.99 range.  Nature’s Gate (www.natures-gate.com) has yummy smelling shampoos and conditioners, both for about $6.50 each.  You can find these at Whole Foods or www.amazon.com.   I also like Avalon Organic (www.avalonorganics.com) products.  They have a peppermint shaving cream that leaves your legs so smooth, you don’t need lotion afterwards.  All of that minty good-for your-skin for $4.99 for 8 fl. Oz. at Whole Foods.  A little goes a long way with this product.

So as you can see, you don’t have to spend a lot or do a ton of research to find the products that are best for your body.  I will continue to post more products as I self-test!  Let me know what you come up with.

Happy paraben-free end of summer!

Heather

It’s a busy time of year for one and all.  Back to school, shorter days and the holiday rush (big excuse for why I haven’t been blogging) have many of us wondering where the day went.  Most of my day(s) have been spent trying to find new ways to improve upon Crunchy Granola Home and hunting down the next perfect eco-friendly must-have.  However, I have found time in smidgens and snipets to have some fun, eco-style.  First was the Green Festival in DC.  What a blast- well once we finally made it there (long story involving broken down public trans.)  We sampled and chatted and came away with some great ideas for cleaning, cooking and getting a free solar power home analysis! (Visit www.standardsolar.com to see if you qualify).  The best part of the festival for me was watching kids make small cities and sculptures out of trash.  So creative and these kids were having a blast (while learning a very valuable lesson, of course). 

Building made of trash!

How cool is this?

From there, we headed down to the Solar Decathalon on the Mall.  Ever been?  Colleges from all over compete for the best design for a totally solar powered home.  They were all beautiful and innovative, but this one was my fav.

My favorite Solar House

Looks like a ski chalet, doesn’t it?  Which brings me to my next “to do,” plan a vacation!

What I mean to say is that we have jumped on the band wagon by adding eco-friendly water bottles to the Crunchy line… we have always (almost) used them ourselves. 

We had avoided selling said bottles thus far, because everybody else does, and frankly we didn’t want to waste energy competing.  But then, last week in Atlanta (on buying trip), I was reminded of how many water bottles we use daily.  Wanna guess?  25MM, yes, 25 million a day that end up in our landfills.  So I re-thought my selling the water bottle embargo… plus we stumbled upon a really great concept.

“Waterweek.”  Five 16-ounce bottles in a re-usable tray.  You fill your bottles with your filtered tap water at the beginning of the week and voila, water for the week, or “waterweek.”  Perfect.  This not only saves our landfills, but it saves you a few bucks in the long run (roughly $500, we’re told).

So check out “Waterweek” under Fresh Discoveries and let us know what you think.

Did I mention that they are BPA free, as well?

www.crunchygranolahome.com/freshdiscoveries

"Waterweek"