simple.green.organic.happy.

Category: Food & Recipes

  • CLOSED: “Recycle for Rewards” with Kashi & Recyclebank (plus Giveaway!)

    CLOSED: “Recycle for Rewards” with Kashi & Recyclebank (plus Giveaway!)

    And the winner is…

    Comment #35, Barbara M.
    Congrats and thanks to everyone who entered!

    kashi

    Kashi Company, the premier natural food and lifestyle company, and Recyclebank, the company that rewards people with discounts and deals for taking everyday green actions, have developed a new way to reward people for learning about sustainability.

    recycle bank logo

    Recyclebank came to Delaware just after we moved into PA (of course), offering special recycling carts which are weighed each week when recycling is picked up. The weight of the recyclables in your cart is translated into Recyclebank points, which are redeemable for rewards like gift cards or discounts.

    I KNOW. That’s super awesome.

    Sadly, I live on the most inconvenient stretch of road imaginable for big ol’ recycling trucks, so even though my waste company does pick up recycling it never seems to pick up mine. So I suck it up and take my recycling to community bins, and get no pats on the back for all my conscientious hard work. Sniff, sniff.

    What I didn’t realize is that even I can earn rewards! Recyclebank offers reward points for everyday green actions other than their (incredibly smart) physical recycling program.

    For example:

    From now until December 31, 2011, if you purchase any of these seven Kashi cereals:

    1. Kashi Autumn Wheat
    2. Cinnamon Harvest
    3. Island Vanilla (organic)
    4. Strawberry Fields (organic)
    5. Kashi Honey Sunshine
    6. Berry Blossoms
    7. Golden Goodness

    you’ll find a “Recycle for Rewards” callout on the side panel of the box. Enter the code online as a pledge to recycle your cereal box (even if you have to drive it to the recycling center yourself like me), and you’ll earn 50 Recyclebank Points per box! These points are redeemable for rewards from local and national business partners, including coupons for Kashi products.

    AND, if you watch the following video about the lifecycle of a cereal box— from original purchase at the grocery store to gaining a second life at the recycling facility (embedded below, RSS and email subscribers may have to click through, sorry)— and then answer a few questions, you’ll earn 25 bonus points.


    Recycling paperboard is a big deal, and I’m not sure that most people are even aware that they should be recycling it! About 2.7 billion packages of cereal are purchased each year, and most of it can be recycled. Little steps add up to big changes, folks, and if everyone made this small change we’d be diverting an enormous quantity of paperboard from our dumps, and saving copious quantities of energy and natural resources to boot.

    The video also mentions one of the points that I love to drum into people’s heads, so here it is again: it is so important to close the cycle and buy products made from recycled content (extra snaps for products with a high post-consumer content, meaning that it’s material that actually passed through a consumer’s hands into the recycling bin). Create the demand for recycled products and packaging and the companies will follow— and be sure to support early adopters like Kashi who have already taken the sustainable route.

     

    GIVEAWAY!!

    kashi-strawberry-fieldsI’ve only tried the Strawberry Fields and the Honey Sunshine thus far, but one lucky reader gets to try all seven cereals involved in “Recycle for Rewards” (listed above). These cereals are natural, minimally processed and free of highly refined sugars, artificial additives and preservatives.

    • Just tell me what you recycle, or one way you reduce paper waste, for your chance to win a sample pack of seven Kashi cereals.
    • For a second entry, you can follow me on Twitter and leave me an additional comment letting me know you did. (If you already follow, leave me a comment saying so!)

    ______________________________________

     

    For more info on Kashi:

    For more on Recyclebank:

    This giveaway will close at midnight on Wednesday, July 20th. One winner will be selected at random the next morning from all entries and contacted via the email provided on the comment form. Winner has 48 hours to reply before a new winner is drawn. US mailing addresses only, please.

     

  • It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

    It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

    carton sugar plums

    Don’t be polite.
    Bite in.
    Pick it up with your fingers and lick the
    juice that may run down your chin.
    It is ready and ripe now, wherever you are.

    You do not need a knife or a fork or a spoon
    or plate or napkin or tablecloth.

    For there is no core
    or stem
    or rind
    or pit
    or seed
    or skin
    to throw away.

    -Eve Merriam, “How to Eat a Poem”

     

    Sugar plums are in season, for a few short glorious weeks. My favorite weeks of the year.

    It’s blackberry-picking season at local farms:

    blackberry colander

    The pricker canes I kept meaning to have Jeff yank out have yielded wild raspberries.

    (Every year, I forget that’s what those are. Every year, we never get around to yanking them out anyway… thank goodness. There’s nothing more satisfying than sending the kids out foraging for fresh berries to top Belgian waffles with, with a little homemade whipped cream on the side…)

    raspberry canes

    And oh boy oh boy,
    I’m about to have cherry tomatoes coming outta my ears.

    backyard tomatoes
     

    Summer… is poetry. And I’m eating it all up.

     

     What foods mean summer to you?

     

  • I Think I Might Need to Cheat a Little Bit

    I Think I Might Need to Cheat a Little Bit

    farmers market squash and zucchini

    Listen
    Do you want to know a secret
    Do you promise not to tell?
    Oh-a-whoa, oh
    closer

    For one reason or another I’ve had to miss the last two Sundays at my farmers market. Cassidy and I were both genuinely worried we’d bypassed the sugar plum crop entirely, but I wrote about the glory of sugar plums last year on July 12th, so I think we’re safe.

    I’m feeling a little bit out of sorts about the whole thing. I don’t like my routines disrupted, for starters, but I think I haven’t been eating as much produce as a direct result— the grocery store feels subpar and overpriced by comparison— and I feel a physical difference. I feel heavy.

    After a holiday weekend we have pretty much no food in our pantry or refrigerator, and I don’t wanna go to the supermarket.

    I want fresh tomatoes and sweet corn and blackberries and local eggs and cheese and bacon. (Now I kinda want an omelet.)

    I want to talk to the farmers about what to do with garlic scapes and laugh about how the kids have grown.

    I hate grocery shopping and I enjoy market shopping. I don’t think it’s too much to ask, to enjoy my thankless chores for at least a few months of the year.

    So…. I think I’m going to visit a new (to me)  farmers market this week. Or maybe two.

    I feel vaguely like I’m cheating on my regular market. A wanton foodie hussy. Don’t worry, darlings. I have enough love to go around…