Blog Posts by Diane MacEachern

Weeds! Don't you hate em?

And no wonder.

Weeds are like those prank candles people put on top of a beautifully decorated birthday cake. You go to make your birthday wish --only to have it thrown back in your face when the candles refuse to blow out. No matter how often you blow, the flame reappears. Then, just when you think you've finally won, you realize you've sprayed wax all over the cake, leaving you both defeated and wishless.

Although the scenario is an obvious exaggeration, it highlights the challenge you face every time you try to control weeds. They keep coming back. And if your only solution is to use chemicals to control them, well, it's a lot like spraying wax all over your delicious cake.

There are some environmentally friendly herbal and biodegradable sprays you can use to control unwanted plants. But before you take that step, try these practical, eco, and cheap cultivation techniques.

Go back to the beginning. The key to safe, environmental weed

If you're like most women, you'll use as many as 11,000 tampons during your lifetime. Add to that a couple of thousand pads and panty liners, and the ecological impact of your monthly cycle really starts to add up. Particularly egregious are the plastic applicators that come with some tampons. They can escape from any landfill- or wastebasket, for that matter- and plop down in a lake, river, playground, or just about anywhere else you'd rather not see them. The darn things are so indestructible even a car can run over them and not destroy them.

Conventional products may contain a mixture of rayon and cotton. Rayon has been implicated in toxic shock syndrome, particularly for superabsorbent tampons. Cotton is highly pesticide-intensive; 25 percent of pesticides used globally are devoted to growing cotton. To look as white as possible, conventional pads and tampons are usually bleached with chlorine, a process that can create dioxin, a known carcinogen.

Tampons, pads, and

Do you color your hair but worry about the impact hair dye could have on the environment as well as your own health and safety? I wish the information provided were more reassuring, but the truth is- we don't know much about hair dye. It's likely that when you dye your hair, a small amount is absorbed into your system. According to a 2001 study, women who regularly color their hair with permanent hair dyes are at a greater risk for bladder cancer. However, in 2004 the American Journal of Epidemiology reported that a recent study showed no increased risk of cancer among women who started using hair-coloring products in 1980 or later.

With the information so inconclusive, it makes sense to take precautions that will protect the environment as well as yourself:

Check the safety of the ingredients in your hair coloring against the Environmental Working Group's cosmetics database, where you can also find alternative, safer products.

Buy hair-color products that meet the

Consumers buy more automatic-drip coffeemakers than any other small kitchen appliance, so it's no wonder they use about $400 million worth of electricity just brewing coffee every year. To make an energy-efficient but still high-voltage cup of java, start with the pot:

French press. Bodum Chambord's elegant but inexpensive model (pictured left) makes delicious coffee; the Columbia design contains the coffee in a thermal carafe to keep the beverage warm without the need for an electric hot plate.

Chemex manual drip coffeepots. This hourglass-shaped flask can use recycled paper filters. Make as little as one cup of coffee, or as many as ten.

Chef's Choice electric French press plus. This environmentally-friendly technology combines the French press and an energy-saving electric kettle in one pot.

One-cup coffeemakers. These efficient pots can brew coffee in less than a minute, eliminating the need to prepare a whole pot. Check the housewares section of Target,

For top-notch cooking without the worry generated by non-stick cookware, I turn to cast iron. Here's why:

What I Like:

* You get "non stick" without the nonsense of PFOA, the nasty chemical that makes Teflon easy to clean but also health threatening.

*Once cast iron is seasoned (a simple process), it cooks beautifully. I make lots of sticky stuff in my pans, like omelets, sautes, and stir fry. I use just a little bit of oil to lubricate the surface, then gradually heat the pan. It cooks like a dream.

*The pan can be cleaned with hot water and a scrub brush only. No soap, please - these pans need to remain "seasoned" to work properly, so you never want to try to remove all the oil that bakes into their surface.

*Finally, cast iron really holds the heat. If I'm cooking a soup or stew, I can turn the heat completely off ten minutes early and the heat in the pot will keep the ingredients bubbling along. That also makes it a great serving dish. You won't have to worry

This Earth Day, it's important to consider the environment not only for its impact on Mother Nature and our human health, but our favorite furry companions as well. In the first study of its kind, Environmental Working Group (EWG) has found that companion cats and dogs are polluted with even higher levels of many of the same synthetic industrial chemicals that researchers have recently found in people, including newborns. Here are some excerpts from their recent news release:

The 20 dogs and 40 cats EWG studied were contaminated with 48 of 70 industrial chemicals tested. Average levels of many chemicals were substantially higher in pets than is typical for people, with 2.4 times higher levels of stain-and grease-proof coatings (perfluorochemicals) in dogs, 23 times more fire retardants (PBDEs) in cats, and more than 5 times the amounts of mercury, compared to average levels in people found in national studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and EWG.

Clean out your fridge.

But before you toss all the expired or rotted food you find into the trash can, put it on your counter. Now do a rough calculation of how much that 'trash' cost you. Don't be surprised if it amounts to as much as 30% of your weekly household budget. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, consumers on average throw away $30 of every $100 they spend - simply by forgetting to eat what they buy. In this economy, that's a lot of money for anyone. But it's especially painful for people who want to buy organic food and feel like they can't afford to pay the premium it costs.

They can. Here's how.

* Shop from a list you make in advance. Generate your shopping list from recipes you're likely to cook during the week. You'll buy fewer ingredients overall, but have the ingredients you need, and cook what you buy so you waste less.

* Avoid impulse buys. That fancy mustard on those cute crackers they're handing out as you shop? If you're like me,

You don't need to be a complete vegetarian for your diet to help protect the planet. Just eat less meat. Here's why:

1. Save the rainforest. World Wildlife Fund estimates that, every year, an area of the world's rain forests larger than the state of New York is destroyed to create grazing land. In latin America, says the United Nations, some 70% of forests in the Amazon basin have been cut down to raise cows.

2. Refresh the air. If you've ever driven by a feed lot, you've probably had to hold your nose. No wonder. About 1.4 billion metric tons of solid manure are produced by U.S. farm animals each year - 130 times the quantity produced by people.This figure includes pigs and chickens as well as cattle, but cattle are the single largest source.

3. Keep water clean. Two-thirds of the beef cattle raised in the U.S. are fattened up using hormones like steroids, testosterone and progesterone. When the cows pee, they can pollute surface and ground water with all these