Now, you’ve probably all heard the big hullaballoo about the food crisis, what with food price inflation in recent months. It’s not that there isn’t enough food, it’s just that a lot of food ends up wasted (or diverted to biofuel, I know). In fact, according to a government study, the U.S. wastes a whopping 27 percent of food available for consumption!!

That’s a huge amount. Dang, just staggering. To put this number in Joe terms, it’s like if for every four apples you buy at the store, you have to throw one of them in the trash. It’s a waste o’ time, money, and natural resources. Of course, a large amount of the wasted food is not wasted by consumers, but by the food industry (mainly restaurants).

Most of that food, when thrown away, just ends up taking up space in landfills. Fortunately, good ol’ North Carolina is stepping up to the plate and leading the Southeast in “food waste source reduction and recycling, which includes composting”, according to Mary Beth Van Pelt, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientist based in Atlanta. N.C.’s eventual goal is to ban food waste from landfills, just like they banned yard waste from landfills in 1993.

Many restaurants are taking their own steps to reduce food waste, both by improving efficiency and by composting their old food. Watch, if you please, this video on a restaurant in Portland that’s doing its own commercial composting:



If the world (not just the U.S.) can improve how efficiently it uses its food, prices would drop, everyone would have enough to eat, and we’d be filling up landfills more slowly. So por favor, the next time you’re about to buy some food, make sure that you end up eating it (or donating it to me).If you somehow still want to read even more about food waste (and what is being done to lessen it), lo recomiendo este sitio.

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Last Saturday, me n’ Tiff went on the Henside the Beltline: Tour d’Coop around Raleigh. All’s we had to do was turn in two cans of food, get a map of the 20 urban chicken coop locations, and we were off on a journey of knowledge and wonder.

The Tour d’Coop turned out to be really cool. When people think of raising chickens, you think of a farm out in hickville, but it turns out a lot of people in Raleigh raise chickens. Each house we went to was in a “normal” neighborhood. Most of the houses had really nice backyards, with little vegetable gardens, water cisterns, homemade chicken coops, and rain barrels.

There were probably around 10 visitors at each stop, and the yellow-t-shirt-clad owners were happy to dish out folksy nuggets o’ chicken-raising wisdom.

Fun Facts about Raising Your Own Chickens

I learned these here chicken facts during the amazing Tour D’Coop.

• Heat is more dangerous to chickens than cold (most can survive outside in winter)
• Make sure the chicken fence goes at least a foot into the ground to keep out burrowing predators
• Protect chickens from hawks, raccoons, dogs, cats (some dogs and cats can get along with them)
• At night, the hens get sort of “dumb” and slow, so make sure they’re safe
• Chicken poo is a good fertilizer
• Basically an egg a day per chicken!
• Easy to take care of, “like an aquarium”
• No rooster needed, so you won’t be waking neighbors up at the crack o’ dawn
• Orange yolk instead of yellow, because of more beta carotene

After all that learning, I think I’d like to raise me some chickens in my backyard one day. All the eggs I can eat (and give away), plus I get to watch chickens run around. It’s a win-win situation, I tell you! On that note, I will leave you with some pictures of the homemade chicken coops that I laid my eyes upon that fine day.

More sources:
Make Magazine - Backyard Hens
News Raleigh

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Dang, I just found out about a company in England called GreenWorks that sounds great. What happens is people or companies can donate old office or school furniture (desks, chairs, tables) and GreenWorks will fix them up.

Once the used-but-looking-like-new furniture is ready, it will either be sold (cheaply) to offices or charities (for a discount), or donated to an “orphanage in Romania and a range of NGO projects in Benin, Gambia and Ghana”.

So if you live in England and are thinking about getting rid of some used office furniture, por favor donate it to them. You’ll be happy knowing that your old furniture didn’t go to a landfill, and is being reused somewhere by some people who need it.

Also, does anyone know if something like GreenWorks exists in the U.S.? Dígame, because if not, I might have to start a company like this meself (since I am already an “expert” on recycling household junk into useful mess).

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Way back in November, back when I was young and carefree, I wrote about how to find your car’s miles per gallon. Back then I got 29.5 mpg, which is not too shabby, but by gumbo, I wanted to save some money on gas. Recently, I found some simple ways to increase my car’s fuel efficiency. By following these three simple tips, I’ve increased my horseless carriage’s miles per gallon up to a whopping 36 mpg (about a 22% improvement).

How to Improve Your Car’s Fuel Efficiency

1. Easy on the acceleration - when the light turns green, slowly ease down the gas pedal. No need to burn rubber, just accelerate slowly and steadily. This makes a big difference in improving fuel efficiency.
2. Don’t idle for over a minute - if you’re at a stoplight where you know you’ll be waiting for over a minute, just turn your car off. When the light is about to turn green, turn your car back on. Only do this at stops that you’re very familiar with, and where you know you’ll be waiting for over a minute.
3. Drive your optimal speed
   
   Believe it or not, driving at 70mph on a highway or belt-line is not very fuel efficient. For most cars, the optimal speed is 40-60 mph. Yes, lots of cars will pass you. Stay in the slow lane to let them. They are just wasting their gas (and money).

By following these oh-so-handy tips, I only use about 80% the gas that I used to use. That means I’m saving about 20% in gas money, which these days is a big chunk o’ change. So help out your wallet and the good ol’ environment, and don’t drive like a maniac.

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Here’s a really easy way to get a free CFL bulb.

• Go to rotch HERE
• Fill out the short form (use “EARNRWG” as the promo code)
• Immediately sprint to your mailbox and wait for several weeks

Have fun with that free light bulb. Not only will you be saving money by getting a free CFL, but you’ll also be saving money by using a more efficient light bulb. Remember, even though it saves a lot of energy, it’s not all good. If it breaks, I do not recommend sniffing the fumes that come out. Instead, follow these here guidelines on how to clean up a broken CFL bulb.

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I’m still using the same razor that I bought on New Year’s Day. 4 months and still going strong, thanks to the patented Immortal Razor technique!

To refresh, here are the three steps necessary to keep using your same razor generation after generation.

1. Buy/make/steal/”borrow” a razor.
2. Clean out all hair, blood, skin, or what have you after each use.
3. Dry off your razor, using soft, wooly towels or the warm breeze of a hair dryer.

It’s as simple as that. By maintaining your razor, you can save some money, plus you don’t have to throw away your old razor. Kill two birds with one stone.

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Back in December, I wrote that Design A Tea was offering free samples o’ their organic tea. I had long since given up on getting some free tea… BUT, Brian, the owner of that company, recently wrote and told me that they’d had over 10,000 requests for free tea in two days! Since they pack all their orders by hand, it’s going to take awhile for them to fulfill all those requests.

Anyhoo, Brian was nice enough to send me a lot of free samples of their tea; many different flavors and combinations, and I gots to say, I recommend it.

The good thing about their company is that it lets you combine different teas with different flavors. So far I’ve tried green tea with vanilla, and black tea with pecans. Both were too good.

So if you requested a sample from them, it is coming, fret not. One more good thing: their tea is organic and Fair Trade Certified. So give them a looksie, won’t you?

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