The sustainable choices challenge [35]

Did you know that the average (American) family of 4 uses 400 gallons of water a day? That's enough water to fill 6,400 drinking glasses.

 

You get the picture, it's that ⬆... times a lot.

I already talked about the importance of water, here (if you forgot, there's still time to go to the Hope Into Humanity website and donate!), but now I'm looking at it from more of a behavioral perspective rather than a giving/support perspective. You see, we use A LOT of water in the western world. Personally, one of my weaknesses is showering. It's a bit of a joke among my friends that I get cold really easily and so I'm selfishly protective of long, hot showers. Generally in the summer I'm much better about taking shorter and cooler showers, but in the winter? Forget about it. But, this year is about changing and improving so I said goodbye to long, hot showers this morning by taking a decently warm, 6-minute shower. I already restrict myself to showers every other day but from now on I'll be taking 10 minute showers max, enforced by the alarm on my phone. Why? Because a 5 minute shower, my eventual goal, uses up 10 to 25 gallons of water. Gross. 

So, because I want to protect this: 

I'll do this:   

Water conservation hasn't been my only interest in the environmental sphere. What I've done pre-2012 (and need to keep up this year) includes: using environmentally-friendlier laundry detergent and dish soap, reusable bags at the grocery store, and walking to class and up the stairs (even to my 4th floor apartment).

I'm not as smart as I sound, my info came from: Stanford or the EPA or Waterfootprint.org.

Why Saturday is my favorite day of the week [33, 34]

 Saturdays involve dance parties to Adele, brunch with friends, snowball fights on the way home, lining up all of our black boots in the entryway, hours of Glee-watching and tea-drinking. Some Saturdays we throw Austin dinner parties. Somehow it's the perfect mix of homey-ness and community. Unless you feel at home you can't reach out to others and support them. But without a supportive community around you, you will never feel at home and comfortable. So here's to homey-ness and friends, changing the world one Saturday at a time. 

Jennifer #2 was hiding on purpose.

6 cans of chickpeas= lots of chickpea tacos

But I guess not enough for seven chickpea taco lovers.

Fail

Shuffling might help

The Jennifers doing the dishes :)

I. Am. In. Miiisery

Cheater 5 ingredients or less: super food [32]

Is it any surprise that I have yet another blog post about food? Somewhere in the last couple of weeks I missed a 5 ingredients or less post, so you're getting it randomly on a Saturday. Going vegan, being an herbivore, consuming a plant-based diet (however you want to say it) brings up many comments and questions from the non-herbie/vegan/plant-based peanut gallery. Do we get enough protein? How much iron and fiber do we get? What about vitamin B12? And how do you get omega-3 fatty acids without fish? I won't go into lecture mode but I will take some time to present to you one of my absolute favorite super foods: walnuts (hence why it's a "cheater" 5 ingredients post). 

This ready-made snack food is up there on the list of best foods for me, along with blueberries, sweet potatoes, kale, pancakes (only my dad's), and pie (homemade, hands down, is of course the best). That might be why I have a 2+ lb. bag in my pantry that I've been munching on since the beginning of the semester (it was 3 lbs when I bought it). But even better than how they taste is how healthy they are. It turns out that walnuts also qualify as a super food, having quite a laundry list of healthful benefits. If you want to see all the facts in chart form, go here, but just to give you an idea of the basics, walnuts contain protein, calcium, iron, vitamin B6, magnesium, potassium, fiber, and omega-3 and -6 fatty acids. And you thought you could only get omega-3 fatty acids from fish. Surprise! It turns out that there are three different types of omega-3 fatty acids. The first two, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), are the ones found in fatty fish, but the third type, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), is found in some vegetable oils, some green vegetables including kale and brussels sprouts, and in walnuts. There is some debate about how beneficial each of these types is, with the fishy omega-3s potentially being more beneficial, but our bodies are cool enough to partially convert ALA to EPA and DHA, so either way, plant-based omega-3s are good enough for me. If you don't believe me, see what the Harvard smarties have to say: here.

Are you a fan of strawberry jam? [31]

Because I sure am. Aaaand, that's enough with the rhyming. I can go through a small jam jar in the span of about two days, just give me a loaf of bread and a working toaster, or even just a frying pan and stove. Toast and I are besties. It's what I eat when I'm hungry, when I'm in a munchy mood, when I need an afternoon snack, when I want something sweet but light before bed. When I lived in Ireland I would buy one of those extra-long loaves (they look like two of the flabby sliced loaves that Americans call bread put together, no offense I'm just a picky European) and live off of it for the next week. My toast-eating has always been held in check because of the amount of jam I had in the house. Those jars are just never ever big enough for me. But Costco had an exciting surprise for me when I went there over winter break: massive jars of jam that only have four ingredients (and get this, NO high fructose corn syrup. I swear Smucker's and high fructose corn syrup are as much besties as toast and I am). So, I will be enjoying quite a few slices of toast in the next couple of weeks, with my 5 ingredients or less jam, and will most definitely be returning to Costco for a second round of giant jars during my spring break.