Happy Valentines Day!  Although it’s wonderful to be in love with a like-minded partner while raising children, going green often entails a bit more work around the home.  There’s the trips to the compost bin, the diaper laundry, and all those homemade meals to prepare.  It can be downright overwhelming unless you have a system to deal with the extra chores.  Is there a system you use with your spouse or partner to share the workload?  Do you have help from extended family?  Is it worth it to pay for help with cleaning or a diaper service just to balance the rest of your life?  Do you share the work with your children?  Please let us know what works for you!

I’ve known quite a few nursing mothers (including Joy!) who’ve gone on various food-elimination diets while breastfeeding.  Oftentimes, babies who were sensitive to certain foods transmitted through the breast milk end up having food sensitivities when they transition to solid foods as well.

Common problem foods include nuts (read our post about eating nuts while breastfeeding here) and wheat.  If you are on a gluten-free diet, there is an excellent new resource out in the blogosphere: The Gluten Free Gourmand.  The Portland-based writer, Gina E. Kelley, plans to review many of the gluten-free restaurants and products in Portland.  She also writes about topics of interest to our wheat-free friends everywhere:

Things to eat when you can’t eat anything;

Recipe for delicious gluten-free scones;

A run-down on various gluten-free flours;

The best and the worst of gluten-free pasta.

I can personally vouch for the quality of the information and writing on this blog, and I am not just saying that because Gina E. Kelley is my sister!

Is anyone here on a special diet while breastfeeding?  Is anyone raising gluten-free kids?

It’s winter, it’s cold and let’s face it—grease and salt is mighty appealing.  But fast food is loaded with packaging, unhealthy ingredients, and expense.  So how can we avoid it despite our cravings?  Enjoy a hearty bowl of brown rice and beans with a signature sauce from Cafe Yumm.

Brown rice and beans, you say?  How can that possibly be marketed to my family?  Here’s the truth: My husband loves beef, pizza, potatoes fried in a variety of ways, and everything else that passes as fast food, but he loves Café Yumm even more.   My son breaks down crying (often!) begging for “beans and rice please!” 

So what is their magical formula?  It’s their sauce! (Which you can buy or even make at home.  Keep reading for more details!)  At Café Yumm they spoon steaming heaps of brown rice into bowls, layer them with black beans, salsa, cheese, avocados, olives and the most amazing sauce I have ever tasted.  It was actually developed by a mom who was trying to get her two-year-old to embrace healthy food.  After years of experimenting and serving her bowls to the general public, she ended up with a very successful chain of restaurants.   You can read more about her story here.

The Yumm Bowl is vegetarian and provides a complete protein since it includes beans and rice along with plenty of whole grains.  There are several varieties of sauces and combinations of ingredients on their menu, but you can bet that every one of them will be healthy and nourishing for your child. 

Not only do we visit Café Yumm, we also buy their bottles of Yumm Sauce to prepare these delicious meatless meals at home.  The sauce is a bit spendy at twelve bucks a bottle, but since the rest of the ingredients are so overwhelmingly cheap, it’s worth it.  One bottle provides us with 20-25 individual bowls, which ends up being a great value. 

If you’re looking for a Café Yumm in your area, check their website. They have restaurants in Beaverton, Bend, Corvallis, Eugene, and Springfield. (All in Oregon.)   Stay tuned next week for a recipe which attempts to imitate the brilliance of real Yumm Sauce! 

Thanks for joining us week for Thrifty Green Thursday!  If you have an idea about how to save money and the planet, please read this page to see how to add your link below.  

In the March issue of ShopSmart, put out by the publisher of Consumer Reports, experts analyzed used baby gear to determine “when you can gratefully say yes and when you should gracefully say no thanks.”  I am devoting several posts to discussing their findings.

Here’s what ShopSmart has to say about bath products:

Safe: Used baby bathtubs are fine as long as the lining isn’t full of mold or mildew.

Not Safe: If the tub has an odor of either of these, say no thanks because they can be hard to remove. Also, skip secondhand bath seats, bath rings, and inflatable tubs since they have been responsible for many deaths among babies.

While I’d obviously steer clear of the bath seats, rings, and inflatable tubs, I wonder how hard is it, really, to remove mold or mildew from a baby bath?  A spritz of vinegar or a scrub with soapy water, or even a douse of boiling water would probably clean a baby bathtub up just fine.  I hate to think of tossing a huge hunk of plastic into a landfill and then buying a brand new one made from crude oils.  It’s obviously greener to find a used one and try to wash it off.

Full disclosure: We decided we needed a baby bathtub after our daughter outgrew the bathroom sink.  (The kitchen sink wouldn’t work for a variety of reasons.)  We found a plastic tub at the consignment store–sitting under a tree in the rain and mud.  We took it home, washed off a layer of dirt and pine needles, and it worked just fine for a few months before Audrey graduated to the full bath.

Do I need to take dirt a little more seriously?  Am I throwing caution to the wind?  Or will my strength in the face of grime end up saving the planet?  A secondhand baby bathtub worked for me.  For more Works for Me Wednesday tips, head on over to Rocks in My Dryer.

Chocolate and wheat germ?  Who knew they could be so good together!  When I was little, I savored the smell and taste of these yummy brownies and now I’m making them for my son.  They’re full of wholesome ingredients but they don’t taste like it!  The recipe is from a cookbook for parents entitled Feed Me, I’m Yours.

Nutritious Brownies:

• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 Tbsp. molasses
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)
• 1 cup wheat germ
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 2/3 cup powdered milk
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 cup dry cocoa or 2 squares unsweetened baking chocolate

Mix together all ingredients except the dry milk, baking powder and dry cocoa.  (If using squares of chocolate, melt in a double boiler and add here.)  Sift the dry milk, baking powder and cocoa through a sieve into the other ingredients and stir well.  Spread in a very heavily greased 8×8″ pan and bake for approximately 30 minutes at 350 degrees.  Turn out of pan immediately and cut into bars while still warm.  

That last direction is VERY important!  If you don’t remove the brownies immediately from the pan and cut them they’ll get stuck together.  They’re wonderfully chewy and delicious, but they do solidify if you don’t remove them from the pan and cut right away.  Mmmm..  I’m off to go make a batch of my own!

Here at Green Baby Guide, we’re all about saving the planet, raising healthy children, and embracing frugality–but sometimes in the midst of all those goals, it’s easy to forget about reconnecting with your spouse or romantic partner.  How do you manage to fit time for a relationship in with all the other demands in your life?  Do you have any creative ideas for how to get free babysitting and enjoy a night out without breaking the bank?  What are your plans for this Valentines Day?  Thanks for sharing your insights!

Ever wonder what a disposable diaper is made out of?

The “breathable” outer layer is typically made of polyethylene, a thermoplastic.  Inside that you’ll find a blend of cellulose pulp (in most brands, wood pulp is bleached with chlorine) and absorbent polymers.  You may also find Velcro or adhesive tabs, chemical “wetness indicators” that change colors to show when the diaper is wet, and scents or lotions.

Check out this website for more detail on how a disposable diaper is made.

Most diaper companies do not use recycled materials to make their diapers, so the wood pulp is derived from freshly-harvested trees.  The polymers that keep disposables dry on the outside and absorbent on the inside are petroleum products, but in the future manufacturers could try making these layers out of recycled milk jugs.  (I am not a chemical engineer, so someone correct me if this idea isn’t feasible.)  Even Seventh Generation, who makes a chlorine-free disposable diaper, does not use any recycled materials for the poly-wraps on their diapers and training pants.  Their website says they plan to “upgrade this to 50% recycled content” in 2008.  We’re not sure if they accomplished this goal or not!

These superabsorbent polymers come out of a disposable diaper in a science experiment.

Now, it’s great that Seventh Generation avoids using chlorine bleach, but they are no more biodegradable than other disposables.  Their diapers are made from the following ingredients, according to their website: chlorine-free wood pulp fluff, sodium polyacrylate (also known as SAP or absorbent gel), polyolefin nonwoven fabric, adhesives, polyolefin film, synthetic rubber elastic strands.  For a biodegradable disposable, look into gDiapers.  Their diapers are biodegradable and compostable, although they still use absorbent gel and tree-farmed wood pulp.

While it’s no secret that we love our cloth diapers here on the Green Baby Guide, we realize that disposables are here to stay.  Our hope is that manufacturers–especially eco-conscious ones like Seventh Generation–keep working on creating disposable diapers using more recycled content and fewer non-biodegradable materials.

Last year we showed you how to recycle your magazines or your children’s finger paintings by cutting them into creative Valentines, but we decided to keep life even simpler in 2009.  For those of you that need to mass produce cards for school or family, potato print Valentines are the perfect earth friendly, budget friendly solution.  

Simply cut a potato in half, draw a simple shape on the open end, and then carve around your pencil lines.  Once the carving is done, you can welcome your child to join in the fun.  Dip the potato stamp into some thick tempera paint and plop it down upon a piece of paper.  You can experiment with several shapes, colors and textures all for just pennies!  

The result is an elegant homemade design that will delight your child just as much as the recipients of your Valentine greetings.  This is a messy undertaking, but well worth it just for the fun of the whole experience.  

Do you have any plans for Valentine crafts this holiday or ideas for saving money and the planet?  Please add your links below and we’d love to read your blogs!  Click here to find out how to get started.

Instead of buying an expensive card and overpriced chocolates, why not make your own Valentine?  Just follow these instructions (and please excuse the bad photography):

1. Fold a square piece of paper in half.

2. Fold it in half again.

3. Now fold it in thirds.

4. Cut the top off.

5. Cut out some shapes, leaving some space near the pointy end.

6. Unfold partway so you can cut out half of a heart from the center.

7. Unfold to reveal your beautiful paper heart Valentine.  If you want to get really fancy, you can even glue this creation to a piece of red paper.

Making my own Valentines has always worked for me.  For more Works for Me Wednesday ideas, head on over to Rocks in My Dryer.  Check back tomorrow for our own Thrifty Green Thursday blog carnival for Joy’s DIY Valentine idea!

My husband loves hiking, polar bears, native plants, and organic cherry tomatoes. We met on Earth Day at an eco-friendly volunteer event and share a deep appreciation for the natural world.  Why then does he turn the thermostat up to 71 degrees while loafing around the house in shorts and a t-shirt?   Why does he drive to the park with our son when he, an avid marathoner, could push the stroller there in a mere ten minutes?  Sadly, I think I know the answer to my own questions.  My husband, the love of my life, is a lazy environmentalist. 

The good news is that although he is highly resistant to change, once he’s on the bandwagon, he’s there to stay.  He wasn’t sure about cloth diapering but now he’s the one who launders them more than anyone.  Composting seemed a bit messy to him but now he happily takes out our potato peels and radish tops on a daily basis. 

He’s always slow to embrace changes in our lifestyle (especially ones that entail cutting back a bit on comfort) but after the initial resistance, he usually joins right in.  So, I’ve found it’s best to endure the grumbling and forge ahead with small changes until he becomes more of a leader than a follower.

I still sometimes wish that he would internalize the impact of carbon emissions and make changes without my prompting but after knowing and loving him for a long time, I realize that he’s a status quo kind of guy–which is why he married a spontaneous woman who loves to initiate change!   The truth is, he’s a fabulous father and partner, which is why I have patience for his lack of action.  

Have any of you struggled with a spouse who flat out refuses to use cloth diapers or turn down the thermostat?  How have you handled your eco-spats?  Thanks for sharing your experiences!