I started a Facebook group on a total whim, and now figured I might as well blog it too.
For a lot of frum people, the elements of living an eco-friendly, natural, etc. lifestyle can seem overwhelming or just irrelevant. When you've got a big family and keep kosher, buying organic and pasture-raised food seems prohibitively expensive. The people around you might be concerned with buying the perfect stroller, but buying the perfect baby carrier is not on the radar. You might gawk at people buying 8 days' worth of disposable utensils so that they don't have to wash dishes on Pesach, but you're the only one at Amazing Savings who thinks it's odd.
I'm definitely not the crunchiest person around, but sometimes I think I'm the crunchiest person I know. Yet I recently discovered that two friends who live in other cities also use cloth diapers. There's a small but growing group in my community who subscribe to a CSA. Another friend just published an article in Jewish Action about the vagaries of trying to live the life when your farm-fresh produce is infested with bugs.
There's a lot of judgment on the net about what constitutes a "natural" lifestyle. And there's so much classification and categorization going on in the Orthodox community (for better and worse) that people can be put off making changes for the eco-friendly, because they don't want to be slapped with yet another label. So it seems to me that this is one area in life where people should really be comfortable with others picking and choosing what they do. I've got my schtick, you have yours, and that's cool. There's no halacha here.
If you were wondering, here's some of the current extent of my crunchiness. I'm honestly curious what you all do.
1. Cloth diapers. Yup, I went there.
2. Babywearing. I'm not a hardcore attachment parent by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm all over this.
3. CSA. After the initial flood of lettuce, I have 5 months of zucchini, tomatoes, apples, and plenty of other no-bug-check-needed stuff, and it is AMAZING.
4. Reusable housewares. Not that I never use paper, but I make an effort to deal with the dishes. My daughter gets her snacks in Lunchskins reusable bags and Rubbermaid containers, so a box of Ziplocs lasts a long time in my house.
5. I bake pretty much all my bread and challah, and it's pretty much all whole wheat.
6. I attempted to plant a garden last spring, and while my tomatoes thrived, my snap peas and cucumbers did not. This year I'm hoping to have more success with tomatoes and green beans, since those are the most useful in my house.
the peas need shade as well as sun, and you need to get them in the ground early since they are done by the beginning of July, then you can replant and have late summer peas. I haven't been too lucky w/ cukes, either, but peas are a staple here.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think the crazy heat last summer killed the peas off before I realized it was a problem. My dirt patch isn't very shady. It's a shame because the few peas we got were insanely delicious. By when would you recommend planting peas, in the NY metro area?
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