Did you Brush your Teeth?

 "Did you brush your teeth?" How many times were we asked that question as kids? How often have we asked our own kids that question? Brushing our teeth, morning and night is a good life-long habit to form. Healthy gums, healthy teeth... all good, right? Except... not so much for the planet. Plastic toothbrushes, plasticized toothpaste tubes... and let's not even talk about dental floss or those floss pickers... all plastic. And plastic, as we all know, never, ever decomposes. It just keeps breaking down into tinier plastic pieces, leaching toxins into the environment.

And yet... every morning and evening, I pick up my plastic toothbrush, squeeze some toothpaste on it from the tube and... brush. Every time I go to the dentist, I accept their offer of a free plastic toothbrush and small toothpaste and dental floss... And every few months, I think, gotta make a change.

Well... today was the day for a change. For a few years now, I have been aware of the TerraCycle oral care zero-waste box. It's kind of like the recycle bins that Staples has for pens and batteries and cell phones and toner cartridges... except for dental care products. I've been wanting to ask my dental clinic... "Why don't you guys host one of these boxes?" Today... I sent that email...

Hi,

Just wondering... you know how Staples has recycling bins for pens and toner cartridges and batteries... has your office given any thought to hosting a recycling bin for oral care products (toothbrushes, toothpaste tubes, dental floss containers). Terracycle offers a Zero Waste box for oral care products. Yes, it would cost money to buy the box but... think of the positive publicity if your office went eco-friendly... Or maybe you could get OralB or Colgate or Crest to cover part of the cost given that you had out their free products. The future is coming... would be great if your office were ahead of the curve.

Thanks!

We'll see what sort of response I get from them. I tried to find any dental clinic in my city that has gone this route but... came up empty. Although, I did find a dental clinic in Toronto, Ontario that has gone with the TerraCycle box.

Because... ideally we use four toothbrushes every year (assuming we change them out after 3 months like we are supposed to)... which means I've used over 100 toothbrushes in my lifetime. And they are all out there, somewhere, sitting in a landfill, leaching toxins. And let's not even mention that packaging around each toothbrush. Not a nice legacy to leave for the future.

Now, we do give our toothbrushes an extra stage in their life. Toss them in a jar under the bathroom sink and when we need a brush for scrubbing hard to reach areas (like bathroom grout)... we reach for a used toothbrush. But... after that... buy-buy toothbrush, into the garbage. Toothbrushes, made as they are from several different types of materials (plastic handle, nylon bristles)

Brush with Bamboo

So... TerraCycle has a smart idea... recycle the hard-to-recycle products. Makes sense and yet... ideally... we would avoid the use of plastic at all. Right?

Enter bamboo... I had heard about bamboo toothbrushes, where the handle is bamboo but the bristles still often contained some plastic or... were made from Chinese swine bristles (not a cruelty-free source).

This morning though, I did some more research and... there's a company called Brush with Bamboo and they produce toothbrushes with handles made from 100% wild bamboo (not farmed and irrigated) and bristles made from 100% castor bean oil. They are "USDA Certified Biobased. Green American Certified. Vegan. BPA-Free. Natural and Non-toxic." Huh... go figure. They've made some progress in the last few years. A few years ago, they still had some plastic in the bristles, but it looks like they've ironed that out. Trust the German engineers to figure it out. And... the packaging is a paper box with no glue or tape. Bonus! There are other brands out there... but they still use nylon bristles (which are a petroleum product and non-decomposable). Now... just because the bristles are 100% bio-based doesn't mean they are biodegradable... which isn't great but... is better than anything else out there.

Brush with Bamboo

Now... the hiccup... A group of 4 adult brushes costs $26 CAD... that's $6.50/toothbrush. Yikes!! I'm used to paying less than $2 for a toothbrush... or getting one for free from the dentist.

If you order 12 toothbrushes, the per-unit price drops to $5.50 and for 36 toothbrushes, the per-unit price drops to $4.50...

Still, even at $6.50... and a lifetime of 3 months (90 days) that's 7¢/day or... if you brush your teeth twice a day... only 3.5¢ per use. Which isn't ridiculous. Of course, there is shipping which pushes the price up... but perhaps there is a local health food store that sells these... I have put out feelers...

And... I did a field trip to the local health food store after checking that they carry bamboo toothbrushes. They are selling Brush with Bamboo toothbrushes for $9.99 each! Yikes... Passed on that... and ordered a twelve-pack online - with shipping, per unit cost is under $6.50.

And... after they've exceeded their three month lifetime... and been used as little scrubby brushes... they can find a third life in the garden as plant labels!

I'm not quite ready yet to try tooth powder but... that might be next on the agenda... some xylitol, bentonite clay and baking soda... and voila... goodbye toothpaste tubes. More research required...

Brushing up on my German

My parents emigrated from Germany in the mid-1950s and I was born a decade later. My mother spoke German to me as my first language, at least for the first couple of years, until the neighbours wondered why "the kid" couldn't speak any English.

Suffice to say, the German language has fairly deep roots within me but, as with many things, if you don't use it, you lose it. Or at least, it rusts terribly. I can still muddle through most written German, if it's not too far beyond a Grade 3 vocabulary... My writing is also not bad... although fairly simple. I apparently amuse my German relatives with my "quaint" writing style. Verbal communication also isn't too bad but... it is definitely rusty.

When I went to university several decades ago, I took a first year German course as one of my arts electives. Given that I hadn't had any formal German education in high school, I snuck under the radar for this course. Compared with the non-German speakers, I was stellar... but where I did benefit greatly was in the grammar and vocabulary. Things like verb conjugation and tenses... like genitive and dative... don't ask me what they are now though!

My German had a huge boost from that course but then... like all things... it wore off and now my German is quite rusty again. But... a German email-pal, a former Lutheran pastor who writes very good English, told me that he had boosted his English by reading books. Not just any books... he knew the books quite well from having read the German versions... all he did was read the English versions... He said that he sort of unconsciously "inhaled" the language. Which made a lot of sense to me.

I have tried reading some fairly technical books (espionage and death penalty) in German and... stumbled quite a bit because the terminology was definitely beyond my school-girl German! But... I stumbled through with the help of my Google Translate app... My friend's idea though... that sparked a bit of action yesterday.

I love Dick Francis mystery books... and the Pern fantasy/sci-fi series... and a few other books. So I did some serious research last night, figured out the German titles of three of my favourite books, from different genres and ordered the Kindle versions of them. If I want to improve my German, it would seem that this would be one small step in oiling the deeply rusted language roots in my brain!

Where does the time go?

 I don't know about you, but I have this ongoing feeling like there just isn't enough time in the day to get everything done that needs to get done. This, naturally, contributes to me feeling continually stuck behind the 8-ball. Now, I know that this might be a pandemic effect as well but... I still wondered... where does the time go?

I think back to when I was in my 20s and 30s and... heck... I always seemed to have all the time in the world. Now, I wasn't a home owner... nor did I have a partner... or a cat... and it wasn't a pandemic... but surely those four things can't be completely vacuum cleaners of my time, can they?

Or is it just the old trick... time speeds up as you get older? Do the days go by twice as fast in your 50s than in your 30s? Or is it that I am just slower and less efficient than I was 20 years ago? Do I spend more time day-dreaming? Or is it something else entirely?

A few weeks ago, I blogged about resuming my interrupted 2017 book-reading challenge... I got through July not too badly but August has been a flop. Reading 50 pages a day, and taking notes, and blogging about it with some thoughtfulness, every single day... nope. That was taking almost 3 hours out of my day... because while I can usually read 50 pages easily in one hour... the note-taking doubled my reading time... and then the blogging took a good 30 minutes to 60 minutes... depending...

As my partner pointed out so adroitly... no wonder I was feeling overwhelmed... I don't devote 3 hours a day to any other activity! And that was the thing... the book challenge was becoming THE most important thing in my day and other things were falling by the wayside.

Sooo... I realized something needed to give... and the book reading/blogging has been the first to go. So... yes, that lifted some of the overwhelm but... there is still too much to do in a day... or so it seems to me.

Gleeo Time Tracker - stock image

So, I decided to dust off my time-tracker app and actually see... where does the time go? I entered all the major categories of my life and did some breaking down of different subcategories. Big categories are things like Health (rest, meals, walk/hike, read, journal, TV - I know but it needs to get tracked somewhere!), House & Garden (errands, chores, finances, maintenance, garden), Work (writing, AirBnb, etc).

Sooo... over the last 7 days... the biggest time category is... drumroll please... TV. Yep, with an average of just over 2 hours a day... and some days over 3 hours. Where does the time go? Into the black box. Sigh... I knew that we were watching a lot of TV in the evenings... we've been on a bit of a CSI marathon lately.

So, if I'm looking for somewhere to cut back... I don't have to look very far. Those TV hours could easily become reading hours... or puzzling, or playing games or writing letters or... any of a number of other things. And... as I'm writing this... I think back to my post-university life and... ahem... I went through several years where I hardly watched any TV. Huh... No wonder I had so much time!!

So that is one option... the other thing that comes to me is that time might not be the issue... the real question should be... where does my energy go? Because it's not so much a time-management issue as an energy-management issue. And... much as I might like to think otherwise... TV is NOT restful. At least not for me... it keeps my brain stimulated... can sometimes give me a headache... and if I watch it too close to bedtime, keeps me awake long into the night. Especially if it was a gory CSI episode! So, from both a time and energy perspective... TV is not a great choice. It's time to alter that habit and choose more restful option.

My small step goal for the next week is to reduce TV consumption... to one CSI episode every evening. And to choose other options for the rest of the evening. Rest is important but there are better ways for me to rest than to plop myself in front of the TV... we'll see how the rest of the month goes... wish me luck!

Film - Vegan 2019

Why go plant-based and animal protein free? So many reasons... some of which you may know... and some of which you may not. The film Vegan 2019 (on YouTube) offers a 51 minute summary of why...

The first bit looks at meat-substitute products like Beyond Meat and Impossible Meat which are going after the > 1 trillion dollar meat industry. There is quite a bit about how meat-free options are exploding into the market - from fast-food to corner stores to grocery stores to restaurants. The thing that kept coming to me is this... processed food... be it vegan or not... is not good for you. And... watch long enough and the film brings that forward as well. While processed vegan might be less harmful than processed non-vegan... it still can be harmful.

And then the film touches on the shift in dietary and nutritional recommendations, specifically mentioning Canada's new food guide which eliminated dairy and focused on plant-based foods. Despite the move toward veganism, there is push-back from carnivores (calling vegans fascists). But, even that push-back has made us aware of where our meat comes from, and the price that is paid, not just be animals, but by the earth, to feed our meat addiction.

The film even has several clips about Great Thunberg and her fight against the climate crisis. She is passionate about this... and the point that is brought forward is that the time for talking and discussing is done. It's time for action.

The 2019 film, The Game Changers, opened the floodgates for all sorts of athletes, body builders, actors, musicians and other celebrities coming out as vegans. And, not surprisingly, there was push-back from livestock producers, trying to promote their meat as healthy (grass-fed beef). And yet... grass-feed beef has an even bigger environmental impact than factory farming. Producers also tried to challenge some of the language used... arguing that the veg industry should not be able to use the words like "burger" and "milk". In Australia, the meat industry even tried to make a case for not using the word "slaughter" with regards to animals. Instead, they wanted to just used the word "process"... that animals are processed into food products. Riiiighhhhttt... And all of that just made the meat industry look desperate.

And let's be really clear here... getting enough protein is NOT the issue. Herbivores get lots of protein from the plants that they eat. And so can we. Ever seen the muscles on a rhino? They didn't get those by eating meat... but by eating plants. The bigger issue for the average North American is getting enough fibre. And fibre ONLY comes from plants... none from meat. And no... muscle fibre is NOT the fibre we are talking about.

The USDA dietary guidelines committee met to discuss the US food guidelines for 2020 and... the meat industry fought back... and all that does is lead to confusion. And then... in Europe... NFI developed a personalized diet which helped patients integrate plant-based nutrition and reversed Type 2 diabetes.

The film then looks at Fair Oak Farms which was like the Disneyland of agricultural farming. The film saw millions of people tour the farm and then... in 2019... abuse at the farm was exposed by an undercover animal rights group. Livestock farming is not a happy Disneyland experience... they are horrific, abusive places where sentient beings are tortured and slaughtered.

The year 2019 was also a huge year for fires, not only in Australia, but also in Brazil. Deforestation is a major problem and all of it to create farms to raise cows for people to eat. Many of the fires in the Amazon are set deliberately by cattle farmers... The thing to recall is... we are all in a burning building. 

Can we change fast enough though?

I found this film to be pretty good, even if there were short ads every 10 minutes. The world is changing and this gave me hope that we can make a difference, each one of us. The future is plant-based whole-foods... and, having been a rabid carnivore, I am continually surprised at how easy the transition was... if I can do it... anyone can do it...

When did Pens become Disposable?

 I was feeling really proud of myself yesterday. A few years ago, I had noticed that Staples recycles pens - everything from feltpens and highlighters to pencils and pens. "Ah-hah!" I thought to myself, "I will set up a pen recycling station at home, and we can recycle all of our writing utensils!"

So I did. I found a box that would work, cut a narrow slot in the top and over the last few years we have
been dropping all of our dead pens into this box. Yesterday, I noticed that the box was pretty full and decided it was time to empty it, bag up the pens and put them by the door, ready for a Staples run.

 We had a LOT of pens in there! I decided to count them all... just so I could report on that... and we had 90 pens to be recycled. I felt quite proud of myself... saving 90 plastic pens from the landfill where they will linger for centuries and leach toxins into the environment.

Except... all of the reading and blogging I've been doing kind of stopped me in my tracks. Why do I even need to recycle pens? Why is there even such a "thing" as "disposable pens"? Why not use a non-disposable pen... or... since disposable pens already have an adjective, obviously a plain old pen, should be non-disposable.

 I actually have a real pen sitting on my desk in its holder on a little marble stand. I got it for high school graduation, decades ago. It's a Schaeffer pen and while I don't use it a lot, over the years I have had to replace the inner cartridge when the pen runs out of ink. One of the reasons I don't use it a lot is because it's a ball point pen and there is just a bit too much resistance when I write. I much prefer roller ball pens or liquid gel pens, something that flows effortlessly across the page.

I rummaged around to see what I had in the way of pens (real pens... not disposable ones) and... I have a couple. But again... they are ball points and I don't like the friction.

Three refillable pens and a cartridge,
plus two disposables.

I also found a bunch of pencils... not just the wooden ones, but also the mechanical ones. I'm not sure who invented mechanical pencils with those ultra thin leads but they are amazing. I love how I never have to sharpen them and then sharpen them again because the lead keeps breaking. But... they too, are encased in plastic. Mind you, I did find one metal mechanical pencil in my desk, which I should maybe give pride of place in my pen/pencil holder... rather than my favourite Staedler. The Staedler has been with me a long time, I took it out into the bush many, many times while working in forestry and never lost it. It's become kind of a "thing"... me and that pencil. If I took the metal one out in the bush, I'd be terrified of losing it... but a plastic one... meh, no big deal.

And maybe that's the thing... disposable pens are cheap. We can have a bunch of them lying around the house (and we do), ready whenever needed. If I were to buy a fancy fountain pen or a Lamy 2000 pen ($250!!), I'd be terrified of losing it, misplacing it, or having my partner wander off with it. Disposable pens... meh, not such a big deal if I lose them...

There is, however, a price to be paid for that convenience and peace of mind... all of those plastic disposable pens have to go somewhere. Which is beginning to weigh on me. Yes, recycling all those plastic pens is better than tossing them in the garbage but... it would be much better to stop of the continual flow of dead pens.

The funny thing is... growing up, I used a fountain pen in elementary and high school. It was a Pelikan and came with little plastic cartridges of refill ink. Those cartridges are not ideal from an environemntal point of view but you can also get converters that allow you to refill your fountain pen with ink from a bottle. I think a friend of mine in the UK must use a fountain pen because she is forever sending letters with very fancy ink (like turqouise with gold flecks) and gets the ink in fancy bottles.

I did a bit of research into non-disposable pens (I still feel like I need to put that qualifier in there)... and there are some recommendations for cheaper fountain pens that won't break the bank (like a Lamy 2000). On top of that, if fountain pens aren't your thing, you can get rollerballs with refills as well... which is once step farther away from disposable. I'm thinking I might try a fountain pen... although none are available at my local Staples...

I did a bit more digging and decided to go with a simple Lamy Safari fountain pen... including a bottle of ink and a converter. This is a bigger step than I was planning when I started this blog but... if it works out... I'm hoping it reduces my environmental footprint.

Why does Monopoly always end in upset?

 Have you ever played Monopoly? Of course you have!! We all have. Usually as kids and maybe even as adults. But, have you ever noticed, how often playing this "game" ends in upset? Last year our niece and nephew came for a visit and we ended up playing Monopoly. And... sure enough... it ended in upset. Why is that?

A few things come to mind. The game itself doesn't require a high degree of skill, but depends upon a lot of luck based on the roll of the dice. And this luck can seem rather unfair to those who are not as lucky. On top of that... the game is designed so that there is one winner who bankrupts the rest of the players. So, it's not just luck... but there is an actual streak of malice that can develop with the ultimate goal of destroying the other players. Toss in a bit of cheating... "No, that was a 6 you rolled, not a 7!"... and... we have a great recipe for game boards being tossed in the air, money thrown around and people storming off in huffs. And this is fun?

At a much deeper level, the game Monopoly, as its name suggests is solidly based in the idea of rampant capitalism where the small fish get eaten by the big fish until there is just the big fish. There is no room for the little fish to eke out a living on the fringes. All gets subsumed into the big conglomerates. And this is a good thing?

I was reading the book, Doughnut Economics, the other week (excellent book, by the way), and she mentioned the actual history of Monopoly. It's not what I had always thought it was. It wasn't invented by a man named Charles Darrow in the 1930s and sold to Parker Brothers. Even though Charles Darrow made millions off the game. Noooo... it was invented in 1903 by a woman named Lizzie Magie. And she had a much, much different vision of the game... because she was actually an anti-capitalist.

Look familiar?
A 1924 version of The Landlord's Game
as patented by Lizzie Magie.

Her game was called the Landlord's Game and it had two sets of rules, one based on monopoly and one based on anti-monopoly. It was designed to teach children (and adults) about the dangers of capitalism and introduce them to another idea... the single tax (land value tax)... the invention of political economist Henry George.

In the monopolist version of the game, landlord's make money off of their land and the goal is to push all of the other players to bankruptcy. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We know this version really well.

The anti-monopolist version, however was different. Whenever someone purchased land or added an improvement or collected rent, a portion was siphoned off as a single tax (land value tax) and distributed to the other players. The goal of that game was that the player who started the game with the least amount of money had doubled their money. Everyone ended up as a winner. I rather doubt that board games were tossed around in upset in the anti-monopolist version of Lizzie's game.

Lizzie's game was wildly popular and passed around by word of mouth with the "board" drawn on canvas. People tweaked the rules, tweaked the names of the lots on the board, until finally, Charles Darrow played a version of the game, tweaked it a bit more and sold it to Parker Brother's. The rest we know.

Sooo... now... the question becomes... could we revive an anti-monopolist version of the game? Could we play the game differently - not as budding capitalists but as something else... to teach cooperation and the benefit of shared resources. Maybe the world could be a different place... I'm going to have to read Henry George's book (if it's not too dense)...

For those interested... here are some other resources....

The Surprising History Behind Monopoly - YouTube video 4.5 minutes 

Monopoly is Theft - Harper Magazine - 2012

The Landlord's Game - A Parable for Modern Times - Medium, 2018

Sauté without Oil?? What!

Did you know you can sauté without oil? I had no idea! The dietician at the hospital suggested this when I met with her last year. She showed me graphs and charts of all the different cooking oils and none of them are really healthy, especially when you are looking for a high-heat oil. And, no, coconut oil, despite all the advertising is NOT good for you... it has a ridiculous amount of saturated fat.

But... the idea of sautéing without oil had never even crossed my consciousness. Oil was just a necessary evil, I thought... Turns out, you can actually sauté with water. Yep... who knew? Just use small bits of water at a time (1 to 2 Tablespoons) and it works really well.

We cook a lot of curries and we usually start by sautéing onions. All we do is add a bit of water to the pan, let it heat up and then toss in the onions. As the water evaporates, just keep adding more water in little bits and keep stirring. It's cut down on our oil use drastically... at least for frying and stuff. We still use olive oil in salads because that has healthy fats, or so we are told.

A Post-Vacation Vacation Required...

My 13-year old niece just left on Saturday after a 9 day visit. She is a water-fiend, so we took her to every swimming spot we knew... most days it was two spots. But there was one day when I managed to take her to five different spots. I am tuckered out. On top of that, my regular schedule went out the window and now I am behind the 8-ball on a number of fronts and feeling rather overwhelmed.

I need a vacation after my vacation... although I don't know that hosting a 13-year old is really a vacation. But, you know what I mean... All of the regular stuff on my plate got put on old while I was on "vacation" and now... not only am I exhausted and in need of a real vacation but... I am falling further behind on various fronts. Not a good scenario...

I keep reminding myself that it's all about small steps... and it's true. If I write down everything that I need to get done, I just collapse in a quivering puddle of indecision and overwhelm. It's like I need a filter... or something to limit my to-do list to the next item... That's it... just tell me what my next item is and... I will do it. So, perhaps the problem is not so much too-much-to-do but rather... an inability or unwillingness to figure out which is the most important... or which is next. When faced with a mountain, the next step is just... take the next step. Heck... I could write all my to-do items on slips of paper, toss them in a hat and then pluck one out at random and be further ahead!

I've also noticed that my habit of blocking off time in my calendar for certain important things, like writing, has fallen by the wayside... so that explains a lot as well. A lack of routine, for me, is a recipe for overwhelm...

And I remind myself that we are in a pandemic... the early stages of a pandemic. This thing is a marathon... not a sprint... and it makes sense that it's going to impact me. Not just once... but ongoingly. So... keep my focus on the next small step... which is the one right in front of me... not everything else that is looming. And when that small step is done, focus on the next one.