Henry Moynahan Rich spent his summer being haunted by trash. He needed to figure out how to eliminate it completely. In July, his company, Oberon Group, closed the Fort Greene restaurant Mettā with a goal of reopening it in the fall as the first truly zero-waste restaurant in New York and possibly in all of America. That meant not only the restaurant’s waste, which he could control, but also the gum, empty cups, and hygiene products his customers would bring in.   “We have to be honest,” he explains. “This is going to be an inconvenience to guests, and we’re in the hospitality business.” He’s not excited about the prospect of saying no to his customers: “People are going to say, ‘I’m paying you. Can’t you throw this away for me?’ And we’re gonna have to be like, ‘Nope, sorry. We actually don’t have a means of dealing with this here.’”   In reality, Mettā had been trending this way for some time. In 2017, Rich, Oberon deputy director Halley Chambers, and the rest of the team had made it New York’s first carbon-neutral restaurant. Everything was cooked over a single fire fed with responsibly forested local wood, the group bought renewable energy, and the remaining emissions (the equivalent of roughly 50,000 gallons of gas per year) were offset by investments in carbon-negative initiatives. Leftover citrus rinds at the bar were turned into salt, and the kitchen stored gallons of fermented ingredients.   Now they’ve gone all in, and the restaurant is slated to reopen later this month. The space looks the same, but Mettā will be renamed Rhodora, after a Ralph Waldo Emerson poem. The hope is the new model will create a template that other restaurateurs, and the companies they work with, can follow to cut down on or eliminate their own waste. Oberon has sourced wines in compostable boxes, dropped liquor brands that use unrecyclable caps (that’s more than you might think), found a dishwasher that uses electrolyzed water to eliminate the need for soap, gotten rid of paper receipts, tracked down a nonprofit called ReCORK that turns used wine corks into shoe soles, and, at least for now, has retired the Francis Mallmann–inspired oven. (For that matter, Oberon’s other businesses — including June, the Cobble Hill wine bar, and a catering arm called Purslane, which is already waste free — operate with sustainability in mind too.)   As Chambers explains, “the food world has traditionally done such a poor job of being environmental stewards — if we can build a model of a sustainable trash-free relationship, suppliers can start replicating it.” Restaurants sometimes use the term zero waste to refer to a nose-to-tail, stem-to-root ethos in the kitchen. And in fact, Rich first tried to remove kitchen waste completely when the restaurant was still Mettā. Doing so while the place was up and running proved too difficult, however. “Trying to reverse engineer it would never work,” Rich says. At Rhodora, the focus will be on natural wine and simple food, so the restaurant can extend its mission even to its suppliers. “The entire company doesn’t have to be trash free,” Chambers explains, “but our direct relationship with them does.”   So all cheeses must be used in their entirety (no inedible wax rinds) and delivered in reusable containers. Brooklyn butcher shop Marlow & Daughters will bicycle over cured meats, jars of chicken-liver mousse, and pickled veggies. Marlow’s sister bakery, She Wolf, will do the same with bread — initially, rye loaves, ciabattas, and baguettes. Le Petit Poisson, a tiny Brooklyn distributor that pushes sustainability, has offered to deliver oysters in what are likely New York’s first returnable oyster packs. Spent shells, meanwhile, will go to the Billion Oyster Project to help restore New York’s waterways. Anything guests leave on their plates will be fed into a commercial-grade composter, along with shredded-up bits of any cardboard packaging. Perhaps counterintuitively, many of the wines will come from France. Rich’s position is that he’d rather offset the emissions caused by importing natural wines from an artisanal winemaker overseas (a sliver of the bottle’s total carbon footprint, anyway) than buy from closer producers whose principles are less aligned with Rhodora’s.   In addition to waste, something else will be notably absent from Rhodora: a chef. The menu lands between substantial bar snacks and light dinner fare — oysters and seafood conservas, cheese and charcuterie, sliced bread, a few other basic items like a bitter-greens salad and pickled vegetables. Staff won’t need culinary skills beyond the ability to shuck oysters, dress a salad, and plate a cheese board. That was intentional because Rich also wants Rhodora to jettison traditional restaurant roles, particularly the part about porters and bussers cleaning up everyone’s mess. “The whole idea is taking responsibility for your own waste,” Rich explains. “It felt weird to have a guy running around cleaning up after everybody.” They hired a team of half a dozen, and, depending on the night, an employee might prepare oysters, recommend wines, or mix cocktails. Cleaning and educating diners about zero waste are duties everyone splits, and they all receive profit shares.   Even though Rhodora is unique among New York restaurants, Rich and his team have leaned on sustainability pioneers industrywide since Mettā’s start. The move to carbon neutrality, for example, was inspired by Anthony Myint, the Mission Chinese Food co-founder who now runs Zero Foodprint, a nonprofit focused on fighting the climate crisis, which boasts partners such as Noma, Osteria Francescana, and El Celler de Can Roca. (“Henry and the folks at Mettā are like our kindred spirits on the East Coast,” Myint says.) They also worked with the chef Doug McMaster, who runs Silo in London, the U.K.’s first zero-waste restaurant. (Five years in, Silo kilns its own plates from plastic bags, upcycles food packaging into tables, and sports a carbon-negative floor made from bombproof cork.) Last November, Oberon co-hosted a zero-waste pop-up with McMaster and Lauren Singer, of Williamsburg’s zero-waste home-goods store Package Free.   Which brings us back to the trash: Even though Rich knew how to eliminate the waste his staff and partners would create, he still needed to take care of customer-generated rubbish, especially in the restrooms. Package Free, like many retail shops, simply doesn’t have a bathroom, so Singer never had to devise a plan for customer trash. When Rich asked McMaster how Silo had solved the problem, the chef was confused; the U.K. has companies that specialize in recycling the bathroom waste products that had Oberon stumped.   The group considered opening with a sign in the restroom that asked guests to brainstorm solutions. A few weeks ago, though, it found an answer. To recycle Saran wrap, Mettā had used a New Jersey–based company called TerraCycle that runs a curbside-pickup program for difficult-to-recycle items: cigarette butts, gum, cooking oil, batteries, even hazardous waste. It would be expensive — “a box may cost you $800,” Rich says — but that waste wouldn’t be a problem. They’ll have two TerraCycle boxes, one in the bathroom, another for random litter that guests leave on the bar or tables.   Still, it’s another cost in a low-margin industry that Rhodora will have to absorb, at least until a better option presents itself. “If zero waste is our mission, the entire program has to be built around that,” Rich says, pointing out that his goal is to start with sustainability and turn that idea into the same thing every operator wants: a place with delicious, affordable food where customers return again and again. “Sustainability can’t be a special-occasion thing,” he argues, “because if that is the case, this movement will fail.”

Henry Moynahan Rich spent his summer being haunted by trash. He needed to figure out how to eliminate it completely. In July, his company, Oberon Group, closed the Fort Greene restaurant Mettā with a goal of reopening it in the fall as the first truly zero-waste restaurant in New York and possibly in all of America. That meant not only the restaurant’s waste, which he could control, but also the gum, empty cups, and hygiene products his customers would bring in.   “We have to be honest,” he explains. “This is going to be an inconvenience to guests, and we’re in the hospitality business.” He’s not excited about the prospect of saying no to his customers: “People are going to say, ‘I’m paying you. Can’t you throw this away for me?’ And we’re gonna have to be like, ‘Nope, sorry. We actually don’t have a means of dealing with this here.’”   In reality, Mettā had been trending this way for some time. In 2017, Rich, Oberon deputy director Halley Chambers, and the rest of the team had made it New York’s first carbon-neutral restaurant. Everything was cooked over a single fire fed with responsibly forested local wood, the group bought renewable energy, and the remaining emissions (the equivalent of roughly 50,000 gallons of gas per year) were offset by investments in carbon-negative initiatives. Leftover citrus rinds at the bar were turned into salt, and the kitchen stored gallons of fermented ingredients.   Now they’ve gone all in, and the restaurant is slated to reopen later this month. The space looks the same, but Mettā will be renamed Rhodora, after a Ralph Waldo Emerson poem. The hope is the new model will create a template that other restaurateurs, and the companies they work with, can follow to cut down on or eliminate their own waste. Oberon has sourced wines in compostable boxes, dropped liquor brands that use unrecyclable caps (that’s more than you might think), found a dishwasher that uses electrolyzed water to eliminate the need for soap, gotten rid of paper receipts, tracked down a nonprofit called ReCORK that turns used wine corks into shoe soles, and, at least for now, has retired the Francis Mallmann–inspired oven. (For that matter, Oberon’s other businesses — including June, the Cobble Hill wine bar, and a catering arm called Purslane, which is already waste free — operate with sustainability in mind too.)   As Chambers explains, “the food world has traditionally done such a poor job of being environmental stewards — if we can build a model of a sustainable trash-free relationship, suppliers can start replicating it.” Restaurants sometimes use the term zero waste to refer to a nose-to-tail, stem-to-root ethos in the kitchen. And in fact, Rich first tried to remove kitchen waste completely when the restaurant was still Mettā. Doing so while the place was up and running proved too difficult, however. “Trying to reverse engineer it would never work,” Rich says. At Rhodora, the focus will be on natural wine and simple food, so the restaurant can extend its mission even to its suppliers. “The entire company doesn’t have to be trash free,” Chambers explains, “but our direct relationship with them does.”   So all cheeses must be used in their entirety (no inedible wax rinds) and delivered in reusable containers. Brooklyn butcher shop Marlow & Daughters will bicycle over cured meats, jars of chicken-liver mousse, and pickled veggies. Marlow’s sister bakery, She Wolf, will do the same with bread — initially, rye loaves, ciabattas, and baguettes. Le Petit Poisson, a tiny Brooklyn distributor that pushes sustainability, has offered to deliver oysters in what are likely New York’s first returnable oyster packs. Spent shells, meanwhile, will go to the Billion Oyster Project to help restore New York’s waterways. Anything guests leave on their plates will be fed into a commercial-grade composter, along with shredded-up bits of any cardboard packaging. Perhaps counterintuitively, many of the wines will come from France. Rich’s position is that he’d rather offset the emissions caused by importing natural wines from an artisanal winemaker overseas (a sliver of the bottle’s total carbon footprint, anyway) than buy from closer producers whose principles are less aligned with Rhodora’s.   In addition to waste, something else will be notably absent from Rhodora: a chef. The menu lands between substantial bar snacks and light dinner fare — oysters and seafood conservas, cheese and charcuterie, sliced bread, a few other basic items like a bitter-greens salad and pickled vegetables. Staff won’t need culinary skills beyond the ability to shuck oysters, dress a salad, and plate a cheese board. That was intentional because Rich also wants Rhodora to jettison traditional restaurant roles, particularly the part about porters and bussers cleaning up everyone’s mess. “The whole idea is taking responsibility for your own waste,” Rich explains. “It felt weird to have a guy running around cleaning up after everybody.” They hired a team of half a dozen, and, depending on the night, an employee might prepare oysters, recommend wines, or mix cocktails. Cleaning and educating diners about zero waste are duties everyone splits, and they all receive profit shares.   Even though Rhodora is unique among New York restaurants, Rich and his team have leaned on sustainability pioneers industrywide since Mettā’s start. The move to carbon neutrality, for example, was inspired by Anthony Myint, the Mission Chinese Food co-founder who now runs Zero Foodprint, a nonprofit focused on fighting the climate crisis, which boasts partners such as Noma, Osteria Francescana, and El Celler de Can Roca. (“Henry and the folks at Mettā are like our kindred spirits on the East Coast,” Myint says.) They also worked with the chef Doug McMaster, who runs Silo in London, the U.K.’s first zero-waste restaurant. (Five years in, Silo kilns its own plates from plastic bags, upcycles food packaging into tables, and sports a carbon-negative floor made from bombproof cork.) Last November, Oberon co-hosted a zero-waste pop-up with McMaster and Lauren Singer, of Williamsburg’s zero-waste home-goods store Package Free.   Which brings us back to the trash: Even though Rich knew how to eliminate the waste his staff and partners would create, he still needed to take care of customer-generated rubbish, especially in the restrooms. Package Free, like many retail shops, simply doesn’t have a bathroom, so Singer never had to devise a plan for customer trash. When Rich asked McMaster how Silo had solved the problem, the chef was confused; the U.K. has companies that specialize in recycling the bathroom waste products that had Oberon stumped.   The group considered opening with a sign in the restroom that asked guests to brainstorm solutions. A few weeks ago, though, it found an answer. To recycle Saran wrap, Mettā had used a New Jersey–based company called TerraCycle that runs a curbside-pickup program for difficult-to-recycle items: cigarette butts, gum, cooking oil, batteries, even hazardous waste. It would be expensive — “a box may cost you $800,” Rich says — but that waste wouldn’t be a problem. They’ll have two TerraCycle boxes, one in the bathroom, another for random litter that guests leave on the bar or tables.   Still, it’s another cost in a low-margin industry that Rhodora will have to absorb, at least until a better option presents itself. “If zero waste is our mission, the entire program has to be built around that,” Rich says, pointing out that his goal is to start with sustainability and turn that idea into the same thing every operator wants: a place with delicious, affordable food where customers return again and again. “Sustainability can’t be a special-occasion thing,” he argues, “because if that is the case, this movement will fail.”

Monthly Expenses Rent: $0 (When my then boyfriend and now husband, C., and I moved in together, I moved into the apartment he'd purchased just before we met. Ever since we've lived together, he's paid the mortgage on our place and I've put money toward our monthly travel fund instead. We started this arrangement as a way to pay for our wedding on our own and have kept it up ever since.) Loans $0 (paid off the last of my student loan debt almost two years ago, thanks to a little help from C.) Gym: $65 Monthly MetroCard: $127 taken out of my paycheque pre-tax Cell Phone: $67.13 (C. and I share a family plan, but we split the costs by line each month) Monthly Donations: $135 (across several charities, including the National Abortion Fund, Children's Inc., EarthJustice, the DNC, and PBS) Savings: $500, plus I transfer 18% of my paycheque to a 401(k) account each month pre-tax Credit Card Payment: $450 (If my expenses are less than that, I add the balance to my savings.) Amazon Prime: $0 (C. pays) Netflix: $8.70 Hulu: $5.99 Internet: $0 (C. pays)     Day One 7:45 a.m. — My alarm goes off a little later than normal for me. I'm currently empaneled on a federal grand jury, and I have to report to court today so I won't be going into the office. Reporting time at court is 9:30. Before heading out the door, I make myself a smoothie using Greek yogurt, some plant-based protein powder, spinach, a banana, and some frozen berries. I also make myself an iced coffee using chilled coffee from our French press I made last night.   8:45 a.m. — Kiss C. goodbye and head downtown using my prepaid monthly MetroCard.   9:42 a.m. — Arrive in the jury room a little late due to an unusually long line at security. I'm informed by my fellow jurors that juror number 16 is currently a no-show. We need at least 16 jurors in attendance to hear a case, so we're in limbo waiting for her. Instead of getting dismissed, we're kept waiting for several hours while the office tries to track her down.   11:30 a.m. — After waiting around for almost two hours, we're notified our missing juror has been located and she's on her way in. We're expected to start hearing cases at 12:30, so we break for lunch. I take a short walk to a ’Wichcraft near the court. I'm usually not a huge fan of their sandwiches, but they do an amazing seasonal BLT sandwich in August and September. I get a BLT, a bag of chips, and a can of fancy seltzer. I almost die when the cashier rings up the total and it's $17. That's a hefty price for a sandwich, but it is an amazing BLT. $17   3 p.m. — After hearing several cases, we are dismissed for the day and I get ready to head home. On my way to the subway I get a notification from FedEx that they attempted to deliver a package to my address, but no one was available to sign for it. It's medication from a specialty pharmacy that I need for my next round of IUI treatment next week, so I'll need to go pick this package up from the FedEx shipping centre in the Bronx tonight. Annoying.   4 p.m. — I get back to my apartment to find out that the dryers have finally been turned back on in the laundry room! Our building is slowly updating all the gas lines, and the line connected to the dryers has been out for almost two months. We've been line-drying most of our laundry during this time, but I've let some items like sheets and towels build up. I instantly drop everything and throw four loads of laundry in before it gets too crowded. I have to top up the laundry card to get it all done. $35   5:49 p.m. — I get a notification from FedEx that my package has returned to the shipping facility, so I head out to pick it up. I text C. on my way, asking him to get supplies for dinner while I go pick up the package. He obliges.   7:10 p.m. — Successfully collected my package and headed home. On the subway back home I sit in a huge puddle of water I didn't see on the seat. This day, man.   8 p.m. — Glad to be home, but grossed out about the (hopefully) water I sat in on the subway. I immediately jump in the shower. When I get out C. is home and making dinner. He makes us pasta with chicken sausage, tomatoes, peppers, and onions. Yum! We settle in for a relaxing night of Netflix. We begin the second season of Mindhunters, but I'm asleep before the credits roll on the second episode.   Daily Total: $52

Day Two

5:45 a.m. — A few times a month I volunteer at a women's health clinic as a clinic escort. We meet at 7:30 and help escort patients to their appointments through the group of protestors who come out every weekend. It's an early call time for a weekend, but I'm happy to do it. On my way to the subway I realise I left the Clomid pills I am taking this week in anticipation of my next IUI treatment at home. I try to take the pill the same time every day, but it's too late to turn back. Oh, well, it will be fine. I stop at a local bodega for an iced coffee and a blueberry muffin. $5.25   10:30 a.m. — Pretty uneventful day at the clinic, but we did have an Academy Award–winning actress join us on the street today! It was almost comical how her being there tripped up some of the regular protestors.   12 p.m.— On my way back to my apartment, I stop for a grilled cheese and tomato, a bag of Fritos, and a can of Diet Dr. Pepper from a different local bodega. $7   1:45 p.m. — I decide to watch BlacKkKlansman on HBO via our Amazon Prime add-on subscription (which C. pays for) and chill. C. is training for a nine-day bike ride across the U.K., so he's out of the house for the day and I have the apartment to myself. I try to resist the urge to nap, but I know I'll probably cave.   4:30 p.m. — I knew I would fall asleep! No matter what time I go to bed the night before, that 5:45 wake-up call kills me. C. has texted me while I was sleeping to say his ride is going a little longer than he thought. I like having the apartment to myself, so this is fine with me. I lie on the couch for a little bit longer, scrolling through social media before I get up. I'm feeling a little hungry again, but I want to wait for C. to come home so we can have dinner together. I eat Greek yogurt with peanut butter, honey, and frozen fruit on top as a snack before putzing around the apartment.   5 p.m. — While I wait for C. to come home, I decide to catch up on the episodes of Mindhunter that I slept through last night, so C. and I will be in the same place for later. While I'm doing this, I make plans with my dad to come to New Jersey tomorrow to visit my grandmother, who has recently transitioned from living with my parents to a nursing home nearby. I also text my friend K., who still lives in our hometown, to see if she wants to have lunch when I come to town tomorrow. While I relax, I order us a new Zero Waste box for our kitchen through TerraCycle. C. and I are passionate about lowering our impact on the earth, and TerraCycle is one way we do this. They work hard to recycle products that would otherwise end up in landfills. One small box lasts us about three months. $109   6:45 p.m. — C. texts to say his cycle group is going REALLY slow and they are getting the 8:40 p.m. train from Poughkeepsie, so he won't be home before 10. So much for having dinner together. I decide to heat up leftover pasta, sausage, tomatoes, peppers, and onions from last night and settle in for a quiet night with Netflix. I travel a lot for work and for pleasure, so when I'm home over a weekend, I tend to stay in and enjoy it.   10:30 p.m. — I finally give up on waiting for C. and head to bed. I'm feeling lazy tonight from all my relaxing, so I just brush my teeth and call it a night. I fall asleep listening to a Headspace sleepcast and don't hear C. when he gets in an hour later. Daily Total: $121.25     Day Three 8:45 a.m. — Up 30 minutes before my alarm, but C. is up too so we snuggle in bed and he fills me in on his ride. We make plans for the day, and he decides he'll come to New Jersey a bit later on to visit my grandmother with me, but will pass on lunch with K. I ask him if he'll grab us breakfast while I shower. I've been trying out different shampoo bars to see which one works best for my hair. Today I try one that I bought at an arts fair in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, when I was there back in June. The vendor said it was specifically good for dry hair, but I'm not really feeling the difference. I've found a bunch of shampoo bars that I like, but I have yet to find a good conditioner. I make a mental note to read up on conditioning products on the train ride to New Jersey.   9:50 a.m. — C. and I finish up a breakfast of bagels and coffee. He got the bagel at our local bodega, and we made the coffee at home in the French press. I get ready to head out to catch the 11:11 train to New Jersey. We have a good-natured debate about the best way to get to Penn Station from our apartment, each of us having a preferred route.   11:11 a.m. — Off to New Jersey! I took C.'s route to Penn Station, mostly so I could stop by our neighbourhood coffee shop for another iced coffee. I use my monthly MetroCard to get to Penn and remember I have train tickets that were never collected from the last time we went to visit my family, so the trip to New Jersey costs me nothing. $3   12:25 p.m. — I am a little early to meet K. for lunch, so I stop in Bluemercury to check out their hair products. I end up leaving with a small bottle of Moroccan Oil. I want to try it out and see if it will work well for me before committing to a larger bottle. $15.99   2 p.m. — K. saves me the walk to my parents' and drops me off on her way home. She's had some health issues over the years that have made it hard to make plans, but I am glad we had a chance to catch up. She is starting a grad program next week, and I'm excited for her. We shared fried pickles, and I got a Diet Coke plus a mixed-greens salad with chorizo, black beans, and avocado. K. had a Chicago-style pork roll with sweet-potato waffle fries. We split the bill down the middle. $21.32   3:15 p.m. — C. texts to say he is a few stops away, so I leave my parents' and drive to pick him up. We head directly to my grandma's nursing home. She's sleeping when we get there and a little groggy for the rest of the visit, but we stay for about an hour before letting her rest. I stop at a CVS on the way back to my parents' to get some styling mousse. $4.68   5:25 p.m. — My Dad drives us to the train, and C. and I head back to NYC. We discuss what to do for dinner and decide that I'll stop at the grocery store on my way back to the apartment, and C. will head straight home with some of the stuff I brought back to the city from my parents' place. I still have a ticket from our last trip to NJ, so the train trip back costs nothing.   7 p.m. — I part ways with C. at Penn Station so I can head to the west side to go to Trader Joe's and he can head home to the east side. I wish the UES had a Trader Joe's, but it's not the worst getting to the west side location. Except, of course, the 1 train isn't running this weekend, so I have to take a detour. I make it to Trader Joe's and leave with breaded chicken, frozen berries, Greek yogurt, plant-based protein powder, mustard, potatoes, peaches, bananas, and an impulsive purchase of some gummy candy. $39.72   7 p.m. — On my way to the crosstown bus, I make a second stop at Fairway to get some more veggies. I hate that Trader Joe's packages so much of their vegetables in plastic, and I don't mind making the second stop to avoid this. Especially since there is already so much plastic packaging involved in the items I did buy (most of which can go in our TerraCycle box, but still). I pick up some green beans in my reusable produce bag and two carrots. $2.02   7 p.m. — One last stop on the way to the bus! I stop at Lush to pick up a few items from their Naked range. I get a body-lotion bar and a hot-oil hair treatment, plus one of their shampoo bars that I love because I am still thinking about my disappointing shampoo bar from this morning. Besides the hot-oil stick, which is single-use, these items will last me a while. $39.03   8:30 p.m. — Arrive home and pass the groceries over to C. I don't like cooking, nor am I very good at it, so C. does most of the cooking for our joint meals. I get comfy on the couch while he does his thing. He uses the food I just bought to make us breaded chicken with veggies. He also makes himself mashed potatoes, but I stick to the green beans.   9:30 p.m. — We settle in to watch Mindhunter. We discover I watched one too many episodes when I was trying to catch up. While C. catches up to me, I make my lunch and coffee for the morning. I basically eat the same thing for lunch during the week. Each night I make a spinach salad with capers, feta cheese, and frozen shrimp from Trader Joe's that I defrost overnight. I top it off with Trader Joe's Greek feta dressing. I also pack a peach and a green pepper I slice up for a snack and make coffee that I will chill overnight for an iced coffee in the morning. We watch one more episode of Mindhunter before calling it a night around 11.   Daily Total: $125.76   Day Four 6:05 a.m. — Alarm goes off, but I snooze. I use the iPhone bedtime feature as my alarm so the sound builds gradually, which makes me feel like snoozing is not so bad. C. would probably disagree.   6:45 a.m. — I finally get out of bed and start getting ready for the day. I jump in the shower and bring my new Moroccan Oil with me. When I get out, I make my standard breakfast smoothie using Greek yogurt, plant-based protein powder, frozen berries, and a banana. I realise I used all the spinach I had to make my lunch last night, so I grab a reusable produce bag and make a note to get some on my way home from work. I gather the lunch and coffee I prepped the night before and give a sleeping C. a kiss before heading out the door.   8:15 a.m. — Arrive at work. I am usually one of the first people in the office in the morning. I like to get a jump on the day before all the meetings start up. Today I have to report to jury duty at 10:30, so I am extra grateful for the time to get stuff done. I reply to emails and keep a few projects moving before heading to court at 10.   12:45 p.m. — We break for lunch, and I eat my salad in the juror break room. I also help myself to a small pack of Welch's fruit snacks that are in the break room for jurors and other court officials to snack on. We have some downtime until our next case at 2, so I take the rest of the time to read my book.   3:45 p.m. — After hearing two more cases, we're done for the day and I head back uptown. I take it as a huge personal triumph that I remember to stop for spinach, and as a result treat myself to a black-and-white cookie. $9.18   5 p.m. — I arrive home and throw a load of laundry in before digging into work emails that came in while I was in court. I still have money on the laundry card from the weekend, so no need to top up.   7:30 p.m. — C. gets home just as I am putting away the last of the laundry. Per usual he is on cooking duty, and we have the same meal as last night —chicken with veggies, plus potatoes for C. I do my Lush hot-oil treatment while he cooks.   9:30 p.m. — Dinner is done, and C. and I settle in for some more Mindhunter. While we are watching, I prep my standard lunch salad and coffee for the morning. We call it a night around 11.   Daily Total: $9.18     Day Five 5:50 a.m. — Ugh. Another early morning, but it can't be helped. I need to go to the NYU Fertility Centre this morning to have blood drawn and an ultrasound to see if I am ready for my trigger shot for the next stage of my IUI treatment. I make my standard breakfast smoothie (today with spinach, since I remembered to buy some yesterday!), pack up my standard lunch salad, and prep my iced coffee that I made last night. I'm out the door in about 40 minutes. Since this is a walk-in facility, I try to always go first thing in the morning, so I don't have to wait too long.   7:10 a.m. — I use my monthly MetroCard to take the bus downtown. I am the second patient in the waiting room. After several attempts to find a vein, I get my blood drawn and get to see my actual doctor for the ultrasound. I'm not ready for the trigger shot, and she tells me I'll probably have to come back on Thursday, but the office will call to confirm once they've processed the blood work. Thankfully, my insurance has been great so far, so this visit will cost me nothing.   8:15 a.m. — I have jury duty again today. This makes three days in a row, which is a first. Since I was selected on August 1, I've only had to report a handful of times, but I guess things are picking up. I don't need to arrive at court until 9:30, so I take the subway to the office to answer emails and get some work done.   9:30 a.m. — We have three cases to hear this morning, so I settle in for a few hours of civic duty.   1:15 p.m. — We're dismissed for the day, and I take the subway the two stops to my office. I'm really getting the full use of my monthly MetroCard today! When I arrive in the office, I catch up with my friend N., who has been on vacation for the last two weeks, and then eat my salad at my desk.   3:20 p.m. — I snack on the peach I brought with me this morning before heading into a meeting. I have two easy meetings this afternoon, and then we have a company mixer. We recently moved to a new building, so this is an attempt to get us to socialise with our new floormates. I usually hate the idea of forced fun, but hopefully this will be a good afternoon distraction.   6 p.m. — The mixer is very crowded and very loud, so I grab a cupcake, say hi to a few people, and then head back to my desk. I call in and find out I have jury duty again tomorrow, so I am glad I bailed on the party early, since I will be out again. I check a few things off my to-do list and text C. to see when he was thinking of leaving work. If our schedules line up, we try to take the train home together in the evening, but he is taking a spin class at the gym tonight in preparation for his upcoming nine-day bike trip, so I head home alone.   7 p.m. — I am beat from my early morning, and as previously mentioned, I hate cooking, so I keep it simple and have some Greek yogurt with peanut butter, honey, and berries for dinner. I don't have much motivation for anything else, so I lie on the couch and read for a little until C. gets home. He makes himself cereal for dinner, and we settle in for the last episode of Mindhunter. I fall asleep about 20 minutes into the episode.   Daily Total: $0   Day Six 6:45 a.m. — I was honest with myself about what time I thought I would ACTUALLY get out of bed this morning so I don't disturb C. with my snoozing. I take a quick shower and then make my breakfast and lunch. It's the same as previous days: smoothie for breakfast, spinach salad with shrimp, etc. for lunch. But I fell asleep last night before making my lunch salad, so it takes me a little longer this morning. I'm still out the door by 7:30.   8:15 a.m. — I arrive at work, determined to be productive until I have to leave for jury duty at 10, but I get sucked into chatting with my other friend N. about work and lose at least 30 minutes. Oh, well!   10 a.m. — Take the subway the two stops to jury duty and put in an hour at the courthouse. Two of the cases we were meant to hear today got canceled, so I'm headed back to the office way earlier than expected!   12 p.m.— I'm starving, so I eat my salad and the peach I brought for lunch promptly at noon, while getting my to-do list in order and prepping for my afternoon meetings.   3 p.m. — I'm still hungry, so I head upstairs to the vending machine and grab a Twix AND a packet of Smartfood popcorn. $1.50   5:30 p.m. — I call the jury office and find out I need to report to jury duty AGAIN tomorrow. Being on a grand jury is no joke. I set my out-of-office and call it a day. I text C. on my way out to coordinate evening plans. We're both headed to the gym, but make plans to eat dinner together.   7 p.m. — I do 30 minutes on the elliptical before heading home. C.'s taking a class downtown, so I eat a spoonful of peanut butter to hold me over until he gets home.   8 p.m. — C. arrives with groceries in hand. He makes us open-face toasted cheese sandwiches with tomato and onion. Afterward, we share a fancy yogurt I bought a week or so ago but forgot in the fridge and settle in to watch some Netflix. We've finished Mindhunter, so we're looking for a new show to watch. We settle on Orange Is the New Black and watch the first few episodes before calling it a night at 11.   Daily Total: $1.50   Day Seven 5:50 a.m. — Ugh. Alarm rings waaaaay too early, but I'm headed to the NYU Fertility Centre again this morning. I take a quick shower and then make my regular smoothie and an iced coffee before heading out the door at 6:30 a.m. I skip making my lunch, so I'll have to pick something up later.   7:15 a.m. — Arrive at the clinic, and it's more crowded this morning. Luckily, I don't have to wait too long, as I have to report to jury duty again today and am hoping to swing by the office first. The nurses get me through quickly and notify me I'm ready for my trigger shot. C. and I will have to come back tomorrow for the final step in the IUI process. Then we'll cross our fingers and wait.   8:15 a.m. — I'm able to swing by the office to take care of emails and pass off some meetings, since it looks like I have a full day of court ahead of me. I leave the office at 9 and take the subway the two stops to court, where it is confirmed that we do indeed have a full day of cases.   11 a.m. — We have an hour between cases, so I take the opportunity to retrieve my cell phone from the clerk to see if NYU has called with a schedule for tomorrow. I'm also starving, so I stop at a deli by the courthouse and grab a sausage roll. $4   1 p.m. — We break for lunch, and all I want to do is go to my favourite dim sum place in Chinatown for dumplings, but just as I am about to reach the restaurant, I see our foreman coming around the opposite corner, about to enter the restaurant. Something about this guy has been rubbing me the wrong way, and I can't stand the idea of spending my lunch break with him, so I retreat and grab a sandwich and a ginger beer at Pret. It's not the same. $9.98   4:30 p.m. — We're dismissed for the day (and, I'm hoping, the week). I'm meeting a friend for dinner at 6:45 downtown, but I decide I have enough time to head home to the UES and lie down for a little before.   6 p.m. — After lying down for a little and freshening up, I head out to meet my friend D. at Murray's Cheese Bar. We met at work a few years ago, and even though we work at different companies now, she's remained one of my very best friends. We decide to share a lobster mac 'n' cheese, buffalo cheese curds, and a cherry tomato and ricotta salad. D. has two glasses of wine, but since I'm being inseminated tomorrow, I stick to an artisan ginger ale. When it comes time to pay, we split the bill down the middle. $69.79   9:30 p.m. — Back at home, and C. is home making dinner. We watch an episode of Orange Is the New Black before calling it a night.   Daily Total: $83.77

The fruit-and-vegetable packets are O.K. in moderation, experts say, but don’t rely on them for every meal. On a recent Saturday morning, I answered my antsy 3-year-old’s request for a snack by digging into my bag and finding – to my relief – a pouch of applesauce. I snapped off the cap and handed it over, and he was content for the last few minutes of his sister’s violin class. Perhaps apple slices would have been more ideal, but I was glad to have the pouch on hand.   Since the introduction of baby food pouches about 10 years ago, they’ve claimed more of the market each year. Technavio, a market research firm, estimated in 2018 that global revenue from baby food pouches grew tenfold between 2010 and 2017 — from $16 million to $160.8 million. In 2017, the market research firm Mintel surveyed 1,000 households in the United States with young children and found that about half of kids 3 and under eat purees from pouches, and of these, 58 percent have one or more pouches per day.   As a parent and college nutrition instructor, my guess is that pouches are popular because they’re convenient, shelf-stable and usually more nutritious than other packaged snacks. While they’re mostly fruit and vegetable purees, they can include more interesting ingredients like chia seeds, chickpeas, millet, avocado and yogurt.   “They were great when my daughter was about 2 and so hungry at 5:30 when I picked her up from day care. It prevented many dinner-prep meltdowns,” said Melissa Marks, a biology professor in Salem, Ore. “I didn’t love the eco-unfriendly nature of them,” said Marks, “but they got this scientist mom through the final pre-tenure year.” While the pouches are not recyclable through municipal services, they can be mailed to TerraCycle at a cost of at least $65 per shipment, except for a few brands that have set up free mail-in programs with the recycling company. Pouch caps are collected in some locations by Preserve, which manufactures goods like toothbrushes and razors from recycled plastic.   The pediatric feeding experts I spoke with said that there’s nothing wrong with giving your kids pouches from time to time, but they’re worried that some families might be becoming too reliant on them. The pouches’ entry into the baby food market is so recent that there isn’t yet published research on their impact, but they are enough of a departure from traditional baby foods that they raise several theoretical concerns, including delaying motor development, diluting nutritional quality, and increasing picky eating and cavities in young kids.   One potential problem is that pouches may oversimplify the eating process, leaving fewer opportunities for babies to practice the oral and fine motor skills they need to use utensils and to eat more textured foods. For example, babies can suck from a pouch using similar mouth and tongue movements as when they breastfeed or drink from a bottle, said Jenny McGlothlin, M.S., a speech-language pathologist at the University of Texas at Dallas and coauthor of “Helping Your Child With Extreme Picky Eating.” It’s better for babies to eat purees with a spoon, she said, so they can practice closing their lips over the utensil and moving food back in their mouths to swallow, and then advance to food with more texture as soon as they’re ready.   Pouched baby foods are marketed for babies as young as 4 months, and since they’re easy for babies to suck down, this might encourage parents to add too much pureed food to their babies’ diets too early. “As semi-liquids that could fill up the baby, they are not good nutritional substitutes for breastmilk or formula in early life,” said Dr. Steven Abrams, M.D., chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Nutrition. The A.A.P. advises parents to start offering solids to babies when they’re interested and developmentally ready to sit up and eat from a spoon, usually around 6 months.   Anecdotally, some professionals say they’re observing delays in motor development among kids overly dependent on the pouches. Ruth McGivern, M.A., a pediatric speech-language pathologist in Philadelphia, said that she and her colleagues had noticed that some of their toddler clients were learning to self-feed with a spoon later than usual, and that she was “pretty sure reliance on the pouches is part of the reason.” On its own, taking longer to learn to use a spoon wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, she said, but she worries that these toddlers are missing out on an important stage of food exploration.   “Without the opportunity to smear food all over their faces, and lick it off with their tongues, and wave the spoon around while they play with the food in their other hand, young toddlers tend to lose their curiosity about food and become more and more dependent on either the pouches or their parent spoon-feeding them,” said McGivern.   Research suggests that kids use all their senses to learn about food. Having the opportunity to see, smell and play with food can increase a toddler’s acceptance of new foods, according to studies published in the journal Appetite, and pouches don’t allow for that full sensory experience. Maryann Jacobsen, M.S, R.D., a coauthor of “Fearless Feeding,” recommended advancing from purees – like those in pouches – to more textured foods between 6 and 10 months so that babies can learn to chew and feed themselves finger foods.   Babies are most open to new tastes during a “golden window of opportunity” between 6 and 18 months, said McGlothlin. It’s a perfect time to get used to the bitterness of green vegetables, which can require repeated exposures. “If we don’t offer a variety of foods and experiences, then we’re setting ourselves up for pickiness later,” she said.   If vegetables are introduced to kids only in pouch form, their taste is probably masked. “When you’re mixing it with other flavors, there’s no guarantee that they’re able to taste it in the way that they need to in order to learn to like that flavor over time,” said Kameron Moding, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in pediatric nutrition at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, whose research has shown that most packaged baby and toddler vegetable products, including pouches, are blended with fruits or sweet vegetables.   Those sweet ingredients also mean the pouches are high in sugar. A study published this July in the journal Nutrients analyzed 703 pureed baby and toddler food products and found that pouched purees were often higher in sugar than baby food in other packages, like jars or plastic tubs. For example, among fruit and vegetable blend products, pouches had a median of 11 grams of sugar per serving, compared with 5 grams of sugar per serving in products with other packaging because the pouches both came in larger serving sizes and were more concentrated in sugar. Among the pouched blends, 58 percent had added sugar beyond that naturally present in fruits and vegetables, compared with 33 percent of the purees in other packaging.   “The higher the sugar content, the higher the risk of tooth decay,” said Dr. Joe Castellanos, D.D.S., immediate past president of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry. He recommends using pouches only in moderation, along with a good tooth brushing routine.   Despite these concerns, there’s nothing wrong with the occasional pouch, Jacobsen said. “It’s fine to use these,” she said. “It’s just when we overuse them and we rely on them too much, I think that’s when it becomes problematic.”   The experts I spoke with said that it’s impossible to give hard and fast rules on how many pouches is too many. Some kids who eat several pouches per day are still comfortable eating many other foods. However, if your kid is fussy when they can’t have a pouch; or if they refuse to eat more textured foods, or if they don’t want to use utensils or touch food with their hands, it’s a problem, McGlothlin said. A pediatric feeding specialist can do an evaluation to identify sensory or oral motor issues that may be contributing and help make a plan to broaden the child’s diet.   Although she’s concerned about overuse of pouches, McGlothlin, who’s also a mother of three, said that it’s not helpful to judge parents about how they feed their kids. “We’re all kind of just trying to do the best we can on a daily basis,” she said.   Pouches may be especially helpful for parents with disabilities, or for those who have little time for food prep and who might find that pouches are the most realistic way of getting fruits and veggies into their kids’ lunchboxes.   The same can be true for children with special needs. Katie Herzog, a mother in Novi, Mich., has a 4-year-old daughter who has significant feeding problems that require therapy. “Even as we add solid foods to her diet, the pouches are important to give her jaw a break,” Herzog said. Her daughter also has celiac disease, an autoimmune condition in which the body mounts an attack response against the small intestine after eating gluten, she said, so pouches can be given to her on the go without having to worry about wheat contamination.   For my part, I see parenting as both a short game and a long game. My long game that Saturday morning was to make a fragrant lentil and veggie curry that would simmer in the slow cooker all afternoon. I wasn’t sure if my son would eat much of it, but at least he would smell it, taste a bit of it, and watch his sister and parents enjoy it. But my short game? It might involve a pouch every now and then.  

Companies are still fighting to go green, and Kroger and Walgreens are the latest to join in on a new recycling project. This state-of-the-art circular shopping system, named Loop, officially launched their pilot program in May of 2019 in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. to lessen the world’s reliance on single-use packaging, according to a TerraCycle press release. First announced at the World Economic Forum in January, Loop enables consumers to purchase a variety of commonly used products from leading consumer brands in customized, brand-specific durable packaging that is delivered in a specially designed reusable shipping tote. When finished with the product, the packaging is collected, cleaned, refilled and reused, creating a revolutionary circular shopping system. Loop is an initiative from TerraCycle, an innovative waste management company whose mission is to eliminate the idea of waste. Operating nationally across 21 countries, TerraCycle partners with leading consumer companies, retailers, cities and facilities to recycle hard-to-recycle waste. Loop provides customers this circular shopping platform while encouraging manufacturers to own and take responsibility for their packaging on the long term. “Loop was designed from the ground-up to reinvent the way we consume by leveraging the sustainable, circular milkman model of yesterday with the convenience of e-commerce,” said Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of Loop and TerraCycle, in the press release. “TerraCycle came together with dozens of major consumer product companies from P&G to Nestle to Unilever, the World Economic Forum Future of Consumption Platform, logistics and transportation company UPS and leading retailers Kroger and Walgreens to create a simple and convenient way to enjoy a wide range of products, customized in brand-specific durable and reusable packaging.”

How It Works

Consumers can go to www.loopstore.com, www.thekrogerco.com/loop or www.walgreens.com/loop to place an order. The shipment will then come in Loop’s exclusively designed shipping tote. After use, buyers place the empty containers into their Loop totes and go online to schedule a pickup from their home. Loop will clean the packaging so that each product may be safely reused to replenish products for more customers. There are also a number of completely free recycling programs on TerraCycle’s website, www.terracycle.com/en-US, where consumers can sign up for an account. Once the account is created, customers can collect the hard-to-recycle materials and either ship it or drop it off at a participating location. There are numerous different free programs that can be used and each one is for a specific product. For example, one of the programs is the ARM & HAMMER^® and OXICLEAN^® pouch recycling program, which only allows participants to ship these used materials. Other programs include products for Barilla Ready Pasta, Beech-Nut, Burt’s Bees and Brita, which can only be recycled in their specific programs. Being able to ship recycled materials or drop them off depends on each program.

How Retailers Can Participate

Right now, the Loop pilot program is available in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Washington, D.C. If you are interested in creating a collection and recycling program for your non-recyclable products or packaging, TerraCycle has a wide variety of platform options. Typically, TerraCycle collects post-consumer waste from your key target consumers, cleans the waste, and then works with your brand to drive equity and value. Some of the consumer product companies that are currently working with Loop include Unilever, Nature’s Path, Nestle, SC Johnson, The Body Shop and Colgate-Palmolive, among others.

The Zero Waste Box Program

Another great way to participate in this go-green initiative includes the opportunity to recycle almost anything — for both your business and your customers. This special program helps you to recycle almost any type of waste, such as coffee capsules from your morning coffee or complex laboratory waste from your business, sending nothing to landfill or incineration. To open the door for your customers into this program, you can order a permanent collection unit to house your Zero Waste Box. A permanent unit protects your box, can be styled to fit your environment or store, and offers an organized place to maintain your collections. TerraCycle can work with you to understand and accommodate your budget, styling, quantity and timeline needs. No matter your recycling needs as a business, TerraCycle is willing to work with you. They also help with recycling at events in the case your store is holding a pop-up or other related events. Global warming is becoming a larger concern, and with these recycling programs, you can feel better about your impact on the environment as well as create customer loyalty if they can come back and recycle their products at your store. Happy recycling!  

Having a lifestyle that tends to zero waste at home is one thing but in the office, it may seem more complicated.   As I begin this morning my new work 100% dedicated to Effect PH and I have to make a functional office work, I asked myself the question about what I needed and the options zero waste and minimalist.

1- Paper

In the United States, an office worker uses an average of 10,000 sheets of paper a year. To counter this overuse, use a chalkboard and chalks or an erasable whiteboard for quick note-taking. Or, if you have a tablet or cell phone install the Google Keep app that is also available on computer. Also on the computer, there is Sticky note application that can replace the thousands of Post-It cluttering some offices. If you really need paper, consider reusing paper that is no longer used or paper made from recycled materials. Of course, have a bin to deposit the papers that can be reused and one for the paper to recycle.

2- Pencils and pens

I use few pens but it remains that I need it from time to time! For now, I will use pens and markers that I already have at home! These are the pens that my kids needed at school but do not serve anymore! Whether for highlighters, ballpoint pens or felt pens, I have a few to finish. It must be said that when my children were in elementary school, they needed a lot of equipment that no longer serves them. When they're finished, I'll drop them off at Big Office in the Terracycle box. My next pencils will be reloadable feathers that can be filled again and again. For the highlighters, the idea of using colored pencils made of recycled newspaper I like a lot!

3- Accessories

Before buying an accessory, evaluate if it will really serve. Rather than using a rule, I have several options! If it's to measure, I already have a gallon to measure. If it's to make a straight line, a notebook cover can do the job. Sincerely, I do not need a rule but if I had to have one, I would choose a stainless steel. To staple leaves together, I fold the left edges simply. And if the document is bigger, which is very rare, I use a recovered string! For those who really want a stapler, there is the option of the stapleless stapler that is useful for up to 5 sheets. Stainless steel paperclips can also do a great job. For tape, my first option is to find an alternative.

4- Computers and others

I keep my computers very long. Mine is starting to need maintenance! Rather than opt for a new one, I will have the defective parts changed only. Remember to permanently delete emails that are no longer useful. It does not seem, but it consumes a lot of energy useless emails. For the printer, if you really need it, go for a Mega tank. No need to change the ink cartridges. Each color has its reel so only need to change the color that is finished. In addition, the ink is good for 2 years without drying. It's a great buy for an office that prints from medium to lots! If you print very little, there are stores where you can have your documents printed directly from your computer or cell. And think about printing on both sides of the sheet. A good external hard drive to back up your documents can be a good investment. The "cloud" is great but it is not without ecological consequence. And do not forget to close completely what is not useful.

5- Others

In your office, do not have a garbage bin. You will really become aware of what you throw in the trash if you have to get up every time to go to the garbage. Awareness is a great way to help reduce our waste. If you have a coffee pod and bottled water, opt instead for a coffee maker where you can put your coffee in bulk and a water fountain that can fill the water bottles. If you eat at the office, consider using washable and reusable dishes. Compostable crockery is a better alternative to disposable but has to be avoided as much as possible. Finally, opt for a minimalist environment, so you will be more focused at work.

Monthly Expenses Rent: $0 (When my then boyfriend and now husband, C., and I moved in together, I moved into the apartment he'd purchased just before we met. Ever since we've lived together, he's paid the mortgage on our place and I've put money toward our monthly travel fund instead. We started this arrangement as a way to pay for our wedding on our own and have kept it up ever since.) Loans $0 (paid off the last of my student loan debt almost two years ago, thanks to a little help from C.) Gym: $65 Monthly MetroCard: $127 taken out of my paycheque pre-tax Cell Phone: $67.13 (C. and I share a family plan, but we split the costs by line each month) Monthly Donations: $135 (across several charities, including the National Abortion Fund, Children's Inc., EarthJustice, the DNC, and PBS) Savings: $500, plus I transfer 18% of my paycheque to a 401(k) account each month pre-tax Credit Card Payment: $450 (If my expenses are less than that, I add the balance to my savings.) Amazon Prime: $0 (C. pays) Netflix: $8.70 Hulu: $5.99 Internet: $0 (C. pays)     Day One 7:45 a.m. — My alarm goes off a little later than normal for me. I'm currently empaneled on a federal grand jury, and I have to report to court today so I won't be going into the office. Reporting time at court is 9:30. Before heading out the door, I make myself a smoothie using Greek yogurt, some plant-based protein powder, spinach, a banana, and some frozen berries. I also make myself an iced coffee using chilled coffee from our French press I made last night.   8:45 a.m. — Kiss C. goodbye and head downtown using my prepaid monthly MetroCard.   9:42 a.m. — Arrive in the jury room a little late due to an unusually long line at security. I'm informed by my fellow jurors that juror number 16 is currently a no-show. We need at least 16 jurors in attendance to hear a case, so we're in limbo waiting for her. Instead of getting dismissed, we're kept waiting for several hours while the office tries to track her down.   11:30 a.m. — After waiting around for almost two hours, we're notified our missing juror has been located and she's on her way in. We're expected to start hearing cases at 12:30, so we break for lunch. I take a short walk to a ’Wichcraft near the court. I'm usually not a huge fan of their sandwiches, but they do an amazing seasonal BLT sandwich in August and September. I get a BLT, a bag of chips, and a can of fancy seltzer. I almost die when the cashier rings up the total and it's $17. That's a hefty price for a sandwich, but it is an amazing BLT. $17   3 p.m. — After hearing several cases, we are dismissed for the day and I get ready to head home. On my way to the subway I get a notification from FedEx that they attempted to deliver a package to my address, but no one was available to sign for it. It's medication from a specialty pharmacy that I need for my next round of IUI treatment next week, so I'll need to go pick this package up from the FedEx shipping centre in the Bronx tonight. Annoying.   4 p.m. — I get back to my apartment to find out that the dryers have finally been turned back on in the laundry room! Our building is slowly updating all the gas lines, and the line connected to the dryers has been out for almost two months. We've been line-drying most of our laundry during this time, but I've let some items like sheets and towels build up. I instantly drop everything and throw four loads of laundry in before it gets too crowded. I have to top up the laundry card to get it all done. $35   5:49 p.m. — I get a notification from FedEx that my package has returned to the shipping facility, so I head out to pick it up. I text C. on my way, asking him to get supplies for dinner while I go pick up the package. He obliges.   7:10 p.m. — Successfully collected my package and headed home. On the subway back home I sit in a huge puddle of water I didn't see on the seat. This day, man.   8 p.m. — Glad to be home, but grossed out about the (hopefully) water I sat in on the subway. I immediately jump in the shower. When I get out C. is home and making dinner. He makes us pasta with chicken sausage, tomatoes, peppers, and onions. Yum! We settle in for a relaxing night of Netflix. We begin the second season of Mindhunters, but I'm asleep before the credits roll on the second episode.   Daily Total: $52

Day Two

5:45 a.m. — A few times a month I volunteer at a women's health clinic as a clinic escort. We meet at 7:30 and help escort patients to their appointments through the group of protestors who come out every weekend. It's an early call time for a weekend, but I'm happy to do it. On my way to the subway I realise I left the Clomid pills I am taking this week in anticipation of my next IUI treatment at home. I try to take the pill the same time every day, but it's too late to turn back. Oh, well, it will be fine. I stop at a local bodega for an iced coffee and a blueberry muffin. $5.25   10:30 a.m. — Pretty uneventful day at the clinic, but we did have an Academy Award–winning actress join us on the street today! It was almost comical how her being there tripped up some of the regular protestors.   12 p.m.— On my way back to my apartment, I stop for a grilled cheese and tomato, a bag of Fritos, and a can of Diet Dr. Pepper from a different local bodega. $7   1:45 p.m. — I decide to watch BlacKkKlansman on HBO via our Amazon Prime add-on subscription (which C. pays for) and chill. C. is training for a nine-day bike ride across the U.K., so he's out of the house for the day and I have the apartment to myself. I try to resist the urge to nap, but I know I'll probably cave.   4:30 p.m. — I knew I would fall asleep! No matter what time I go to bed the night before, that 5:45 wake-up call kills me. C. has texted me while I was sleeping to say his ride is going a little longer than he thought. I like having the apartment to myself, so this is fine with me. I lie on the couch for a little bit longer, scrolling through social media before I get up. I'm feeling a little hungry again, but I want to wait for C. to come home so we can have dinner together. I eat Greek yogurt with peanut butter, honey, and frozen fruit on top as a snack before putzing around the apartment.   5 p.m. — While I wait for C. to come home, I decide to catch up on the episodes of Mindhunter that I slept through last night, so C. and I will be in the same place for later. While I'm doing this, I make plans with my dad to come to New Jersey tomorrow to visit my grandmother, who has recently transitioned from living with my parents to a nursing home nearby. I also text my friend K., who still lives in our hometown, to see if she wants to have lunch when I come to town tomorrow. While I relax, I order us a new Zero Waste box for our kitchen through TerraCycle. C. and I are passionate about lowering our impact on the earth, and TerraCycle is one way we do this. They work hard to recycle products that would otherwise end up in landfills. One small box lasts us about three months. $109   6:45 p.m. — C. texts to say his cycle group is going REALLY slow and they are getting the 8:40 p.m. train from Poughkeepsie, so he won't be home before 10. So much for having dinner together. I decide to heat up leftover pasta, sausage, tomatoes, peppers, and onions from last night and settle in for a quiet night with Netflix. I travel a lot for work and for pleasure, so when I'm home over a weekend, I tend to stay in and enjoy it.   10:30 p.m. — I finally give up on waiting for C. and head to bed. I'm feeling lazy tonight from all my relaxing, so I just brush my teeth and call it a night. I fall asleep listening to a Headspace sleepcast and don't hear C. when he gets in an hour later. Daily Total: $121.25     Day Three 8:45 a.m. — Up 30 minutes before my alarm, but C. is up too so we snuggle in bed and he fills me in on his ride. We make plans for the day, and he decides he'll come to New Jersey a bit later on to visit my grandmother with me, but will pass on lunch with K. I ask him if he'll grab us breakfast while I shower. I've been trying out different shampoo bars to see which one works best for my hair. Today I try one that I bought at an arts fair in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, when I was there back in June. The vendor said it was specifically good for dry hair, but I'm not really feeling the difference. I've found a bunch of shampoo bars that I like, but I have yet to find a good conditioner. I make a mental note to read up on conditioning products on the train ride to New Jersey.   9:50 a.m. — C. and I finish up a breakfast of bagels and coffee. He got the bagel at our local bodega, and we made the coffee at home in the French press. I get ready to head out to catch the 11:11 train to New Jersey. We have a good-natured debate about the best way to get to Penn Station from our apartment, each of us having a preferred route.   11:11 a.m. — Off to New Jersey! I took C.'s route to Penn Station, mostly so I could stop by our neighbourhood coffee shop for another iced coffee. I use my monthly MetroCard to get to Penn and remember I have train tickets that were never collected from the last time we went to visit my family, so the trip to New Jersey costs me nothing. $3   12:25 p.m. — I am a little early to meet K. for lunch, so I stop in Bluemercury to check out their hair products. I end up leaving with a small bottle of Moroccan Oil. I want to try it out and see if it will work well for me before committing to a larger bottle. $15.99   2 p.m. — K. saves me the walk to my parents' and drops me off on her way home. She's had some health issues over the years that have made it hard to make plans, but I am glad we had a chance to catch up. She is starting a grad program next week, and I'm excited for her. We shared fried pickles, and I got a Diet Coke plus a mixed-greens salad with chorizo, black beans, and avocado. K. had a Chicago-style pork roll with sweet-potato waffle fries. We split the bill down the middle. $21.32   3:15 p.m. — C. texts to say he is a few stops away, so I leave my parents' and drive to pick him up. We head directly to my grandma's nursing home. She's sleeping when we get there and a little groggy for the rest of the visit, but we stay for about an hour before letting her rest. I stop at a CVS on the way back to my parents' to get some styling mousse. $4.68   5:25 p.m. — My Dad drives us to the train, and C. and I head back to NYC. We discuss what to do for dinner and decide that I'll stop at the grocery store on my way back to the apartment, and C. will head straight home with some of the stuff I brought back to the city from my parents' place. I still have a ticket from our last trip to NJ, so the train trip back costs nothing.   7 p.m. — I part ways with C. at Penn Station so I can head to the west side to go to Trader Joe's and he can head home to the east side. I wish the UES had a Trader Joe's, but it's not the worst getting to the west side location. Except, of course, the 1 train isn't running this weekend, so I have to take a detour. I make it to Trader Joe's and leave with breaded chicken, frozen berries, Greek yogurt, plant-based protein powder, mustard, potatoes, peaches, bananas, and an impulsive purchase of some gummy candy. $39.72   7 p.m. — On my way to the crosstown bus, I make a second stop at Fairway to get some more veggies. I hate that Trader Joe's packages so much of their vegetables in plastic, and I don't mind making the second stop to avoid this. Especially since there is already so much plastic packaging involved in the items I did buy (most of which can go in our TerraCycle box, but still). I pick up some green beans in my reusable produce bag and two carrots. $2.02   7 p.m. — One last stop on the way to the bus! I stop at Lush to pick up a few items from their Naked range. I get a body-lotion bar and a hot-oil hair treatment, plus one of their shampoo bars that I love because I am still thinking about my disappointing shampoo bar from this morning. Besides the hot-oil stick, which is single-use, these items will last me a while. $39.03   8:30 p.m. — Arrive home and pass the groceries over to C. I don't like cooking, nor am I very good at it, so C. does most of the cooking for our joint meals. I get comfy on the couch while he does his thing. He uses the food I just bought to make us breaded chicken with veggies. He also makes himself mashed potatoes, but I stick to the green beans.   9:30 p.m. — We settle in to watch Mindhunter. We discover I watched one too many episodes when I was trying to catch up. While C. catches up to me, I make my lunch and coffee for the morning. I basically eat the same thing for lunch during the week. Each night I make a spinach salad with capers, feta cheese, and frozen shrimp from Trader Joe's that I defrost overnight. I top it off with Trader Joe's Greek feta dressing. I also pack a peach and a green pepper I slice up for a snack and make coffee that I will chill overnight for an iced coffee in the morning. We watch one more episode of Mindhunter before calling it a night around 11.   Daily Total: $125.76   Day Four 6:05 a.m. — Alarm goes off, but I snooze. I use the iPhone bedtime feature as my alarm so the sound builds gradually, which makes me feel like snoozing is not so bad. C. would probably disagree.   6:45 a.m. — I finally get out of bed and start getting ready for the day. I jump in the shower and bring my new Moroccan Oil with me. When I get out, I make my standard breakfast smoothie using Greek yogurt, plant-based protein powder, frozen berries, and a banana. I realise I used all the spinach I had to make my lunch last night, so I grab a reusable produce bag and make a note to get some on my way home from work. I gather the lunch and coffee I prepped the night before and give a sleeping C. a kiss before heading out the door.   8:15 a.m. — Arrive at work. I am usually one of the first people in the office in the morning. I like to get a jump on the day before all the meetings start up. Today I have to report to jury duty at 10:30, so I am extra grateful for the time to get stuff done. I reply to emails and keep a few projects moving before heading to court at 10.   12:45 p.m. — We break for lunch, and I eat my salad in the juror break room. I also help myself to a small pack of Welch's fruit snacks that are in the break room for jurors and other court officials to snack on. We have some downtime until our next case at 2, so I take the rest of the time to read my book.   3:45 p.m. — After hearing two more cases, we're done for the day and I head back uptown. I take it as a huge personal triumph that I remember to stop for spinach, and as a result treat myself to a black-and-white cookie. $9.18   5 p.m. — I arrive home and throw a load of laundry in before digging into work emails that came in while I was in court. I still have money on the laundry card from the weekend, so no need to top up.   7:30 p.m. — C. gets home just as I am putting away the last of the laundry. Per usual he is on cooking duty, and we have the same meal as last night —chicken with veggies, plus potatoes for C. I do my Lush hot-oil treatment while he cooks.   9:30 p.m. — Dinner is done, and C. and I settle in for some more Mindhunter. While we are watching, I prep my standard lunch salad and coffee for the morning. We call it a night around 11.   Daily Total: $9.18     Day Five 5:50 a.m. — Ugh. Another early morning, but it can't be helped. I need to go to the NYU Fertility Centre this morning to have blood drawn and an ultrasound to see if I am ready for my trigger shot for the next stage of my IUI treatment. I make my standard breakfast smoothie (today with spinach, since I remembered to buy some yesterday!), pack up my standard lunch salad, and prep my iced coffee that I made last night. I'm out the door in about 40 minutes. Since this is a walk-in facility, I try to always go first thing in the morning, so I don't have to wait too long.   7:10 a.m. — I use my monthly MetroCard to take the bus downtown. I am the second patient in the waiting room. After several attempts to find a vein, I get my blood drawn and get to see my actual doctor for the ultrasound. I'm not ready for the trigger shot, and she tells me I'll probably have to come back on Thursday, but the office will call to confirm once they've processed the blood work. Thankfully, my insurance has been great so far, so this visit will cost me nothing.   8:15 a.m. — I have jury duty again today. This makes three days in a row, which is a first. Since I was selected on August 1, I've only had to report a handful of times, but I guess things are picking up. I don't need to arrive at court until 9:30, so I take the subway to the office to answer emails and get some work done.   9:30 a.m. — We have three cases to hear this morning, so I settle in for a few hours of civic duty.   1:15 p.m. — We're dismissed for the day, and I take the subway the two stops to my office. I'm really getting the full use of my monthly MetroCard today! When I arrive in the office, I catch up with my friend N., who has been on vacation for the last two weeks, and then eat my salad at my desk.   3:20 p.m. — I snack on the peach I brought with me this morning before heading into a meeting. I have two easy meetings this afternoon, and then we have a company mixer. We recently moved to a new building, so this is an attempt to get us to socialise with our new floormates. I usually hate the idea of forced fun, but hopefully this will be a good afternoon distraction.   6 p.m. — The mixer is very crowded and very loud, so I grab a cupcake, say hi to a few people, and then head back to my desk. I call in and find out I have jury duty again tomorrow, so I am glad I bailed on the party early, since I will be out again. I check a few things off my to-do list and text C. to see when he was thinking of leaving work. If our schedules line up, we try to take the train home together in the evening, but he is taking a spin class at the gym tonight in preparation for his upcoming nine-day bike trip, so I head home alone.   7 p.m. — I am beat from my early morning, and as previously mentioned, I hate cooking, so I keep it simple and have some Greek yogurt with peanut butter, honey, and berries for dinner. I don't have much motivation for anything else, so I lie on the couch and read for a little until C. gets home. He makes himself cereal for dinner, and we settle in for the last episode of Mindhunter. I fall asleep about 20 minutes into the episode.   Daily Total: $0   Day Six 6:45 a.m. — I was honest with myself about what time I thought I would ACTUALLY get out of bed this morning so I don't disturb C. with my snoozing. I take a quick shower and then make my breakfast and lunch. It's the same as previous days: smoothie for breakfast, spinach salad with shrimp, etc. for lunch. But I fell asleep last night before making my lunch salad, so it takes me a little longer this morning. I'm still out the door by 7:30.   8:15 a.m. — I arrive at work, determined to be productive until I have to leave for jury duty at 10, but I get sucked into chatting with my other friend N. about work and lose at least 30 minutes. Oh, well!   10 a.m. — Take the subway the two stops to jury duty and put in an hour at the courthouse. Two of the cases we were meant to hear today got canceled, so I'm headed back to the office way earlier than expected!   12 p.m.— I'm starving, so I eat my salad and the peach I brought for lunch promptly at noon, while getting my to-do list in order and prepping for my afternoon meetings.   3 p.m. — I'm still hungry, so I head upstairs to the vending machine and grab a Twix AND a packet of Smartfood popcorn. $1.50   5:30 p.m. — I call the jury office and find out I need to report to jury duty AGAIN tomorrow. Being on a grand jury is no joke. I set my out-of-office and call it a day. I text C. on my way out to coordinate evening plans. We're both headed to the gym, but make plans to eat dinner together.   7 p.m. — I do 30 minutes on the elliptical before heading home. C.'s taking a class downtown, so I eat a spoonful of peanut butter to hold me over until he gets home.   8 p.m. — C. arrives with groceries in hand. He makes us open-face toasted cheese sandwiches with tomato and onion. Afterward, we share a fancy yogurt I bought a week or so ago but forgot in the fridge and settle in to watch some Netflix. We've finished Mindhunter, so we're looking for a new show to watch. We settle on Orange Is the New Black and watch the first few episodes before calling it a night at 11.   Daily Total: $1.50   Day Seven 5:50 a.m. — Ugh. Alarm rings waaaaay too early, but I'm headed to the NYU Fertility Centre again this morning. I take a quick shower and then make my regular smoothie and an iced coffee before heading out the door at 6:30 a.m. I skip making my lunch, so I'll have to pick something up later.   7:15 a.m. — Arrive at the clinic, and it's more crowded this morning. Luckily, I don't have to wait too long, as I have to report to jury duty again today and am hoping to swing by the office first. The nurses get me through quickly and notify me I'm ready for my trigger shot. C. and I will have to come back tomorrow for the final step in the IUI process. Then we'll cross our fingers and wait.   8:15 a.m. — I'm able to swing by the office to take care of emails and pass off some meetings, since it looks like I have a full day of court ahead of me. I leave the office at 9 and take the subway the two stops to court, where it is confirmed that we do indeed have a full day of cases.   11 a.m. — We have an hour between cases, so I take the opportunity to retrieve my cell phone from the clerk to see if NYU has called with a schedule for tomorrow. I'm also starving, so I stop at a deli by the courthouse and grab a sausage roll. $4   1 p.m. — We break for lunch, and all I want to do is go to my favourite dim sum place in Chinatown for dumplings, but just as I am about to reach the restaurant, I see our foreman coming around the opposite corner, about to enter the restaurant. Something about this guy has been rubbing me the wrong way, and I can't stand the idea of spending my lunch break with him, so I retreat and grab a sandwich and a ginger beer at Pret. It's not the same. $9.98   4:30 p.m. — We're dismissed for the day (and, I'm hoping, the week). I'm meeting a friend for dinner at 6:45 downtown, but I decide I have enough time to head home to the UES and lie down for a little before.   6 p.m. — After lying down for a little and freshening up, I head out to meet my friend D. at Murray's Cheese Bar. We met at work a few years ago, and even though we work at different companies now, she's remained one of my very best friends. We decide to share a lobster mac 'n' cheese, buffalo cheese curds, and a cherry tomato and ricotta salad. D. has two glasses of wine, but since I'm being inseminated tomorrow, I stick to an artisan ginger ale. When it comes time to pay, we split the bill down the middle. $69.79   9:30 p.m. — Back at home, and C. is home making dinner. We watch an episode of Orange Is the New Black before calling it a night.   Daily Total: $83.77    

If you're expecting, are a new parent, or just have a baby in your life that you care about, this episode is a must-listen.   When their first child was on the way three years ago, Serenity and Joe took matters into their own hands—after being disappointed by the virtual absence of baby food that met their dietary standards—and created Serenity Kids. I actually found out about this company because I do a lot of investing in the health and the nutrition sector. Not only did I wind up investing in them, but I tried some of the baby food myself and it’s so dangerously tasty that I suspect that you as a parent might start stealing it from your baby if you get some. (Despite being dressed up as a “big baby” in the photo, I'm actually not kidding. I really have been eating this stuff every day alongside my ribeye steak and salmon—it's addictively good and digests incredibly clean.)   In this guest post by Serenity, you'll discover what set her and her husband on the path to starting their own baby food company, the problems with most baby foods out there, and what exactly makes Serenity Kids baby food so special. Enjoy!  

Heartburn, Anxiety, & Insomnia—The Story Of My Life!

  My well-meaning mother was a vegetarian while pregnant with me.   Born early, I got my first of many ear infections and subsequent rounds of antibiotics when I was two weeks old.   I had colic and cried for most of that first year; and growing up, I had constant stomach problems. I was (and still am) a total sugar addict. Now I know that I’m intolerant of most of the foods I grew up eating: dairy, wheat, and even certain vegetables, and though I love sugar, it hates me.   Eight years ago, over-the-counter antacids stopped working for me. Acid reflux was becoming unmanageable, and I was plagued with pain daily. When a doctor told me the only solution to my pain was to take a proton pump inhibitor pill every day for the rest of my life, I began desperately looking for other answers.   Note from Ben: it is interesting to note that the latest research on plant-based diets for women who are expecting reveals that “a design of pregestational nutrition intervention is required in order to avoid maternal undernutrition and consequent impaired fetal growth.” You can read the full write-up here. In short, Amino Acids, Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, Calcium, DHA, and Iron, at minimum, are crucial to avoid risk of fetal impairment for mothers who are not consuming compounds such as meat and fish.  

An Ancestral Approach To Diet

  Eventually, my dad sent me copies of The Primal Blueprint and The Paleo Solution, and I never looked back. Since finding the Paleo diet, my stomach feels great, my anxiety is gone, and I sleep much better. I became such a believer that I left my corporate job to start a Paleo coaching business and became a member of the Paleo f(x) conference team.    I was really moved by Paleo’s “ancestral approach,” which is based upon a theory that humans have lived on this planet in our current genetic form for more than 500,000 years, and we’ve only had agriculture for about 15,000 years. So, for 95% of human history, we lived in nomadic tribes, hunting and gathering our food, subsisting on plant matter we foraged and animals we hunted. Grains, legumes, dairy, industrial seed oils, sugars, and processed foods are all products of agriculture and therefore not an inherent part of our genetically determined diet.   Essentially, the Paleo Diet seeks to mimic our ancestral diet by cutting out foods that require agriculture and actively include the most nutrient-dense foods such as pasture-raised meats, eggs, organic vegetables, offal, cultured foods, and healthy fats.   The new research on inflammation and the gut biome is consistent with this approach and has determined that non-ancestral foods create inflammation and leaky gut, and most ancestral foods do not. So, when facing my health problems, it made sense to me to start with diet changes, and it worked!   In fact, it's often the diet Ben recommends when somebody comes to him seeking advice on everything from skin issues like acne or eczema, to gut pain, brain fog, food allergies or intolerances, constipation, or any other signs of immune system or inflammation issues.   My husband, Joe, and I met through the Paleo community. Joe is autistic, and living a Paleo lifestyle has drastically reduced his anxiety, improved his attention and focus, and stopped his excessive burping. Research has demonstrated links between diet and symptoms of autism. He teaches Paleo principles to other autistic people and parents of autistic kids.   Note from Ben: I'm not Paleo “per se,” since my family consumes foods such as raw goat's milk, slow-fermented, non-GMO sourdough wheat bread, soaked and sprouted legumes, etc. but as a dietary approach for healing the type of issues Serenity had, it is a very good solution.  

Shocked, I Couldn’t Believe It

  Joe and I were planning to have a child, so at Paleo f(x) 2016, we got excited about looking for baby food that met our dietary standards. But, we couldn’t even find a single booth devoted to kids. We asked Michelle Norris, Paleo f(x) CEO, where the baby booths were and she said, “I ask myself that every year.” I searched in grocery stores, baby stores, online – nothing!   So I got to work.   When we started to consider making our own baby food brand, we compiled ingredients lists and nutrition facts of the top 256 leading organic baby food pouches. What we found was that even the organic brands were ridiculously high in sugar and consistently lacked a good amount of fat.   Infants need at least 30 grams of fat a day, according to the USDA Guide to Infant Nutrition & Feeding, and yet high-fat baby foods were virtually non-existent (less than 1% had more than 2 grams of fat).   The USDA also warns against sugar, recommending parents limit the amount of sugar and sweet foods they give to babies, but leading organic baby food pouches had an average of 9 grams of sugar. That’s a lot for a tiny little body. Feeding a 15-pound baby 9 grams of sugar equates to an adult having more than two cans of Coke!   And last, meat is recommended as a quality first food for babies, but less than 4% of organic baby foods contained meat, not to mention the fact that none of it was grass-fed or pasture-raised. Early on we were introduced to the co-founders of EPIC Bar, Taylor Collins and Katie Forest, who were 6-months pregnant at the time. They were thrilled to help us follow in EPIC's footsteps to transform the baby food industry and introduce a Paleo baby food product to the mainstream.   We already knew we wanted to use grass-fed and pastured meats for the nutrition they provide, but they taught us how raising animals on pasture in the right way can actually regenerate the land – a big step up from sustainability. So using regeneratively farmed meat in our baby foods is not only better for infant health, but for the health of the animals, the farmers and the planet.   For Joe, it totally clicked. As an avid animal lover, environmentalist and one whose mother grew up on a family farm, Joe realized that our company could be even more aligned with his values by both improving infant nutrition and supporting small family regenerative farmers.   Compassion in World Farming published a comprehensive report compiling the various studies done on conventionally raised meat versus pasture-raised meat. Here’s one snippet of what they found:   “Choosing pasture-reared beef over intensely-raised beef would make a significant contribution to meeting nutritional requirements for long-chain omega-3 fatty acids. Pasture-reared beef contains more vitamin E… and also contains more beta-carotene… pig meat from free-range systems has a higher proportion of omega-3 fatty acids, and a more favorable (lower) ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids… contains more vitamin E… and also contains more iron.”   In short, they discovered pasture-raised pigs and poultry were similarly nutritionally superior.  

Focusing On Quality Over Profit Margin

  Baby foods made from cheap fruit purees bring in an enormous profit margin. Babies get hooked on them and they provide little nutritional value making the baby need to eat more and more.   So it should come as no surprise that recent studies are now linking childhood obesity to infant diets.   It’s crazy that babies are being diagnosed obese as young as 18 months old! Infants begin forming palate preferences in their first year of life. During the crucial flavor window, if they are only introduced sweet flavors, they develop a preference for sweet things which discourages healthy eating later. Plus, sugar, even from fruit, can lead to inflammation, fussiness from sugar crashes, and sugar addiction (like I suffered from). Whereas introducing a variety of flavors early will set them up for a diverse healthy diet as they get older.   The calories from breastmilk (nature’s perfect baby food) are about half fat, half carbs, with a little bit of protein. So, we set off to make a baby food that matched these macros with as much nutrient-density as possible. We got to work in our kitchen cooking up Paleo baby food recipes and passing them out to our friends with babies (and eventually our baby).   We landed on eight different flavor combinations of pasture-raised meats, organic vegetables, and healthy fats which also provide heme iron, potassium, and calcium, which are often lacking in conventional baby foods and are a key building block in a baby’s development. We even created a wild-caught salmon variety, which provides a strong source of DHA and EPA, omega-3 fatty acids necessary for brain, nerve and eye development, which are essential for babies switching from breastmilk or formula to solids.   Some of our most popular flavors include our Grass Fed Beef with Organic Sweet Potato and Kale, Free Range Chicken with Organic Peas and Carrots, and Wild Caught Salmon with Organic Butternut Squash and Beet. Sounds yummy right? They are! See for yourself in this video we captured of one of our biggest fans…

When Hannah and Danny Iwanejko had finally had enough of their community council’s “rubbish” green waste procedures, the eco-warriors took it upon themselves to set up their own free recycling center right in their driveway.   Since the English couple first built their green waste hub out of recycled wood and metal last month, they have saved almost 2,000 pounds of recyclable plastic and materials from ending up in a landfill.   The family accepts all manner of items including crisp and cracker packets, contact lenses, Tetra Pak packaging, coffee pods, and baby food pouches.   Hannah then drives the waste to specialized recycling sites that are within a 10-mile radius of their English home in Bilsthorpe, Nottinghamshire.   From there, the materials are turned into small plastic pellets that can be used to make items such as outdoor furniture, trays, roofing, and flooring.   Much of the processing is handled by Terracycle: a recycling company that focuses on hard-to-recycle items—and since their recycling programs are all funded by companies and manufacturers, the recycling schemes are all free for the public to use.       Hannah and Danny, both of whom are 36-year-old maintenance engineers, came up with the idea after watching the BBC’s Planet Earth series.   “The moment I decided to do something myself was [my daughter’s] first birthday in August,” says Hannah. “I saw what was going on in the Amazon and the war on plastic and David Attenborough’s programs. So I thought: ‘Hang on a second, I can do my bit. I need a central point where people can easily recycle.’   “My husband really likes building stuff so he made the recycling hub out of scrap material,” she continued. “It barely cost us anything. It’s a small village so I’ve only just made my first 30-minute trip to the recycling bins at the leisure center.   “It was just meant for the community—but now people are coming with their waste from outside the village and people from all over are contacting me asking how to do it themselves.”     When reporters asked Hannah why she disapproved of the local recycling procedures, she said: “The problem is there is no consistency across the council. One council says you can recycle this, this, this, and this. Another council says you can recycle this, this, this, and this.   “However, it is all recycled by the same people—yet one bin allows something and another doesn’t. Why is it not across the board?   “Why aren’t we creating consistency and ease for people to do this all the time?   “It is so frustrating that the council won’t take tetra, crisp packets and bread bags. People want to recycle, but the council is not making it easy for us. There is so much bureaucracy and red tape in the way.       “I don’t know what it will take for them to do something about it. The councils send rubbish to the same place.”   Hannah and Danny are now appealing for Newark and Sherwood District Council to improve the recycling facilities in order to prevent more complex materials from being sent landfill.    

      More people are starting to reckon with the fact that climate change is having an irrevocable effect on the world. In October, UN issued its terrifying reminder that we need to drastically change our lifestyles in order to reduce global warming. In February, the Australian government recognized a small rodent as extinct, and it was dubbed the first to disappear from our planet as a result of climate change (although more species could fall under that category that haven’t been closely studied). Currently, the Bahamas are being devastated by Hurricane Dorian, a symptom of the fact that, as one climate scientist says, “Human-caused climate change is visibly intensifying hurricanes and increasing the damage they are doing.”   And that’s gotten us to talk about Earth’s future and how we as humans impact it in a way that’s not just viewing reality as a far-off doomsday scenario. But now that our society is so dependent on cars and those ubiquitous plastic bags, it often seems like a near-impossible task to extricate ourselves from the planet-warming mess we’ve created.   But local companies aren’t ready to give up yet. A few have come up with ways to reduce our use of that fossil-fuel-sucking foe, plastic. (Many plastic products are made using a byproduct of fossil fuel fracking.)   Let’s start with Dropps, a Philly company that thinks about laundry from a sustainable perspective. Having already created laundry detergent pods (think: the little cleaning packets you put in your dishwasher but for your clothes instead of your dishes) to conserve water and implemented compostable packaging, Dropps just launched a partnership with ocean conservation nonprofit Oceana to raise awareness of the plastic problem. It’s a mix of education (example: running an online infographic of the life cycle of a family dinner table and how plastic’s involved) and actionable tips for how to cut down on plastic consumption. For instance, Dropps and Oceana will provide suggestions for one thing to eliminate at a time, like supermarket bags or straws, and shopping lists that provide plastic-free alternatives to common household products, such as toothpaste and Ziploc bags. “We as a society have SAD — sustainability anxiety disorder,” says Dropps CEO Jonathan Propper. “We get this stuff, and we don’t know what to do with it — ‘Does it go in this pile or that pile?’ We’re trying to give consumers the most convenient way of being sustainable, so they don’t have to think about it.”   Or take Ola Beauty, a new shop from former Best of Philly makeup artist Aleksandra Ambrozy that exclusively carries makeup and skincare lines with low to no plastic. While shelf life and natural ingredients are certainly key factors in selecting her products, Ambrozy’s time spent in Hawaii, where she witnessed plastic pollution in the ocean and on the beach, compelled her to double down when it came to plastic usage specifically. “[The plastic] is just part of the environment there now,” Ambrozy says regarding Hawaii. “It really freaked me out, so I tried to go as plastic-free as possible. I’m using the store to show other people that they can do that, too.”   One of her favorite lines right now is Elate Cosmetics, a Canada-based line of foundations, blush, eye makeup, and lipsticks that uses non-toxic, organic ingredients and refillable, compostable compacts.  Another is Honua Hawaiian Skincare, which hails from, you guessed it, Hawaii; Ola Beauty carries their reef-safe mineral sunscreens.   Ambrozy also hopes to add recycling bins from Trenton-based TerraCycle, which collects items that your standard city recycling unit doesn’t allow (many of them plastic) and partners with other companies to get them turned into new products.