Spread the word. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook and we will continue to plant more trees.

- Mama

Mama will donate $1 to Ocean Conservancy per each person that makes a comment on how they will stand up for marine life.

Not sure how to make a difference? An easy step is to limit your plastic bag usage. Countless plastic bags end up in our ocean and cause harm to our marine wildlife. Many marine animals and birds mistakenly ingest plastic or become entangled and choke in plastic bags that is floating around. For instance, environmentalists have pointed out that turtles often mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and invariably swallow them. It is estimated 100,000 marine mammals die each year because of plastic litter in our ocean in the North Pacific.

Let’s make a difference together!

- Mama

***In this specially made film for WCPA – Marine, world-renowned cinematographer Bob Talbot shows us that we have only one ocean and it’s in trouble. Together we can make a difference. What we do today, will determine the ocean our children inherit tomorrow.

Each month Mama plants 1 tree for each of our Facebook fans. Help Mama protect the environment and become one of our Facebook Fans.

Mother Nature will thank you.

- Mama

I, Mama, formally declare to do everything in my power to help my environment. I will do both the little things and big things to ween myself from depending on foreign oil, the auto industry, and incompetent politicians (both liberals and conservatives alike). I will do all I can to lower my carbon footprint and leave the world a better place than how I found it.

This is what I pledge to do.

• My next car will be a hybrid
• I will keep my current car as long as possible
• I will only wash full loads of laundry and when the weather permits, let the power of the sun dry my clothes instead of using a dryer.
• I will always vote and hold my politician accountable
• I will vote with my dollar and only buy products from companies I believe in.
• Reuse everything possible. If that means serving my dinner guests out of old mayonnaise jars, then so be it.
• Donate and give away my excess (clothes, books, video games, electronics, blankets, the old dog leash, towels, furniture, and everything else that is cluttering my home).
• I will grow as much of my own food as possible. Currently, I have 4 orange trees, a lemon tree, a lime tree, and a pear tree. I am also growing beets, onions, peppers, garlic, and cilantro.
• I will share my excess food with neighbors and friends.
• I will freeze some of my excess food for future meals.
• I will carpool whenever I can. This is huge because as much as I don’t like to admit it, I hate carpooling.
• I will limit my showers to 4 minutes each day.
• I will take inventory of my home and make it as energy efficient as possible.
• I will recycle after I have reused, reused, and reused.
• I will be more persistent about adding items to the compost bin.
• I will plant native flowers, trees, and shrubs to improve my local habitat.
• I will decorate my home with flowers from my garden instead of buying them.
• I will give more homemade gifts despite the urge to go the easy route and buy a giftcard.
• I will do my best to only buy things that I need.

This is my list for now. I will update it as I think of more things to do.

Join me, and tell me what you will do to help make heal or environment.

- Mama

California is poised to be a leader on the international stage by finally ending the paper vs. plastic debate. State bill AB 1998 tackles the true root issue: Single-use, disposable bags are an unnecessary waste of natural resources and are harmful to the systems that support life on this planet. If passed, the bill would take effect on July 1, 2011.

State bill AB 1998 specifically:

• Prohibits all supermarkets, retail pharmacies and chain convenience stores from distributing single-use plastic and paper carryout bags to their customers at point of sale.
• Does not apply to bags that are used to carry bulk items, produce or raw meat to the checkout.
• Requires stores to make reusable bags available for purchase instead of using single-use carryout bags.
• Requires a report to the legislature on the effectiveness of this policy, including recommendations to further encourage the use of reusable bags by consumers and retailers, and the feasibility of expanding the policy to cover other retail establishments.

Let’s do our part to get rid of the Plastic Bag Man. Make a pledge to stop using one-use bags and Mama will send you a MamasHealth.com reusable tote bag.

Enter your email address in the comment form and we will contact you directly for your mailing address. Your email address will remain private and will not be viewable to the public.

Let’s do this together!

- Mama

Last month, some of the trees we planted were used to create a grove of trees in Limuru, Kenya.

We still need your help. Our goal is to plant 10,000 trees each month. Yep. That is a lot of trees, but imagine the impact you can have on the planet just by becoming a MamasHealth Fan.

Can’t give up your Pickup truck or SUV? Still haven’t replaced your light bulbs with eco-friendly ones? I know, change is hard. That is why I’m asking you to become a Fan. You can make a difference without making a major life changing action.

Become a fan now. It is easy, fast, and best of all FREE. As an added bonus, Mama will have special giveaways for her Facebook fans. We’ll give away gift cards, exercise equipment, and much more!

- Mama

Food Inc will be shown on PBS (for free) on April 21st.

Invite your family and friends over for a healthy, delicious, affordable and sustainable meal. Then watch the Oscar-nominated Food, Inc. and discuss what we eat, how it’s produced and where we should go from here.

Tell Mama about your potluck (who came, what you ate, what you talked about) and you will be entered to win some awesome prizes, including a $100 Visa Gift Card.

Can’t watch Food, Inc on April 21st? Food, Inc. will be streaming (free) in its entirety from April 22 to April 29, 2010.

- Mama

Crop Mob. I love the concept. A Crop Mob is “a group of young, landless, and wannabe farmers who come together to build and empower communities by working side by side. A Crop Mob is also a group of experienced farmers and gardeners willing to share their knowledge with their peers and the next generation of agrarians. The membership is dynamic, changing and growing with each new mob event.

Crop Mobs are not free sources of labor. Rather, it is more like an exchange of labor for the betterment of a community. Friends are created, bonds are formed, and labor is exchanged. Crop Mobbing is about community and camaraderie.

Crop Mobs are most active in North Carolina; Washington, Atlanta, Texas, Missouri, and Wisconsin.

Crop Mob. Love the name! Start a Crop Mob today. Maybe I’ll start a Crop Mob for backyard gardeners here in Pasadena.

- Mama

At the end of each month, Mama plants 1 tree for each Facebook Fan. At the end of February, we had 851 Facebook Fans so we planted 851 trees through our partner Trees for the Future

Become a fan now and help us stop soil erosion, improve air quality, and preserve traditional livelihoods. Every little tree helps.

Want us to give you a tree? On April 17th, we are giving away free fruit trees at the Pasadena Farmer’s Market. Come by and say hello!

- Mama

Our Facebook Fans are the best. Because of you, we planted 550 more trees. At the end of each month, we plant a tree with the help of our partner Trees for the Future for each of our Facebook fans.

At the end of December, we had 550 Facebook fans, so we planted 550 trees.

Become a fan now and help us stop soil erosion, improve air quality, and preserve traditional livelihoods. Every little tree helps.

At the end of September, we had 340 Facebook fans, so we planted 340 trees.

Become a fan now and help us stop soil erosion, improve air quality, and preserve traditional livelihoods. Every little tree helps.

Follow our journey:

May 2009 we planted 80 trees
June 2009 we planted 5120 trees
July 2009 we planted 181 trees
August 2009 we planted 246 trees
September 2009 we planted 340 trees

- Mama

Mama: Ecoholic is loaded with tons of valuable information. How long did it take you to conduct research for the book? Was it difficult to convince companies to disclose the ingredients in their products?

Adria Vasil: Ecoholic is definitely a research-intense book – luckily I’m completely addicted to digging for dirt! I’ve been researching these topics non-stop for, oh, over 5 years, ever since I started the weekly Ecoholic Q&A column in 2004, which was the foundation for this book. My job’s a little easier now that more and more companies are finally fessing up to what ingredients are in their products – if they don’t, you have to wonder what they’re hiding.

Mama: Your book “names names” and gives the dirt on what not to buy and why. Why did you decide to give names?

Adria Vasil: It would easy for me to be really vague and say “stay away from products with bad chemicals in them and reach for cleaner ingredients,” but that doesn’t really help people make decisions when they’re shopping if they don’t know what to look for and which chemicals are really bad. I like to take the guesswork out for people and make it as easy for them to make the greenest choices. That’s why I not only tell you who to avoid but also give you websites for the good guys so you can track them down with one click.

Mama: How do you respond to individuals who do not believe global warming is an important issue?

Adria Vasil: You know, climate change can seem like such an abstract issue it can be hard for people to really grasp why it’s important to deal with today. But already today, right now, people are being evacuated from low-lying Pacific islands because melting-glaciers are raising sea levels -and every time we pump out dirty emissions here in North America, we’re partly responsible for that (the US produces 25% of the world’s climate-cooking carbon dioxide!). Plus if you are a mom, you’ve got to wonder what the world will be like when your kids and grandkids grow up – if we don’t change things quickly, those kids are going to be dealing with more severe drought, more intense hurricanes, coastal flooding, the list goes on. No mom out there would knowingly help that happen, so we just need to start helping peole connect the dots more.

Mama: It seems like you wrote this book because you got fed up with people “not knowing what to do”. Is this true?

Adria Vasil: You’re right! I really felt people needed to know more all the tiny little ways we could make a difference. I had actually started off as regular news journalist covering environmental and social issues and the more I wrote negative news about what was happening to the planet, the more important starting the Ecoholic column became to me. I wanted a space where readers could write in looking for answers and solutions to everyday green questions. And writing the Ecoholic book was just a really great way of getting these kinds of solutions out to even more people across the continent.

Mama: I love the picture on the front cover. Whose idea was that?

Adria Vasil: My friend Dustin and I jammed on that! Dustin Rabin is an amazing photographer who usually takes photos for rock bands and celebrities and he came to me and said, “hey, what if we took a crack at shooting your new book cover?” We shot a bunch of different versions in my backyard that didn’t make it to the front cover but my favourite is the back cover shot of the top of my head looking up at an energy-efficient lightbulb!

Mama: Many people are not familiar with the term “Greenwash”, can you explain what it means?

Adria Vasil: Greenwashing is basically when a company paints a big green stripe down its back and tries to make itself or its products look more environmentally friendly than it is. It’s a massive problem now with everyone trying to cash in on the green trend. A product might put the word “organic” or “natural” in its name, but you flip it over and find out it only has maybe 2 organic ingredients and the rest are dodgy chemicals. Or the product says it’s recycled, but it’s actually bleached with harmful chemicals, that kind of thing. I try to warn readers about this every chance I get!

Mama: What advice would you give to consumers who want to live a more eco-friendly, sustainable life but cannot afford to buy organic food, or trade in their car for a more energy efficient one?

Adria Vasil: Honestly, going green doesn’t have to cost you anything – in fact it can save you cash. Just look at our grandparents – they were environmentalists without even knowing it whenever they turned off the lights, reused their aluminum foil, kept the house cooler in winter, canned their own local produce in season – all in the name of saving money! Even if you can’t afford to buy organic, it won’t cost you more to look for fruits and veggies grown close to home (plus you can score serious deals on farm-direct organic produce when you go through CSAs,Community Supported Agriculture). And even if you can’t afford to buy a hybrid, you can drive less aggressively to save 40% more fuel than when you race between stop signs, and you can look into setting up a carpooling listserv at work or with your kids little league to see if there are other moms driving from your direction. I made sure to load up Ecoholic with tons of tips like that on greening your life that actually keep more cash in your pocket than not.

Mama: In this book, you talk about everything from beauty and baby products to traveling and reusing sports equipment. Did you have to leave anything out?

Adria Vasil: Even though this book is rammed with 360 pages covering nearly every topic under the sun (from greener schools to a greener sex life!), I was still way over word count when I originally wrote Ecoholic. Unfortunately we couldn’t fit it all in, but that just means I’ll have to include those bits in future books!

Mama: What are your next project(s)?

Adria Vasil: Ecoholic Home edition is finished and coming to the Canadian market later this fall – hopefully it will be coming to the US soon too!