We just wanted to take a moment to say thank you for a couple of really nice nods we’ve gotten recently.

In December, Eco-Office Gals named The Green Mom Review as one of the top 10 green sites of 2009, along with the fabulous Big Green Purse  and Green & Clean Mom! Thanks ladies! We appreciate it :)

And more recently, Viewpoints named The Green Mom Review as one of the top mom blogs of 2010 alongside such notable sites as Cool Mom Picks, Dooce and  The Mommy Blog. Thank you for such a lovely honor!

When you’re shopping for produce, what do those numbers on the stickers mean?

The PLU “Price Look Up” code stickers on fruits and vegetables can help you identify organic, conventional and even genetically modified produce.

•  Organic produce stickers start with a 9 and have 5 numbers
• Conventional produce has 4 numbers
• GM (Genetically Modified) produce have 5 numbers like organic produce but start with the number 8 so be particularly cautious of those fruits and vegetables

Choose 9 for peace of mind!

Author Annie Malka is a mother of four living in the Florida Keys. She writes about cooking, nutrition, organic foods and sustainability at her blog Hip Organic Mama.

Disinfectant chemicals have a purpose and place, but should be used very sparingly as scientific studies have shown that disinfectant chemicals have been linked to chronic health issues like asthma, hormone imbalance, potential reduced fertility, and immune system problems.

What kind of disinfectant chemicals are we talking about? The kind we come in contact with everyday in household bleach, ammonia-based cleaners, triclosan in antibacterial soaps and other antibacterial products and nano-silvers found in antibacterial plastics, textiles, soaps and other materials.

Visit Women’s Voices for the Earth to learn more and then consider signing  this petition to tell companies to replace toxic chemicals in their household cleaning products with safer alternatives AND disclose all of the ingredients that they use in household cleaning products on the product label.

We all know chlorine is a poison. It’s toxic and has been linked to infertility and disease. Sadly it’s everywhere—in our drinking water, bleaching our paper towels and toilet paper, in pools, in PVC plastics, in pesticides, so we do our best to avoid it by getting unbleached products and filtering our water (even the showers!) and just when we thought we were safe, we find out that chlorine is routinely used to keep our healthy produce “fresh” by, and I quote the MMS Newsletter:

“In the grocery store, glistening carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, bell peppers, etc. all glisten and look fresh primarily because five days ago they were picked, washed, then passed under a cloud of ClO2 gas that destroyed bacteria and disease-germs that ordinarily cause food to quickly spoil.

Some transportation trucks carrying produce (sometimes on two-day trips) can blow some ClO2 into the enclosed truck before closing the rear doors. The spoiling of food begins from invisible surface contaminants. ClO2 eradicates such bacteria.”

I learned this first hand before searching for it on the web to confirm. A truck driver was explaining how when transporting strawberries, chlorine vapor kept his strawberries from molding and therefore looking pretty and lasting longer. Read the rest of this entry »

As part of its “Be Good to Your Whole Body” campaign, for the month of October, Whole Foods Market has created podcasts focusing on maintaining a healthy mood.  As the seasons change, these simple, free tips, consider how conscious breathing, herbs, and eating well, can help maintain a healthy mood.

Just listen to one or all of the podcasts and leave a comment telling Whole Foods what you think of their work. On October 30th, one commenter will be randomly chosen to receive a $100 Whole Foods gift card!

You can find the podcasts here. Listen and then then comment on one or more of the following podcasts: Breathe and Meditation for Stress Relief, Herbal Approaches for Healthy Mood and Boost your Back to School Brain Power.

Easy peasy!  (and, obviously, the more you comment, the better your chances of winning that $100 gift card!)

It’s that time of year again…the most wonderful time of the year, if your kids are heading back to the classroom. This fall marks the first year that both of my children are in school full-time, and I’m trying to make a conscious effort to make it a great green year. Here are some ways that we can all keep the earth in mind as we get our kids settled in to school again and throughout the year.

Use the goods you’ve already got – Take stock of what you’ve got at home and can use again (such as clothing, shoes, knapsacks and school supplies) before you buy everything new.

Reusable lunch containers – Instead of sending sandwiches and snacks in plastic baggies, I picked up a couple of sandwich containers, a compact water bottle and several small reusable containers to pack my kids’ lunches with. I’m not only curbing my household waste output this way, I’m saving money by not having to constantly buy plastic baggies. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re trying to be more green, like I am, but you get a little overwhelmed with all the organic this and Acronym-Free that—relax.

I’m about to you tell you the absolute easiest way for you to start being more environmentally friendly.

Ready?

Use greener cleaning products.

Hold on.  Get back here.  I see a few of you running to chain yourself in front of your closet full of pine-fresh scented cleaning products. Read the rest of this entry »

Organic Comfort Zone is sponsoring a creative writing contest. The rules are simple: “In 300 words or less, tell us why a good night’s sleep is important to you.

Your entry can be a short essay, a catchy jingle, a detailed list of tips & tricks or even a whimsical poem. Be creative, original and on-target with the theme. Entries must be received by midnight of September 30, 2009. Winners will be selected week of October 5th. Read the rest of this entry »

Read it. See it. Change your life and the lives of your loved ones. Make a difference in your health and the health of the planet and our future. We CAN do it and most certainly we must make more informed choices.Grocery stores are such an illusion. The waste in packaging, transporting products, the ingredients (and the real ingredient behind what is mysteriously listed on the label), shelf space and electricity, dated items going to the garbage (that’s mostly produce since the other stuff has a life span to practically last into our child’s adulthood), how the animals we consume are treated (you are what you eat), hormones shot into our animals and getting into our dairy and meats, genetic modifications to the DNA of the foods, the colors and additives and smells added that now seem normal to us. It’s all a strange place with food-like substances. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s that time again and personally, I groan because I loathe back-to-school shopping. While I do shop as greenly as possible for school supplies, I don’t have a lot of green options for uniforms, which both my kids wear to their public schools. Since I also don’t have boatloads of expendable income either, I hit the consignment stores and thrift stores first before I go shopping for any new uniform clothing.

If you go at the right time, which seems to be about a month before school starts around here, you can scoop up the stuff other parents are replacing for a fraction of the cost of new uniforms and you are, of course, conserving resources by not buying everything brand new.

Another reason to consider buying pre-owned school clothes, and uniforms in particular, is because many school uniforms companies now tout their clothing as being stain-resistant. Well, that would be awesome if stain-resistant fabric treatments weren’t made of toxic and persistent fluorochemicals. If you buy it used, there’s at least the likelihood that some of that treatment has worn away over time via repeated washing and drying.

The day I went shopping, the consignment store was closed so I still have to go there but the thrift store was a total Read the rest of this entry »

My efforts to be more eco-friendly can seem feeble at times.  I forget to take my reusable grocery bags to the store.  I refuse to “let it mellow if it’s yellow.” I still buy the occasional bottle of water, despite a growing collection of reusable water bottles in my kitchen cupboard.  And I’ve been researching, but not actually purchasing, a water saving shower head for months now.

But I’m somehow managing to raise waste-conscious kids.

My four year old daughter and I were in a public restroom this weekend and she was enthralled with the automatic paper towel dispenser.  Her hands had been wiped clean of any hint of moisture, and she quickly flailed her arms in front of the sensor.  A new sheet of paper was spit out of the mechanical holder.

“Stop,” I said.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because you don’t need it,” I explained.  And we left the towel, clean and dry and ready for the next user.

It was a small, seemingly meaningless, encounter.  But as we walked out of the gas station bathroom, I thought, rather smugly, to myself “you’re showing her what it means to be more responsible with our resources.”

That same weekend, my family spent a night in a hotel.  The morning we checked out, my nine year old son helped me do the final sweep of the room.  He lifted up bed skirts and discarded towels to make sure that we weren’t leaving any of our belongings behind.  We’d secured the almost-forgotten toothbrushes and were making our way out the door for the last time when he suddenly darted back into the room. Read the rest of this entry »

We have many cloth diapering enthusiasts amongst our readers so we thought it would be helpful to have you all chime in on this reader question:

Hi, I’m new to cloth diapering and have no idea where to start or what would be best.  I was wondering if anyone could advise me on a good cloth diaper for an older child (almost 4) who doesn’t stay dry at night. He weighs around 37 lbs and is about 35 inches tall and wears a 6 in regular diapers, if that helps.

Thank you from a devoted reader!
Caroline