But what about those times you have some great organic produce or meats already at home? It is cheaper, and what’s more “local” than making your own baby food? You can also be sure you are avoiding pesticides and additives.
Ingredients:
½ cup breast milk, organic formula or organic whole milk (for babies over 12 months)
1 envelope active dry yeast
¼ cup organic sugar
¼ cup melted organic butter
¼ teaspoon organic vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon sea salt
3 unbeaten organic eggs
3 cups organic whole wheat flour
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat milk until very hot, but do not boil. Set aside and let it cool to lukewarm. Add yeast to the milk. Stir until blended, set it aside for 6 minutes. Add the sugar, butter, vanilla extract and eggs. Stir.
Add enough flour to handle the dough. Knead on floured surface until smooth, adding flour as needed. Let rise in a warm place for 1 hour or until doubled in size. Roll out dough to ½ inch thickness. Cut into strips 1 inch wide, then cut the strips to 3 inches long. Place on a buttered cookie sheet, 1.5 inches apart. Let rise again for 30 minutes. Bake for 20 minutes.
Ingredients: ½ pound dry lentils, rinsed
¾ pounds raw baby organic carrots
1 small organic onion, minced
4 cups of filtered water
Preparation:
In a large saucepan, sauté onion in small amount of organic olive oil until translucent. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer for 1 to 1 1/2 hours until lentils are soft. Cool, then puree. Add more water for thinner consistency. Place in ice cube trays to freeze for future servings.
Ingredients:
1 organic apple
1 organic pear
1 organic egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon organic lemon juice
1 teaspoon organic brown sugar
1 teaspoon organic apple juice
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Peel, remove core and dice the apples and pear into very small pieces. Add the lemon juice and apple juice. Simmer on low in a small saucepan until soft. This will take about 20 minutes. Mash or puree the fruit. Whisk in the egg yolk and sugar until smooth. Bake for 15 minutes or until set. Cool before serving.
Here is an interesting fact; according to Nielsen Research approximately 598 million pounds of candy are bought in the US during the Halloween season. Now that's a lot of candy! Greenopia, in its mission to educate consumers, has recently updated their "Greenest Candy Maker Ratings" just in the nick of time! Because if you're like me, one of the purchasers of all that candy, you can easily get spooked when trying to make the "greener" choice this Halloween!
For chocolate lovers,Theo Chocolate and Endangered Species Chocolate lead the pack in earning 4 out of 4 leafs. This year Endangered Species Chocolate is offeringbite-sized, individually wrapped, all-natural chocolate treats available in bulk-perfect for Halloween distribution. YummyEarth, a Greenopia 3 leafer, is offering Organic Lollipops and Organic Gummy Bears for Halloween. They are sold in family size bags that are very popular and selling out fast! Cadbury, (the only major candy company to earn any leafs) earned 2 -up from last year. Their score increased due to their committed effort to environmental sourcing of 50% of their chocolate. "We were surprised about the lack of environmental progress and transparency by some of the top brands," said Doug Mazeffa, Greenopia's Research Director, "The major brand who stood out in a positive way was Cadbury." Alas, while the other big brand candy companies like Mars, Nestle and Hershey's have made improvements, they have not made the same commitment to sourcing as Cadbury and ultimately just fell short of achieving a one-leaf score in Greenopia's Rating. So this year, when facing the dangers of buying candy for Halloween, keep some of Greenopia's Picks in your goody bag.
Greenopia's Candy Picks:
CHOCOLATE HALLOWEEN TREATS - Endangered Species Chocolate - All natural chocolate treats, available in bulk (144ct) and in a variety of flavors, gluten-free and kosher.
BUG BITES- Endangered Species Chocolate-Each chocolate square contains a fun and educational insect trading card.
ORGANIC GUMMY BEARS - YummyEarth - Less than 90 calories and a full 100% Vitamin C per .9oz snack pack. Comes in Pomegranate Pucker, Sour Apple Tart, and Strawberry Smash.
ORGANIC HALLOWEEN LOLIPOPS - YummyEarth - 60 pops to a variety bag. Flavors include: Pomegranate Pucker, Too Berry Blueberry, Mango Tango, Strawberry Smash, Googly Grape, Very Very Cherry, Sour Apple Tart, Wet Face Watermelon
As the summer fades our thoughts turn to back to school shopping. New clothes, shoes and backpacks, become the focus. Greenopia has some great choices on where to shop for greening your fall wardrobe and your back to school needs. The 4 Leafer- Patagonia, is a Greenopia top pick! In addition to shoes, clothes and outerwear for men, woman and children, they have a great new line of Day Packs that are just right for lugging schoolbooks or a laptop around. The Refugio, Atacama and Chacabuco Packs are ergonomically designed and come in super color combinations. Something you might not know is that in addition to performing the many tasks required to run a successful outdoor clothing company, Patagonia employees are helping to create a new national park. Employees have traveled in groups of six to Chilean Patagonia - the company's namesake - to spend three weeks digging out fence posts, rolling up wire and removing nonnative plants. Each day pack in the new line is named after and inspired by the national park Patagonia is working to create.
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Recently, Greenopia rated a list of top baby food companies for their greenness. And companies like Tastybaby came out on top for practices like using biodegradable boxes and BPA-free plastic containers.
ORGANIC APPLE PEAR DESSERT
