This past week I picked up our CSA basket and it was loaded with leafy greens. Many I have already juiced and others I am just anticipating how yummy they will taste. The one thing that caught my eye was this beautiful purple kale. At first glance, I wasn't quite sure if it was kale or not, but after a google search, I can confirm that it is in fact kale.

Overall, we had a good week; we drove a little less, and we began walking more. We have found different uses for some of the items that we would otherwise place in the trash or recycle. One example is we use my kombucha bottles for food storage.

1-PURCHASES

CSA basket

• 1 bunch of collard greens
• 1 bunch swiss chard
• 1 bunch of purple kale
• 2 yellow peppers
• 1 bunch of random greens (they look like the tops of celery root)
• 1 romaine lettuce head
• 1 bulb of bok choy
• 5 apples
• 1 grapefruit
• 4 tomatoes
• 6 potatoes
• 1 broccoli head
• 1 cauliflower head
• 4 turnips
• 3 carrots
• 1 sweet potato
• 2 squash
• 2 daikon radishes
• 2 cartons of eggs (4.00×2)
• 10 extra tomatoes (3.00×2)

Sub-total: 64.00

Whole Foods

• 10 apples in bulk
• 8 local /organic oranges in bulk
• 5 red/orange fair trade/organic peppers
• 1 celery stalk
• 5 cucumbers
• Dates in bulk
• Organic mayo
• 8 pints of blueberries, yes 8!
• 2 bunches of spinach
• 3 bunches of fair-trade bananas
• 4 glass bottles of kombucha
• 4 packages of tempeh
• Peanut butter in bulk
• 1 loaf of sprouted bread
• 1 loaf of honey wheat bread

Sub-total: 166.94

Non-food items:

• Baking soda
• Earth Mama’s baby bum balm
• Biokleen dishwashing soap
• Charlie’s all-natural stain remover
• 5 glass straws and 2 brushes from Glass Dharma for me to do a review on Free

Sub-total: 29.33

Restaurants

• Wednesday: J.P had his weekly lunch at Chipotle 7.85
• Friday: We went to Spiral Diner for dinner. It is my next favorite restaurant to Chipotle . It is an all vegan and all organic restaurant. 40.00
• Saturday We went to Mellow Mushroom for a friend’s birthday, so the bill was a bit bigger because we paid for his meal 41.00

Sub-Total:  88.85

Total: 349.12

2-COMPOSTING

I just found out not only does Whole Foods compost, but they take food scraps from people just like me as well. I was under the impression they composted everything but food scraps. I was told they are more than happy to take my compost. This makes composting even easier because my local farmers can only take my food scraps seeing as he feeds it to his animals. I am sure a chicken should not be munching on tissue paper or my hair! Another nice tid-bit of information- they send away all the organic matter and have it made into dirt which they in turn sell in the store. I think they should be paying me for my compost, no?

The total weight of our compost was 11.8 lbs. Looking at our compost I most definitely juiced a lot this past week!

3-RECYCLING

We purchased more blueberries this past week that came pre-packaged in plastic. At first, I thought I was going to recycle all the blueberry containers, but instead I fished out all the old and new containers from my recycling. I am going to give them to my farmer to reuse for berries and such when he starts to grow them. This way he doesn't have to go out and buy containers he will already have some!

4-TRASH

The trash this week comprised of: veggie/fruit stickers, plastic banana wrap, receipts, plastic from Kombucha bottles, and plastic wrap from the tempeh. A reader had a great idea on what I could do with my fruit/veggie stickers- a sticker album for my daughter. I thought this was a brilliant idea. Therefore, this week I am going to start a little sticker album for little to keep track of what we are eating for her to see as she grows. Thanks, Amy!

5-TRAVEL

This week, we travelled to the little gym, whole foods, Beurleson (for CSA basket), J.P drove to work once this week and to Spiral Diner and Mellow Mushroom. This week I made sure to run my errands on Monday and Wednesday because I already had be out of the house and it worked. It is nice to know I reduced, even if it was a small amount, my gas emissions and impact ever so slightly.

The total distance traveled on the TDI was 311.3 km ( 193 mi). We didn't have to fill up this week!