This blog will hopefully be an enlightening forum where I can share with you not only our experiences in the green health sphere, but also some of our favorite ways to be green. Now, I mentioned earlier that we are trying to cut back on what we consume; however, given that we are city dwellers and not the craftiest folks around, we have no choice but to buy our food, our cleaning products, our health and beauty products and other household necessities. At the same time, we’ve been working over time to try and buy products not just because they claim to be environmentally friendly, but because they actually work or in the case of food, taste good, and because they are made by companies that really are working to make a positive environmental (and or social) impact. With the significant increase in “green washing” that we’ve seen this past year, we’ve found even more reasons to be skeptical of products that claim to be green, but which have a hard time backing themselves up.

To start, I’d like to share with you 3 of our favorite healthy & green products. Two food stuffs and one cleaning product:

Simply Natural Organic Marinara
Iggi and I can’t get enough of this stuff. We found it at Costco several years ago and we have not willingly bought another kind of sauce in at least two years. In fact, we keep it in back stock in our pantry. Right now we have 9 jars of the tasty stuff downstairs. The ingredient list is simple (like their name) and 100% organic. The Simply Natural company has been family owned for three generations. They also make, package and ship their product out of the same factory. Of course, it would be most environmentally friendly to can and make our own sauce, but I’m not sure it would taste as good.

Crystal Glass Cleaner by Eco-Products
I started using non-toxic cleaning products shortly after college, when I lived in the Masala Co-op. And, yet I continued to use the nice bright blue product we all know as Windex. I like my windows and mirrors to sparkle, no smears or streaks allowed. At the same time, I’ve always been repulsed by the toxic smell and taste of the product. Then I met Iggi and learned about Eco-Products, another brand of cleaning products sold through Costco and their own store in Boulder. The ingredients in Crystal: water, vegetable-derived alcohol, and orange oil. This stuff not only smells good & clean, but it cleans glass to perfection. If you are washing windows outdoors and a breeze comes up while you spray, it actually smells good and doesn’t make you gag like Windex. GO CRYSTAL!!!
Vegenaise
I learned about this wonderful product, while working at Vitamin Cottage. Despite being a natural foods nut for years, I had a guilty secret. I used to LOVE Miracle Whip. And, I justified buying and eating the stuff (despite its scary ingredient list), because I didn’t knowingly ingest those ingredients anywhere else. Within just a few weeks of working as a Vitamin Cottage cashier, I noted that Vegenaise was a common purchase for many of our customers, so I started to ask folks about the product. Apparently, the stuff has been around for some 20 years and has a loyal following. It has been almost exactly 2 years since I finished up my last jar of Miracle Whip, and bought my first jar of Grapeseed Vegenaise, and I have zero regrets. Unlike your average mayonnaise, Vegenaise is made from grapeseed oil, which has been shown to raise HDL cholesterol levels, while lowering LDL levels. Vegenaise also contains zero animal products, is made in a solar powered factory, and unlike mayonnaise, it actually tastes good! How cool is that?