Save the planet! Eat Three Sisters and Nature's Path Bagged Cereal!

Three Sisters Cereal advertises:  


"Ditch the box and save a tree.  Made using renewable energy"


There are many ways to help the planet and some are harder than others.  Switching to bagged cereal, like Three Sisters Cereal, is one of the easiest things you can do and it tastes delicious, plus it will save you money over name brand cereal.


Here is a list of all the reasons that you should consider trying Three Sisters Cereal:


1)  Buying bagged cereal eliminates the cardboard box, which is wasteful.  By buying bagged cereal you are saving trees and keeping the boxes out of landfills.  Unfortunately, most cardboard boxes and mixed paper recycled by individuals is not recycled because the demand for recycled paper is low and most cereal boxes are designed in such a way that they are difficult to recycle because of the printing process.


2)  Three Sisters cereal is bagged in food-safe, recyclable bags!  So just toss the bag in the recycling instead of the trash!


3)  Three Sisters Cereal uses renewable energy to manufacture their cereals.


4)  Their cereal is sugary and they have variety!


Varieties include:









Three Sisters Cereal is available at Whole Foods.


Of course, even more environmentally friendly and economic than buying Three Sisters Cereal is shopping in the bulk section and reusing your own plastic bags.  But if you're in a rush or for some reason don't like the bulk section or your local store doesn't have one then Three Sisters Cereal is a great alternative.  If your local store doesn't yet carry it then put in a request.


Three Sisters cereals are a little too sweet for me to have everyday, so I also enjoy "Nature's Path Organic Heritage Flakes," which have just a hint of sweetness and are low in sugar and have plenty of fiber.  I actually prefer Nature's Path because their cereals are organic.


Nature's Path Organic Heritage Flakes Cereal, 32-Ounce Bags (Pack of 6)
Like Three Sisters Cereal, Nature's Path makes its bags from recyclable plastics.  Nature's path estimates the savings from buying their bagged cereals as follows:


- Paper Board Saved:  437 tons per year
- Total Energy Saved: 7,464 million BTUs
- Green House Gases Saved: 1,389,323 lbs CO2
- Wastewater Saved: 826,542 gallons
- Solid Waste Diverted:  248,383 pounds


Their source quotes is: http://www.edf.org/papercalculator/


For most of us, these calculations are just really big numbers, but we don't really understand what they translate into, so let me try to provide some context.


Let's assume that the average american drives 12,000 miles per year and their car averages 20 mpg.  This means that each year, the average american car produces 12,253 pounds of CO2 emissions per year.


Using this carbon footprint calculator, we can estimate the average CO2 emissions of a car:
http://www.greenprogress.com/carbon_footprint_calculator.php


So Nature's Path saving 1,389,323 lbs of CO2 per year is equivalent of keeping

1,389,323/
12,253 = 113 cars off of the road per year!


Think about all the effort that it would take you to completely stop driving your car - buying bagged cereal is a very easy and economical way for you to decrease your carbon footprint.  So tell your friends about the benefits of eating bagged cereal because the more people who do it, the less waste we'll have and the better the planet will look for our children. 


Also, if you click on any of the amazon links, please realize that the price in stores is a fraction of the price on amazon - it costs less that $5 in stores for a 32 oz. bag.  I once compared the bagged cereal per oz. to all the boxed cereals and the bagged cereal won every time.  It makes sense - if they don't have to waste money on the box then they can afford to save you some money on the cereal!

Review of Braun SE7281WD - Xpressive! Oooh LaLA!







I just bought a new epilator!  The Braun SE7281WD!

In high school, my mother gave me her old Braun and it served me loyally through high school, college, and for several years after that.  But finally, my little white and yellow friend started to have connection problems and epilating was taking the greater part of an hour.

I spent a long time trying to decide which epilator to pick, since my last one lasted so long.  I considered different brands and read various reviews, but in the end I stayed with Braun because it has served me well and had some seriously innovative new features.  So let me go through the features and enumerate why I love them!


1) Wet & Dry Technology:  Translation: you can use it in the shower - it's waterproof!  This is by far the best feature!  We all have more exciting and rewarding things to do than sit around and pull hair out of our legs.  This added functionality not only allows you to epilate during your morning shower, thus saving you time by multitasking, but all the little leg hairs that get yanked out by the root get flushed down the drain as you shower - no messy cleanup!  I've also found that epilating in the shower is more effective because the hairs are wet and almost "sticky" - especially if you use a slightly harsher soap right before epilating to make them more rubbery.  The warm water also seems to loosen the root.  I've found that not only is it more efficient to epilate in the shower, but it's also less painful and I get fewer ingrown hair - probably because the hair is easier to fully remove.

2) Massaging System:  There are small, spikey, freely-spinning wheels on the sides of the epilator that stimulate the skin.  I think the idea here follows the thinking behind some eastern forms of medicine, like acupuncture, where pain is dissipated by providing distractionary (made-up-word) pain to make the source of the pain less intense.  There are actually neurological studies that provide scientific reasoning behind this phenomenon - basically, you're sending various electrical signals throughout your body, which confuses it making the main source of pain less intense.

3)  Fully Washable:  Ok, this is cheating a little, but basically it goes along with feature enhancement #1 - you can wash it now!  Much better for hygiene and preventing any infected ingrown hairs (gross, nasty and uncomfortable).

4)  Pivoting Head:  The pivoting head is another major improvement in ergonomics - it basically enables the Xpressive epilator to glide over your leg and around your knee, ankle area, what have you, without you having to balance in uncomfortable positions or crouch/sit to reach every area at the optimal angle.

5)  Rechargeable Option:  In the fully wet/dry system, you are stuck with getting the rechargeable, rather than corded model.

6)  SmartLight:  Not sure if all the models come with this, but get it - it's so nice to actually see what you're doing!  No need to awkwardly position a lamp and yourself to try to get a view of how your handiwork is progressing.  The light is optimally situated and bright enough to clearly see every hair you are attacking.


All-in-all, I'm very happy with it so far - it gets the job done well and most importantly enables me to epilate when it's most convenient for me - when I'm in the shower!

That said, here are a couple of things I'm concerned about going forward:

Concern 1:  My only concern is that its battery powered and I'm not sure how easy it will be to find a replacement body.  My former Braun epilator unit was wall-powered and I think that's one of the main reasons that it lasted so long.  Of course, it's nearly impossible to make a wall-powered unit that is also classifiable as "water-proof" - so I don't hold that against Braun.  It's just a trade off that you should be aware of. 

Concern 2:  My old Braun epilator has screws on the side to re-tighten the blades.  There is no way to tighten the blades on my new head - the only solution is to purchase new heads.  I'm a little sad that Braun has moved away from long-lasting products that can be easily tuned up and rather, moved towards disposable products.  We really don't need anymore waste in our landfills!

To read more about Braun's Xpressive epilator, visit this link.

I hope you enjoyed my review of the Braun SE7281WD - "Xpressive" epilator!