Innholdsfortegnelse for August - September 2015 i MOTHER EARTH NEWS

My Dad started us off on conscientious purchasing when apartheid was a problem in South Africa. He explained it to us, and then said, ‘’From now on, we don’t buy anything from South Africa.’’ I have purchased items based on these kinds of standards all of my life, and now I’m 70 years old. I pay attention to countries and companies who make bad decisions — one example being Nestlé, which claims that no human being is entitled to water. You can’t trust governments or corporations. Instead, vote with your dollar. — Jo Rewers I’m not a big fan of many of the mega-corporations mentioned in this article, but I don’t like the idea of increased government involvement either, because I don’t trust the government’s judgment. The best way to…

Cucumbers and peppers shine in the summer garden, with different, though equally mouthwatering, roles. Cucumbers ripen in the temperate early summer, whereas peppers take their time and wait for late summer’s warmth, especially in cool climates. Cucumbers are forever linked with the word “cool.” Peppers, in color and many in pungency, are emblems of heat. During the weeks when their seasons overlap, cucumbers and peppers are often paired in the kitchen because they’re both so refreshing and crisp when raw. Prized for color, flavor and texture, they shimmer when set side by side on the crudité platter, tossed together in a green salad, folded into a summer omelet, mixed in a spicy salsa, or combined in a classic gazpacho. Cultivating Cukes Cucumbers suffer somewhat from modernization. As shoppers, we’re used…

Ingredients • 8 poblano or other mild-tomedium chile peppers • ½ pound Monterey Jack cheese • 6 large eggs • 1 cup whole-wheat flour • 1 cup olive oil • Coarse salt, to taste • Tabasco sauce, to taste The name of this classic Mexican dish translates into “stuffed peppers,” and one of the most popular versions involves stuffing poblano peppers (which are mildly hot) with a semisoft, mild cheese, such as Monterey Jack. Often, chiles are dipped in an egg batter first, as in this recipe, but you can omit this step for a lighter dish. You can also bake them with a little olive oil instead of frying them. This makes enough batter to coat 8 large peppers; if yours are smaller, you can adjust the amount of…

Fifty years ago, about nine out of 10 U.S. residents spent summertime in homes without air conditioning. Suggest turning off the AC in summer these days, however, and you’ll frequently encounter wide-eyed disbelief. Our society has come to regard refrigerant-based air conditioning as an indispensable technology, and has forgotten about plenty of other cheaper, simpler ways to beat the heat. Come Out of the Cold The central problem with our dependence on air conditioning is its voracious energy appetite. At current usage rates, air conditioning U.S. homes, businesses, schools and vehicles releases fossil carbon and fluorocarbon refrigerants that have a total annual global-warming impact equivalent to a half-billion tons of carbon dioxide. Eliminating these emissions from air conditioning would benefit the atmosphere as much as shutting down 140 typical coal-fired…

I’ve long marveled at the workings of centrifugal-force countertop juicers. Because I have access to large quantities of free apples, I decided to incorporate the same principles into a much larger juice extractor: the family washing machine. First, I opened the top of the metal cabinet and removed all the unneeded hardware, gaining access to the tub, and removed the agitator from its shaft. Then, I built a shredder by using a jigsaw to cut a doughnut-shaped piece of 3/4-inch exterior-grade plywood to fit the bottom of the washing machine’s perforated basket. (To build a shredder that’s easier to install inside the tub, you could make it collapsible by cutting the disk into two pieces along the circle’s diameter and then hinging those pieces together.) I drove several hundred 1-inch…

A few months ago, I was in a predicament. My cloth chair cushions looked awful — they were ripped and stained. I was embarrassed to have company over. I went to a big fabric store, but I couldn’t find anything I really liked. The patterns were nice, but I’m a practical kind of gal and I was looking for something truly durable. I needed a cover that would repel spills and stains and wouldn’t easily rip. That’s when I thought of feed bags! They’re colorful, sturdy and waterproof. My husband loved the idea, so we started refinishing the chairs the next morning. We cut feed and seed bags about one-and-a-half times bigger than the chair cushions, and then centered them to our taste. We then stapled the bags over the…

Inspiring the Next Generation I read the article “Top Tools for a Half-Acre Homestead” by Lloyd Kahn in your June/July 2015 issue, and I’m so inspired by the idea of building my own home. I’m 23 years old, and I’m discovering the world of sustainability while thinking about building my own personal homestead. I’m still young, but I hope to have a home and garden that I put a lot of care and hard work into, while making a mindful effort to repurpose materials. I’ve always been excited to see MOTHER EARTH NEWS in my mailbox, and I want to assure you that even the younger generation is interested in fostering a healthy planet, body and mind. Your magazine has given me a lot of tricks and tips to get…

Ingredients • 2 pounds red, ripe, juicy tomatoes • 2 tbsp agave syrup or raw sugar • Juice of 1 lemon • Juice of 3 limes • 1 tsp salt • Freshly grated black pepper • 1 tbsp minced onion • 2 cloves garlic, minced • ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil • 2 medium-sized cucumbers, about 1 pound • ½ each red, orange and yellow bell peppers • 1 jalapeño pepper, or to taste • 2 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro Spain gave us this ever-popular summer soup, which is light and fresh-tasting, but with a bit of zing — or a lot of zing, if you like your food spicy. Every gazpacho recipe is a little different. I leave its crunchy ingredients large enough to give it texture, and to…

Drink lots of water. One summer, my family made an effort to properly hydrate for a week, and it took much more heat and humidity to bother us. — Shawn McPheron I bought a cheap plastic dish tub that I use to soak my feet in cold water from our well. Amazingly, a good foot soak can cool you off for hours! I also plan my meals ahead of time and cook just one day per week. If you do this, plan to just quickly reheat the meals, or eat cold meals with more fruits and vegetables so your kitchen stays cooler. Think pasta salads, fruits, hummus — even granola and yogurt are great! Most of us don’t want big, heavy meals on hot days anyway. — Rebecca Lewis Bell…

Summer’s arrived and the heat is inescapable. You don’t want to turn on the stove to make dinner, which will heat up the house even more. If you’re like me and don’t have air conditioning — or if you’re energy conscious and keep the AC low — cooking indoors can be unbearable. Instead, why not use the source of all this heat to your advantage? Solar radiation is the most prolific source of energy on our planet. About 84 billion kilowatt-hours of light reach Earth every day — more than four times our global energy consumption. The challenge is to efficiently harness this energy. Most people settle for gathering solar energy by eating vegetables from their gardens or catching its reflection with their cameras. Trap that energy in an insulated…

If you’re steering your household toward a more self-sufficient lifestyle, maybe you’d like to add do-it-yourself fuel to your list of goals. Biodiesel can be brewed from waste vegetable oil or animal fats, which you can collect free from restaurants, or you can grow soybeans or canola to press your own oil. Process the oil with a couple of chemicals to produce homemade fuel that can run any device powered by petroleum diesel — including pickups, cars and home heating systems. Do it right, and DIY biodiesel can cost as little as $1 per gallon to manufacture. The scale is up to you: Brew enough to make your homestead fuel-independent, or join forces with neighbors to produce fuel for your collective households. At minimum, the equipment you’ll need for home…

I wanted to try using rhubarb leaves as a way to imprint concrete stepping stones — so I did! All I needed was a large rhubarb leaf, a bag of inexpensive concrete mix, spray cooking oil, a piece of wire mesh, some sand, a piece of plywood large enough to use as a work surface, and a bucket with water for wetting the concrete mix. I laid the plywood sheet in a shaded place, and then dampened the sand and gently spread it onto the sheet, taking care to cover a space slightly larger than the selected leaf. I added water to the concrete mix according to the directions. I then laid the leaf face-down on the sand and sprayed the back with cooking oil before covering it with 1…

Seldom does a story stand so starkly illuminated, boldly outlined by the lines of a graph. The focal point is a period in the mid-1960s, when forces aligned to launch the current obesity epidemic and a host of health problems in the United States. As you’ll see, it was a perfect storm. The data for this graph comes from an ambitious 2011 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Researchers posed a question fundamental to understanding modern health concerns, including diabetes, heart disease, obesity and mental health: How does our collective diet today differ from the common diet 100 years ago? The study examined consumption of 373 foods, but then went deeper by looking at how the composition of those foods varied over time, from 1909 to 1999.…

In a well-crafted, truly flavorful cider, the pressed apples must contain a balance of sugar, acid, tannin and aroma. Few varieties cover all the bases, but a blend of apples will balance out any individual weaknesses. The following are six of my favorites from the hundreds of apples I’ve encountered in my decades as an orchardist. Each variety has merits proven ideal for making cider, and will also be delightful for fresh eating. You can grow these cider apple varieties in a sunny spot on your property or seek them out at local markets and pickyour-own orchards. 1 ‘Arkansas Black’ is suited to fresh eating, cooking and cider-making. This 19th century variety produces fruit that’s as hard as a rock — an excellent storage quality in an apple. The yellow…

About 300,000 people are diagnosed with Lyme disease every year, according to new estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Lyme disease is caused by bacteria that multiply in the bodies of ticks, people and animals, including mice, deer and dogs. A whopping 95 percent of human Lyme disease cases are concentrated in only 14 states situated throughout the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Upper Midwest (see map, Page 48), but infections have been reported across the country and into Canada. Scientists predict that Lyme disease will continue to spread as climate change causes an increase in the humid summer conditions and mild fall weather favored by the tiny blacklegged deer tick, which is the most common transmitter of Lyme disease. These deer ticks pick up Lyme bacteria (Borrelia…

Many people dream of having fresh milk from their own dairy animal. Their reasons range from the desire for self-sufficiency to the health benefits of the resulting dairy products to the pleasure of working with animals. But how can you determine whether dairying is an achievable goal for you? And whether a cow or a small goat herd would be a better fit for your farmstead? Let’s find out. Out to Pasture The best-quality milk comes from animals raised on pasture, with supplemental feed to boost production. Both cows and goats need space to roam and won’t be content in small enclosed areas. Be aware that your pasture may not provide sufficient forage year-round, and you’ll need to feed hay during lean times. For a cow and growing calf, a…

Bamboo flooring is often sold as a “green” flooring option, but the truth of this claim depends on which criteria you consider. Processing raw bamboo into flooring involves kiln drying, boiling (sometimes twice) and often steaming. All of these processes are energy-intensive. Reliable embodied energy data for bamboo flooring is lacking, making it difficult to accurately compare bamboo to alternatives. But given the need for two to four high-heat processes, the production of bamboo flooring likely uses more energy than that of wood floors. Shipping bamboo materials from Asia can add to bamboo’s total energy footprint, sometimes significantly. Bamboo flooring is made from laminated strips of bamboo bonded with chemical glues. Surface finishes are also chemical composites. Depending on the type of binders and finishes used, some bamboo flooring can…