Crock Pots are Messy

Not sure if slow cookers are making a resurgence or not... I see a lot of recipes around for them. I don't really use mine much because I just end up using my enameled cast iron on a very low flame, which seems to do the trick. I'm generally home, so I don't need the whole cooking-while-away thing. But I love slow cookers, I do. They are awesome. I never really thought about the mess, because, well, that's part of cooking and cleaning up afterwards. The crock pot can be a little unwieldy, but whatever. You soak it, you scrub it, life goes on.

Nope.

Save yourself from messy cleanup by using these disposable liners, which fit models up to 6.5 quarts. Liners can go from refrigerator to slow cooker. Each liner measures 11" X 20". Package of 8 liners.

Let us put aside, for a moment, the horrific image of sea turtles and other sea creatures mistaking these bags floating in their environment as jellyfish, their natural food, and then them choking on it and dying a slow horrible death. Let's just put that aside. Let's ignore that, so that you can have a nice easy clean-up. How about instead we just think of all the plastic-y goodness and chemical soup you are adding to your food that you are feeding to your precious children. Because how are you NOT leaching chemicals into your food which is in direct contact with slowly heated plastic? Do you even know that NO ONE but the plastic manufacturers even knows what is actually IN the plastic? Remember BPA? Remember before BPA? I do. Do you honestly think that if there is no BPA in your plastic, that there is nothing else harmful in there? You are stirring that ALL INTO your food and right into your kids it goes. And we wonder why kids have cancer and other health issues.

I found this image particularly *amusing* when I noticed the page from whence it came. I was amused for quite a few reasons. Let's share, shall we? The page was a blog that was all about a full year of slow-cooking recipes, no repeats. I'm sure she's a lovely woman. She got media appearances and wrote a cookbook out of the whole experience, bless her lil' heart! Here's what tickles me to no end: If she used liners, that is 365 more bags in the trash (not recyclable) and 365 times all the people that took her word for using them also in the oceans. Isn't that hysterical? Also, the cute pictures of what I'm guessing are her kids on the Crock Pot. So she can see their shiny happy faces every time she stirs, right before she spoon-feeds petrochemicals into their sweet gullets. Amusing? Ironic? Meh. Was she using Styrofoam plates and bowls and plastic forks and spoons, too?

We're going to "lazy" and "convenience" ourselves right out of existence. I'd say mark my words, but we won't be here anymore so...

Carry on.

Let's Think About It

Progress? Or just an excuse to create an industry we don't really need?

Let's really think about this and think about it hard. Please.

What am I talking about? I'm talking about so-called progress, and convenience, and making our lives easier, and solving problems, and solving problems that aren't really problems... and finding "stuff" for people to do - because maybe just maybe there are too many people doing the wrong job and we are going the wrong direction altogether?

Observe: The Milk Carton Dilemma. SUCH a horrible problem to have to mash open the mouth of the carton. Wow, that sucks. I just can't think of anything worse. What a problem. I mean, my whole day is ruined when that happens. That's just terrible. Cancer? Terrorism? Poverty? Mere child's play compared to when I can't open a milk carton. Those old enough to remember Sniglets might recognize the word "Lactomangulation." You may as well go back to bed when this happens.

But wait! Never fear! Progress and Technology are here to rescue YOUR morning! To make YOUR life better and easier and more convenient, we have PLASTIC to save you! And look! Jobs! We need people to make these very very necessary things!

Now look at what we have: we've gone from a carton that really doesn't recycle anyway, to a carton that now has a plastic piece on it that won't get recycled because it's attached to a carton that doesn't get recycled and it will not get separated from said carton. PLUS, a little round ring thingy-piece that gets thrown away after you hurt your finger trying to get it the hell out of there. PLUS, the lid. That won't get recycled. We went to the beach the other week, and I didn't get any shells, but I DID pick up a whole handful of plastic screw-top lids. Might not have gotten them all, but damn it I got those. So, you know, I'm thinking we have more than enough lids out there already. We didn't need an excuse to make more.

But, but, but.... JOBS! Jobs are good and people get jobs by making these things we don't really need! And THAT'S good, right? Justified!

See, I have a problem there. Jobs for the sake of... jobs? Why? Because we can't come up with a job that might move us forward ecologically instead? Because this was just easier and someone is making good money up at the top? Because the Plastics Coalition says, "Hey, here's a job!" and no one says anything about how we really don't need this and maybe there is something else to be done? We had to train people to work the machines that make these things; why not train them to, I don't know, grow industrial hemp instead, or make/install solar panels or wind turbines? Why not THAT job? Instead of making machines to make useless unnecessary plastic pieces of waste, why not make machines to make stuff out of hemp? Why not?

I know why, actually. It's because plastic is made out of petroleum, and the oil industry prefers that we don't actually think about the reality of this situation. And HERE IS the reality of this situation: Opening a milk carton was never a problem in our lives. It was at most a minor nuisance that really did not negatively affect anything in the big picture. And we are creating needless waste by solving a problem that didn't exist in the first place. And we are holding people to jobs that don't go anywhere and don't really advance anyone and just keep people locked into a certain position in life. And if you didn't realize or don't believe that, you ought to give it some thought.

Hey... how about we go back to glass bottles? And hey, why don't we go back to milk delivery? THAT was a job. It was a good one.

In the meantime, can we just start thinking a little more, and stop taking everything at face value? And realize what's REALLY going on out there?

That'd be nice for a change.

Big Oil and Big Corp Out of My Life

Big oil is all over our lives in ways we rarely realize. Petroleum products abound in the most subversive places. Just look in your shower: petroleum in your shampoo bottles AND your shampoo. Big corporations that care nothing for the environment make your liquid soap in more plastic bottles. Disposable razors. Scrubbie poufs of plastic. That little tiny area in your bathroom is full of the worst of it, when you stop to think about it. Forget the rest of that room; the shower has enough horrors. Right down to the toxic chemical cleaners you use to clean it, the detergents on your towels, the frequency with which you wash said towels... (Seriously, anyone who uses a towel ONCE and puts it in the wash needs to leave the planet. Seriously. If you know someone like this, please feel free to push them off during the next rotation.)

I feel pretty good about my shower area. I've done away with shampoo and conditioner, having replaced them with baking soda and apple cider vinegar, neither of which come in plastic containers. I will NOT use liquid bath soap. I'm not sure why this particular product is so incredibly popular.  (Please tell me if you know!) Full of petroleum products and other chemicals. And fake fragrances. I've thought about it, and really I can't see why bar soap is not just plain good enough. It's surely cheaper. We do pay a little more for ours, because we just love Dr. Bronner's Castile Soap in bar form, especially in tea tree or peppermint. We are OK paying a little more for this all-natural soap because, frankly, we are saving so much not buying shampoo that it's basically a wash. (HAH! No pun intended.)  I make sure to use a razor that only replaces the head. I use them forever, and I've had the same handle for, I think, 4 years now. That comes out to be cheaper than the disposables, too. I use a natural loofah instead of a scrubbie-pouf. Those bug me. They work great with liquid soap, I suppose, but, see above. And I've done away with moisturizers in plastic containers with suspect ingredients: I have a little container in my shower with a bit of olive oil. I put some on my face after washing it, and the remaining time in the shower lets it sink in SO nicely. Turns out I really don't need to spend $20+ on something that only sort of works. Thank you, Mother Nature. Hugs.

So, I feel pretty good. I am not giving money to companies like SC Johnson and Dow; instead supporting the smaller companies. I am not throwing away countless plastic bottles every year. And I am not using petroleum on my hair and body. What can you do?

It's the little victories. And they add up.

***Aside anecdote: I have a few little hotel bottles on the sill of my shower window for just-in-case times. (And because I prefer to eventually slowly use them than throw them out!) I recently had surgery, and one of those very same just-in-case times came up: I dropped the soap, and could not bend over to pick it up! Ack! No worries - I used the liquid soap from the little sill-bottle. HOLY CRAP did that stuff dry out my never-dry skin. I love being given irrefutable evidence that I am doing the right thing. Nice reinforcement. But luckily I can bend over again, in case I drop my Dr. Bronners again. Shew.