Green Options

I’m always looking for baby clothing that’s organic and stylish.  A recent shopping find is the company Cozy Cocoon and their Organic Leopard Baby Bunting Cocoon available through eConsciousMarket.com.

This baby body sock for swaddling newborns is made from 90% organic cotton knit and 10% lycra which parents can roll up, tuck and hold their baby in.

Cozy Cocoon uses:

• Organic materials.

• Recycled, reused or resalvaged materials/fibers in production.

• Biodegradable materials/fibers in product line.

• Vegan or Animal-free materials/fibers.

In the face of a late winter storm here in the Northeast, my friend Stephanie blogged about using what you already have to make snow day meals, as opposed to making a mad dash to the store to pick up the usual staples out of the fear of being snowed in for days.  Now, the Washington Post’s “A Mighty Appetite” blog is busy spreading the word on its Eating Down the Fridge Challenge, taking place the week of March 9.  It sounds easy enough–avoid grocery shopping for a week, instead turning to all the items that have been languishing in your pantries, cellars, fridges, and freezers since God knows when for all your eating needs.

Always up for a food-based challenge, I started thinking about what sorts of items that were tucked away deep in the corners of my own kitchen.  I’m vegan, so there’s tons of dried (and canned, you got me) beans, every nut, seed, and grain you can imagine, near-expired packages of tofu, frozen berries, frozen spinach… even some frozen carrot bran muffins from Trader Joe’s.  With these items in mind, I created a list of ten meals that I’ll likely be preparing this upcoming week.  Given the recent news that even grass-fed beef isn’t so hot for the environment, I’ll take this as an opportunity to say that all sustainable eaters should be looking to lower their consumption of animal products.

What started out two decades ago as an experiment, became the inspiration and vision behind what MATT & NAT’S fashion-forward, design-centric and animal-free handbag line is today.  The experiment was to embrace a vegan diet for just 30 days, but little did Creative Director, Inder Bedi know that it would set off a series of events that would lead to the birth of a super chic handbag line influenced by modern design and architecture. 

Serious, structured, edgy & incredibly modish describes the brand new Fall ‘08 handbag collection from this widely popular Montreal-based company.  Taking its cues from menswear this season, its heavy on hardware and boasts a deep color palette.  The Japanese Paper series has the look of leather, but is made of treated cardboard while the Feutre series looks and feels like felt, but is crafted out of recycled plastic bottles.