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Eco-Friendly Family Activity: Board Game Night

September 2, 2016 0

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Now that it is back to school time we have very little time to hang out as a family. Even on nights when we’re all at home, there’s always something to contend with; be it extracurricular activities, social lives, homework, or my own business being, well, busy! To combat this and get some quality family time in each week, we spend Wednesday nights having a family board game night.

While the classics are always good, (we have a big bowl on our dining room table full of small games!) there is such a variety of fun and interesting new games available these days! Today I’d like to tell you about the four games that we have been playing quite regularly, recently. All of them are produced by Blue Orange Games, a fantastic board game company with a focus on being environmentally friendly and sustainable.

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Dr. Eureka: This is definitely my new favorite game! A fast-paced game that makes you feel like a mad scientist, it can be a real brainteaser. The goal is to match the position of colored balls in a test tube, based on your “scientific formula” card. Up to 4 people can play at a time, and a typical game only takes about 15 minutes, so it leaves plenty of time for rematches or other activities. I really love Dr. Eureka, probably because I am the best at it in my family and I win every time! Ha!

Fast Flip: A really fun speed and matching game, this one features a veritable fruit salad of adorable, healthy foods. You have to match numbers and fruits together depending on what comes up with your cards and tokens, and is small and portable. It’s great for bringing along on family vacations, and is perfect if friends come over because it can be played by anywhere between 2 and 8 players.

Gigamons: No, this has nothing to do with the Pokemon Go craze! It’s a board game where the earth’s elements are represented by creatures with mythical powers. In this tile matching game, you earn powers from the various elemental creatures that help you with gameplay. A great memory booster, this game is also suitable for even younger players, so if you have a young child in the house, it would be a great choice.

Top That!: This fun little matching and stacking game is great for any kids who enjoy magic tricks. With problem solving elements, and a focus on being quick and perceptive, it is a fun, fast-paced game great for all ages. My family had a fun time playing it, and the little rabbit coming out of the top hats is so cute!

The games we’ve enjoyed playing at recent board game nights are all the better for being eco-friendly. The games themselves are quick to learn (great for parties!) and work on important skills like memory, coordination, critical thinking, and visual perception. The components are manufactured from nice, sturdy materials and obviously made to last (these will be passed down for generations to come). Best of all, Blue Orange Games is committed to planting two trees for each one used to create their wooden game pieces! They’ve won over 200 awards for game design, so you really can’t go wrong. I can whole-heartedly recommend checking out their catalog of games for yourself, and maybe starting a new weekly tradition with your family.

 

All opinions are my own – we are just huge fans of Blue Orange Games! 

How to Make Mealtime Less Stressful in the Busy Fall Season

September 1, 2016 0

How to Make Mealtime Less Stressful in the Busy Fall SeasonNOTE FROM SWEET GREENS: This article wasn’t written by me. Thank you for supporting the companies that keep Sweet Greens in business.

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With the kids heading back to school and the seasonal work picking up, preparing supper can suddenly become a great source of stress in some people’s lives. Depending on the number of people who need to be fed, your work schedule, taking care of the kids, and any other responsibilities, you may feel like cooking is a chore that is best left to a restaurant. That is, if you can afford one. Here are some tips to make mealtime at home a little less frantic and stressful.

Make a Weekly Menu
Believe it or not, trying to figure out what you are going to cook on any given night can be quite time-consuming. If you are not really sure of what to whip up, you may be stressing yourself out thinking about all your options. Everything that is associated with food and eating should be enjoyable, so try planning out a menu to follow for the whole week and see if this cuts down on your stress. Don’t use do it for yourself, keep in mind the kids too. If you plan out school lunches in advance, you can save yourself precious minutes first thing in the morning.

Prep on Sundays
Arrange your schedule so you can do all of your meal prep on Sundays. Or, if you happen to work on Sunday, put another day aside that you can devote entirely to meal prep. Don’t use that time to just prepare dinner for the week, prep breakfasts and lunches as well. If you send your kids off to school with their lunches, this kind of prep can be a life saver first thing in the morning. Just grab their lunch out of the fridge, toss it in their bags, and away they go! If you want a few days where you don’t have to cook, prepare double of what you normally do so there will periodically be leftovers to enjoy. Chop up any vegetables you need and, if necessary, separate them. Precooking and freezing meals, so you can just pop them into the oven when you are ready to eat, can be a huge time saver. Also, consider investing into a crockpot or slow cooker so, in the future, you only need to pull a prepped bag of food out of the freezer to toss into the crockpot to cook while you are at work.

Assign Roles
Get your family to help out. The kids should be home from school by the time you start on supper, so their hands should be free! On days when you are making spaghetti, delegate boiling the pasta to someone else and have another person cook the meatballs and sauce. By getting your family involved and helping out more in the kitchen, mealtime can become easier, more enjoyable, and far more efficient.

Buy Easy to Cook Foods
There is nothing wrong with enjoying making all of your meals from scratch. However, doing so does add more work to mealtime. Every now and then, go grocery shopping for easy to prepare foods. These are the kind of foods that you can simply pop into the microwave, or that you can eat straight out the package, like yogurt from Hampton Creek. Either way, easy to prepare foods or premade meals can be a lifesaver on those days where you are just too tired to put on your apron and cook.

Stay Positive
Your mood can dramatically impact your attitude about cooking. There may be many reasons why you may not be in the mood to cook, or even reasons why you dislike cooking. The back to school season can be an exhausting time. However, you should not let those moods overpower your need to stay positive. Maintaining a positive mindset about things you don’t like to do can help to make them more bearable.
Look for ways to keep yourself positive. Listen to some music while you are in the kitchen cooking, or watch one of your favorite shows. Talk with one of your friends or family while you are cooking, as long as you remember to stay attentive to what you are doing! No matter what you decide to do, remember to stay safe and never leave cooking food unattended.

With the right changes to your routine, preplanning your meals, and a little help from your family, mealtime doesn’t have to be so overwhelming and stressful. It can be fun and engaging! Advanced meal prep can also help keep your grocery budget under control as you no longer making daily trips to the store. The best part about all of this is that you’ll feel better, be less stressed, and have more energy to spend with the people that you love!

Bootler is Revolutionizing Healthy Meal Delivery

August 5, 2016 1

Bootler is Revolutionizing Healthy Meal Delivery

Back to school is right around the corner! If you are like most parents, you’ve probably felt the pull of delivery pizza or Chinese food on those busy back-to-school nights where you just don’t have time to cook. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to just pick up the phone and have someone bring hot food straight to your door? Of course, if you’re like me, you probably don’t feel so hot the day after eating too much processed, unhealthy food. If only it were that simple to get a healthy, organic, vegetarian (or vegan!) meal delivered, freshly prepared and ready to eat. With the explosion of internet-based food delivery services, it is actually possible to have this option, though it can be frustrating to figure out which service to use in order to get your favorite organic restaurants to deliver, as they’re all associated with different ones. Enter Bootler, the aggregation service that changes everything.

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Bootler is essentially a search engine for delivery food. Basically, they work with multiple different delivery services, allowing users to pick a restaurant and then compare prices, availability and delivery time. This saves you both time and money when trying to get good, healthy delivery options. Although there is still more typical fare available, Bootler lets you find the largest selection of healthy and organic restaurant options. Interestingly enough, you can also order alcohol from them if you feel like having a bottle of wine or a craft beer with your meal. Alcohol comes from a delivery service called ‘Saucey’ which they are partnered with.

Bootler is not the delivery company; they only bring together other delivery companies and then redirect you to the appropriate website when you’ve decided on your order. You may have used a similar service before to book flights. Similar to Kayak.com, you book the flight through Kayak, but you fly with American Airlines, Delta, or whichever other company is offering the best flight deal. This way you can get healthy, organic, and vegan or vegetarian food options delivered at competitive prices and with the shortest wait time.

I know if I were located in Chicago (which is currently the only city they’re available in) I would be using this service to eat healthy, organic take-out food at home instead of just ordering a pizza on Friday night. Luckily once they’re out of beta, they plan on expanding to NYC by the end of the year and more major cities soon after. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for their expansion into Florida, that’s for sure!

If you are lucky enough to live in the Chicago area, I’ve got two coupon codes that you can use with Bootler‘s delivery partners:

  • Use “Saucey” to receive $10 off your alcohol order.
  • Use “Bootler” to receive $10 off your food order from Postmates.

Let me know in the comments if you’ve used Bootler (or a similar service in your city) in the past, and what your favorite healthy delivery meal options are. I’d love to know how you found your experience with the service!

 

This post is sponsored by Bootler – all opinions expressed are my own.

Cameron’s Specialty Coffee: BetterBrew Eco Coffee Pod Review

July 25, 2016 2

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Love the convenience of single-use coffee pods but not their environmental impact? Me too! Today I am excited to share a more eco-friendly alternative to a traditional “k-cup”, which I think will be of interest to any of you readers who regularly spend time in locations which only offer Keurig-style coffee machines. I, myself have enjoyed using this alternative when traveling, it really is the only option other than going out to a coffee shop and getting an overpriced latte in a disposable cup. No thank you!

Cameron’s Specialty Coffee had the earth in mind when they designed a compostable alternative to the plastic pods which are so regularly used by most brands who offer these single-serve coffee pod options. It was the next logical step in Cameron’s commitment to being one of the greenest coffee roasters in the world. I took three of their BetterBrew Eco Coffee Pod flavors: Kona Blend, Organic French Roast, and Vanilla Hazelnut with me on a recent trip to Montana. I was excited to see a company thinking about how to make these disposable products a little less damaging.

Traditional plastic k-cups are starting to fill up landfills around the world, despite being a relatively recent innovation. They’re one of the fastest growing types of disposable plastic waste products; current levels of production make enough K-Cups in one year to circle the planet over 10 times! Cameron’s Specialty Coffee has introduced these single serve pods that work in your Keurig-type machine and use compostable materials—from the lid made from paper to rings made from corn, beets, and wood rather than plastics. These materials will return to the earth within 90 days, which is an incredible improvement from the decades or centuries it can take some types of plastic pods to break down!

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Instead of plastics which can also leech chemicals into your coffee when hot water is forced through them, the BetterBrew Eco Coffee Pod uses a filter, just like the way a standard percolator coffee is brewed. Beyond coming up with a more eco-friendly single serve pod, Cameron’s also roasts their beans in the most energy efficient ways. They’re dedicated to eliminating as much water waste in production as possible, which is definitely more ecologically responsible than the average coffee company.

One of the things which most interested me in the BetterBrew Eco Coffee Pods was the fact that they’re organic. Cameron’s also invests in sustainable sourcing by buying Organic, Rainforest Alliance, and Shade Grown coffees sourced from farms in some of the most remote areas of the world. Most places that I stay when traveling only have Keurig-type coffee makers, and I like to be able to still have organic coffee when I’m on the go. The fact that these are also compostable really won me over for my travel coffee needs.

What do you think? Would a greener alternative to plastic coffee pods be useful in your life? Would you visit Cameron’s Coffee and make the #BetterTasteLessWaste pledge to reduce plastic waste?  I would love to hear your thoughts!

This post is sponsored by Cameron’s Specialty Coffee – all opinions expressed are my own.

3 Good Reasons to Consider Making Sustainable Fish a Part of Your Meal Plan

February 25, 2016 0

3 Good Reasons to Consider Making Sustainable Fish a Part of Your Meal PlanA Note from Sweet Greens: This post wasn’t written by me – thank you for supporting the companies that support Sweet Greens.

If you’re like me, part of kicking off a new week involves sitting down and planning out meals for the week ahead. Not only does it make it easier for me to get all my grocery shopping done in one trip, but it allows me to feel less stressed during the day knowing that I already have everything I need to whip up a quick and tasty meal for the family. It takes a little while to get into the habit, but once you’ve got it down, you’ll wonder why you weren’t already planning your meals in advance!

That doesn’t mean it isn’t sometimes still challenging to get enough variety into your diet, though. Many of us can slip into a groove where cooking the same foods week after week is both effortless and comforting, so we never try new things. I know this is what kept me from adding fish into our weekly plan for a long time! However, there are some pretty excellent reasons to consider making the change. Once you think about the benefits, it’s practically a no-brainer! But what exactly makes fish a good fit for your next week’s meals? Here’s what sold me on the idea.

  1. Eating fish in moderation comes with measurable health benefits. It’s no secret that fish is chock full of omega-3 fatty acids, which doctors say keeps your heart healthy, but those acids also play a significant role in a young child’s brain development. If you’d prefer not to take fish oil supplements, adding fish into your weekly diet provides a simple, easy way to get those vital nutrients.
  1. There are now sustainable seafood sources of seafood on the internet. What is the difference between sustainable and wild caught? According to the National Resources Defense Council, “The health of different species varies by fishery. Alaskan seafood such as salmon and halibut, when caught in sustainable ways, is generally good for you and the environment. Use the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch guide to learn which fisheries provide the most sustainable seafood choices.”
  1. These sustainable sources can come right to your door with little difference over fresh fish.Rapid shipping and refrigeration technology combine to get fresh seafood delivered to your door. How amazing is that? You can even buy Alaskan seafood, including wild Alaskan salmon — a prime source of omega-3s. Just one serving delivers the equivalent of three days of fish oil capsules! Wild salmon is even better for you than farm-raised, so having a convenient way to obtain it is just incredible.
  2. Fish like salmon are extremely easy to prepare in simple, healthy ways. Maybe you’ve been hesitant to put fish into your plan because you aren’t sure how to cook it. Don’t worry! Salmon especially, is easy to prepare. Even on my busiest days, it’s not hard to throw some fresh salmon into a tinfoil pouch with herbs, olive oil, and lemon. The foil pouch even acts as a serving tray – just throw it away after dinner! Who doesn’t love skipping the hassle of doing the dishes?

With all of that in mind, the choice to keep fish on the menu each week for my family was a simple one. Plus, when it’s just so easy to get fresh scallops, crab, fish, and even lobster delivered fresh, it’s hard to resist all the tempting dinner possibilities!

Next time you sit down to plan your weekly meals, give fish a second chance. Experiment with seafood more often and you might discover a brand new family favorite! Don’t forget to download my free meal plan sheet to make the process even easier. Use it to plan your next trip to the supermarket for all kinds of tasty side dishes to accompany fish!

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