Homemade goodness

I do most of the baking in our home: cookies (every other week, thereabouts) cakes for special occasions and just-because, and bread. Actually, the bread machine makes the bread, but it still means I have to decide when and what to add to it. There’s a windmill nearby that carries all kinds of interesting flours, nuts and seeds (and pet food)—it’s always a fun trip, and I never come back empty-handed.

I don’t know why people say homemade is healthier. I suppose that’s mostly true, but then again you don’t see that many morbidly obese folks wandering the too-narrow aisles of Whole Foods all that often (come to think on it, you don’t see too many people at all wandering through WF these days). People who have that kind of money usually eat right to begin with, exercise, and if they prefer fancy gourmet breads because it’s “healthier”, then it’s a small wonder that people who eat all-natural things are healthier. I haven’t heard of any studies about this, so I doubt these two are causal.

So it’s not for any reasons of health that I bake and the boyfriend cooks, but because it’s tastier. Even after factoring out the cost of the bread machine, we’ve made up for it by the “exotic” breads that I regularly make with it—flaxseeds appear regularly in our loaves, as do whole wheat flours. But that doesn’t mean our homemade things are necessarily any healthier—yes, you miss out on lots of chemical preservatives and gain a ton of taste. But you also gain tons of fat. The cookies I make usually require 125-250 g of butter (that’s ~4-8 oz), and untold amounts of sugar (this gets cut back—I don’t like sweets to be too sweet).

The moral of the story is that homemade is only as healthy as the stuff you use to make it. One of the complaints against jarred tomato sauce is that it contains (gasp!) sugar. Well, if you make your own (and it’s not that hard), adding a modest lump of dark brown sugar greatly improves the flavor. Whining about the amount of salt in prepackaged chicken soup? Make your own, and you’ll find that you need a surprising amount of salt to get it to taste the way we’ve come to expect chicken soup to taste—I’m not sure how much, as it’s been eons since I’ve made it, but I remember being surprised at how much I had to dump in. Granted, if your tastes run towards the mild end of the spectrum you’ll probably need less sugar and salt than the amount going into prepackaged foods. Although you probably won’t have access to food-grade tocopherol or any of the other additives and preservatives added to prepackaged foods, just because you make it yourself doesn’t mean it’s any healthier than something out of the freezer aisle.

Out, out, damn spot!

*Bonus points to whoever knows where the title comes from*

This post is mostly inspired by this MSN Money post. In my mind, fewer things garner more irritation than "frugal hacks" which aren't. Okay, saving a buck on laundry is good. But wouldn't saving mega-moolah--while being good to the environment and NOT killing yourself one molecule at a time--be better?

I've made my feelings about chemicals known, what wasn't so clear is that I actually dislike using powerful chemical cleansers. If you've got to wear chemical protection against it, why the hell would you spread it around on your floors? On purpose? This isn't just a rhetorical question. If you've got small children or pets running around, they'll eventually put their hands and feet in their mouths, eating the dirt--and whatever chemical poison hasn't been degraded by time or light exposure. People who want to blame vaccines for autism would have a better case against Dow and Johnson & Johnson (not that I think cleaning products cause autism, but if you've ever taken a deep breath in a shower that was just sprayed with one of the stronger products, the harm is quite obvious).

Getting things clean is really all about chemistry, anyway. Once you understand a bit about soaps, acids, and bases, it's just a matter of tinkering until it's done.

Everything that matters can be cleaned with:

Hand soap
Washing soda
Baking soda
Borax
Water
Bar soap
Salt

Laundry detergent: I use this recipe from Trent Hamm. It's great because even if I use an expensive, olive-oil based soap (I'm very sensitive to perfumes and coloring), I still come out ahead. Save up empty milk jugs or keep the containers of your old laundry detergents around. The sole disadvantage of this is that it has a tendency to separate. I've found that using olive-oil based soaps decreases this tendency, but if a jug has been sitting around for a few months it'll need a bit of shaking up.

Wine stains can be pretreated with salt (I'll bet you were wondering where this one came up). It's the tannins in the wine that set the stain, and salts disrupt this process. Just set the item aside, and pour on a copious amount of salt, enough to cover the entire stain. Let it sit for at least 15 minutes (I prefer 1-2 hours). Then rinse off the salt--in COLD water--and dab a drop of hand soap on it, and rub it in. You can repeat this a few times; depending on the wine, the stain may get lighter, or it may not. In the end, launder as usual. This is not entirely foolproof on white items--it seems to depend on the fabric type and the wine involved. The other bit of advice is to drink cheap reds--well, at least, young reds. They contain fewer tannins and are less complex (both in taste and chemical structures). Unless you have a sommelier for dinner, odds are nobody will know. :-)

Sweat stains are nigh inevitable in white shirts, but you can get them out and get a few more wearings out of them if you soak a lightly-stained shirt in baking soda and VERY hot water (be generous, 1/4 cup to a gallon). Let it sit for a few hours, and then wash (with other whites) in bleach. You'll have a sparkly-white clean shirt by the end.

Blood stains are surprisingly easy to get out. Soak in COLD water, and use a dab of hand soap to get out the most stubborn of stains. The only downer is that the soak has to be overnight for it to be completely effective. You can get away with shorter soaks, but you may have to soap the stain for a little longer.

We don't have a dryer, but if you do and if you use one, toss in a tennis ball. It'll act as a fabric softener AND decrease static cling. It does the same thing as those expensive dryer balls, but tennis balls are cheap.

Vinegar also acts as a great fabric softener, if you use such things (because we hang everything out, softeners would be defeated).

Nothing I've mentioned (not even the tennis balls) would cost more than a box of OxyClean. Everything is multipurpose--you can use baking soda or vinegar to clean lots of other things--and they're SAFE. These are, by far, a most effective way of going natural.

Slow

I come across articles like this one frequently on the Internet, articles which purport to explain how relationships work and when you should be hitting "milestones", as if every couple develops according to some as-yet-unknown Piaget. If not even kids follow the rules all the time, why the hell do we expect adults to do the same thing?

I think a lot of discontent comes from the fact that we don't take relationships slow enough. When you're "supposed" to make out on the third date or it's a bust--when you're "supposed" to start thinking of moving in together after a year--waiting for months for your first kiss can certainly make you feel like either a freak, or that you're dating one (I am almost certain Peter did, as I freaked out every time he tried--for months).

But like the Supremes sang, "You can't hurry love". Lust and infatuation are easy, but being in love and Loving someone are, in my opinion, very different. And sometimes, your Nerve Growth Factor just takes a while to come up to that level associated with Love. Mixing neuroscience and pop psychology is, admittedly, a leap of logic, but no more so than subscribing to the popular opinion that dinner and a movie, guy-pays-for-all, is the "right" way to date.

I'm thinking about this because 2009 will be the eighth year that my boyfriend and I have known each other; the second year that we will have lived together. We didn't share a kiss until almost three years had passed, though I suspect that things might have moved a little faster if we'd been on the same side of the Atlantic. A little, but not by much, I think. In terms of Relationship Development, this would put us at "cretin".

But I don't think that's a bad thing. Certainty and stability are hard enough to come by in this life, and if you're going to get through life together, then you've both got to be certain, and stable.

New Year, New Life?

New Year's is a great time to make some resolutions, to start a new diet, to get a new haircut, begin (or finish) that damn novel*, or be a "better person", whatever the hell that means.

I'd like to propose that we use the New Year to start living greener. As in really, truly greener. Environmentalist thinking isn't just cool, it's also a money-saver, which is a nice bonus in these uncertain days.

Below are ten things I've resolved to do this year, things that are both green and frugal--I'll keep you all updated as the year goes on, about once a week.

1) Change the incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent ones: Unbelievably, we still use incandescents. For some of them, like the overheads in the bedrooms, it can't be helped--they simply don't make CFLs in the size that will fit into the sockets. But most of the lights here are incandescents for only one reason--my boyfriend can't stand the thought of using CFLs. Which, if you ask me, is a silly one, especially since the lights that I want to switch are shaded by yellowish shades, which will soften the glow considerably.

2) Eating more organic produce: This is kind of tricky because organic produce is expensive and I've got a limited budget. But I figure that I can cough up once a week for ingredients to make a nice dinner.

3) Not buying clothes: Actually, I've been very good about not buying from mass-produced lines, mostly because I can't afford €15 for a delicate t-shirt that'll rip after its first wear. But this year, I plan on going just a tad farther--I'll either buy secondhand or make them. Well, not socks or underwear. I suppose I could learn to knit my own socks, but I can't count for the life of me.

4) Start a balcony garden: We couldn't do this for the past year because the boyfriend has a load of crap that he can't get rid of. But we're getting a new kitchen, so along with the destruction of the old kitchen, we'll get rid of the crap that's cluttering our balcony, and hopefully be able to put in some spinach plants, basil, cucumbers, tomatoes, and zucchini this year.

5) Photography: I've kind of fallen off the wagon a bit as the days have gotten shorter and my time has been occupied by measuring and cutting and stenciling and what-all (presents for 16 people for around €200 means a lot of homemade stuff, and homemade stuff takes a lot of time). But photography is a cheap hobby--at least, it can be--and at the same time, documenting the beauty of nature really reminds you of what there is to preserve.

6) Better living through chemistry: I will freely confess to being a toxic-chemical-phobe here. Well, actually, not so much--I am quite happy to use chemical-laden shampoos and conditioners, the difference being that shampoos and conditioners generally aren't strong enough to take out the lining of your lungs if you breathe it in for long enough. Broadly speaking, my rule of thumb is that whatever you're using to clean shouldn't feel like it'll kill you if you're locked in an elevator with it. There are few chemicals that we really need to keep an apartment spic 'n span. Between spiritus alcohol (the kind that you put in alcohol lamps), plain vinegar, bleach, baking soda, washing soda, and a bit of borax, there really shouldn't be anything you can't clean. The resolution? Not using any pre-fabricated cleansers.

7) Maintenance: We do a terrible job of maintenance. That is to say, I've not once checked over my bike since I bought it--secondhand--last June. There are probably hundreds of things we could check--the weatherproofing, for instance. We could insulate the hot-water pipes. Take a moment to dust out the computers, vaccuum the refrigerator coils, etc. But also things like fixing holes in clothes before they become irreparable, cleaning out the trap in the dishwasher more often, and things like that--they also need to be done.

8) Turning things off, aka letting my pet peeve out to play: My peeve is leaving things on. I'm okay with forgetting to turn off the light occasionally (happens to us all) but constantly leaving lights burning is a frightful waste of energy (and money). Furthermore, we have things like the DVD player which is never truly off, and my boyfriend's seldom-used stereo system is never turned off, either. It irks me that we have so many power vampires in our apartment, and this year, the plan is to get rid of them all, one room at a time.

9) Learn to can stuff: The summers are rife with blackberries and elderberries. The markets are chock full of muscat grapes and fresh tomatoes: what better way to preserve the flavors of summer for the dead of winter? Not to mention that homemade preserves make excellent gifts.

10) Start yoga again: The reason I haven't is because getting up at 4:30 in the morning just isn't fun, no matter how you cut it. But I miss yoga more, and with the impetus of a New Year coming on I'll be motivated to start. Maybe I'll even start running again, who knows? Though with my ankles in the shape that they're in, I'll probably be better off buying a used stairmaster, instead...

With the exception of the last one, everything here is something that you, too, can do, to live a happier, and greener life. Actually, you, too, can start yoga. But I wouldn't recommend getting up at 4:30 am to do it.

Actions and reactions

It's not exactly a surprise that partying too hard on New Year's Eve leads to hangovers the next day. Or that pigging out at the all-you-can-eat leads to an unpleasant surprise on the bathroom scale. Or that "taking advantage" of all those pre- and post-Christmas sales results in a guilt-ridden statement, from either your credit card or your bank.

Which is why it's not exactly a surprise that the market for credit has scrunched down. It's a natural reaction to excess.

Economists tend to project the image of the economy as pure math, where people's actions are based on what will make them the most money. But really, it's mob psychology, both the bubbles and the inevitable pop. People tend to do what everybody else is doing. If everybody else is living on credit cards to pay for the lifestyle of the Joneses, well...

Merry Christmas!

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

I realize that I've kind of drifted from the original tack of this blog, so the New Year will bring some changes in the type of stuff that gets put up here. And hopefully, I'll be able to update more regularly.

Our tree is a real tree, about 3 feet tall, blinged out in red and gold. Those are the colors we use as our main decor, too.

Real Greenies Don't Recycle

We recycle only about half the glass that comes into our apartment--mostly the wine bottles, and then only if I can't use them for a vase (some of them are really fugly).

The other half does not get thrown out. It gets put to good use--holding screws, blackberry jelly, acting as pseudo-tupperware, holding things like corks and pencils and beads, as containers for stock, etc. I sometimes wonder how I ever got along with virtually no glass jars.

Why do we recycle at all? There are only two good reasons to recycle:

1) Essentially nonrenewable resources: paper, for instance. Yes, I know, trees are grown in specially manicured forests etc etc, but the fact is they grow at a much slower rate than our current need for paper. Hence the "essentially".

2) To decrease the amount of crap going to the landfills. Especially the nonbiodegradeable crap. Like glass. And styrofoam, too--but that one might actually degrade, given enough gasoline.

From some points of view, recycling is a terrible waste of resources. You have to drive a special truck to pick it up. The crap gets sent down lots of conveyor belts--using tons of electricity from what is most likely going to be a fossil-fuel burning plant. People get paid to sift through it. More resources are used to reconstitute the crap into its original form.

Is it worth it? When you consider how much crap we throw away on a daily basis--coffee filters, coffee grounds, small paper scraps, food scraps, broken things, food containers--one must wonder exactly how much of a difference a single can of Coke is going to make to the net amount of crud going to the landfill.

But then consider how many resources are devoted to, say, quarrying aluminum, hauling the raw ore to a refinery/smelting plant, smelting out the metal from the slag, shipping it to companies who bang on it and make nuts and bolts and cans, etc.

Recycling is worthwhile. But it should not be considered Green, but rather as the lesser of two evils.

Why conserve?

Water is too cheap, which is why people don't care about wasting it.

There is also the fact that if you don't use it, it just evaporates, floats around as a cloud for a while, and then drops back to earth again, as rain. The water cycle, believe it or not, still works in the same way it did when you were a kid in elementary school. So really, there's no real shortage of water.

Except when there is:

It is impossible to predict which year will be a drought year. In the 1990s, when I lived in/around Philadelphia, there were at least two summers where you could be forgiven for wondering what happened to summer, because everything was brown. It didn't rain for three weeks straight, once--and given the average temperature of a Philadelphian summer, that's a big strain on plant life.

It is becoming even more difficult thanks to the weird climate changes we are all experiencing. Drought and famine in Africa. Drought and famine in India. Glaciers melting, Venice under water. Northern Europe caught in a web of freezing cold. More powerful hurricanes.

The problem is not that water actually runs out. It is that it runs out where people live. But it's not like you can keep it, either--evaporation occurs, no matter what.

So why "save" water?

1) Why not? If you're not using it, why run it? It's a profligate waste of money and resources.

2) Those "just a few bucks" you save--any little bit helps if you're struggling. Turn off the faucet, fix those leaks, and you'll breathe just that much easier.

3) Peace, quiet, and no green streaks. When I was in college I lived in an apartment where the bathtub's faucet leaked all the f*cking time. Eventually we were able to summon a groundskeeper to fix it, but by that time there was an irremovable scum of green stuff staining the white tub, marking where algae had grown along the trace of the water. Dripping faucets drive me nuts in general.

4) Water damages. See #3 about green scum. But a drippy pipe can cause floorboards and cupboards to rot, and those cost a helluva lot more to replace than calling the plumber to fix the leaks.

5) Save your skin. Washing too often dries out your skin, and washing your hair too often sucks the natural oils that give it shine right out. I wash my (long) hair every other day--it's oily--which is just about right.

Bailing out!

The latest talk around the economic round table is on bailing out the auto industry. Don't worry, this won't turn into a long rant about the auto industry and how unions screw things up. The human cost if the Big Three went under would be tremendous--not necessarily catastrophic, but definitely painful--but at the same time, one must wonder whether the environment would see it that way.

If we go by the standard 10,000 miles driven per year, 15 mpg (we're talking SUVs, not Priuses), and 23 pounds of CO2 gas emitted per gallon, that adds up to almost 8 tons of carbon dioxide in the air per SUV, per year. Multiply that by however many millions of SUVs are idling in parking lots (er, I mean freeways) not just in the US, which is by far the biggest consumer but by no means the only one, China, and Europe, and it's a wonder that the oceans are still able to keep up.

This doesn't even take into consideration the acts of finding oil, drilling for it, shipping, and refining it, all of which produce their own small environmental catastrophes (and larger social ones, but I'm not up to dealing with things this complicated this late at night). Or the effects that roads have on the landscape--and how they shape the movements of animals, and the effects that has on conservation efforts. It's enough to give even an environmentally-inclined blogger a headache.

The point is that driving with reckless abandon will wreck the world--if you happen to live in Nigeria, then you know firsthand that it does, in fact, wreck your world. I'm not one to put much faith in doomsday prognostications of a world without oil, but let's realize: 1) oil renews itself at a much slower rate than we use it up (think millions of years--unless you're Sarah Palin and your brain can't physically cope with the idea that the world might be older than Genesis), and 2) there are much, much more urgent uses for oil than merely making things go zoom or zap.

It is actually the second that worries me more. It is possible to live without cars (we do). It is possible to deal without central heating, to scrape by on candlelight, and make do with microwaves.

But imagine a life without plastic, or try to--I can't. Most of the the world we live in is plastic. The couch I'm sitting on is plastic. My laptop--encased in plastic. Even the most plastics-averse person (my boyfriend) thinks nothing of buying chicken encased in a plastic box--and doubt anybody would even think of buying meat any other way. Consider how they keep things sterile in hospitals. Consider what rubber gloves are made of. Consider a life without polyester.

At some point in the (hopefully) far future, we're going to have to make decisions about what we can do without. Delaying this particular inevitable is one I think we can all agree on.

Does not compute

My lab works on proteins. A few of the people run "dry" experiments, meaning they enter equations and run simulations of molecules and how they interact with proteins. Needless to say, being as inept with computers as I am, I normally don't deal with that.

But recently I was giving a box of 32 compounds that I had to test for allosteric activity. According to the computers, they were all allosteric enhancers.

According to my experiments, they're not.

Admittedly, a hit rate of 3-4 out of 32 isn't half-bad. Random screening without using computers to narrow down the list of criteria for our allosteric compounds would have me pulling my hair out of pure stress--when you're testing that many compounds, you have to make sure that the labels on one tube matches the label on the other, or else...

The point of all this is that life doesn't compute well. We can plug data into our computers until we're blue in the face, and get all types of random, seemingly meaningless correlations (rainy weather, autism), or important, seemingly significant ones (cholesterol, heart attacks). But it takes getting your hands dirty--designing the surveys, running the statistics, cracking the math--before you might turn up something useful.

And all too often, you don't.

I've still got a few more tests to run, but at this point they're more for verification of what I already know (most of the compounds are not allosteric modulators) than to get new data.