EcoShred Your Sensitive Documents

Eco Shredding, Inc. is an affordable, eco-friendly and secure document destruction service based in Alpharetta, GA. They have a mobile document shredding truck that comes right to your office.

Don't take chances with sensitive documents lying around your office. As a business owner, it is your responsibility to safeguard the privacy of your employees, your clients and of course your own personal information. Call Eco Shredding to help strategize a solution to securely destroy the sensitive documents you have on hand. All shredding is completed on site and safely disposed at a paper recycling facility, so relax and feel good about doing your part to safeguard your clients, your employees and of course the environment.

Call Eco Shredding at (770) 490-5607 or visit their website www.ecoshredding.com

Don’t Be Afraid Of “Real” Butter

“If you're afraid of butter, as many people are nowadays, just put in cream!” — Julia Child

Fact: Butter is one of nature’s simplest and most perfect foods. This is something Julia Child knew well — she sang butter’s praises until the end of her life, which turned out to be a not-too-shabby 91 years. And from the looks of it, Organic Valley knows it, too. That brand you likely recognize from the organic section of your grocery store has a fabulous new offering, Pasture Butter, and I give it two big ole thumbs up!

Like all of Organic Valley’s products, Pasture Butter is produced without any harmful and unnecessary pesticides, antibiotics or synthetic hormones, and the animals involved in its production are humanely raised. But that’s not what’s so unique about Pasture Butter, so let’s move on.

Pasture Butter is only produced during the summer (May to September) from the certified organic milk of cows raised on pasture. (You can find out the specifics of the cooperative’s pasture-grazing standards here.) Grass-fed animals have their most abundant buffet of nutritious greens precisely during this time, and that translates into some supremely healthy dairy products.

Ever heard of CLA? The benefits of conjugated linoleic acid have been in the news a lot lately. CLA is a naturally occurring trans fatty acid (this is not the man-made bad guy you’ve also heard so much about) manufactured in the gut of animals that graze. CLA research is new, but early studies have found that it may be a really great cancer-fighter and immune-booster. If milk-producing animals aren’t allowed to graze — their milk simply won’t be high in this nutrient, so you can’t expect to get it from non-pastured dairy products. In fact, grass-fed animal products are the richest natural source of CLA.

CLA is just one of the omega fatty acids that have been found to be richer in grass-fed animals. The potentially important ratio of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fatty acids has also been in the news a lot, and Pasture Butter has a naturally occurring, heart-healthy optimal ratio. See the rest of the Nutrition Facts for yourself.

I have found this butter at my local Kroger as well as Whole Foods. You can find locations that sell this product as well as coupons here. If you prefer a butter that is spreadable straight from the refrigerator, mix together equal parts softened butter and extra-virgin olive oil and add sea salt to taste.

Taste Test of The Week: Organic Valley Pasture Butter - By Tabitha Alterman

Didn't we learn about this in History class?

As a country, we have been in an eerily similar position before…the years leading up to the Great Depression. Although it is still debated, the generally accepted cause was a sudden loss of confidence in the economic future; brought on by a combination of high consumer debt, ill-regulated markets that permitted malfeasance by banks and investors, cutbacks in foreign trade, and growing wealth inequality, all interacting to create a downward economic spiral of reduced spending and production.

The government’s answer (besides the initial protectionist efforts that exacerbated the crisis) was the New Deal. President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated a sequence of programs with the goal of giving work (relief) to the unemployed, reform of business and financial practices, and recovery of the economy.

Eventually the country recovered.

Then the cycle began again. Most of the regulations created by the New Deal ended during the ensuing wave of deregulation in the late 1970s and early 1980s. We now find ourselves facing a similar situation to that which preceded the Great Depression…high consumer debt, ill-regulated markets that have permitted malfeasance by banks and investors, a substantial trade deficit, and growing wealth inequality; add to all this, the seemingly sudden loss of confidence in the economic future as the Dow continues its meteoric descent.

At this moment, the future is uncertain, nobody knows exactly what is going to happen. We can argue all we want about what got us here, but it will not matter. What will matter is if we decide to continue on the same path we’ve been following for the last 8 years or if we decide to grasp the opportunity to alter course.

It is time to put aside our differences, stop listening to (and spreading) the propaganda, and look within ourselves. Ask ourselves…are we happy with where this country is headed?

Politicians have split this country in two and have pitted us against one another so that they could continue on with their agendas. We have had enough. It is time for us to come together and demand a change.

Kids In The Crosswalk

Lace 'em up and walk to school Wednesday | ajc.com

Some metro students will be walking to school Wednesday morning with their parents. And it’s not because they’re in trouble.

Keep an eye out for kids tomorrow morning and stop for pedestrians.

Suburban Homesteading 101: Making Hard Cider

Brewing your own alcohol is not only fun and easy but saves you a lot of money and is better for the environment. With a modest upfront investment (around $100 for equipment, ingredients and bottles) you can make 5 gallons of hard cider. After the initial investment you will probably pay at most $30 per batch. The environment benefits as well because you buy the heaviest ingredient, apple cider, locally. You can even reuse beer bottles that would otherwise end up being recycled or in a landfill (as long as they are not screw-top bottles and have been thoroughly sanitized).

How to Make Hard Cider

1. Find the Ingredients
Choose Your Cider – I recommend getting the cider fresh from the press up in Elijay but if you don’t want to travel out that far you can use cider from the grocery store. Make sure that the cider contains no chemical preservatives.
Choose Your Yeast – There are specialized liquid yeast packs for fermenting cider but dry wine yeasts work just as well and are much cheaper.

2. Start Brewing
Pour your cider into a brewpot or a large stockpot and simmer it over medium heat for about 45 minutes. Do not let the cider boil, this will result in a hazy end product.

Next, pour the cider into a sanitized fermentation bucket, let the cider cool to nearly room temperature (this will take a few hours), then add your yeast. Stir the mixture for a minute or two with a clean stainless steel or plastic spoon to aerate, then seal the lid and affix the airlock.

Place the bucket in a room or closet where the temperature is 60 to 75 degrees. Let it ferment. Within a day or two you should see the airlock start to bubble. This bubbling should subside within two weeks, signifying an end to the primary fermentation. After that, let the cider sit another week to allow the yeast to settle out.

3. Bottle the Cider

You can find all of the brewing equipment that you need locally at Beer Necessities in Alpharetta. The staff will also answer any questions that you have.

For complete instructions on brewing hard cider please read the following article:
Mother Earth News – Make Your Own Hard Cider

Photo credit: Preben Hansen

Three Alpharetta Schools Breathe Easily

This summer, The Clean Air Campaign announced its refreshed and expanded Clean Air Schools education program. Starting the school year off strong, 41 schools (3 of which are in Alpharetta) have already joined the program, initiating projects to educate their students about the importance of clean air.

“We’ve seen unprecedented interest in the Clean Air Schools program so far this year,” said Susan Bacon, director of education for The Clean Air Campaign. “The program is easy to implement and schools can select projects that best fit their needs. Schools can register at any time and we’re anticipating that additional schools will join us as the year progresses.”

The three Alpharetta Clean Air Schools are:

• Barnwell Elementary
• Fulton Science Academy
• Ocee Elementary
  

The Clean Air Schools program, revamped this year, teaches students about air quality through educational projects that encourage them to take action for positive changes within the school and community. To participate, schools select one of the five projects, but many schools choose more than one. The projects include:

• A no-idling campaign that reduces harmful smog-forming emissions
  
• An educational musical assembly program that features BAIR, the Better Air Bear (geared toward K-5, available in metro Atlanta only)
• Georgia Performance Standards-based air quality lesson plans for grades 3-12, available for download at CleanAirCampaign.com
• Ride There! for Clean Air, a program to encourage bus ridership
  
• Walk There! for Clean Air, a program to encourage walking to school
  

Of the 41 Clean Air Schools, 39 will implement no-idle campaigns to help eliminate unnecessary idling on school grounds which causes air pollution and places students’ developing lungs at risk. Thanks to a grant from The UPS Foundation, The Clean Air Campaign will provide all the materials needed to employ the no-idle campaigns at no cost to the schools.

Registration is open and schools around the state can apply for the program at any time. For more information about the program or to become a Clean Air School, visit CleanAirCampaign.com or email Schools@CleanAirCampaign.com

Building Our Lives On Unstable Ground

With the recent gas shortages here in Alpharetta, a lot of stations have been out of gas or have run out quickly. Lines have spilled out onto the roads around the stations disrupting traffic. Luckily I have not had to wait in very long lines to fill my car with gas the past few weeks (because I go at 5:30 am), but I still can’t help worrying if I am going to be able to find more gas when I need it next.

A lot of people in Alpharetta are probably filling up so they can drive down to Atlanta 5 days a week with themselves as the only passenger. This is a remarkably inefficient and expensive way to commute even in the days of cheap abundant gas. I have yet to hear anything from our government or news media about conserving the precious amounts of gas that we are getting now and how our supplies in the future will be affected by hurricanes and increasing world demand for oil. Here is what they did tell us to do though:

• Drive sensibly: Speeding, rapid acceleration (jackrabbit starts), and rapid braking lowers gas mileage.
  
• Choose the right vehicle: If you own more than one vehicle, drive the one that gets better gas mileage whenever possible.
  
• Decrease speed: Gas mileage decreases rapidly when driving more than 60 miles-per-hour.
• Avoid idling: Idling gets zero miles per gallon. Cars with larger engines waste more gas while idling than cars with smaller engines.
  
• Inflate your tires: Keeping tires properly inflated improves gas mileage.
  

These steps will save a little fuel, but not nearly enough to deal with the current shortage. Long-term steps are not being taken to help prevent this happening in the future. In fact, our government actually wants to increase our exposure to gasoline supply disruptions in the future by letting the ban expire on offshore drilling (the new oil platforms and the refineries to go along with them will be at great danger of being hit by one of these hurricanes that are occurring more frequently and with greater intensity), providing larger subsidies to oil companies than to producers of renewable energy, and letting our public transportation infrastructure decay due to insufficient funding.

How can you help prevent gasoline shortages from affecting your daily life in the future? Drive less. Talk to your employer about telecommuting, setting up a carpool system, providing incentives to take alternative transportation, or switching to a four day work week. Support alternative transportation by using what public transport systems we have left, walking or biking to places close to your home, and talking to friends and neighbors to build awareness.

Photo credit: Flickr - Lisa Pisa