Can you hear me crunch?

I had an interesting discussion the other night at work that really got me thinking, then I came home and talked about it with Kevin and chatted it over with some mamas in an online group.  This had me doing some serious soul (and pantry) searching, so I thought I would share.

Are you as crunchy as you think you are?

For those with kids... and are you more crunchy since you had kids? 

And... Are you as green as you would like to be?

If you had to guess... what % of the following is "green", organic, natural, etc. Has this changed since you had children? (Of course the baby part will have changed, but the others?)

1. Your food. (home grown, organic and farmer's market type stuff)
2. Your home and car. (solar powered, hybrid, etc)
3. Your clothes/shoes. (Organic, home made)
4. Your baby. (EBF, cloth diaper, natural soaps, lotions and creams, clothes/shoes etc.)
5. Everything else... Cleaning products, beauty products, hair stuff, detergents, soaps, lotions
6. Do you recycle? Repurpose items?

I have to admit that I really thought DH and I were doing really great in our effort to be more "green"... however after some reflection, I realized that we aren't quite as good of a job as I thought we were.

 
1. 30% we buy a lot of fresh fruits and veggies at the farmer's market, but when I opened the pantry to check it out, we had a TON of processed, boxed, packaged foods (mostly pasta, rice, cake mixes, etc) in there. I'm planning to finish what is in there (I HATE wasting food) but make an effort to buy less packaged junk. I also have not made the switch to all organic, grass fed meats yet, mostly because of price. This is something I keep saying I need to just DO, but when I get to the grocery store and see that the good stuff costs 3x as much, I go back to the cheap stuff. I'm disappointed here. I really thought we were doing better.

 
2. 5% Our home is a typical home, nothing green about it. I gave myself 5% for having a pellet stove that we use for heat, but that's it. I drive a gas guzzling SUV so I could probably take away that 5% but it makes me feel better, lol.

 
3. 0% I have maybe 1 or 2 organic/home made items (like scarves)... but not enough to even make a dent. This has not been a priority to me, nor will it ever be I think. Although I do buy a ton of stuff at garage sales or consignment... so maybe I could be generous and give myself 5% here. Maybe.

 
4. 75% Kennedy is much crunchier that I am. She was EBF until we started solids, still BF (never any formula). Her solids are probably 75% organic or natural since I shy away from giving her the boxed crap that I have no problem eating. She is cloth diapered and all of her lotions, soaps, etc are natural/organic. The only area that we are not all organic/natural are her clothes. She has a few organic and a few home made items, but not nearly enough to count for anything.

 
5. 20% In the last 6 months, I have made a big effort to switch over our cleaning products. I switched to Method first, but now I am making most of them myself. I made my own detergent and cleaning solution, I use baking soda and apple cider vinegar for most things. BUT... my soaps, lotions, hair stuff, etc is all store bought (and usually whatever is on sale). My next project is to work on making my own beauty products. Makeup is Target stuff, I don't think I will ever switch to organic, unless is comes down in price.

 
6. 50% We do recycle, but not nearly as much as we should. Maybe 40% on the recycling. We do repurpose often, I am constantly saving bags and boxes and bottles to use for other things. My favorite is the windex bottles that you push down on to make the cleaner pop up (I have to admit I bought this JUST to repurpose the bottle)... I rinsed it out very very good and now use it for my home made cloth wipe solution. It is perfect!!!

So... overall that would give us a 30%.  While we are not anywhere near as green as I would like us to be, I am happy with the changes we have made over the past year or so in our effort to live a healthier life and leave a smaller footprint.  This exercise also helped me to find areas to focus on over the next year so we can continue to make better decisions and positive changes.