Feeling SAD on the Winter Solstice? (Rule #4)

At 11:38 tonight, the earth officially reaches its furthest point from the sun for 2010.  By this point of the year, the day seems to go by in a flash, especially during the work week when many don't get more than a small glimpse of the sun at lunch or through an office window.  In the Northern latitudes we have to endure short and cold days during the winter so that we can enjoy the long brilliant days of spring and summer.  The challenge is to make sure we stay healthy and positive when nature deals us gray skies and short days. 
Today marks the return to lengthening days, which means we still have a few more months of commuting home in the evening and cooking dinner in complete darkness.  On the bright side, days will begin to get longer and with only about 8 to 9 hours of usable light today, we will see daylight increase between 8 & 15 minutes per week over the next few months.  The long days always seem to return quicker than they leave - I always think it is similar to the feeling that getting to a new location in the car always seems longer than getting home.  To deal with these short days we are utilizing more energy lighting the house or office in the afternoon and evening hours and have been feeling sleepier earlier in the evening, many of us may also feel a bit more "blue".  That feeling may be for a variety of reasons and here are a few things we can do to combat the blues:

Indoor Lighting
In order to avoid the winter blues, you need to help your body stay alert in the evening hours - especially if you have kids to care for, evening meetings or a report to finish for your 8:00 am meeting tomorrow.  Consider adding full spectrum compact fluorescent lighting to your major light sources in the house and office, especially those lights that you will use most in the afternoon/evening hours.  Compact Fluorescent bulbs use about a quarter of the energy of traditional incandescent bulbs, and although they are more expensive up front, they will cut down on your energy costs and reduce your carbon footprint.  If you also add in the full spectrum benefits, you will gain a healthy advantage while staying green and keeping your budget balanced in the long run.  Full spectrum bulbs produce a light spectrum similar to the sun's light and have been used to treat such conditions as SAD or the general "winter blues" which are very prevalent in the Pacific Northwest.

Sleep & Exercise
Experts agree that keeping up with a regular exercise routine can will keep the blues at bay, and the Center for Disease Control recommends 2 hours and 30 minutes of weekly exercise to maintain a healthy lifestyle.  This can come in small chunks (as little as a 10 minute brisk walk) or larger chunks (90 minutes of moderate activity) but should take place at least 3 days per week with 2 days incorporating some form of strength training.  Ideally we should shoot for 5 hours per week and 5 to 6 days of exercise, even if we just get in a 20 minute jog or fast paced strength circuit on a few of those days.  Sufficient and quality sleep can also help ward off the blues and experts recommend between 7 & 9 hours per night, to learn more see my October post on sleep or click here to read a medically based article on sleep and SAD.

Finally, many experts will recommend that getting outdoors as much in the winter time as possible will help increase vitamin D levels and ward off the blues, and many individuals such as myself opt to take a daily vitamin D supplement to stay balanced - check with your doctor to learn more and click here to read a great  a general article from the Wall Street Journal.

Do You Still Have Leftovers From Your Holiday Feast?



Leftover sweet potatoes, beets, and stuffing.

It's December, which means that we have now passed the "safe" time frame to consume any Thanksgiving leftovers you may have in your fridge.  The Mayo Clinic recommends only consuming leftovers within a 4 day time frame after they were initially prepared.  But, if you are like me, you probably still have a few items lingering in the fridge that you just didn't get around to finishing. What you may be amazed to learn is that a quarter to half of all food produced in the United States goes uneaten - not harvested, contaminated during production, spoiled in transit, or thrown out at the grocery store, but an overwhelming amount is actually wasted at home.

Some statistics from a recent New York Times column:

• 40 percent of food waste occurred in the home.
• 93 percent of respondents acknowledged to buying foods they never used.
• Food scraps make up about 19 percent of the waste dumped in landfills
• A family of four that spends $175 a week on groceries squanders more than $2,275 a year

So it seems that once again we have run into the fact that being wasteful is not only harming the environment, but also bad for our financial situation - all the more reason in this economic climate to assess how much food you waste and where you can be more thrifty with your food budget!

With all this knowledge, someone is capitalizing on this epidemic and has created what seems to be a very useful app for iphone to help you build a shopping list and remind you of expiration dates.  Author and blogger Jonathan Bloom has also just released a book that I will be adding to my reading list American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food 

So what should you do?

1. Plan your meals before you go grocery shopping, you will be more likely to buy only what you need and avoid those "impulse" purchases of items you don't really need.
2. Eat perishables soon after purchasing. Besides the concern of food-borne illness food is much more nutritious when it is fresh.  Then, pack those leftovers for lunch the next day.
3. Soup, soup, and more soup - I can walk into any house and pull things out of the fridge and cupboard that probably need to be eaten and make a delicious soup, just ask my wife!
4. Compost any leftovers or fresh food that has passed its safe time frame to consume.

Finally, I recently had the opportunity to meet with the Education Coordinator for Cedar Grove Composting, and learned a few new things about industrial composting, mostly what you can and cannot deposit in your curbside yard waste bin.  Click here to view acceptable items on the Cedar Grove website - most notably I learned that very few paper cups are compostable as most now have a plastic rather than wax coating, wine corks can also not be composted but instead recycled at many local wineries*!

So, here's a cheers to your holiday meals and if you don't finish your leftovers, make sure to compost!

*I have calls in to a few local wineries and will post a list of where to recycle.