Ideal Bite Shares How to Eat Your Greens

I'm a huge fan of Ideal Bite. I appreciate a website whose mantra is A Sassier Shade of Green and sends daily tips on green living backed by facts, figures and a great editorial voice that's not preachy, but peppy.

Today's Bite is all about genetically modified produce and how to figure out what you're buying at your market in a nano-second. Turns out those tacky (I mean sticky) little stickers are really useful. Ideal Bite shares:

Look for the PLU codes on the labels stuck on your fruits and veggies.

A four-digit number means it's conventionally grown.
A five-digit number beginning with 9 means it's organic.
A five-digit number beginning with 8 means it's genetically modified.

Neat!

Go Back to School with a Green Goodbyn

I think there could be entire blogs dedicated to greening up lunchtime. Perhaps there are, but I'm too lazy to Google it right now. Enter, Seattle-based Goodbyn, a company that has created an incredibly stylish (kid-stylish) bento-style lunch box that's very eco-responsible. It's the first product from byndoo, a design braintrust developing healthy kid products.

According to the Goodbyn site, they've spent over a year researching best practices for design, production and more and have launched a lunchbox to meet needs the of kids and care givers alike.

For $34.95 you get a high quality lunch box with trays and top for any lunch combo imaginable. What's more is the cool custom art that each Goodbyn Kid can create with three sheets of stickers. And the whole thing is dishwasher safe (remember to only run full loads).

They also have a school fund raising program that gives almost 15% of the purchase price to your school. Consider looking into customizing stickers for your own school.

Neat (and tidy)!

Photo from Goodbyn

Recycling Storage from Storables

I'm in love with Storables. I can always find a solution to my organizing needs; this time it was their Medium Frosted Tote Storage Basket . I needed a handsome way to stage my daily recycling and yard waste in an open kitchen shelf next to the sink/diswasher area. These handy little baskets are $3.95 each and come in a few sizes. You don't need to buy new baskets (better if you don't), but finding a pair of attractive baskets/boxes that will hold juicy food scraps and drippy recycled glass/tin items is key to any easy, green kitchen.

Plan to empty these each night to fend off fruit fly infestions (currently battling one) and you're grinning and green!

No More Mobby (Mom/Job) Guilt with Flexjobs.com

I'm lucky or as I prefer, I worked hard to get lucky. I run a business part-time - Satsuma Designs - and get to take care of my kids the other 20 hours a day. My work background is varied and so I get to pull from a lot of different experience to run my business. But when I think about my next life/career phase I think about what I could do part-time, ideally from home. It's a totally green work solution: no commute, low overhead, less consumption (fewer lattes and trips to Anne Taylor). I know I'm not alone in dreaming about this Utopia. And today I took one more step up that ladder and discovered Flexjobs.com.

If you have an email account, then you've received nasty spam offering $700/week to become a mystery shopper or thousands a month to work at home - doing what I know not. And so the concept of finding a nicely compensated part-time, work from home gig seems impossible. Until Flexjobs.com. They're a great resource/recruiter that vets thousands of flex-time, work from home jobs in dozens of categories (sales, writing, tech, transcription...) and takes the fear out of this new work model.

There is a fee. They're running a special for their monthly service and looks like it's $49.95 for the year. They claim a 100% guarantee, which I like. The testimonial (if they're legit) are inspiring and I'm half considering a test drive.

Everyone likes options, right?

Leftover Mexican Magic: Quesadilla Redux

Enjoying leftovers is a great way to 'green' your eating. Whether it's repurposing Monday night's dinner into Tuesday's lunch or doggie bagging it out of your favorite neighborhood haunt, having tasty vittles ready to reheat and eat is easy and yes, renewable.

But what to do with those delicacies that taste MUCH better than they look after a day in the fridge, a la quesadillas or pizza. It may be hard to imagine leftover quesadillas making it into the rotation, but if you're like me, you love a BIG veggie, meat and cheese filled tortilla that may be too much for one meal.

So wrap it up and refrigerate and when you're ready to nibble it again, simply pan fry it without any oil or butter for 5 to 10 minutes and you're back on the beaches of Baja!

Muy delicioso!