Print is a great source for information

I finally had time this week­end to browse through two of my favorite mag­a­zines which had been beck­on­ing to me from my bed­side table. I gleaned quite a bit of use­ful infor­ma­tion that I want to share. The July/August issue of Whole Liv­ing fea­tured these inter­est­ing items which seemed afford­able to me:

• The Side Walks, a jour­nal for explor­ing your city and see­ing your home­town in a whole new light, $17 from chroniclebooks.com

• The Cooler Box by Cas­cades which is made from 70 per­cent recy­cled card­board and has a stay-fresh inner lin­ing and is free of the slow-to-biodegrade foam found in most cool­ers, $15 from boutique.cascades.com

• The Crum­pled City Maps are a neat idea as they are made of Tyvek and designed to be scrunched up and tossed into your back­pack or bag. These water­proof city maps are large and at only $20 might make a great gift for your favorite trav­eler, $20 from brooklyn5and10.com.

I have to admit that most of the prod­ucts I read about in this mag­a­zine, while amaz­ing and clever, are way over-priced (a 15-inch-tall LED Luau Lamp at $198? Come on!). I glean the pages for tips and ideas I can afford.

Some fas­ci­nat­ing tid­bits I picked up from this issue included:

• The Green Rib­bon Schools fed­eral pro­gram rec­og­nizes insti­tu­tions that reduce their envi­ron­men­tal impact, pro­mote health, and pro­vide high-quality envi­ron­men­tal and out­door edu­ca­tion. Get your favorite school into gear and apply.

This is a whop­per — Burger King has com­mit­ted to sourc­ing only cage-free eggs, and pork from sows that have not been con­fined to ges­ta­tion stalls, by 2017. I had to read that one twice and I just about fell off my chair. That’s great news and my hope is other fast food chains make sim­i­lar com­mit­ments so we can bring an end to fac­tory farm­ing some day (a girl’s gotta dream).

There’s a new light out called the Philips L Prize LED which has a life span of 20 years — that’s pretty impres­sive. I have to say Now for the cost: around $58. If you spread that out over 20 years, that’s not too shabby.

My favorite say­ing in the mag­a­zine was in the 10 Thoughts List: There’s a rea­son why nature is some­times called vit­a­min N. I love that and am think­ing about post­ing it on the back door for my kids to read as I boot them out.

The other mag­a­zine I enjoy is Nat­ural Home & Gar­den. The July/August issue is chock full of great infor­ma­tion; I am sav­ing this one. It has great all-natural sum­mer first-aid reme­dies, a use­ful sus­tain­able gro­cery guide, how to keep cool dur­ing sum­mer heat for less, nat­ural mos­quito repel­lents, nat­ural bug bite relief, get­ting more from your gar­den and a ter­rific non­toxic per­sonal care guide. Could they pack any more stuff in one issue? Trust me, I am not a mag­a­zine pro­moter, I just couldn’t believe the great infor­ma­tion in this issue and would rec­om­mend it.

Tues­day Trip­pier lives in Delaware, is a writer and mother of four with a spe­cial inter­est in green living.

Posted by Tuesday Trippier on Jun 28 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.