21 Earthy Days

Aloha! And welcome to 21 Earthy Days where we can together support and motivate each other to start the year off with more mindful living with a focus on what foods we let enter our mouth!

Throughout the entire challenge the number one daily trial is to choose plant over processed every single time you eat. That doesn't mean you cant have processed it just means that before you allow anything processed in your mouth you must choose something plant first (fruits, vegetables, smoothies, legumes, lentils etc)- Preferably something raw and fresh but do the best you can.

You will find that if you eat enough of the plant food it will give your mind and body a chance to settle, and reevaluate your diet choices. This goals purpose to get oneself use to grabbing plant based foods. Its a conscious and maybe right now not as desirable choice, but the benefits of it are very desirable.

The fact is, health is a constant subject that each and everyone of us is addressed with on a daily basis whether we are conscious of it or not. And the truth is our existence depends on our health and to some degree the quality of our existence depends on our state of health.

Personally I have found the most success and freedom through a holistic and plant based approach to living.

To start off the 21 Earthy Days and the new year I want to encourage each of you to choose one word to set your intentions.

Therefore :

Day 1: The focus : MENTALITY: Choose a word to set your intentions, write it down and then define it. Internalize why you are choosing this word, what it means to you and what you are hoping to accomplish in your days to come. You might feel this is personal or want to share it here, on the facebook forum or on your Instagram page. if you do use the hashtag #21earthydays to connect and share with others. This word can be your mantra for the year.

The ultimate goal of the 21 Earthy days is encourage intentional and mindful living with what we think, act, feel, do and eat. Eating in particular is something we all do on a conscious level every day. Through each day we make choices in what we let enter our mouth. We are going to use these constant opportunities as a way to practice our discipline and practice mindful living while simultaneously improving our over all health and the health of the planet !

There are many reasons we want change, it may be for our health, our vanity, the planet, a desire to improve, or to feel more connected... what ever the reason, from my own experience I have found it most helpful to have a number of reasons which comes from getting educated. My health change and ultimately my lifestyle change started with my desire to fix my health but it has become much more than that and those other reason is what makes you internalize what it is your doing and makes you stick to it long term. You begin to believe in it and its important to you, this is how it becomes a lifestyle.

During the 21 days we are going to have mini challenges not only for how we eat but how we live !

Stay tuned each day!

Here on earthyandy.com you can find guidance and information on plant based living and@earthyandy on instagram for daily posts and facebook for articles and a support forum

Looking forward to connecting with you further and hoping we can encourage each other. If you have questions or concerns please let me know!

Aloooooha!

Andy xo

10 Tips to Eliminating Plastics From Your Every Day Life

Living more consciously is something I believe is an area that requires constant growth and nurturing. There may be areas that we are really good at and feel content with and other areas we may see room for improvement, and that is great! For me personallyI definitely feel there are MANY areas of my life I can better for not only myself but to show respect for our planet. Its quite fulfilling to learn and to aim to grow and evolve as our world and life changes.

Over the past month, since our trip to the Mentawais the topic most researched in my google engine has been on learning more about waste free living, the articles about the effects trash has on our planet , what we can do about it,  why it is important to be mindful of our purchases and also where and how we dispose of the waste to do produce. The reason it became such a frontal concern and intrigue is because we saw the effects first hand in Indonesia ( the worlds second largest contributors to trash next to China). Its a real problem and its becoming more talked about world wide and there is more and more support to try and stop these issues before they get any worse- YA!

In our community there is a program ran by Jack Johnson and his beautiful wife Kim and alsothrough the island which supports and teaches everything from plastic free living to supporting your local farmer. To learn more click here.

I am super grateful to live in a community that supports environmental awareness and I feel like there is a lot of things that even the young kids are learning at school that we can apply to our lives too! So today I wanted to share 10 Tips for reducing plastics and living more mindfully.

I really liked the article below and have been applying these principles my self (I still need to create many habits to be consistent.. working on it!) and I also linked a video that I really enjoyed listening too and although she is an extreme case of what people can do to eliminate waste (which is quite intimidating at first ). Its also very inspiring and there are many tips we can take that I started to implement after watching this video long with hours of others. 

So in case you are interested here is the info below! I was blown away at the comments you left a few weeks back about what people are doing to live more plastic free, and those examples that you share are so powerful and inspiring so thank you for sharing that with me and whom ever else might see it!

One thing that I am really trying to remember is to always bring my own bags to the market store, I forget half the time so I have a goal to do it every time. The other little goal that I have is to have 100% of all recyclables make it to the recyclable bin. I am guilty of sometimes being lazy and not washing out some containers and tossing it in the trash when it could very easily be recycled. The third which I feel pretty good in but now seeing there is lots of room for improvementis buying less packaged and more bulk, (bring your own bags or jars for dry items etc). So yes, becoming more mindful! Baby steps ! Its not about being fanatical at all, just mindful.:)  Let me know your thoughts, tips, etc via instagram @earthyandy or on here ( insta seems to be easy for me to see and reply). Anyway hope all is well and thanks for reading! ALOHA

Jack Johnson's 10 Tips For Keeping Plastic Out Of The Ocean

"The best way to keep these ecologically-destructive petroleum products out is to use less. The environmentalist and chart-topper offers some simple, everyday ways to cut back."

1. Bag It
Bring reusable bags on every trip to the store.

2. Take Back The Tap
Instead of bottled water, use a reusable bottle or glass jar and fill it at the tap.

3. Ditch The Zip
Store food in glass containers rather than zip-top bags.

4. Pack A Waste-Free Lunch
Get a lunch box and fill it, rather than buying a meal sealed in plastic.

5. Drift Away From Plastic Packaging
Buy meat wrapped in butcher paper and keep veggies loose or in a reusable bag.

6. Reimagine Takeout
Bring your own containers and ask restaurant staff to use them to pack your food.

7. Straws Are For Suckers
When ordering, say, “No straw, please,” or carry your own stainless-steel straw.

8. Party Plastic-Free
Treat guests to reusable party ware or serve finger foods that don’t need utensils.

9. Clean Up Your Soap
Read labels and stop using products containing microbeads.

10. Get Active
Advocate for laws that make businesses accountable for the plastics they produce.

What is ZERO WASTE LIVING, check out this video to learn more about it from a beautiful woman named Bea Johnson who talks about her life-changing experiences in waste-free living.

http://www.zerowastehome.com/

10 TIPS FOR REDUCING WASTE IN YOUR KITCHEN BY BEA JOHNSON

1. Welcome alternatives to disposables (paper towels, garbage liners, wax paper, aluminum sheets, disposable plates, cups, etc….): Swap paper towels for reusable rags, swap sandwich baggies for kitchen towels or stainless containers, drop garbage liners all together (wet waste is mostly compostable anyways).
2. Buy in bulk or at the counter, bring reusable bags (dry goods), jars (wet items such as meat, deli, fish, cheese, oil, peanut butter) and bottles (liquids: oil, soy sauce, shampoo, conditioner).
3. If you cannot find it in bulk, find a supplier (bring your jar to the ice cream shop, a pillow case to the bakery for your bread, or your bottles to the winery/brewery)… or make it (mustard, salad dressing, hot sauce, jams, OJ, hummus, cookies, canned tomatoes).
4. Shop the farmer’s market: they’ll take the egg carton and the berries baskets back for reuse. Your veggies will also most likely be free of plastic and stickers.
5. Learn to love your tap water.
6. Use bulk liquid castile soap as a dish/hand cleaner, baking soda as a scrubber (in a stainless Parmesan dispenser) with a compostable cleaning brush (a wooden one with natural hair). Purchase dishwasher detergent in bulk.
7. Turn your trash can into a big compost keeper. Use your tiny compost keeper as a trash can (on the market, the sizes for these seem to be reversed).
8. Reinvent your leftovers before they go bad. Go thru your recipe binder/box and only keep the recipes that can be achieved with zero waste in mind.
9. Invest in a pressure cooker (halves the cooking time).
10. YOU CAN ALSO… Reuse single-side printed paper for grocery shopping and errands list, use your lettuce cleaning water to water plants, open your oven after baking in the winter (cool your oven, warm your house)…