Day 83 of our Green Year: Local Eggs

In a continuing effort to go local, Layla and I have been looking for local providers for all the things we want for our house, from dog food to cheese. We are succeeding, and today is the day we go local with our eggs.
Eggs that come from the large factory farms are not the most environmentally friendly. The decision comes after reading a story that detailed what many chickens have to go through all so we can enjoy bacon and eggs.

In the United States, 340 million chickens are raised as laying hens through a nightmare life that lasts for two years. In some factory farms, a large portion of the hen's beak is cut off with a burning hot blade to keep them from biting handlers. Then, they are put in battery cages which are 18 by 20 inches, holding five to 11 hens. These cages are stacked on top of each other, and many birds die, leaving the survivors to live with the rotting caged corpses. Since male chicks are worthless, they are usually tossed out or thrown in highspeed grinders to become mulch for other animals.
After two years, the hen's bodies are nearly exhausted and egg production falls. They are then shipped to the slaughterhouse to be turned into food. Not a very nice life. Here are two pictures of some of these conditions.









As a result, Layla and I are now buying our eggs from a local organic supplier in an effort to lower our environmental impact, and clear our minds of any guilt for what we are eating.

Day 49 of our Green Year: Baking Bread

If you have watched the news in the past few weeks, you know that the cost of everything is going up. The main cause of this is energy. Around the world countries are investing in ethanol, which takes land away from food production and puts it to fuel production. As well, the cost of transporting food is higher because of higher gas prices, so it is a double edged sword. This means that in some parts of the world, the cost of bread has gone up as much as 60 percent, which is a huge amount for those who are struggling through each day.

Canada has so far been almost immune to the problem, but it is not going to last. As a result, for the 49th day of our Green Year, Layla and I are not only supporting local flour producers by buying local flour (by local I mean B.C. and Alberta), but we are also making our own bread so we don't contribute to the environmental cost of transporting bread.

When we are able to make things local, either vegetables, fruits, herbs, meat or even bread, we are helping to take the strain off the world by being self-sufficient. Layla and I don't have enough room to grow wheat of course, so we have to buy that, but we are buying our eggs local, and trying to buy our yeast local too.

Making bread is quite easy, and here is a simple bread recipe:
http://www.best-bread-recipes.com/white-bread-recipe.html

Do you have pics of you making some bread, or anything else green? Send it to us and we will put it on our site. As well, if you know of any media who would be interested in our story, contact us at crwbaird@gmail.com and let us know!