MI Earthday Fest 2010

A couple of weekends ago we went to one of my favorite festivals, MI Earth Day Fest.  (This has been an exciting couple of weeks of festivals for me!)  The festival is in Rochester, so as we got into town we stopped into Health Foods of Rochester for a few items.  They have such great prices on Garden of Life vitamins, and my lovely sister in law saved me a coupon from the paper too =) 



So we're walking around visiting all the booths and my hubby comes back to me and says 'your nut butter girl is up ahead'  he's so cute, but seriously I was so geeked to see that Naturally Nutty was there!  Ok, here's the recap on how I fell in love with these nut butters.  I won a jar in a giveaway on LoveVeggiesandYoga and picked the Organic Cinnamon Vanilla Sunflower Butter.  It was love at first bite which was straight up right off a spoon ;)  Here's the post about our first jar and the reasons I love this stuff!  We've since then been hooked and enjoying jars of the Organic Pepita Sunbutter which we've found at Arbor Farms Market.  Other local sightings have been the Ypsi Food Co-op, and Whole Foods on Washtenaw. 

It's always a great day when you can meet the folks that make/grow your food!  Katie and her husband were super nice too.  Yes, I am all bulked up with like 5 layers of shirts on (it was chilly).  We had our blood pressure taken (mine was 114/72) and the girl couldn't believe how many layers I had on ;)  I told her I learned it from my Grandma, which is true =)





These are the two we choose from Earthday for our stash:



ok, on to some other cool things, our cute little organic basil plant from Maple Creek Farm CSA that is now in the garden soaking up the sun.  I love that they hand out seedlings, last year we got a swiss chard that grew SO huge for us. 




Of course we stop into Mind Body and Spirits.  This day it was just to take out some dessert, they were sold out of the other vegan options so we had the fruit cup in phyllo complete with a compostable container and fork which are now in our tumbler.







As we were leaving MBS the gentleman that makes these tortillas was walking in and generously gave us a bag to try.  This was kind of serendipidous due to my husband being a corn tortilla addict lover.  I actually loved these as well, they are way less salty than most all the mass produced ones, had the perfect crunch and thickness, and I also love the ingredient list and their line "Food we make from stuff we grow".  I'm guessing the reason they look darker is from the heirloom corn, they are not burned. 





We ate a couple of times at the Rochester Mills Brewery that day.  We split another half cheese half cheeseless pizza and I had two salads with this delicious housemade basil vinaigrette.



Behind the bar they have a full size glass/plastic/paper recycling bin.  (My husband would probably like it noted that he thought I was a little goofy for taking this photo)



biodegradable and/or recycled plastic bags (I didn't investigate)  in the restrooms (just imagine if he knew I took this one ;)



another highlight of the festival was talking with a gentleman from DTE where we get our electricity and natural gas.  We signed up for the Green Currents program which is a voluntary clean energy option.  We're starting with a 100 KWH block at $2.50 a month.  So those KWH of our electricity will be supplied by the windfarms or biogas production here in MI.  This offsets about a third of our useage/month for now.  Looking on their website the 100% match at 2cents/KWH would be a better rate to offset all the energy.  Anyway, I thought this was a great start and it's something that I've had on my mental to do list, check!







They'll also give you a $10 visa card for signing up.  Ours bought TP and frozen fruit from Trader Joe's ;)

I also liked this company, MI Green Safe Products, in Detroit who distribute eco-friendly food wares.  We don't buy conventional disposable products for our home, but with some family/friend gatherings coming up (that will outnumber our placesettings and glasses)  these are a great option for us, and the prices are not bad at all.  You can stop in and pick up a sleeve or two of cups, etc.  They're also a local place for us to pick up our Biobags for cat waste.





Two other highlights that made this the best EDFest for me was a spontaneous yoga class under a tent and a free Thai massage that was like 20 minutes and rocked!

So much chatter so far and no food!  After we went and snuggled our new niece again last night we came home to some Lemon Chickpea Lentil Soup from  EDBV.



a recent breakfast



a recent dinner of salad with Liquid Gold Dressing from The Raw Food Revolution Diet



and brown rice and raw zucchini pasta with a blend of raw marinara and pesto sauces, yum, yum, yum! 



Thought for the day: (from the DTE brochure) 

Climate Change-
no one can do everything, but everyone can do something.