Environmentally Friendly Kids Birthday Party

Greening up as many aspects of my life as I can is super important to me.  I'm not ready for drastic changes yet, but I work every day to make small changes whenever possible.

While I was stocking up on supplies for my son's Birthday Party I found these fantastic eco-friendly plates and forks.  I found them at Smart & Final and the prices were only about $1 more per package so it was an easy switch to make!  They are compostable (so excited about this since I am getting ready to get my compost up and running!).  The plates are made from Sugarcane and the forks are made with plant starches so they are made from a renewable source.  They were also super sturdy and without the label no one would have ever known they were so eco-friendly!

Making the Birthday Party more eco-friendly was one more easy step in becoming more green!  The water bottles we used for the kids were also made with less plastic than normal water bottles, but I'd love to find an easy way to make that aspect more eco-friendly too!  I'm thinking that re-usable cups (that would also work as a party favor) with water might be my next step.

What ways have you found to green up aspects of your daily life?

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Organic meats delivered to your door?

We recently watched the movie Food, inc.  If you haven't seen it, you've most likely at least heard about it.  You've probably also heard that it will forever affect the way you look at our food supply, some people I know have even become vegetarians after watching it.  One thing I took away from the movie is the need to be more aware of where my food was coming from.  I've always had a love for gardening so I personally made a commitment to cultivating more of our fruits and vegetables whenever possible.  That wasn't a tough choice for me, have you ever tasted the difference between a vine ripened tomato and a standard store bought tomato?  It's like night and day.

I admit I've always had vegetarian tendencies, but I do love the occasional delicious hamburger, hot dog or steak.  So my struggle was to find a way to feel better about the beef I fed my family.  In the movie Food inc., they profiled an Organic sustainable cattle farmer who is going back to the way cattle ranching used to be.  I've had the privilege of connecting with another rancher who believes in 100% grass fed cows, no steroids, no antibiotics and good old fashioned fresh air!  What's even better is that you can order the meats directly from him and they arrive at your door, perfectly frozen (no worries about freezer burn because of the way they are sealed, packed and shipped).  For the record, this is who Jamie Oliver's people called when they were in town and needed a supply of meat!   Rocky Mountain Organic Meats sent me a package to sample the products and I was floored to see how fresh the meat was, but it also arrived still completely frozen and perfect.

This is the actual package that arrived!

I decided to test the burgers out on my husband.  His reaction was priceless... he immediately commented that it was the best, freshest meat he had ever tasted!  (He's brutally honest when it comes to things like this too!)  The steaks were amazing, as well as the hot dogs and ground meat.  We also got the chance to sample the beef sticks.  Well, ok... I got to sample one and my husband snagged the rest, promising me they were delicious but that they were all his.  They just didn't have the normal preservative filled taste that beef sticks tend to have.

I was sold.  So it's going to take a little more logistic planning on my part, but I plan on purchasing as much of my beef that I cook for my family from Rocky Mountain Organic Meats as I can.  The prices are very reasonable and the far superior taste of the meat makes the extra planning steps worth it in my opinion. 

So enough about MY opinion of how much better the meat tastes from Rocky Mountain Organic Meats... let's have a giveaway!!!  Rocky Mountain Organic Meats is generously offering the 10 pounds organic burger patty package to one lucky reader! 

The giveaway will go until October 8th, 2010 at 11:59pm and is only open to residents of the contiguous U.S.  When leaving comments, be sure I have a way to contact you, I reserve the right to pick another winner if I am not able to contact the winner in a reasonable amount of time.  The winner will be picked using Random.org.

Mandatory first entry: Head over to the Rocky Mountain Organic Meats website and tell us what product you'd like to try most. (this is allowed once per day until the giveaway closes)

How to enter:

• Subscribe to email feed or other feed subscription for OCMomActivities.com (or if you already are, just say that) 
• Become a Fan of Rocky Mountain Organic Meats or OCMomActivities on Facebook (say so if you already are)
• Follow Rocky Mountain Organic Meats or OCMomActivities on Twitter (1 extra entry)
• Mention/link this giveaway in a blog post or tweet about it (1 extra entry each allowed once per day until the giveaway ends) 
• Go comment on another post on OCMomActivities.com then come back and comment on this one saying you did it (this is an unlimited number of extra entries as long as you do the extra commenting!)

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