We’ve added another Brooklyn-based company & I’m so pleased.  This time it’s coffee from the Brooklyn Roasting Co.

The Brooklyn Roasting Co. hales from DUMBO & is committed to offering best quality Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance & Organic certified coffees.  Not only are they a coffee company with a conscience but they’re also pretty serious about “green thinking” – using recycled materials & refurbished equipment, clean-powered distribution (bicycle & bio-diesel van) & old-fashioned friendliness.

Oh, did I mention that their coffee is just plain awesome tastiness?  Their coffee is incredible!  It smells great, it looks great & it tastes freakin’ amazing.

We’ll be hosting a fast & furious tasting with them (& Super Foxy Sweets) this month?  Saturday, October 8th from 1-2pm at Green in BKLYN.

For the whole month of April, all Pangea Organics products are 25% off!

That includes facial cleanser, scrub & toner, soaps, masks & eye creams!  A veritable cornucopia of treasures.

Pangea Organics are always nurturing, organic & fair trade, handcrafted & cruelty-free.  And never use petroleum-based ingredients, detergents, sulfates, synthetic preservatives, artificial colors or fragrances.

If you love ‘em already or haven’t tried ‘em yet, it’s a great time to celebrate your natural beauty!  As well as Earth Day & Green in BKLYN’s second anniversary!

PS – Their boxes are plantable!  Put them in dirt & the seeds embedded in them grow into plants.  Way earthy & way green!

If you’ve read Green in BKLYN’s blog before, you may already be familiar with our intern, Cristina.  Every once in a while she’ll drop in to share Green Tips & eco-friendly info.  Today, she’s checking in on how to eat sustainably…

Eating sustainably & healthier can seem a little tough at times, but there are really simple ways to do so while making a significant difference in your carbon footprint. Here are some easy tips that you can do:

• Buy loose greens instead of bagged or boxed greens – you’ll use zero packaging.
• Soak beans & grains over night – it cuts the cooking time in half, thus saving energy & money.
• Make your own seltzer – it keeps bottles out of the landfill & reduces the amount of energy used to make, ship & recycle those bottles.  Try Green in BKLYN’s SodaStream Seltzer Makers. They rock!
• Buy local – you can find a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)  or Food Co-op near you at the Eat Well Guide or at Local Harvest.  Or, if you’re in the neighborhood, check out our new local food co-op, the Green Hill Food Co-op .
• Read PLU codes- if the number on the sticker at the supermaket starts with 9, then the item is organic.
• Use healthier pots & pans (& ice cube trays) – traditional non stick pans contain carcinogenic chemicals (such as PTFE & PFOA) in the coating & plastic or aluminum ice cube trays contain BPAs or aluminum, respectively.  Cook with pots & pans made from stainless steel, pure cast iron or enamel coasted cast iron & Green in BKLYN has ice cube trays made from stainless steel.  No BPAs & no aluminum!
• Switch to organic olive oil – most mass produced olive oil is grown with pesticides which can be even more concentrated in the oil than in the olives.
• Use natural wax paper – use it instead of aluminum foil or plastic wrap. It’s compostable, reusable when wiped down & can be fastened down with masking tape. Or, if you’re wrapping up snack & sandwiches for lunch, use a Green in BKLYN Snack Taxi.  They’re washable, reusable & cute!
• Get glass containers – keeping track of which plastics are safer (#s 2, 4 & 5) & which are more likely to release toxic phthalated, styrene or BPAs when heated or warm (#3, 6 & 7) can be confusing. Use as little plastic in the kitchen as possible.  Green in BKLYN has tempered glass & stainless steel containers.  Or, if you must have plastic, we have (safe, BPA-free) #5 plastic containers made from recycled plastics.
• Buy in-season – buying produce off-season means that it’s more than likely covered in pesticides & shipped half way around the world, burning fossil fuels & disrupting nature’s course.  Buy produce when it’s in season & uy in bulk. Freeze it, pickle it or preserve it, so you can still eat your favorites off season.  Green in BKLYN has a some great books on preserving (Canning for a New Generation), safe meats (Good Meat) & sustainable food practices (Food Heroes) as well as organic gardening (The Complete Vegetable & Herb Gardener & The Complete Flower Gardener).

With a little time, energy & practice, eating more sustainably & more healthy is possible, easy &, of course, very tasty!

So that means if you pick up any of their hair care products including…

• Bourbon Vanilla & Tangerine Hair Texturizer
• Zinc & Sage Shampoo with Conditioner
• Sea Mist Sea Salt Spray with Lavender

… then you get to try a sample of another John Masters’ product for free!

It’s hard to choose between the myriad of options especially since they’re all so good & have won so many awards including these products, which we also have in the shop:

• Deep Scalp Follicle Treatment & Volumizer for Thinning Hair (Shape’s – Best Hair Care)
• Sweet Orange & Silk Protein Styling Gel (Natural Solutions Magazine – Best Styling Gel)
• Lavender & Avocado Intensive Conditioner (H20 Magazine’s – Best Hair Conditioner)
• Honey & Hibiscus Hair Reconstructor (The Green Beauty Bible – Tried & Tested Hair Conditioner)
• The entire John Masters Haircare Brand (Treehugger.com – Best of Green Hair Care Award)

And that’s because they make ‘em so good & meet strict guidelines including:

• No sodium lauryl sulfate, parabens, DEAs, MEAs, TEAs or GMOs
• No petro-chemicals
• No animal testing
• No artificial colors, fragrances or fillers
• All essential oils must be steam-distilled, not extracted with propylene glycol – which kills the effect of the oils
• All plant oils must be cold pressed, not heat distilled – which kills the therapeutic properties of plant oils
• All ingredients must be proven to be beneficial to the hair or skin
• All ingredients must be harvested in an environmentally-friendly manner
• And, of course, all ingredients must be as organic, bio-degradable &  fair-trade as possible

Gotta love some John Masters!

Set up at the Ingersoll Community Center – 177 Myrtle Avenue (between Prince & Navy), the Farm Stand will also offer games, workshops & educational activities for the whole family.  And, twice a month, Fort Greene’s Community Chefs will serve up easy, healthy, homestyle recipes.

The Farm Stand will be open on Thursdays rain or shine.  EBT/WIC/FMNP are accepted.  And the program is part of the Myrtle Eats Fresh Initiative (funded with support from the Community Experience Partnership).

For more information, contact MARP at 718-230-1689 or visit www.myrtleavenue.org for an up-to-date calendar of events.

This month we incorporated SerendipiTea’s USDA organic & fair trade loose leaf teas into the shop.  With a lovely assortment of black, green, chai & herbal teas, Green in BKLYN unknowingly became a proud supporter of National Hot Tea Month (as deemed by the Tea Council of the U.S.).  With amazing teas, tea filters, infusers, thermoses & hot drink cups, we’re all about the tea & staying healthy…

Not only is January “National Hot Tea Month”, it’s also the height of the cold & flu season.  If you’d like to avoid being one of more than 200,000 Americans affected by those dreaded illnesses, drinking hot tea may help you stay healthy during this crazy season.

Published research indicates that theanine, an ingredient found naturally in tea, supports the immune system.  In a recent human clinical trial, drinking five cups of Black Tea a day for two to four weeks boosted the body’s immune defense system by four times!  That’s some heavy duty protection.

Tea also contains flavonoids, naturally occurring compounds known for their antioxidant properties.  Those antioxidants, in turn, work to neutralize free radicals, which scientists believe damage the body & contribute to chronic diseases.

Now, if you’re planning on boosting your immune system, or simply like the way tea tastes, there are a few simple ways to make your tea (black, white, green or herbal) even “greener”…

• Keep it loose: Tea doesn’t need to come in a bag for individual cups (and that bag doesn’t need to be individually wrapped).  Avoid the packaging waste by buying loose tea & using a tea infuser.
• Certify yourself: In addition to USDA Organic certification, which ensure that you will not be drinking chemical residue with your hot tea, Fair Trade & Ethical Tea Partnership labels indicate that tea is produced under environmentally sustainable & socially just conditions.
• Be cool: Only heat the water you’ll use for your tea – it will use less energy.  According to the Guardian, Brits “could save enough electricity in a year to run nearly half of all the street lighting in the country” if they only boiled the water they used in their kettles.  A water kettle is the most energy efficient way to boil water & the microwave is still more efficient than the stove top.
• Ground it up: Whether bagged or loose, tea grounds can go directly into your compost bin or directly on your plants or any number of other uses.

Tea.  Amazing & magical in so many ways…

PS – Come on in for one (or more!) of our great organic & fair trade SerendipiTeas:

• Bard’s Tempest: Ceylon Black & Chinese Black
  
• Cha Cha Chai: Cloves, Cardamom, Ginger, Pepper, Cinnamon, Assam & Indian Black Tea
• Earl Grey: Bergamot & Ceylon Black
• Gen Mai Cha: Japanese Green Tea
• Once Upon a Tea: Peppermint, Chocolate Bits, Vanilla, Mint & Rooibos
• Passion & Envy: Passion Fruit & Chinese Green Tea
• Rooibos: South African Rooibos
• Ruby Slipper: Blood Orange Fruit Blend
• Zzzz: Lavender & Chamomile

This Sunday (September 20th) a host from Pangea Organics will be at Green in BKLYN.

She’ll be answering questions & sharing all kinds of info about their amazing products:
• 5x Award Winning Face Mask

• Fabulous Facial Toner

• Serious Scrub

• Sensational Soap

• Luxurious Lip Balms & more…

If you don’t already know, Pangea Organics products do more than make your body feel good.  Buying them means you’re supporting sustainable agriculture and culture – everything from fair trade sourcing & organic farming to living wages & the use of renewable, recycled & recyclable resources.  In other words, good for you, good for every body.

Pangea products are (& always will be):
• Organic: Crafted by artisans in small batches, using pure, organic ingredients that replenish the skin
• Handcrafted: Hand-blended to soothe or stimulate your senses
• Nurturing: Preserved using the gentlest of methods to retain the nurturing properties of the botanicals in each customized blend
• Fair Trade: Intentionally sourced from organic farmers through fair trade practices whenever possible
• Cruelty-Free: Honest above all else: if it’s in their products, it’s on their labels

They’ll never have petroleum-based ingredients, sulfates or detergents, synthetic preservatives or artificial colors or fragrances.

And they’ll always be packaged in their recycled boxes with embedded seeds.  So you can plant the boxes after using the product, recycling the container & feeling fabulous!

For Green in BKLYN’s schedule, just check it out below!

• Sunday, September 13th: Buskers (that’s music to our ears!) & a two-person bicycle with 9-foot tires (really!)
• Sunday, September 20th: Pangea Organics will stop in (from 12-4pm) with samples, demos & info… And we’ll have more buskers (more music!)
• Sunday, September 27th: We’ve got an art opening (“Indian Summer” at 6pm) & this time the band’s amplified (with a bicycle!).

AND… All three of those Sundays:
We’re collecting batteries, cell phones & clean #5 plastic for recycling!

Join us on Sundays in September for Move About Myrtle & a rockin’ good time!  We’ll see you on the Avenue!