On yogurt: I have pretty much given up on yogurt making. From all the good suggestions here, I will probably try a few more times. I think the trouble I have is keeping the yogurt a consistent temperature. I have never tried the glass jars in kooler of hot water method — maybe that would work for me. Or glass jars in the sunlight. I have tried freezing yogurt and using that as starter before. It didn’t work for me, but I think I let it thaw in the fridge for several days (oops! I forgot it…) and that could have been why.

In other yogurt news: I will gladly trade homemade bread (which I am successful at!) for homemade yogurt from any other Houstonians inside the Loop. =)

On wormbins: @Jennifer, I am actually struggling with fruit flies. It is a battle. I put them outside to live for a while, but the landlady did not like it, so back inside they have come. What seems to happen is that food scraps get put in in large batches, but take a while to rot down to something the worms can eat, and the fruit flies find the food during that time. I am going to try chopping up the food scraps smaller before they go in the box (I’ve also heard of people blending food scraps down first) in the hopes that they will break down faster. The only thing I’ve found to really get rid of the flies is to buy some beneficial nematodes from a gardening store and water them in. I also have a bowl of apple cider vinegar sitting on top of the box. The flies will drown themselves in it, but only if the smell of the ACV is not overpowered by the smell of the food in the box.

I’m still experimenting, and I’m not sure if I’ll want to continue this if I can’t get rid of the fruit flies. I inspired my dad to try a worm bin, and he has had no problems with fruit flies, so it must be possible.

@Shell: oh yay, another Houstonian! I don’t often get to the farmer’s markets, but I have been before, and there are some great and very kind vendors here. Thanks for the Whole Foods advice.

So it looks like at least someone has had success with the freezing in ice cube trays method!

But I have the same problem as Natalie in that I don’t eat/make it often enough to have some from the previous batch on hand as a starter. I read something along the way about frozen cubes of yogurt starter. I wonder if you could freeze some regular yogurt in ice cube trays or something and have it on hand as a starter? Would that kill the bacteria? Does anybody know?

This is one of my few successes :-) I’m still struggling at eliminating a lot of other plastic from our daily life.

Also I go to the Whole Foods Bellaire store (Stella Link and Bellaire Blvd). The meat counter there isn’t very busy and the people there are really nice. More of a relaxed atmosphere than the one on Westheimer. I don’t buy meat but I’m sure they would be very accomodating there.

Are you going to the Farmer’s Markets? We’ve got some great ones in Central Houston. I like the one in Greenway Plaza (Eastside Road). Lots of nice vendors. There’s a local honey person there occasionally.

I ordered some toothbrushes from Australia before Christmas (okay, I know that ordering them from Australia is not the most environmental, but that plane was coming anyhow, and it’s a small box). It ended up being 12 toothbrushes for about $50 CDN (we’re at par right now).

http://environmentaltoothbrush.com.au/

I’ve been using mine now for a couple of months. It’s made of bamboo with resin bristles and is apparently completely biodegradable. It comes in non-plastic packaging. It’s a bit odd to have the bamboo handle – it’s not like plastic in your mouth and it’s a bit sticky – but I’ve gotten used to it and feel so much better not using so many plastic toothbrushes in a year.

The other thing that I didn’t realize and that I was told by someone in the clothing sales industry, is that every piece of clothing that you buy in a store has been shipped in a plastic bag. I don’t know if all stores do this, but I bet they do. And I can’t imagine the amount of plastic waste this creates.

So the best thing we can all do – consume less. And be more mindful. Which is what you are doing.