Author Archives: Melissa | Growing Green Nutrition

Water, Purified — To Filter or Not to Filter

Having always been a straight-up tap water kind of girl, I’m not sure how I feel about this few addition to our kitchen:

Unfortunately, standard water treatment doesn’t address many not-so-pleasant contaminants that have been found in water supplies across the country, including pharmaceuticals and agriculture-based pollutants. *

Given that reality, we’ve considered a water filter for years, but I’ve been too ambivalent to take action.  The fact that the City of St. Louis apparently has relatively safe water (in the top 10 for large U.S. cities according to this 2009 report), not to mention consistently ranking as some of the best tasting tap water (though taste does not necessarily represent quality) in the country, did little to motivate me to make any changes.

While much less wasteful than bottled water, water filters still involve some waste — most need replacement filters every few weeks, or months, depending on the brand, and then there’s the plastic pitcher or the plastic housing of a sink-attached filtration system.

When Matthew came home from Home Eco with this filtration system a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t fight it too much.  I relegated it to the corner of the kitchen for about a week while we considered it and offered no resistance when he installed it after the mandatory waiting period.

The filter is supposed to last through 1500 GALLONS of water, which we estimate means at least 2 years before we even have to think about replacing the filter.

My main complaint is the mandatory (though small) water wastage that occurs because you have to have water running before you pull out the pin that switches over to the filter.  To minimize waste, I try to let the water run onto/into a dish that needs to be rinsed anyway, and fill a large jar with filtered water as long as it is running, instead of just one cup at a time.

I don’t notice a taste improvement in the water.  It tastes different — flatter — because it is dechlorinated in the process, but I adjusted to that pretty quickly.  It’s hard to be a complete convert when I just have to trust that there are bad things in the water that the filter is removing, but I guess I’m willing to give it a shot.

What are your thoughts?  Do you  filter your water?

*Don’t you dare run out and buy bottled water!  Almost all bottled water comes from the tap in one city or another, so you aren’t escaping anything — it’s just a huge scam!  In fact, you may be exposing yourself to more unknown danger from whatever chemicals leach from the plastic bottles into the water.

Back in the saddle

The bike saddle, that is 🙂  My chondromalacia (AKA runner’s knee) mostly resolved itself, no medical attention necessary.

How did I know I had chondromalacia without visiting the doctor?  Well, I’m a bit of an expert in self-diagnosis.  Since I’ve been pregnant, I’ve also diagnosed myself with an ectopic pregnancy (based on no symptoms whatsoever), spinal meningitis, and appendicitis.  Being an expert doesn’t always mean you’re right 😉  If I had any interest in visiting the doctor or the ER, I would be a burden to the medical system, but instead I usually take my chances and let things run their course.

Anyway, chondromalacia is an overuse injury that is — SURPRISE! — made better by rest.  Rest is a four-letter word around here, but I was desperate, picturing weeks of pain, weeks without biking (and by the time I returned being too big and off-balance to bike safely), and not being able to get in many of the positions that help with a natural labor.  Basically, my knee would be injured forever and the world would stop turning.  The end.

Sometimes things spiral a bit out-of-control in my head.

Fortunately, a few weeks of taking it relatively easy — almost no biking, going down the stairs by placing both feet on each step, and reduced walking — did the trick.  I put my knee to the test last weekend, and this weekend I’ve been back to normal.

Yesterday I ran a number of errands by bike, including returning a few items of maternity clothes to JCPenney, which means I can say that, other than the belly bands (which I could have done without), I’ve only bought one NEW maternity clothing item.

This morning I biked to the season opener at Tower Grove Farmers’ Market, where strawberries, asparagus, and rhubarb greeted me — welcome back, friends!  After a quick stop to drop my purchases off at home, I was out again, headed to prenatal yoga at the Y.  (I credit the yoga, as well as other general leg muscle stretching, with helping my knee as much as the resting.)

There’s nothing like sickness or injury to make me appreciate my relative good state of health, something that I often take for granted.

A snotty bicycle health freak

As a general rule, I keep work-related things out of this blog, but I happen to be in an area of work that is very related to some of what I blog about here, namely, the bicycling, active transportation, and health aspects.  So I’m going to break my rule and share a link to an article about my work over the last year-and-a-half.  You can read about it here*.

Surprisingly, the comments haven’t gotten too out-of-control yet, but they did provide inspiration for the title of this post** 😉

In other news, I completed the basic Cycling Savvy training over the weekend, which included over 20 miles on the bike on Saturday (~ 13 miles in the course, plus biking to and from the training).  My bum knee and the rest of my 6 1/2 month-pregnant-body performed quite adequately.

The training included one element that put me outside of my comfort zone (biking southbound along Kingshighway from Manchester to Shaw) and otherwise offered good opportunities to hone my cycling skills.

I hauled Baby Jake out for the article photo op and was pleasantly surprised to find he still offered a comfortable ride, and perhaps a position that is easier on my knee than BUB, so Baby Jake became my ride of choice for the weekend.  Now that it seems my knee has healed (at least mostly), I’m looking forward to biking regularly again.

*All things considered, the article came out pretty well, which means I didn’t do anything like this.  That said, I wish I had emphasized the importance of quality, comprehensive bicycle education, from which all cyclists, adults and children, those who have been cycling for years and those new to the activity, would benefit greatly.  Instead, on the questions about bicycling safety, I somehow managed to use the word “helmet” three times — cringe!

**I’m not sure how the commenter knew about my cold and the resulting snottiness I experienced over the past couple of weeks, but I’m feeling much better now, thanks 🙂

Last day in Rome

So I’ve written about the beginning of our trip, which started in London.  In between London and Rome, we visited Florence, Cinque Terre, and Siena.  Today I feel like writing about Rome, where we ended our trip.

We began our final day in Rome with a large dose of cuteness.  A quartet of perfectly fuzzy ducklings salvaged Rome’s otherwise not-so-memorable botanical garden.  (We recommend Kew in London, and Siena’s small, but nice (and free) Orto Botanico.)

After our garden time, we headed across town for lunch at Il Margutta.  This vegetarian restaurant has a buffet-style brunch.  Huge variety, and all top quality – the soup was the only flop, but by then we were so stuffed it didn’t matter.  For affordability, both here and at the Naturist Club (another vegetarian place where we enjoyed a meal the previous day), lunch was definitely the way to go.

Only catch?  Instead of the typical U.S.-style “all-you-can-eat” buffet, Il Margutta limits diners to one plate.  So, as you can see, we made the most of our one trip through the line.  We thought we were embarrassing ourselves, and being “those Americans,” but there were some real authentic Italian diners with plates that rivaled, and perhaps exceeded, ours.  We both cleaned our plates and were actually NOT uncomfortably full when we left — so no food wasted!

Fully sated, we made our way to the beautiful Borghese Gardens (wish we had more time to spend in the park) for our reserved slot at the Borghese Gallery, home of Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne sculpture, as well as a number of other beautiful Bernini pieces.  We paid for the audio guide, which was nice accompaniment.

For our final meal at Rome, we ate delicious pizza at ZaZa, followed by gelato at a shop Matthew frequented ten years earlier.  We also bought pizza to sustain us on Thursday’s plane ride.

We ended the day with a moonlight stroll through Rome, including a pass by the Trevi Fountain.  I tossed in a coin for good luck 🙂