Throughout October on Eco Chat we’ve been talking about how we can foster a love, respect, and curiosity of the natural world in our children, and today we’re going to take it one step further.

I’m joined by Sarah Rouche of Red Cat Science to hear how we, as parents and educators, can best ignite a love of science in children.

In this episode we’ll cover: 

• Why it’s important to foster a love and capability of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths) in our kids;
• What are the biggest barriers to getting kids to continue learning, and choosing subjects in this area;
• Some simple steps we can take to engage our kids in maths and sciences.

What has this got to do with sustainability you ask?

Well as environmental issues of the world become more and more complex, we’ll need more smart and savvy scientists to solve them and to come up with the solutions. Our kids might be within this next generation of scientists and engineers!!!

But it’s not just in sustainability, current studies have shown that at least 75% of future jobs will require science, technology, engineering, and maths skills, yet only 17% of university students are studying these subjects.

It’s time to close the gap and Sarah has some great tips to help us get started in this area so we can best nurture the budding scientist within our kids….

Let’s dive in!

When our children grow up and look back on their most treasured childhood memories, what will they remember?
Will they have memories of climbing a tree as high as they’ve ever been before, or riding a bike down a hill so fast they thought they would never be able to stop? Will they remember having tea parties in a secret hiding spot in the garden, or carting all your kitchen pots and pans outside so they could make mud pies?

These are our childhood memories. We grew up playing outside.  Adventures were limitless. We weren’t constrained by time or other activities, homework, or our parents. It was free play outdoors. It was spontaneous, exhilarating, fun, and exactly how we wanted to play. This was nature play and for most of us, the best time we ever had.

Two decades on, this type of play is no longer the norm. Sadly, our children spend less than two hours a day outside, one in four have never climbed a tree, one in three have never planted a garden, and the area in which they can explore, has shrunk by 90%.

Nature play is vital for children’s development, and for their health, happiness, and well-being.

This week I’m joined by Sarah Sutter from Nature Play SA. Sarah is on a mission to make unstructured outdoor play in nature an everyday part of childhood, and in this episode she shares how and why we need to get our kids back outside.

Last week I opened the doors to Self Sufficiency In The Suburbs...a new online club that provides the support and the info you need to create a sustainable home without turning your back on the modern world!

Join for just $1 in October!!

Before I jump into today’s topic I have some super, duper amazing news that I can’t wait to share with you.

Self Sufficiency in the Suburbs is OPEN and I couldn’t be more excited.

Self Sufficiency in the Suburbs is a members’ only club that will show you how to move towards a simpler, more sustainable way of living, one tiny step at a time, and for a limited time you can test it out now for just $1!

Over the next few weeks on the podcast I’m going to take a look at how we can best nurture our kids to develop a love and respect for our environment.

Regardless of whether or not you have young children yourself, no doubt there are kids in your life – perhaps nieces or nephews, grandchildren, students if you’re a teacher or carer of any sort, patients if you’re in the health profession, or maybe you just see your friend’s children from time to time.

Regardless of your relationship to the children in your life, I’d love you to keep these points in mind as you interact with them. In most cases, what I’m recommending to help nurture an eco-consciousness in children has many other benefits as well.

In this episode I’ll share four ways you can nurture eco conscious kids, and I’ll cover why it’s important that we foster sustainability values in the children in our lives.

There’s no denying that meat has been an important component of the human diet since the beginning of our existence, but modern meat production methods are having a significant impact on our environment.

In episode 49 and 50 we heard from Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm on how regenerative farming techniques can restore the land and feed a growing population. However the fact is that the strong market for cheap, factory-farmed meat doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon, and the environmental impact of this industry is alarming.

In my experience as a sustainability educator, I’ve found that most people want to eat meat in some form or other and that giving it up in entirety is just too big a step for the average person to take, at least when starting out. Which means the first challenge is in changing HOW we eat meat.

It’s time to seriously smarten up the way we buy and eat meat and in this episode I’ll cover seven tips to get you started.

If you’re after further tips on how you can make more sustainable food choices, reserve your seat on my FREE LIVE online event on Tuesday 4th October. I’ll be sharing my best tips on eco-eating for busy parents (including recipes!). Secure your seat here.

Last episode I introduced you to Joel Salatin from Polyface Farm.

Joel has been dubbed the “world's most innovative farmer” by TIME Magazine and is known around the world for challenging the conventional farming model and farming in a way that heals the land, heals the food, heals the economy, and heals the culture.

In Part 1 of the two-part feature we chatted about what regenerative farming is, how animals have a vital role to play in healing marginal land, and why we should care about where our food comes from.

This week we continue the conversation and dive deep into the big question… is there a place for meat on the table when the world’s population reaches the predicted 10 billion people around the year 2050.

I was inundated with heaps of positive feedback from Part 1 and I have no doubt that you'll find Part 2 just as entertaining and informative.

We've appreciated for a long time that we are what we eat.

Slowly and surely, we're starting to appreciate that our landscape reflects what we eat too.

Today I’m chatting with THE Joel Salatin from Polyface Farm.

Polyface Farm’s mission is to develop emotionally, economically, environmentally enhancing agricultural enterprises and facilitate their duplication throughout the world.

Joel has been dubbed the “world’s most innovative farmer” by TIME Magazine. For almost six decades his farm in the Shenandoah Valley in Northern Virginia USA has used no chemicals and feeds over 6,000 families and many restaurants and food outlets within a 3 hour ‘foodshed’ of his farm.

His farm is in the redemption business: healing the land, healing the food, healing the economy, and healing the culture and I can’t tell you how excited I am to be chatting with Joel today.

In this Part 1 of 2 episodes you’ll gain an understanding of:

• What regenerative farming is.
• How animals have a vital role to play in healing marginal land.
• Why we should care about where our food comes from.

Have you ever looked around your kitchen and wondered if all the containers, pots and pans are impacting your health?

Maybe you’ve eaten Teflon in your stir-fry that was cooked in a wok that once upon a time was non-stick, or you’ve eaten a mouthful of melted plastic with your reheated food.

 If that’s you then listen up because in this post I take a look at some of the common questions I receive about toxins in kitchen equipment and recommend some safer alternatives, including:

• What are the best dishes and pans to cook with from a toxin-free perspective?
• Is non-stick cookware safe?
• What is the best slow-cooker or rice cooker option?
• Is silicone bakeware safe?
• What is the safest cutting board?

and more!!

I cover topics like this in my Home Detox Boot Camp so if you’re keen to learn more on how to create a cleaner, safer home to improve your family’s health and well-being, register your interest here.

Not many of us are born with the intention to lead as green and healthy a life as possible.

Most of us have an awakening at some point along the way.

A wake up call that tells us that we need to dramatically change our lifestyle for our own health and that of the planet.

Today I’m joined by a lady who experienced such a wake-up call and who has dramatically changed her lifestyle over the past year…. So much so that she’s started a new business venture that’s in complete alignment with her new way of living.

In this Eco Chat Jo kindly shares:

• What triggered her to overhaul her lifestyle and embark on her eco and health journey.
• How she managed when friends didn’t join her eco journey.
• Where she experiences ‘green guilt’ and how she manages this so it doesn’t derail her efforts.
• Her pet peeve when it comes to the way we live and how she’s driving change in this area.
• Her best advice for where to start when it comes to detoxing your life.

Jo’s transformation led her to create Dare To Be Healthy, an online store dedicated to helping people make better choices for themselves and our environment. She stocks a wide range of products that are natural, toxin-free, organic and eco-friendly with many vegan-friendly options.

Jo has also kindly offered a 10% discount off your first order for Eco Chat listeners. Simply enter voucher code HOMEDETOX10 in your shopping cart to apply the discount.

Have you ever had a week where life threw you a curve-ball, everything was turned upside down and you had to put your eco principles on hold while you dealt with the situation at hand?

We experienced one of these weeks recently when my father-in-law passed away and I dubbed it “The Week of YES”, because that seemed to be my default answer to all the incoming requests from my sons.

In this episode I’ll share a little bit about our Week of YES and explain why I believe it’s more than okay to have a week like this every now and again.

Given that newborn babies can typically sleep around 16-17 hours a day, it’s worth putting some thought into creating a natural baby nursery to ensure your baby’s sleep environment is as safe and toxin-free as possible.

In this episode I’ll share five things you need to consider when creating a safe, toxin-free space for your baby.

Whether your baby sleeps in your bedroom or their own nursery, following these five steps will help you create a safe and natural sleeping environment free of toxins for your baby. Of course your baby will venture into many other rooms in your home (especially after they become more mobile!!), so once you have your nursery nailed you may wish to shift your focus to the remainder of your home.

Rather than go through the process of creating a toxin-free home alone, join my Home Detox Boot Camp for expert advice and support from the hundreds of women in our active community.

Doors close on the final round for 2016 on Thursday 18 August 2016 and you can join here.

Dust… it’s not a sexy topic but it is an important topic when it comes to maintaining a clean and healthy home.

With dust being a leading cause of environmental allergies in both children and adults, it pays to understand what dust is, how it accumulates in your home and how to get rid of it, for good!

In this episode I’ll share:

• what household dust is (and what it’s made up of),
• the health impacts of dust,
• how you can remove dust from your home, and
• how you can help prevent household dust from building up in the first place.

My favourite dusting cloths are the Norwex Dusting Mitt and Enviro Cloths (available here), however the ENJO Dust Glove and Indoor Miracle also perform well (available here).

When it comes to toxin-free living there’s many sources in our homes that fly “under the radar”. 

If you’re keen to discover the 5 Main Sources of Toxins In Your Home, reserve your seat on my free LIVE Online Event here.

For guidance and support to help you create a cleaner, greener and healthier home, check out my Home Detox Boot Camp. Doors will be closing soon on the final round of 2016!

When we think of air pollution we typically think of smog-filled cities, factories belching out toxic plumes or even just people in heavily populated cities wearing face masks to filter the air. But what if I told you that the air inside some of our homes is right up there with some of the more polluted cities.

Indoor air pollution has been ranked by the US EPA in the top five risks to public health, but what does this mean exactly and what can we do to improve the quality of air inside our homes and offices?

In this episode I’ll share why we should be concerned about indoor air quality and what you can do to improve the quality of the air you breathe inside your home or workspace.

You’ll learn:

• What is indoor air pollution and why it is on the rise;
• What causes indoor air pollution; and
• Some simple measures you can take to improve the quality of air inside your home.

Improving your indoor air quality is just one of the many areas to tackle when creating a safe, healthy home that’s free of nasty toxins.

For guidance and advice to help you create a cleaner, greener and healthier home, check out my Home Detox Boot Camp.

Doors are now open for the final round of 2016!

For many of us, splashing or squirting perfume or cologne on ourselves is part of our daily grooming regime. But is our obsession with scent and smelling nice causing harm to ourselves and our planet?

In this episode I discuss the health and environmental impacts of fragrance and why I choose not to wear perfume.

I chat about:

• What is in perfume
• The potential health impacts of wearing perfume
• Why you’ll never know exactly what’s in the perfume you’re wearing
• The potential environmental impacts of perfume
• Natural, healthier alternatives to wearing synthetic perfumes.

To enjoy optimum health we really need to smarten up on not just what we put IN our bodies, but what we put ON them.

That’s one of the main reasons why I created the Home Detox Boot Camp 2.5 years ago. In the course I delve into cleaning and pest control products as well as personal care and beauty. All in a supportive community and with access to me for questions and insights from guest experts who are leaders in their fields.

I’ll be opening doors again this coming week and you can join here.

Are you keen on removing toxins from your living environment and currently live in a small space like a boat or caravan and aren’t sure which products to whittle it down to? Maybe you’re just heading away on holidays and want to know which natural products to pack that can stretch over a multitude of cleaning and personal care tasks. If that’s you, you’re in luck!

In this post I’ll share my top 5 product recommendations for toxin-free living in a small living space.

If you’re after plenty of other tips for how to use these products effectively in your caravan or your home, check out my FREE Home Detox Cheat Sheet or sign up for my FREE 3-part Home Detox Video Training Series.

If you’re interested in learning how to detox and simplify your cleaning with essential oils, be sure to reserve your seat for my FREE upcoming webinar here.

There are many ways you can reduce your exposure to toxins in plastics and reduce the volume of plastic waste your household produces.  From avoiding plastics altogether, to getting smarter with how you use them, here’s 19 ways to break up with plastics in your home.

For details of all the products I recommend instead of conventional plastic varieties, follow links to purchase in the blog post for this episode.

If you’re keen to reduce your family’s exposure to toxins including those found in plastics, you might be excited to know I’ve just reopened my FREE Home Detox Video Series. It’s available for a limited time here. You can also download your FREE Home Detox Cheat Sheet or pop your name on the waiting list for my popular Home Detox Boot Camp here.

They've been linked with obesity, early adolescence, infertility and cancer and take hundreds of years, if ever, to break down in our environment. I'm talking plastics and on the blog/podcast this week I'm sharing why we need to be concerned about plastics, plus how you can stay healthy in an increasingly plastic world.

I discuss:

• What plastics are and how they're made
• Where plastics are commonly found and used in our homes
• The environmental impact of plastics
• The human health impact of plastics
• Endocrine disrupting chemicals in plastics
• How we can reduce our exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals.

If you’re keen to reduce your family’s exposure to toxins including those found in plastics, you can watch my FREE Home Detox Video Series here or pop your name on the waiting list for my popular Home Detox Boot Camp here.

Modern living and toxins often go hand in hand, but there’s plenty of ways we can reduce our exposure. The food we eat has a massive impact on our health, and naturally, what we feed our children directly impacts their current and future health.

In this episode I catch up with naturopath Jessica Donovan to discover how parents can best fuel their kids for a happy, vibrant, toxin-free life.

We discuss:

• Why it’s particularly important to clean up our kids environment and diet
• Typical health issues in children and causes of current epidemic conditions
• Why good nutrition is more important now than ever before for our children
• Clear action steps you can take to improve your child’s health
• How to best fuel your kids with good food without becoming overly obsessive about it
• How you can be best supported to learn more about how to fuel your kids with good food.

If you’re keen to learn more on this important topic, Jessica is hosting a FREE “Wholefoods for Kids” webinar on Tuesday the 12th of July.

Be sure to register your seat here.

From 12 July 2016 you’ll also be able to join Jessica’s Natural Super Kids online program and you can always follow Jessica at Energetic Mama.

Are you keen to reduce your home energy consumption (and power bills) this winter but don’t know where to start?

In this episode I’ll share some home energy tips to help you reduce your household’s energy consumption throughout the cooler months, without compromising your lifestyle, including:

• The highest energy use areas of an average home
• The optimum temperature to maintain your heating thermostats for best efficiency
• Three ways to prevent heat loss from your home
• My three best hot water service energy saving tips 

If you’re keen to learn tips on how you can make your home more energy efficient check out my FREE 5 Day Home Energy Challenge.

If you’re ready to step up even further and fully maximise the savings that come by reducing your home energy consumption, check out greenHOUSE Home Energy Blitz. This program is delivered by 21 bite-sized emails, where much like if you had a home energy auditor beside you, I share all the tips, tricks and little tweaks you need to make around your home to help you save heaps of energy and money!

Even when you have meal planning seemingly under control, your household can still generate a fair amount of food scraps that can easily end up in the rubbish bin.

Whether it’s scraps from peeling and topping and tailing vegetables, or scrapings from dinner plates (or meals your kids have decided to turn their noses up at), there’s several options available to turn these scraps into something useful and keep them out of your bin…. and local landfill!

In this episode I’ll share my three favourite ways to keep food scraps out of the rubbish bin.

Keen to learn more?

• Click here to buy a Bokashi Bin.
• Click here to discover what it takes to set up a worm farm.
• Click here to discover 7 Reasons to Keep Chickens.

Cultivating a “waste not want not” mindset in the kitchen when it comes to food scraps has plenty of benefits for your household. By reusing, composting or feeding food scraps to productive pets, you’ll not only keep rotting smells out of your bin, you’ll help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save money and create some useful by-products along the way!!!!

There are loads of options out there when considering a fertilizer but animal manure (we call it poo at our place!) is my number one go-to. 

In this episode I share:

• Why You Should Choose an Animal Poo Over Synthetic Fertilizer
• How to Apply Animal Manure to Your Garden
• Which Animal Poo is Best to Use as Garden Fertilizer?

Animal poo is a great way to keep your veggie garden happy without resorting to commercial fertilizers.

Happy gardening!

Eating sustainably is quite possibly the biggest impact we can make to improve the condition of the global environment. Choosing to eat organic, local produce, taking steps to eliminate food waste and reducing your meat consumption will make a significantly positive change to your health, bank balance and the state of the world. 

In this episode I share some of my best tips on sustainable eating including:

• What is a Sustainable Diet?
• Why Is Sustainable Eating Important?
• What is the Most Sustainable Diet?
• What is an Ecotarian?
• Where Does Meat Fit Into This Picture?
• Can Eating Meat Be Sustainable?

Remember, the choices you make and the dollars you spend today shape the world of tomorrow and everyone can make a difference.

So, what changes will you make to your diet to ensure it’s more sustainable?

If you’re keen to discover 10 easy pantry switches you can make to eco-fy your pantry click here.

To pledge your support to help get Self Sufficiency in the Suburbs created and out into the world click here.

In recent years there’s been a lot of hype around Himalayan Rock Salt, primarily around its flavour and reported health benefits. Sure, some of this attention is warranted, but if you live in Australia, eating Himalayan Rock Salt just doesn’t make environmental sense, especially when there’s a more sustainable salt you should be consuming in its place.

It never ceases to surprise me just how much the type of food has changed in one generation. While the varieties of salt available haven’t exploded to the same extent as coffee, milk and bread, the types of salt on the market are a stark contrast to those when I was a child growing up in the 1980s.

Back then it was table salt. Sodium chloride. White. Highly processed. Small granules. End of story.

These days it's an entire different ball game.

In this episode I share what the most sustainable salt available in Australia is, plus six reasons why Himalayan Rock Salt isn't welcome at my table.

Keen to discover what other “Eco Bombs’ are lurking in your kitchen? Check out my FREE eGuide “10 Simple Swaps to Eco-fy Your Pantry”.

Before I jump in to this episode I want to let you know that my Self Sufficiency in the Suburbs crowdfunding campaign has just opened and you can find it here.

Self Sufficiency in the Suburbs is all about living a more self-sufficient life in our modern world.

It will be an online course and membership club rolled into one that combines practical tools plus insanely useful how-to’s, with a gorgeous community of like-minded souls, to support you as you journey towards a better, simpler, more sustainable way of living.

Self Sufficiency in the Suburbs will be run as an annual membership program where you select to pay either monthly or annually, but if you buy Self Sufficiency in the Suburbs as part of the crowdfunding campaign rewards you will have LIFETIME access, meaning you’ll never need to pay a cent for these programs again.

Even better news is that you can pick up lifetime access for both Self Sufficiency in the Suburbs AND Home Detox Boot Camp as a package in the crowdfunding rewards for only $297 Australian – which is less than the price of Home Detox Boot Camp alone!!!

You’ll need to be super quick to pick up these specials as there’s a limited number of rewards available and the crowdfunding campaign only runs for 3 weeks….. which means it will finish on Monday 6th June.

So please check out my campaign and show your support to help me create and bring this idea to life.

Okay!!! Onto this episode......

It’s no secret that eco living can take a bit more effort than conventional living, but you and I both know that the rewards are totally worth it in the pride, freedom, health and financial stakes.

I’ve always said that eco living is a journey, and not a destination, and you need to look after yourself along the way. I’ve always thought I’ve maintained pretty good self-care but I’ll be honest and tell you that I've needed to crank it up a notch up it recently and I thought you may be interested to hear how I look after myself so that I can run both an eco-household and an eco-business.

I cover the importance of (plus share how I prioritize) the following:

• Having fun
• Relaxing
• Getting enough sunshine
• Scheduling "me" time
• Looking after your mindset
• Eating well
• Getting more sleep
• Saying "NO"
• Asking for and accepting help.

How to run a self-sufficient household is the first module in my new program Self Sufficiency in the Suburbs. 

But I’ll tell you right now and let you know that the key to running a self-sufficient household, a conscious business or just to turn up day in day out as a present mum who has the energy to give to her kids, you gotta look after YOU.

Are you striving for perfection when it comes to clean, green, toxin-free living? In the process are you rejecting gifts that don't align with your health or environmental values and moving them on as fast as they were given to you?

In this episode I chat about the gifts I was lovingly given by my children for Mother's Day and just why I'm choosing to receive, and use, a gift I would never purchase myself.

Have you ever shared inspirational quotes, bought awareness ribbons and bands, or changed your social media avatar to show support for a cause? If so, listen up because you may not realise it, but you could be a slacktivist!

When we “retweet,” when we “hashtag,” when we “share,” when we “like” online we allow ourselves to feel good because we’ve shown a level of awareness.

But actions speak louder than words.

In this podcast I chat about slacktivism and whether or not it is creating change in our world.

PLUS I give a heads up of my first ever crowdfunding campaign for Self Sufficiency In The Suburbs..... to be unveiled very soon!