Thomas Jefferson may have imported wines for his famous table, but America’s third president was a locavore with a valuable lesson for modern Virginians. Just a stone’s throw from Emerson Creek Pottery here in Bedford, VA., Jefferson’s Monticello brings half a million visitors to Charlottesville every year, and few guests fail to be impressed by the re-creation of Monticello’s food gardens. Understandably, slavery is the aspect of Monticello’s history that no modern person celebrates, but the gardens teach us something else, something extremely relevant to our times: the diversity of excellent, nutritious, delicious foods that can and should be grown in our corner of the world.

Thomas Jefferson cultivated 170 varieties of fruit trees and over 330 varieties of vegetables at Monticello. Despite his wealth and option to live a life of total ease, Jefferson was no lazy gentleman farmer, delegating care of the land solely to others. In point of fact, he was so deeply interested in food and farming that he kept an exceptionally detailed agricultural diary in which he joyfully recorded events like the sowing of lettuces and the harvesting of strawberries. He once risked the death penalty in smuggling pocketfuls of rice out of Italy. When visiting France, he astonished and delighted dinner guests by serving them a novelty: corn on the cob. Back home in Virginia, he indulged his inordinate passion for garden peas by growing some 30 varieties of them! Because of the industrialization of modern food production, many of the varieties of fruits and vegetables grown in Jefferson’s day are no longer cultivated in Virginia, or in America, but if we take a close look at the historic abundance of Monticello’s orchard and farm, we can glean helpful tips for today’s local food movement. While small family farms will have no need to compete with the production of old-time plantations, there is no reason why we can’t break ties with our unhappy dependence upon the poor quality foodstuffs found in chain supermarkets and start relishing the succulent satisfaction of Virginia-grown goods.

Thomas Jefferson reveled in Virginia hams and crabs from Chesapeake bay – America’s largest estuary – and the produce of his farm was of a quality so esteemed, his contemporaries wrote glowing accounts of Monticello dinner parties. A glance at a typical Monticello dinner menu gives an idea of what is possible when you choose to eat well from the sources closest to hand.

Sample Monticello Menu

Virginia Ham with Greens
Corn Pudding
Celery with Almonds
Scalloped Tomatoes
Pureed Cymlings (pattypan squash)
Damson Plum Preserves
Pickled Jerusalem Artichokes
Salad Greens
Cucumbers
Green Peas
Beaten Biscuit with homemade Cream Cheese
Cakes – Candied Violets – Fresh Peach Ice Cream
Almonds – Pecans

Few of us eat quite so much at a typical supper these days, but the idea here is to take a look at a menu like this in order to understand how utterly possible it is to dine sumptuously on completely local fare. There is no doubt that every dish served at Monticello would have been picked and offered at the peak of taste and freshness and when we contrast this with the long-distance, tasteless foods we’re restricted to when we eat a supermarket supper, we realize we’re losing out on the deal of ‘convenience’. Single families, neighborhoods and communities can change this unwanted, unhealthy situation by vowing to grow-their-own, and grow it organically, as was done in Jefferson’s time. If we have no garden of our own, we can ask our city councils for common land for community gardens or we can support any local farmers in our area.

Across the nation, right now, folks are meeting a changed economy and changing climate with changes in the way we think about food. We can learn to sow and harvest, can and preserve the very best of foods for our families, and we can do it all without chemical inputs, just as our forefathers did. We can feed our soil with compost made from our own scraps and create a cycle of self-sufficiency that endures for next generations. And, because eating locally means we will choose to grow the best-tasting crops instead of the ones with the longest shelf lives, over time we can work to naturally develop new strains of wonderful fruits and vegetables, widening the gene pool, just as our ancestors did. A food system in which only one or two varieties of each crop is cultivated is a vulnerable one. One blight or infestation can wipe out an entire food source when people monocrop – but diverse gardens with many strains of fruits and veggies are strong and destined to endure.

We have a lot to learn to re-claim the agricultural wisdom of former times, but 2010 will be another year in which ever more American families plant their first-ever food garden. Farming is in and processed, long-distance foods are on their way out. With our climate, water and soil, Virginia can take a leading role in this healthy change that will absolutely lead to better health for people and for the land. Our potters are proud that Emerson Creek Pottery’s very local ceramics have been featured at Monticello, and we’d like to remind our neighbors that the locavore diet is in our blood and waiting to be reclaimed as our birthright as inhabitants of such a good and life-giving land.

Our families deserve to know the tangy sweetness of a just-picked tomato and the gossamer delicacy of farm-to-table lettuces. We can discover why Thomas Jefferson was so captivated with green peas that he wanted to grow 30 different kinds of them, because we will taste a sugar-sweet pea, just off the vine in the cool of a Virginia morning this spring. We can get re-acquainted with our taste buds and turn up our educated noses at out-of-season imports. We’ll have found a source of joy that is at the heart of being alive – the pleasurable necessity of eating and eating well. Here comes the new year, and there’s no better time to make plans for a better way of eating and living, rooted in the history of our people and looking forward to a better future!

————

Flickr Photo Credits: Mharrsch, TonytheMisfit.

Holidays should be happy times and there’s no reason why fun for the family can’t be fine for the planet, too. This Halloween, let’s take a look at the way we celebrate and see if we’re doing all we can to keep the holiday super fun for kids while making the most of the green living ethics so many American families are working to incorporate into daily life. We’ve got a list of nifty tips to help you green your Halloween and we’re betting your kids will have the best Halloween of their lives if you can put a little extra thought into this year’s festivities.

10 Green Halloween Ideas

1. Visit A Local Farm For Pumpkins
Many of our nation’s small farmers supplement the income they make from growing food crops by growing a fun crop like big pumpkins for the Halloween trade. Maybe your family only visits these wonderful farms once a year to pick up your jack-o-lanterns-to-be, but October is a super time to find out who the farmers are in your area. Most farms that are open to the public are staffed with family members and friends who will be eager to tell you all about what they grow and you just may find that you could get better, organic, more affordable fruits and vegetables from these skilled, hard-working neighbors than from chain supermarkets many months out of each year. Your family can have a gorgeous day in the sun visiting local pumpkin farms and getting in touch with the lands where healthy food growing is going on near you. It’s a great and important experience for the kids to see crops growing and may introduce the grown-ups to the best apples, potatoes, squash, greens, melons and tomatoes money can buy!

2. Decorate for Halloween Without Plastic
Just a couple of generations ago, no one had plastic Halloween decorations. Holidays are one of those little instances in which this non-planet-friendly material has crept into our lives as a norm or a must. Think outside the box and back to your grandparents’ day when homes were made cute, spooky or autumnal with home-grown or handmade decorations. If you have a home farm or garden, your squashes, pumpkins and dried corn stalks are the most authentic Halloween decor you can get your hands on. Old clothes and fabric scraps become scarecrows, ghosts and goblins. Let the children make their own paper cutouts of witches, cats and owls instead of buying plastic ones. Those gigantic plastic Halloween objects which are seen covering the lawns in some towns may have a sort of instant appeal, but when you think about the energy that goes into producing them for just one night’s use as well as the dangerous off-gassing that occurs with most new plastics, you may start to see something a little monstrous about them and not in a nice, Halloween-ish way. Doing without plastic gives your family a chance to express creativity while reducing pollution this Halloween.

3. Make Halloween Costumes out of Recycled Materials
If time seems short, it may be tempting to buy ready-made plastic masks and costumes for the kids, but if you can set aside just an evening or two to help children plan and craft their own Halloween costumes, you’ll have a lot more fun…and save money! If someone in the family sews, there may be fabric remnants to work with, in which case, the sky’s the limit when it comes to the creative costumes you can make, but very often, everyday clothing can be turned into great costumes with just a little effort. If Mom has a fancy velvet or velveteen robe, that’s the stuff little kings and queens are made of…wizards and other magical characters, too! A pillowcase painted with a heraldic symbol can be cut and belted, turning any boy into a legendary knight and a black dress becomes a little girl’s witch costume if you’ve got a small broom handy. Ghosts are as easy as your old sheets and pirates come to life out of a striped shirt, a red bandanna and rolled up trousers. Let the kids rummage through closets and cedar chests for colorful scarves, old hats and funny shoes and see what they can dream up. With a little help and guidance, the kids will have costumes they’ll be crazy about this Halloween.

4. Bring Something Sugar-Free To Hallowe’en Classroom Parties
With concerns about obesity, not to mention the growing distress over genetically modified sugar being allowed on the shelves of American supermarkets, many families are beginning to think twice about conventional sugar. Unfortunately, most candy and the majority of pre-packaged baked goods and sweets are made with conventional sugar. If you can find treats made with organic sugar, you’re making a safer bet for children’s health (and your own!) but if you’ve signed up to contribute a snack to a Halloween party, consider bringing something sugar-free. All-fruit fruit rollups are a super idea as are 100% juice drinks. Or what about bringing a big tin of hot, freshly-made organic popcorn into the classroom or shish kabobs on which pieces of unusual dried fruits have been colorfully skewered – mango, papaya, pineapples? Raisins and dried papaya make a cool black-and-orange Halloween snack or how about purple bell pepper and carrots sticks with a creamy, yummy dip? Then, even if all of the other parents are loading the classroom down with sugar, sugar, sugar, you’ll be doing a little something to balance that overdose with snacks that taste great, have visual appeal and are super fun to eat.

5. Make An Extra-Healthy Local Harvest Dinner On Halloween Night
Halloween falls at harvest time and there is no more bounteous time to eat locally than in this ripe season of the year. If you know your kids are going to be stocking up on junk food Halloween night, fill them up first with a good, healthy dinner. Try baked winter squash, carrot-raisin salad, iron-rich greens, sweet potatoes or whatever you find growing right now at the farms nearest you. In all cultures since the dawn of agriculture, autumn has been the time of eating well and giving thanks for the very best foods Earth produces. Halloween, itself, is an ancient holiday, once tied into the belief that bad spirits could be warded off with the right practices. In modern times, our families can ward off bad and wasteful eating habits by choosing to eat what’s fresh and in season, and Halloween is a perfect night to celebrate the harvest with a locally-grown supper.

6. Give Trick-or-Treaters Something Spicy Instead Of Sweet
If you live in a neighborhood that gets haunted by small witches, ghosts and goblins every October 31st, do them a favor by filling their sacks with something that’s both tasty and healthy this year. There’s nothing worse than a little pirate with cavities! In our society, we automatically equate Hallowe’en (and most other holidays) with sugary stuff. Try a new twist on the old tradition of trick-or-treating by giving out something spicy this year. Kids would be really excited to receive individual packages of spiced pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds, flavored, salted and roasted nuts. Steer clear of peanuts to make sure no child with allergies is left out. When the kids go home with a bag full of candy bars, that little pack of cinnamon coated almonds will stand out as special and different.

7. Host An Old-Fashioned Halloween Party At Home
Some families live in places where kids can’t go out trick-or-treating, either because of lack of rural lighting or safety concerns. Other families opt out of trick-or-treating because of dietary concerns. Whatever the case may be, hosting an old-fashioned Halloween party at home solves all problems. Prizes for games like Bobbing For Apples can lean more towards little toys and games than sweets if you’re trying to cut down on the sugar. Have a costume contest, a Halloween parade around the house or a square dance in the family room. Tell ghost stories, carve jack-o-lanterns or make Halloween crafts. With a little extra thought, a homemade Hallowe’en party can provide varied entertainment and enjoyment for folks of all ages.

8. Serve Homemade Halloween Treats
Apple cider, homemade doughnuts and popcorn are the time-honored snacks that have added a tasty element to Halloween parties for generations. You can make caramel popcorn or popcorn balls with maple syrup or molasses or try herbed popcorn popped in a bit of olive oil and sprinkled with a mixture of thyme, sage, dill, salt and pepper for a more sophisticated crowd. Let the children help make some of the snacks. Teaching kids how to cook is a green habit every family should get into. The goodies you make at home will taste oodles better and be better for you than anything you could buy at the store.

9. Make Halloween Night A Lights-Out Night
Halloween is the perfect night to shut off the electric lights and illuminate your home with candles. Plain tapers work just fine, but you can buy Halloween-themed candles, luminarias, and lanterns, too, in addition to your jack-o-lanterns. Life by candlelight is weird, wonderful and spooky for kids and romantic and memorable for adults. Be sure to practice good fire safety! You’ll be saving energy and creating a fun atmosphere with this simple Halloween tip.

10. Compost Your Jack-O-Lantern
When Halloween spooks have gone off to bed and the sun rises on November 1st, most families are left with a row of pumpkins that will quickly start to grow mold and draw flies if left unattended. Large jack-o-lantern-type pumpkins generally don’t make good pies…but they make fabulous compost. Invite neighbors to bring their old jack-o-lanterns to your compost pile where you will gladly recycle them into food for next season’s garden. Don’t have a compost pile? Put your pumpkins in the yard wastes bin if your local garbage service provides one. These green leftovers are often used to create municipal compost piles at county dumps where they can rot properly and enrich soil for community projects.

Do you have any other cool Green Halloween ideas? We’d love to hear them. Happy Halloween to all your family from the potters at Emerson Creek Pottery!

_____________________
Flickr Photo Credit

Light a hurricane lamp in your home and history illuminates your abode. Since prehistoric times, families have burned oil in vessels to hold off the darkness and lengthen the hours in which people can work and play. From the palaces of Ancient Rome to the humble little house on the prairie of pioneer days, oil lamps have an honored place in the human story and many modern Americans declare they wouldn’t live without them, despite our general dependence on electricity. Hurricane Lamps represent a major historical improvement in lamp design and this article aims to answer all your FAQs about them.

Hurricane Lamp History And Modern Usage
Early oil lamps had three main drawbacks:

• Their light was seldom very bright
• Oil lamps smoked a great deal
• The slightest breeze could put them out

The Invention Of The Hurricaine Lamp
In 1780, Francois-Pierre Aime Argand, the son of a Swiss watchmaker, was struck with a bright new idea. He invented an oil lamp with a glass chimney and a control nob. Aime Argand was a scientist with a particular interest in Chemistry, and he realized that a cylindrical wick which allowed air to flow both through and around itself would produce a brighter light. The glass lamp chimney protected the flame from gusts and the control nob enabled the lamp user to adjust the height of the wick, offering further control over the strength of light produced. Whale oil or olive oil was typically used as the fuel for the new lamp. Aime Argand was a man of his times – a scholar of the period we call The Enlightenment – in which science was being explored for the benefit of mankind and in inventing the prototype Hurricane Lamp, Aime Argand would illuminate the world for centuries to come.

Hurricane Lamps On Ships
Piracy, sea battles, royal navies and transatlantic voyages were part and parcel of life in the 18th and 19th centuries and mariners quickly adapted the wind-resistant hurricane lamp for use on their vessels. Hanging hurricane lamps and wall hurricane lamps, often lantern-like in shape, became necessary equipment for ships and in addition to lighting cabins and decks, they were used to send signals from ship to ship.

Hurricane Lamps, Gone With The Wind
Many Americans most readily associate Hurricane Lamps with the Civil War of the mid 19th century, largely owing to fact that these lamps were extensively used in the lavish movie sets of Gone With The Wind. True to the burgeoning Victorian delight in ostentatious ornamentation, Hurricane Lamps of the 1800s could be grandly large, wrought in colored and etched glass, embellished with gleaming brass scrollwork and other fancy elements. Floral motifs, amethyst and red glass chimneys, milk glass, etched star glass, crystal pendants, beads and more were highly prized and today, antique Hurricane Lamps command a hefty price at auction. If you’d like to collect Antique Hurricane Lamps, the important things to look for are unmarred chimneys and wick controls that are still functional and haven’t rusted. Make sure the lamp base still holds oil properly, as well.

Hurricane Lamps Go West
Far simpler than the elegant, frilly lamps of stately Victorian era homes were the simple clear glass vessels that lit the way for pioneers across the West. Just as the above screenshot from the popular 1970’s TV series Little House On The Prairie depicts, plain glass hurricane lamps turned lonesome cabins in isolated landscapes into cozy harbors for families to gather in the evenings to eat, to chat, to pray and sing, to plan the next day’s work long after sundown had drawn a curtain of darkness over wood and prairie. Hurricane Lamps remain very much in demand for all types of historical re-enactments and if you look at some of your favorite shows or movies set in the 19th or early 20th centuries, you are sure to notice that these basic, light-giving oil lamps are everywhere! Civil War societies and other historic clubs and committees are keeping Hurricane Lamps alight across the USA.

Hurricane Lamps In Modern Times
In many areas of the country, the power of electricity was slow to come. Long into the 20th century, folk in rural areas continued to live by candlelight and the light of kerosene oil lamps. Even now, some areas of the USA are not connected up to the grid and, of real note, some families with pioneer-like bravery are jumping off the grid and fueling and lighting their homes in different and creative ways. In these situations, owning several Hurricane Lamps for occasional or emergency lighting is a smart survival tactic.

Of important regional significance, residents of states like Florida cope with hurricanes and other fierce storms as a fact of daily life. A vintage cookbook I treasure describes a community so used to these upheavals in the weather that they developed meal plans for hurricane season and the local housewives were heard saying, “What will you be having for the hurricane for dinner?” If you live in a part of the country where weather or other factors cause frequent power outages, purchasing a trusty hurricane lamp really makes sense.

Hurricane Lamps are also ideal for outdoor living. Use them at your next barbecue or on a camping trip for light without the hassle of cords or batteries.

Finally, there is a glow of romance surrounding these special lamps with their long history. Electric lights cannot reproduce the soft, warm radiance of the Hurricane Lamp and lighting one works some type of magic in that it instantly creates a feeling of intimacy, quiet and comfort. Whether you own a period home and are looking for an antique or reproduction Hurricane Lamp or you simply prefer the gentler illumination oil lamps provide, the Hurricane Lamp is a piece of our past worth saving.

About Our Hurricane Lamps
If Francois-Pierre Aime Argand, inventor of the Hurricane Lamp, had crossed the Atlantic to visit Colonial America, he would have inspired the manufacture of lamps very much like the ones our potters handcraft here at Emerson Creek Pottery in Virginia. Early colonists had to throw all of their inventiveness and industriousness into founding factories that could produce the metals, glass, ceramics, cloth and other goods they needed for life in their new land. To avoid excessive overseas taxation, Dutch settlers produced the first whiteware pottery in 1684 and out of necessity, early American goods focused on being sturdy and functional. Over time, styles of decoration and refinements in forms produced the high quality American ceramics which are now priceless collectors’ pieces and from which our potters have drawn inspiration since we founded our own American company in 1977. Our Hurricane Lamps offer both authentic antique appeal and handmade quality you can count on.

Hurricane Lamp Parts
A Hurricane Lamp consists of 3 basic components: the wick, the chimney or globe, and the base. In addition to this, most Hurricane Lamps feature a nob which allows you to raise and lower the wick to control the brightness given off.

Our Hurricane Lamps feature a lead-free pottery base and a clear glass chimney. If you need to buy replacement wicks or chimneys, we can sell them, or you can find them at your local hardware store where you can also buy lamp oil.

Hurricane lamp oil is an oil of the kerosene family. It is prized because it produces little smoke or soot. You can purchase it at your local hardware store or camping supply shop.

How To Use A Hurricane Lamp
It’s no surprise, considering the prevalence of electricity, that many modern people have never used or lit a Hurricane Lamp. Here’s how Hurricane Lamps work:

Step 1
There are two pieces secured to the top lip of the Hurricane Lamp. One is permanently attached to the Hurricane base and the other screws off/on to the piece secured to the base. Unscrew the detachable piece from the base and fill with lamp oil about 3/4 full.

Step 2
The wick should be pre-fed through the insert on the detachable piece from the bottom coming up through the top while using the turning wheel to bring the wick up through. The wick should clear all metal parts about a 1/4 of an inch to start. The lamp wick can later be adjusted up by the turning wheel to achieve desired flame size.

Step 3
While feeding the wick into the base, tightly re-secure the detached metal piece to the metal piece permanently attached to the base. If any oil was spilled, thoroughly clean the area before lighting.

Step 4
Light wick. Slide glass globe inside four metal arms on the metal base. Adjust flame size with spinning wheel.

Special Notes On Using Hurricane Lamps In Your Home

• Keep Hurricane Lamps in a safe place away from children and pets. Young children, unused to flame-based lighting, should never be left unsupervised in a room where oil lamps are present. Just as you would take extra care in a room where candles are lit, practice good safety when using Hurricane Lamps.
• Pottery can scratch you furniture. Protect your furniture by placing a non-porous surface underneath.
• Make sure your lamp is placed in a secure location where passing traffic cannot accidentally knock it over.
• Citronella lamp oil can be used in outdoor settings in Hurricane Lamps to deter insects.

Giving The Bright Gift Of A Hurricane Lamp
Birthdays and holidays can be challenging when you’re shopping for the man who has everything or the lady who won’t tell you what she wants. The gift of a Hurricane Lamp may just solve your dilemma. Though once a given in nearly every American home, oil lamps can be a novel idea these days, even for tough-to-shop-for loved ones. Who would appreciate a Hurricane Lamp?

• History buffs – just imagine how nifty they’ll feel lighting up their home or office in this interesting, historical manner!
• Elders – they may well remember hurricane lamps from childhood and would be delighted to see one again.
• Scholars – what could be better for burning the midnight oil at exam time?
• Homesteaders – this is an ideal gift for the young generation that is going off the grid and getting back to the land.
• Rural and regional residents – if you care about someone who lives out in the country or in a fierce weather area, a Hurricane lamp could really lighten their worries during outages and emegencies.

Hurricane Lamps And You
Do you remember a Hurricane Lamp your grandma owned? Do you have any tips or tricks for using, cleaning or enjoying Hurricane Lamps? We’d love to hear your stories and welcome your comments here.

Avocado hair, avocado hair! No, it’s not a playground insult or a medical condition from outer space. In fact, according to Google, more than 8,000 people a month are turning to the Internet in hopes of getting avocado hair for themselves.

I have to wonder, how many of these searchers will make it to a real, truthful answer and how many will be distracted by commercially-driven efforts advertising low grade and even toxic products which are trading on the inclusion of avocado but are really mostly made up of unwanted, unnecessary ingredients.

This article aims to give you the real green scoop on using avocado for hair conditioning. It’s an awesome, eco-friendly aid to personal grooming that genuinely leaves your hair softer to the touch and glossier than almost any other natural substance…but only if you know how to go right to the avocado source. *Honest avocado hair recipe to follow!

Manufactured Avocado Hair Products: Know What You’re Up Against

If you own a TV, read magazines, or spend much time in supermarkets, you’ve already gotten all of the education you need on the subject of marketing. The personal care product industry is a multi-billion dollar one, and it markets its products as miracles that will change your unsatisfactory life into one long experience of unending bliss. Marketers just won’t give us a break from this kind of unrealistic messaging, but the impact of their insinuation that your life is deficient, disappointing, unfulfilling without buying their products is one that’s been repeated so often that many Americans end up buying the pitch and buying the products.

Things have gotten even more confusing with major corporations feigning leaps onto the green bandwagon, claiming that their products are healthy and eco-friendly because they include the semblance of some once-natural ingredient. Maybe it’s olive oil or wheat germ or apricots or avocados. But just look at the label on this hair conditioner bottle. This is a product that is marketed as being botanical, earthy, wholesome…all kinds of great things, but what are those weird ingredients? Honestly, who would believe that the health and cleanliness of human hair is dependent on the application of methylchloroisothlaolinone? Apparently, the millions of people buying this hair conditioner must, but all I can picture is Mother Nature having a migraine over unpronounceable chemicals like these being sold as natural and rubbed into the pores of the human scalp. It really doesn’t remedy matters that this concoction contains acai berry somewhere in the midst of all the stuff on this very typical label.

Marketing succeeds when ‘consumers’ (do you resent that word like I do?) are convinced they want or need something that isn’t actually essential to healthy living or survival. Instead of encouraging people to take pride in themselves by caring for their bodies in natural ways, people are encouraged to believe that chemicals and toxins hold the keys to a beautiful life. It’s a value system and world out of balance that ruins self-esteem, bolsters obsessive vanity, lessens health and pollutes the planet. But we don’t have to buy in, we don’t have to comply with the corporate messages that have money for CEOs instead of regard for human dignity as their goals. We can reclaim some authority over our own lives if we take just a few minutes to reflect on the very important difference between marketed hype and the basic purpose of grooming.

Reclaiming Your Authority By Understanding Grooming

In the 1700’s men and women wore large powdered wigs because they thought they looked elegant doing so. In the 1950’s, men and boys slicked their hair down with handfuls of Dippity Doo because that molded, ultra shining look was considered neat and tidy, no matter how artificial. Aerosol hairspray use was at record highs just as scientists were beginning to warn of holes in the ozone layer and the commercial backlash has been the modern inclusion of natural-sounding ingredients in hair care products, marketed with dubious promises of a better life and a healthier planet. All of that pomp and styling, spraying and conditioning has traded on the principle that, without manufactured hair care products, people are socially unacceptable. You won’t get that job, find love or have friends without volume, body, moisture or whatever hair conditioners purport to deliver…and all of this hype pointedly ignores the basic reason for taking care of your hair. Let’s get sane and back to basics about what ought to be a very simple concept.

All mammals groom. Just look at the well-kept fur of this fine coyote. Absolutely beautiful! Whether it’s your kittycat licking his paws or wild wolves spending hours a day in family grooming sessions, animals and birds devote time to self-maintenance for very natural and important reasons:

• To free the hair, fur or feathers of dirt that causes tangling which might snag on plants and rocks in the natural world, inhibiting flow of movement.
• To bring oils from glands in the skin to give hair, fur or feathers water resistance, shading, heating or some other desired practical quality.
• To get rid of insects.

We can take our cues from animals who know how to live perfectly without instructions from advertisers and these grooming concerns apply to us as well as to other beings. We definitely don’t want critters in our hair – lack of cleanliness can make a home for lice on the human head. Washing and brushing our hair distributes oils from our scalp throughout our tresses and this may be very important for protecting our heads and necks from the sun. And, just ask anyone with hair long enough to get a tangle caught on a door knob and you’ll know why dirty, tangled hair is hazardous to humans, just as it is for other animals. Marketing has played on our desire to have a goodly physical appearance, too, and while this has been oversold to extremes, there is nothing unnatural about taking pride in one’s mane and wanting to groom it well.

Where I’d love to see the line drawn, for the sake of psychological health, would be between good grooming skills and the unhappy preoccupation with physical appearance that causes some Americans to loathe themselves while continuing to spend billions a year on products.

It would be very healthy for us to be able to cleanse and brush our hair and then feel good about it, end of story. Manufacturers would like us to believe that we need some expensive chemical product for literally every part of the body, and they reap the profits of this while people are left with a feeling of lack and unfitness. Ask yourself, should so much of life be spent looking in the mirror with dissatisfaction? Should so much money be spent on the latest hair care products with the most outlandish ingredients? Just for the sake of achieving what ought to be the simple goal of keeping hair clean, untangled and critter-free? How can we turn our faces away from this state of commercially-induced vanity and confusion? How can we groom ourselves well without being duped and wasting time and money that could be better spent on things that would really bring us fulfillment and well-being?

It’s time to come back full-circle to avocado hair!

My Honest Avocado Hair Treatment Recipe

Avocados are the buttery fruits of a tree native to the Americas. The fruits are not only incredibly nutritious, but they also contain high amounts of healthy fats that can be a smart, natural aid to hair care. Both city and well water is treated with chemicals or contains natural minerals that can make hair rough and tangled. The oils in the avocado add an extra dose of sleekness to your tresses that will not only enable you to comb out snarls, but will also put a totally natural, non-toxic gloss on hair that has been damaged by commercial shampoos, conditioners and treated water.

Step 1
Take a ripe avocado (slightly soft to the touch) and peel it. Slice the fruit from the large brown seed and mash it up with a fork in a bowl. Mash it to the consistency of a creamy guacamole.

Step 2
Gently rub the avocado into all of your hair. Put a shower cap over your head or wrap your hair up in a towel and rest for 15-30 minutes.

Step 3
Get into the shower and thoroughly wash out the avocado with the most natural shampoo you can find. Do not condition and do not blow dry. Let your hair dry naturally after washing.

And that’s it. In 3 easy steps, you’ve given yourself a totally natural avocado hair treatment. You haven’t bought an avocado hair product or an avocado hair conditioner. You’ve gone right to the source of the fruit and used its goodness and nothing else for the care and health of your hair! I am always amazed by how lovely and fresh my own hair looks and feels to me after an avocado hair treatment and I think you will be, too!

5 Tips For Successfully Using Avocado For Hair Care

• Buy Organic Avocados – if you buy conventional avocados, you’ll be right back where you started from, putting chemicals on your scalp because of the toxic pesticides used in conventional agriculture
• Buy U.S. Grown Avocados In Season – between March and September, the United States has a national source of exceptionally good organic avocados, grown in Southern California. Though you can buy avocados from other countries most of the rest of the year, it’s better for the U.S. economy and the environment to support U.S. farmers. During the off-season months, find something else natural to use if you need a hair conditioner.
• Some Avocados Are Stringy – sometimes you’ll get an avocado that has little white or brown fibers in it. That’s perfectly fine, but you may notice some of these fibers left in your hair when it dries. No worries. They brush out in just seconds.
• Use Peak Ripe Avocados – while it may seem like a good idea to use overripe avocados for hair care, if the fruit has really gone bad, you will not like the smell it leaves in your hair. Peak ripe avocados leave no detectable scent on the head and are at their butteriest.
• Don’t Overdo It – TV ads may tell us we need to condition our hair every time we wash it, but this simply isn’t true. Conditioning your hair once or twice a month with avocado will likely be all you need to ensure soft, healthy, snarl-free tresses. Use all that time and money you save to do something great for yourself. Buy a new book, take a camping trip, donate to a charity!

America’s earliest inhabitants depended solely on the good things of the Earth to care for themselves. It was a common practice amongst many Native Americans tribes to take a turn in the sweat lodge and then jump in an ice-encrusted river! First Americans used plant and animal fats to groom their abundant hair and the first Europeans were often awed by how cleanly, neat and trim these earliest Americans were in contrast to the take-no-baths hygiene practices prevalent in Europe. I hope this article has not only helped you to understand what a gift avocados can be to your personal grooming, but that it also gives you sense of how this planet generously provides good things to humans who know how to look for them. I hope that knowledge gives you a sense of being cared for and accepted by our great Earth.

Readers show up here at EmersonCreekPottery.com because they are looking for non-toxic housewares, and, often, the first smart step you can take in greening your life is to green yourself. Imagine taking all of those fancy, expensive, chemical-laden bottles of hair conditioner and putting them in the recycling bin…and never buying them again! Talk about freedom from non-essentials. Less plastic, less headache-inducing perfume, less worry, less waste. Just fresh, clean hair that you can feel really good about, thanks to that greenest of fruits – the Avocado!

——————

Flickr Photo Credits: Avocado, Coyote.