Organic turkey is a far, far better choice this Thanksgiving, especially compared to the antibiotic-laden turkeys available at your local big box chain grocery store. In fact, those pale, plastic wrapped meatsicles can hardly be called birds.

For the true sustainable Thanksgiving dinner, you must find yourself a heritage turkey. Heritage Turkeys are the true ancestors of the industrial breeds of turkey that comprises 99.99% of the supermarket turkeys you see stacked by the hundreds at the grocery store.

Most breeds of heritage turkey were developed in the United States and Europe over hundreds of years, and were identified in the American Poultry Association’s turkey Standard of Perfection of 1874. These breeds include the Standard Bronze, Bourbon Red, Jersey Buff, Slate, Black Spanish, Narragansett and White Holland. Today’s steroid pumped turkeys grow to an average of 32 pounds over 18 weeks, whereas the Heritage turkeys can take up to 30 weeks to reach their market weight. You know, like a real animal.

These birds are a LOT more expensive, but that said, they are also a lot tastier, and a LOT better for the environment. Here’s a site which lists farms that raise these Heritage Turkeys. Enjoy your dinner with a clear conscience this year!

So when we, the Sustainability Ninjas decided to start doing product reviews, the first product that came to mind was Pink Solution. My mother-in-law swears by the stuff and I’d always wanted to try it. The Pink Solution people were nice enough to send us a sample of their products, which could not have arrived at a more appropriate time. Firstly, with a baby on the way we’ve been trying to sell our one-bedroom condo and have been having regular open houses. Regular open houses means regular (nightmare) cleanings of our place – and being pregnant, I’ve been starting to worry about the chemicals, like ammonia, in the cleaners we’d been using and was looking to switch over to a safer product like Pink Solution, a natural enzyme cleaner. So we were lucky enough to have the Pink Solution arrive just in time for a major clean.

Now you might think I’m stretching the truth for effect, but I kid you not, a few minutes later we got another package in the mail full of baby clothes I’d gotten at my baby shower while visiting my mother. We noticed immediately that the box was wet with some sort of oily substance. Now, my mother is an awesome lady and all, but she has this terrible habit of being a royal space cadet and had decided to include a bottle of liquid vitamin supplements for my dog that had fish oil as the prime ingredient. Naturally, she (bless her heart) hadn’t closed the lid properly and the supplement – which must hold the title for the greasiest, rankest substance ever invented – ended up spilling out and coating almost everything. When we opened the box, the stench of fish almost knocked us off our feet. Even the clothes that weren’t saturated in the greasy oil still reeked of fish.

And so it was clear: Pink Solution was seriously going to be put to the test.

For the clothes that were stained with the bright yellow fluid, we treated them first with the Pink Solution Laundry Bar, which is apparently six times stronger than Pink Solution and contains Borax. We then threw all the clothes in the bathtub, ran warm water and mixed it with Pink Solution. We let it all soak for a half-hour or so, and let’s put it this way: words can’t explain how thrilled I was to put the clothes up to my nose after they’d been soaking and not smell fish. The bright yellow stains had also disappeared. And thus, it was official. Pink Solution saved our baby from spending her first few months of life smelling like a rotting piece of halibut.

We were so excited that I decided to try out the third product they’d sent us, Mother’s Choice, a non-toxic, organic and bio-degradable oven cleaner. Now I am embarrassed to admit it that we are among the annoying people whose smoke alarm goes off during every oven use, due to the burned crusties on the bottom we’ve been too lazy to clean. However with little effort, Mother’s Choice removed the baked-on oven grime and rust stains that had been there for years.

Reading the instructions, the thing that is most impressive about this environmentally-friendly cleaning product is that you don’t have to worry. Pink Solution contains no harmful chemicals, and is non-caustic. If our dog were to lick an area that had been cleaned with Pink Solution, it would be harmless. (Apparently, some people use it to clean their cats.) Your kid could basically eat the paste and you wouldn’t be frantically calling poison control. And the fact that it works better than those hardcore ammonia and bleach-based products – well, that’s the bonus.

I just realized that this post kind of sounds like an infomercial and I suddenly sound a hell of a lot like Tony Little. Now those of you who may think my raving is shrouded in some sort of Pink Solution advertising deal, I honestly can’t say enough good stuff about this product and there is no Pink Solution sponsorship or endorsement shenanigans going on here. All they did was send us a sample of their product, and, well, it ended up saving us about $500 worth of baby clothes we would have otherwise had to toss out.

To get your hands on their product, head to the Pink Solution website to order online in the U.S. and Canada. Or, check this link out if you are interested in learning how to stop rusting on metal surfaces and moving parts.

We were thrilled when we watched the Today show this morning and saw a segment entitled “Green Your Routine,” which brought attention to green cleaning products.

Do you know what goes into the cleaners we all use in our homes today? If you’re trying to go green, it’s not as simple as merely looking at the back of the bottle. There are about 9,000 cleaning products on the market that have not been fully tested for safety. This doesn’t mean that they’re all unsafe, however not knowing what chemicals are in products can be dangerous as they aren’t required to list ingredients. You can’t know what you’re using.

Companies are shockingly allowed to use summary terms for chemicals such as “fragrance” or “preservatives.”  What we need is national regulation so that companies must disclose every ingredient in a product.

How do we consumers navigate such a sneaky marketplace? Today reports that many people have gone retro, mixing natural products like water and vinegar to create a product that effectively cleans without using toxins. For example, did you know that you don’t need to pour that crazy blue gunk in your toilet? Simply pour vinegar directly into the toilet bowl and let stand for 30 minutes. Next, sprinkle baking soda onto toilet brush and scour. To keep the bowl fresh, pour one cup of vinegar into the toilet bowl once a month and let it stand overnight.

Also, products that have the Green Seal certification are ones that have been approved by the program. Green Seal has really good standards behind it so that consumers don’t have to figure it out themselves. Also, check out Pink Solution. It’s a cleaning solution that is biodegradable, natural and non-toxic. We at Sustainability Ninja have actually tried the stuff – and it works!

Green cleaning products create a toxic-free environment for families as well as for the planet. Big kudoes to Today for bringing national attention to green cleaning products!

Don’t have a garden to compost in? Not everyone has space for a compost heap, but all homes produce compostable waste. Want a composter in your apartment or house? We’ve taken a look around at some options for you to be able to participate in composting, even if you don’t have a backyard.

Check out the built-in cabinet composting unit by Nature Mill. You just add your organic garbage )veggie trimmings, coffee grounds, egg shells etc) and the upper chamber of the composter mixes, heats and aerates the waste. The composter transfers the composted waste to a lower chamber which you empty every couple weeks.

It is basically a miniature in-vessel system.  Waste is collected right where it is generated; in the kitchen. Everything you need to compost at home is fully self contained in a subtle, sturdy container and just a few square feet of floor space is required. 

A new and innovative possible bio-fuel has been developed using wood chips by researchers from the University of Georgia. Little pieces of wood are heated in an oxygen-free environment to produce charcoal and gas. The gas can then be condensed into a liquid bio-oil which can then be processed into a fuel which could be mixed like bio-diesel. The charcoal might be able to be used as a fertilizer. Since much of the carbon from the wood or plant matter becomes charcoal, rather than part of the fuel, if the charcoal is put back into the ground as fertilizer. This fact would make this fuel net carbon negative.

For those of us with the luxury of a backyard garden, a great idea is to do your own composting. The benefits of composting include; reducing waste sent to landfills, reducing greenhouse gases, reusing organic materials, recycling natural nutrients, and improving soil without chemicals. There are lots of companies that offer home garden composters.

Rotating drum composters are a popular option, because they eliminate a lot of the back-breaking work associated with traditional composting. Rotating the drum allows lots of rich oxygen to get at the aerobic, oxygen loving bacteria that need it to thrive. Mixing in a drum also allows the required amount of moisture, heat, and oxygen to get at the entire pile rather than just the portion that is being mixed. In revolutionary Autoflow® Technology, material goes in the top and compost exits automatically out the end as the drum rotates.

Organic Mechanics Soil Company sells premium, organic, peat-free potting soil. Organic products grown in healthy, living soil contain higher levels of nutrients, and many taste better than their conventional counterparts. Organic fruits and vegetables test at minimal or zero pesticide residue levels and, with the passage of the USDA NOP (National Organic Program) organic standards, consumers can now be assured that certified organic producers follow earth-friendly cultivation and grazing practices.