While shopping in Publix I couldn’t help but notice the prevalence of their “GreenWise” line of products. What is GreenWise? Here it is directly from the Publix website:

With the rising awareness of health issues, such as obesity in America, we understand that many people are looking for healthier food choices. That’s why Publix GreenWise Market is dedicated to bringing you a variety of wholesome, natural and organic foods and earth-friendly items. Publix GreenWise Market provides an array of high-quality produce, dairy, frozen food, vitamins, grocery items and sports nutrition products in a variety of package sizes.

GreenWise doesn’t stop with just products; they also produce a free monthly magazine and have plans to open standalone GreenWise Markets. The first is due to open in Palm Beach Gardens, Fl in September. The real question is, can the average person afford this stuff and live a greener life?

There are other ways to live green as well. Georgia Power offers blocks of renewable energy to its customers. “Green” cleaners are available or homemade ones can substituted for most commercial cleaners. One can replace typical incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents. It’s interesting to note that compact fluorescents are marketed based on the amount of money they’ll theoretically save on an electric bill and not their environmental impact.

American’s are not typically willing to spend any extra money even if it means a positive environment benefit. Radio personality Clark Howard has performed surveys on simple things like plastic grocery bags or compact fluorescents and people have almost unanimously refused to pay extra! This seems to point to the fact that most Americans only care about the environment if it doesn’t cost them anything. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that most Americans don’t give a damn about the environment, only their wallet (and of course I could go into how this implies that the environment is an economic issue more than anything but that’s another post).

So from this perspective, let’s not call it “green living” but a more efficient way of living. Efficiency means good economics as well so no paying three times extra for organic this and that just for the hell of it. This is an ambitious project but one that I’d like to pursue. Over the next several weeks I’ll be giving updates and thoughts on this project along with the usual postings. I’d appreciate any help that the readers can provide. One thing that I could really use would be a good list of products where organic really matters and products where it simply doesn’t make a difference health wise. I’m excited though and hopefully something useful will come out of this.

So I had my first visitor to the Garden City of the South this weekend and fortunately she did not show up empty handed. She brought with her a batch of chocolate chip cookies that were made following Hilary Clinton’s award winning recipe.

I assumed the cookies were part of a campaign strategy to accentuate Clinton’s womanly nature (apparently a large percentage of voters have a hard time believe she’s actually a woman, who would have guessed?) but upon further research these cookies have some history. After a quick web search I discovered according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that these cookies bested a Barbara Bush backed recipe in polls in 1992. Again in the 1996 the cookies led the way to victory beating Elizabeth Dole’s Pecan Roll Cookies.

I don’t know if Clinton plans to “run” the cookies again for the 2008 election or if Bill will try his hand at a recipe but I suppose anything is possible. The cookies aren’t bad either, your typical chocolate cookie with a bit of an oatmeal texture. I was impressed though. It makes me wonder if Mrs. Clinton has any other recipes out there. Bill apparently has a recipe for chicken enchiladas and they did publish a cookbook from his presidency, but it primarily contains contributions from celebrities. You think being from Arkansas, Bill might have some type of good barbeque or pulled pork recipe but maybe those aren’t that favorable politically.

Either way I don’t know of any other Clinton recipes. It was a long shot but we searched for a Clinton Sangria after having some good homemade sangria at The Bee’s Knees but nothing came up. Any readers care to contribute some good presidential recipes (good sangria recipes are welcome too)?