Warm Lunch for School

While working at the Holiday Market at Columbus Circle, my sis-in-law packed a warm home-made lunch for me. I love taking lunch from home for several reasons - the most obvious one is it is designed for my palate. Home made meals can help maintain healthy eating habits at a lower cost. So anyway, she packed the lunch in a Thermos Foogo container, which, to my delight, kept the food warm for up to 5 hours. Nothing like having a warm meal while you are working outdoors in the winter months or keeping a salad cool in the summertime.

Now my issue has been providing my two, ever so picky, elementarians (if thats a word), with warm home-cooked nutritious and tasty lunches. Sandwiches are the default choice only because the school did not have food warming provisions. The oher choice was buy lunch in school. In the case of the latter option, being vegetarians, my kids are limited to cheese quesadillas, bagel with cream cheese, garden burgers, raw vegetables and fruit. Sounds like a balanced lunch to me.... so whats the problem? The picky eaters....they will not touch the vegetables and fruit. So the Thermos Foogo is my answer. Now I can pack soups and pastas and relax knowing that my kids are enjoying their warm lunch!

Adavantages of using such a product:
*Thermos Foogo is made from BPA free plastic and stainless steel materials. *Maintaining the desired temperature reduces the risk of contaminating the food.
*Reduce use of disposable lunch bags and plastic containers
*Reduce the need to re-heat and save energy.

Check out detailed features at:

http://www.thermos.com/SubCategoriesCatalog.aspx?CatCode=Foog&SubmenuId=0

Thermos Foogo is easily available at most retail stores.

Remeber baby steps ..... one at a time......

Indoor Compost

I spent the last month visiting several preschools for my little guy. While I was impressed with some of them, they were cute etc etc as all kiddie schools are, I came across a wonderful school, Corlears (in NYC). What really impressed me about the school was that they have a compost in their backyard. The kids in the school manage it, use it to plant trees in nearby parks as well as in their own backyard and it is 100% organic. It is managed from daily food scraps that the school generates. While I am sure it is a common concept on the west coast, I was quite impressed by this concept enforced in a preschool. Got me thinking that perhaps parents who want to make their kids schools green can propose this concept to the board and start a food compost/recycling program. I found this great indoor compost for those of you who might want to try it at home.
http://www.planetnatural.com/cgi-bin/planetnatural/indoor-composter

Come see us at Columbus Circle, NY

You can find us at the Columbus Circle holiday market in New York. We will be here weathering the cold but in great holiday spirits from Dec 3 - Dec 24.
Surprise surprise we are the only "green" toy booth here.
Some of the things are customers said about our stuff:
"really, there are toy makers in USA"
"berries and shoots in stuffed animals..how delicious!"
"these are european quality toys"
"what a novel idea..such imaginative toys"

How we started Leo Goes Grr, Grreen!

Between the 2 of us we have 3 kids, ages 2, 5 and 6. We remember going to large toy stores (not going to name them) and looking at some of the toys and going "ugh"! They are not cute, they are not intelligent and they are loud (ugh!) and they are not safe!. Like all parents we care for safety first and foremost. Not sure why these large retailers dont! Anyways, we have always loved wooden items, especially for kids. And those toys that come from Europe and India and Thailand are just beautifully crafted. As we started to dig deeper, we found that wait there are amazing toy makers in USA - Pennsylvania, Vermont, Maryland etc. How about that?
Hence Leo Goes Grr came about.
We learnt a lot of things about raising our kids green as we built this company -
- plastic is bad, no matter how you look at it
- not all wooden toys are safe. be aware of non-toxic paints
- let the kids use their imagination to power the toys. batteries are not recyclable and end up in landfill
- there is no need to waste energy resources in shipping toys from all over the world when you can find lovely, safe toys in USA. "think global, buy local" remember?
- we admit, recycled items, quality toys are more expensive. but less is always more. these toys will last generations. and we only have one planet..let us respect it.