Leaf Living Green Photo Competition

Well hello Leaf Lovers,

Exciting news afoot! We are teaming up with award winning Green Peace photographer Dave Walsh to run a Green Photo Competition that will get you thinking about sustainable living. The lucky winner will get their hands on a Freeloader Solar Charger that charges hand held devices using energy from the sun – including your digital camera!

Typical 21^st Century living is becoming increasingly incompatible with the health of our planet. Leafliving.com is a company that exists to challenge the notion that modern life has to be destructive to Mother Earth. We promote practical change by providing consumers with organic, fair trade and low energy products.

And this is where you come in: we invite you to think outside the box and show us what being ‘Green’ means to you. Are you doing something photo-worthy to lower your carbon footprint? Does nature inspire you to lower your environmental impact? Whatever it is, capture it through your lens and share your Green thinking.

The ‘Green Photo Competition’ will be judged by the expert eye of Dave Walsh. Dave is a Dublin based environmental and fine art photographer whose work has featured everywhere from Green Peace International and The International Polar Bear Foundation, to the comedy series ‘Flight of the Conchords’. Read more about Dave Walsh, view and purchase his work at http://www.davewalshphoto.com/

Participation is simple: submissions are welcome via our Flickr group, ‘Green Photo Competition’. Full Terms and conditions are available on Leafliving.com. Applicants should email their contact details (name, Flickr username, address, phone number) to marketing@leafliving.com by 30^th June 2010.

For more information on eco-friendly living, visit www.leafliving.com.

Diary of a Reluctant Vegetarian...

My name is Jude, I work for LeafLiving.com, and I am a committed carnivore. My gloriously high metabolic rate means I can (and will) eat whatever you set in front of me - but I’d prefer if it was wrapped in bacon. Not the healthiest long term dietary plan, I know, but what can I say? I adore food. I’ve just never seen the point in discriminating between food groups. The stomach of Jude Crozier is an equal opportunities establishment, thank you very much.

So why, you might ask, am I going veggie? Let me explain how this insanity came about. We were scratching our heads in the office one afternoon, trying to come up with ideas for future Green Drinks themes and speakers, when I had a stellar idea: veganism. I didn’t know a huge amount about it, but this environmentally friendly and über-ethical way of life certainly appealed to my sense of curiosity. I mean, without meat or dairy, what did they actually eat? The Green Drinks regulars were sure to love it, and at the very least, I’d end up with some crazy new vegan recipes to try out.

I then took my lunch break, during which I consumed a large slice of lasagne; archnemisis of vegans everywhere. The delicious irony of my lunch hour led me to reconsider my ways. At Leaf Living, we do everything possible to smoke what we sell, so to speak. We work in a paperless office, and when paper is absolutely necessary, we use a stapleless stapler. Everybody walks or cycles to work, we shun the dreaded plastic bag and recycle religiously. But when it comes to matters of food (glorious food, light of my life) it seems I have little right to comment on anyone else’s dietary habits.

And so I’ve been convinced, cajoled and partially tricked into a vegan experiment. In an attempt not to give my body the shock of its life, I’m easing myself into veganism with a few weeks of vegetarianism, first. Please feel free to comment with advice and recipes (marketing@leafliving.com) to help me along the way, because as much as I’m going to miss my beloved bacon sandwich, part of me desperately wants to disprove my mother’s single, solemn comment concerning the next few weeks of my life: ”Judith… You will be hungry all the time”.