At Modern Kids Design, we love getting to know moms. Recently caught up with Kim Urig from Our Daily Green to interview her for our Healthy Living series. She goes by the Twitter handle of FreshGreenKim and her award winning blog, Our Daily Green helps families with a collection of hints to help nurture a more ecological and economical household with very simple choices. She jokes that at times she feels like a superhero with a misplaced cape. The reality is Kim is concerned wife and parent who has attempted to make the best choices for her family for over 20 years. We had a chance to catch up with Kim and learn a little bit more about her mission and her approach to green.

1. Tell us a little bit about you?

I grew up on an organic vegetable farm in the 1970s. You could say that I had no choice but to be influenced by my environment, but in fact, through my late teens and twenties, I embraced the opportunity to “waste like nobody was watching”. I remember joking that it took until I was setting up my first apartment to realize that aluminum foil came in rolls, and not wiped-off, smoothed-out, folded-up squares that were reused until they fell apart. Quickly, I realized that being green is a great way to save money especially when you’re starting out in life. It’s a great way to save for things that really matter. I carried that philosophy through the baby years by using cloth diapers and nursing my children, to their toddler years with growing fresh vegetables and herbs. In fact, neighborhood kids used to ask me for the “leaf that tastes like gum” (mint). My commitment to green living truly has been a lifelong journey, but the true importance has only solidified in the past 10 years or so.

2. What was the inspiration for your blog?

The quintessential writer’s advice is to “write what you know”. A lifetime of green choices made green something I knew frontwards and backwards. But probably my biggest inspiration was health-oriented. Several family members were diagnosed with cancer in a very short time frame. It rattled me as a parent to wonder what on earth the cause of all this uncontrollable disease was. Our instinct is to protect our children and so I became much more vigilant about our green choices as a family. I figured that returning to simple, unprocessed food, cleaning with limited chemicals, and living as closely to nature as possible was one way to combat the unknown. Rather than preaching to anyone I encountered about the benefits of a green lifestyle, I opted for a lower-key informational approach, via my blog, Our Daily Green. It seems a lot easier to get 100 people to change one habit than convince one person to change completely. Our Daily Green is intended to inspire folks to pick one behavior and know they can do that. Whether it means a different choice at the store, separating the recyclables from the trash or lowering the thermostat, there is something anyone can adopt in a relatively painless way.

3. What would you say are the are the main reasons why people should consider going green?

• save money when you reuse and reduce
• live healthier by making mindful choices
• conservation of limited resources
• care for the planet in terms of less litter and garbage
• less exposure to chemicals and their unknown effects on the human body

4. And, in your observation, why do families do it (go green, that is)?

There is a tremendous movement underway where people are making environmentally friendly choices. Parents of young children, who’ve seen garbage filled oceans, and an increase in allergies and sensitivities, are now looking for solutions in a more simple and wholesome life. After a  bit of research, many seem to naturally gravitate towards a green lifestyle. Little by little, green is becoming an acceptable choice.

Thanks for taking time to talk with us Kim! You can find her at Our Daily Green and as a guest for our next blog post on organic cotton in our Healthy Living series.  As always, thanks for reading!