In an effort to make sure blogging doesn’t keep getting back-burnered, I’ve come up with the following schedule. This way you’ll know what I’m posting and when, and can come back to read accordingly.

I’m launching the new schedule this Tuesday, in honor of Earth Week, and will be raffling off several free copies of The Conscious Kitchen and Planet Home to new readers who follow me on Twitter and/or fan me on Facebook mentioning the new, more frequent blog via post or tweet and suggesting one thing I should cover on it.

• TUESDAYS: Look for relevant information and excerpts from all of my books, linked to whatever is happening in the news
• THURSDAYS: Q&A days! You send in your questions, I answer them.
• SATURDAYS: Mish-mosh day, mainly food-related. I’ll be posting farmers’ market videos, ingredient thoughts, recipes, and more.

I promise to stick to the schedule, but of course reserve the right to do slightly less or maybe even more, especially when The Butcher’s Guide To Well-Raised Meat comes out on June 7th.

If you like what you read, please let your friends know about it, and make some noise in comments. If you’re interested in hearing even more from me, sign up for my newsletter, follow me on Twitter, or “like” me on Facebook. I’m on there daily posting links to what I’m reading and thinking about throughout my days.

Green-living expert Alexandra Zissu joins online service dedicated to promoting healthy and green life changes; Zissu to manage environmental health and science content for PracticallyGreen.com

02.23.2011– Boston, MA – Practically Green, an online service that helps busy people make healthy, practical, green-living decisions for themselves and their families, today announced the hiring of Alexandra Zissu as Editorial Director for the company.

In her role, Zissu will be responsible for editing all online environmental health and science content for Practically Green, notably the healthy green action platform. These healthy green actions, a core element of Practically Green’s personalized program, are comprehensive steps that users can take to live healthier and greener. Zissu will also oversee Practically Green’s product standards and screenings.

“As a trailblazer in the green and healthy living space, Alexandra Zissu brings a wealth of diverse experience and eco-living expertise to Practically Green,” said Practically Green Founder and CEO Susan Hunt Stevens. “We are excited to have her on board and look forward to working with her to provide real-world personalized advice to consumers worldwide.”

Zissu is a journalist and the renowned green-living author of The Complete Organic Pregnancy; The Conscious Kitchen, a Books for a Better Life Awards finalist; the forthcoming The Butcher’s Guide to Well-Raised Meat; and the just-released Planet Home, a room-by-room guide to safe and environmentally-friendly living. As a “greenproofing” consultant for businesses and households, Zissu has been called upon to help companies go green on all levels, from basic environmentally-friendly tips for staff to company-wide sustainability initiatives. For home consultations, Zissu identifies areas of living space where simple changes can reduce and minimize exposure to potentially harmful substances.

“I am thrilled to join the Practically Green team of esteemed green-living experts,” said Zissu. “I am looking forward to working together to continue building a site that will inspire people all over the world to commit to making healthy, green changes in their everyday lives. I’ll still be plugging away at my own work within the environmental community — writing, speaking, consulting — and it feels great to join forces with like-minded, passionate people on our shared mission.”

Practically Green is an online service that provides consumers with the knowledge necessary to make green and healthy-living decisions in their everyday lives, while also making the process fun and easy to share with their friends and neighbors via their personal online social networks.

The service is driven by a unique diagnostic tool that provides users with their current “green living profile.” The web site then draws from its database of more than 400 healthy green actions to generate customized recommendations for each user. Suggested actions help people reduce energy consumption, save water, reduce exposure to household toxins, and preserve natural resources. Progress is tracked and users earn points as well as social recognition in the form of badges and medals. Actions and accomplishments can be shared with friends, using the power of social networks to drive real-life changes.

Zissu joins an established team of digital media veterans including CEO Stevens, who held senior digital and marketing roles with The New York Times Company, most recently as SVP/GM of Boston.com, one of the nation’s largest regional news sites. The executive team also includes Co-founder and Vice President of Product and Technology Jason Butler, who has held product leadership roles with Boston.com, Abuzz, and Amazon.com; and Director of Social Programming Sarah Finnie Robinson, a former launch programming director at iVillage.

Practically Green was launched in a private beta version in May 2010, and went into open beta in July 2010.

Practically Green can be found at www.practicallygreen.com, on Twitter at www.twitter/practicallygrn, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/practicallygreen.

Media Contacts:
Mary Zanor / Colleen White
Elevate Communications
617-861-3653 / 617-861-3679
mzanor@elevatecom.com> / cwhite@elevatecom.com>

Meanwhile, my publisher has launched a new website where they share information from their writers — RecipeClub.net. And they asked me to write a little something for the site about what it has been like for me to witness slaughters this year. If slaughter is something that makes you uncomfortable, no need to click through to the link below.

Fleisher’s–my butcher shop and the topic/co-authors/reason for The Butcher’s Guide–offers weekends where interested people can witness a slaughter and then follow the system of how that animal then becomes meat. They do a pig to pork day and they do a steer to steak day. A month or so ago, a bunch of people from the publisher came to a steer to steak event. They all had strong, positive reactions to it. And we were thrilled to have them there. One came with a camera and shot a lot of thoughtful pictures. My text about the experience and these pictures of the experience can be found here.

The Huffington Post is also linking to the challenge.