It’s Easy Being Green

Scientists are beginning to prove many of the benefits behind eating organically grown produce. Researchers at the University of California, Davis just wrapped up a study that’s lasted 10 years. The group compared flavonoid levels in tomatoes that were grown conventionally and organically. Conventional farming uses fertilizers and insecticides to help the plant grow and maintain production. Organically grown produce zeros in on soil health through composting and manure applications and not using any chemicals. As it turns out, the organically grown tomatoes had a much higher level of flavonoids.

Flavonoids are known to help protect against heart disease, cancer and other age-related diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia. One of the lead scientists on the project says the way our produce is grown has everything to do with how much good stuff it brings to our dinner table. The study’s authors, Alyson Mitchell and Alexander Chassy theorize that plants grown in an organic way devote more of their energy to producing flavonoids which in turn provide more protection from pests. But, Mitchell says there are some exceptions and not all organic tomatoes will contain the same amounts of flavonoids. She says that’s because soils, stresses and growing methods will widely vary between different organic farms.

This research goes a long way to prove that organically grown produce is much better for your health and in the long run. To read more about Mitchell and Chassy’s research, please click on this link.

You can join millions of people around the globe Saturday, March 29th by participating in an event showing awareness and support for our planet. Started by the World Wildlife Fund last year, the event is a simple one to join. Beginning at 8pm your time, wherever in the world you may live, turn off all your lights for an hour. If you’re at home turn out all the lights in your house or if you’re in an office…work in the dark for an hour too!

The City of Phoenix was chosen as a participating city and will show their support by shutting off all the lights in their city run buildings. U.S. Airways Center (home of the Phoenix Suns) and Chase Field (home of the Arizona Diamondbacks) will also go dark during the event tonight. So, join in with millions of your fellow humans around the globe showing your awareness about climate change tomorrow night….at 8:00pm.

Have you ever thought about just how much goes into producing a tiny staple?  It’s one of the many surprisingly small items that when you look at the big picture, have a fairly large impact on our environment.  Friends of the Earth, an environmental advocacy group, says if 10 Million office workers each used one less staple a day it would save 120 tons of steel a year.  120 tons!

So, how do I use one less staple you might ask?  Well, you could use a product you use over and over like a paper clip or you could simply dog-ear the pages you want to stick together.  Or, you could use a handy staple free stapler created by a company called Made by Humans.  The small gadget cuts a hole in the stack of papers you want to attach together and then stitches the flaps down on the back of the last page as you pull the stack out.  You get five color choices and it will attach up to 5 sheets of paper together.

I’d like to just get off topic for a moment and talk about one of my favorite sports to watch, boxing. Last spring, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Oscar De La Hoya faced off in what is now known as the richest boxing match in history. The match up broke previous box office records in the world of boxing and that has promoters looking at a possible rematch this fall. De La Hoya’s promoter, Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions has told ESPN that the deal is “almost finalized” and another fight could happen on September 13th or 20th. HBO would carry the fight as a pay-per-view event.

At last year’s May 5th fight at the MGM Grand, Mayweather ended up winning a split-decision and took De La Hoya’s junior middleweight belt. It hasn’t been settled what weight class the boxers will fight in. De La Hoya has talked about returning to the welterweight division. Mayweather is the current welterweight world champion. Schaefer has suggested that the two could square-off somewhere between the welterweight and middleweight divisions.

A definite fight location hasn’t been selected yet. Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles has expressed interest in hosting the fight. The Home Depot Center, home to the L.A. Galaxy Major League Soccer teams is another possible venue. The MGM Grand in Las Vegas has also tossed their hat into the ring, indicating an interest in hosting the fight, which grossed $165 Million last time. While promoters don’t seem to think they’ll meet last year’s revenue, they say it’s still a win financially. De La Hoya had planned to return to the ring in May but didn’t have an opponent. If all fairs well between promoters, Oscar will return to the ring this fall against Floyd Mayweather Jr.  You can get more information on De La Hoya vs Mayweather tickets
by following the link.

If you have any roses in your garden, make them even more productive with some simple composting.  Roses need potassium to boost their flower production resulting in some nice, lush blooms.  They can get plenty of potassium if you simply push banana peels into the soil at the base of your rose plants.  So, have a banana for breakfast and feed your rose too!

In 2007, the Oxford English Dictionary’s Word of the Year was “locavore”.  A locavore is a person who eats exclusively locally grown food.  It may sound like an easy task to undertake eating only what is produced in your local area but you may find the idea a bit more difficult to stomach that you might originally think.

The global marketplace has opened up markets near and far spanning our great globe.  As a result, much of our produce at the supermarket could be making a trip 3,000 miles or more in the making just to get to our dinner tables.  That trip turns into a major waste of natural resources and there are many long-term environmental impacts of transporting produce all that way.  Not to mention that it has been in transport for about two weeks by the time it arrives at the store.  So, it was either picked way before it was actually ripe or it’s been genetically modified to survive the long journey and maintain its “freshness”.

These days it’s fairly easy to spot produce grown in a far away market.  Just look for the static sticker to see where it was grown.  You might feel like you’re taking an around the world cruise just in the produce department by reading grown-in labels from Chile, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, New Zealand and the list goes on and on.  Many grocery store chains like our local Albertson’s have realized the locavore movement and now specifically point out locally grown produce in their sale fliers.  Health food and natural food stores have been the leader in this arena for sometime, taking careful note of where all their food is coming from and it’s far reaching impacts.

If you truely believe in the locavore movement, you might have to make some major modifications to the meals you eat depending on the season you’re in.  Follow this link and take a look at what produce is available in each season near you.  For instance, here in Arizona we don’t have any produce listed as locally grown right now.  Our last listed harvest was in December and was for pecans.  You certainly can’t just live off pecans until produce becomes available in June again, so you might have to make some adjustments to your comfortable radius that produce comes from.  While many are die hards about this movement and stick to a 100 Mile Diet, I tend to think a little wider when it comes to my produce.

If you’d like to learn more about the produce grown in your region, head over to the Local Harvest website to check out small farms and farmers markets in your area.  Happy eating!

Do you think you could be a locavore?  How committed could you be to eating locally grown foods?

You might not know that a gallon of indoor paint could contain a load of chemicals that not only are bad for you and your family but are also bad for the air, soil and water when the chemicals are released into the environment.  These chemicals, called Volatile Organic Compounds or VOC’s for short, are in all kinds of adhesives, caulks and paint.  Many of these products are now available in low or VOC free formulations to keep the air inside your home as pure and chemical free as possible.

Paint companies have jumped on the VOC free bandwagon.  But, there’s a catch that you should know while shopping for paint.  While many of the paint base colors are low or VOC free, the tinting process where color is added and mixed to your paint just adds up to 150 grams up the chemicals back in, virtually undoing the whole idea of purchasing low or VOC free paint.  One company called ICI has changed the way they do business making both base colors and the tints VOC free.  The tint is actually a powder instead of the normal liquid and is pre-mixed and measured at the factory.  Then, the whole tint packet is dropped into the can of paint where it completely dissolves and leaves you with the desired color, VOC free.

The process ends with a much more environmentally friendly paint and one with more precise colors, since the factory has complete control over the final results of the tint packets.  The Freshaire Choice paint runs between $35 and $40 a gallon and will be sold exclusively at Home Depot beginning in April.