Today’s post is by Howling Hill.
The Alternative Medicine Cabinet: Hundreds of Ways to Take Charge of Your Health. Naturally. by Kathy Gruver, MS, LMT, RM, NHC Doctorate in Traditional Naturopathy is a slim book, 150 pages. The book is comprised of a variety of different articles and essays the authoress wrote as required by her masters degree program. Because the articles were independent of each other, there’s a lot of crossover and repetition. This isn’t bad because it reinforces her teachings. For instance, Vit C is good; however, the body can only absorb so much at one time so the rest of the Vit C goes to waste in the form of diarrhea. Knowing this information is really enlightening.
Gruver really pushes the idea of alternative therapies such as Bach Flower Essences, reiki, nutrition, and herbal remedies, massage, acupuncture and acupressure. She wants the reader to understand Western medicine parcels out the body and tries to cover up side effects of pharmaceuticals with more pharmaceuticals. She wholeheartedly believes the body can heal itself if given the right tools: good food, exercise, love, and laughter. Read more…
Image credit: Colby College, http://www.flickr.com/photos/72098626@N00/2100990080
It’s hard to believe, but it won’t be long before the kiddos are zipping their backpacks and heading back to school. If you or your son or daughter is in high school, have you given any thought to college majors? There are all kinds of schools out there that offer all kinds of degrees, but for someone who wants to take eco-friendliness into a career, the time is now to start looking at what colleges offer the best environmental studies programs.
Fiske Guides are a popular resource for researching the schools that offer the best programs for what you want to do with your career. Here are 10 environmental studies programs in the United States that should be on your radar, according to the Fiske Guides: Read more…
Please welcome back our guest poster for today, Deborah Adams.
Now that the food industry has caught on to the profitability of healthy foods, they’ve adjusted their marketing strategies to catch the attention of consumers interested in eating nutritious foods. The word “organic” is popping up everywhere, from the produce department to the candy aisle. But not all organic food is created equal.
Take eggs, for example. You’ll often find them for sale in cardboard containers, with earthy-colored labels that claim the contents are organic and free-range. It’s important to know exactly what those terms mean before you buy. Read more…
We’ve written a little bit about how to make a white wedding more green. From invitations to flowers to food, it can be done with a little bit of extra resolve and planning. Some things take a little (ok, a LOT) more planning and resolve than others — like trying to find a Earth-friendly wedding dress that’s both suitable for a more formal affair and affordable to boot. I’m a Catholic gal through and through, so getting married anywhere but a Catholic church wasn’t an option for me, and I wanted a dress that was formal enough for the occasion but stood up to my Greenist values.
For information on how to help sea turtles, especially during the oil spill crisis, check out Save the Sea Turtle.
Ed Begley Jr., Leonardo DeCaprio, Ed Norton (easy on the eyes and the environment!), Robert Redford, and Daryl Hannah, and Cate Blanchett (swoon!) are just some of the celebrities that put their money and their environmentalism where their famous mouths are. Kudos for using your fame and status to do good things. Some other celebs have put their money and their fame where their feet are, which also just happens to also be their mouths.
Read more…
Today’s post is by guest Greenist Deborah Adams.
The oil spill in the Gulf has been the lead story on every major news broadcast for weeks now. Like most people, I was horrified and sickened by the images on the screen and in my head. The devastation of wetlands and beaches, the death of wildlife, the extinction of a way of life for hundreds of thousands of people in the region, is too overwhelming to consider for more than a few seconds. The worldwide impact of this tragedy is impossible to know at this point. We may as well try to grasp the size of the universe.
At first I was angry at BP, the company that didn’t bother to develop an effective prevention or a workable clean-up plan for such a contingency. It’s easy to make a faceless corporation the bad guy in such a situation. However, honesty compels me to admit, to myself and to you, that I am the heart of the problem. The truth is that BP and other oil companies are only supplying what we consumers demand. Like almost every other human on Earth, I am addicted to petroleum-based products.
I had to ask myself – if we, the self-proclaimed environmentally-friendly activists, had known six months ago that this oil spill would occur, would we have given up our destructive behavior? Would we have sworn off buying petroleum-based products for the rest of our lives? Is it even possible to survive in this world without oil? Read more…
I wear silver jewelry almost exclusively, but it’s a real downer when the oil from my skin tarnishes the metal, leaving it dull and dirty-looking. Recently I realized I hadn’t been wearing a few pieces I own that I really like, and it was just because the tarnish made them less shiny and pretty than they used to be. I knew I could go out and buy some expensive, toxic silver polish to restore my jewelry to its original shininess, but after a little research, I discovered a natural way to get the job done that doesn’t involve toxic chemicals.
So I did a little experiment using a silver necklace my parents brought back from a trip to Alaska a few years ago. I hadn’t worn the necklace in years because it had turned so dull, but after just 15 minutes or so, it’s just like new again! Here’s how I did it: Read more…
There are a lot of different angles to this whole “environmentalist” thing, probably because the “environment” is basically made up of “everything.” That makes for a lot of angles. So we have the energy angle and the transportation angle and the food angle and the multi-purpose undergarments angle and on and on and all the rest, most of them overlapping and cross-pollinating ad infinitum. But just as with biological vs. adopted children or guys surnamed Jonas, we inevitably choose favorites: I like the wilderness angle (also, Nick; he’s the real talent.) Or maybe we should call it the land conservation angle. Whatever. It was my first love (for the record, we’re no longer talking about Nick Jonas.) Through all the recycling and hypermiling and organic strawberries and “if it’s yellow, let it mellow,” I have one image in my head- a place worth saving, and to me it’s the kind of place where none of those other angles even apply because they haven’t made it there yet. They aren’t willing to walk that far.
We’re getting into CSA/Garden/Farm Market season! If you have enough room in your freezer, freezing local food is a great way to reduce your food miles year round, even if you (like me) live in an area with a shorter growing season.
