The endocrine disruptor that everyone wants to avoid these days seems more and more unavoidable.
Bisphenol A (BPA) has been discovered through lab tests to be lurking inside 40 percent of receipts from major US businesses like Walmart, CVS, McDonald’s, Safeway, KFC, the US Postal Service and even Whole Foods.
The levels of BPA found were 250 to 1,000 times higher than what’s inside canned foods and baby bottles.
The culprit is thermal paper used for receipts. And the Environmental Working Group (EWG) warns that this paper shouldn’t be recycled as it could corrupt recycled paper with BPA.
Starbucks beats out Whole Foods when it comes to BPA on receipts!
All’s not bad news though. Some companies had receipts that were either free of BPA or contained only trace amounts. So, cheers to these companies: Starbucks, Target and Bank of America ATMs.
I guess I’m still naive when it comes to BPA, but thanks to the lab study commissioned by the EWG, receipt BPA is now on my mind. Awareness is a good thing though. I tend to keep up with my receipts as I need them for checking all the charges against my debit card. Now I’ll take care to wash my hands! (Read more at EWG)
If you work as a cashier, you should probably be concerned. A recent Swiss study showed that BPA absorbs easily into the skin at a depth that’s difficult to wash away. (Read more at CNN)
So, you may know already that eating less meat is healthier for the environment, but have you really dug into the facts about what meat does to your waistline?
No? To put it simply, researchers say that eating more meat makes you heavier.
I would have never suspected it, but I guess BPA really is everywhere. If you want your canning to be totally BPA free, then go with some other lid options discussed in Umbra’s column: BPA-free canning lids from Lehman’s or glass lids from Weck.
One of my nicknames is “The Dessert Queen” since for years I’ve enjoyed baking fun, even complicated desserts. But I never really got into bread making much. Other than the occasional batch of cornbread or biscuits, I very rarely ever made by own bread.
For close to two months now I’ve had the pleasure of making my own bread each week. Not every loaf turned out. I made some mistakes, but I’ve also had many successes and found recipes that work for me. There are a lot of advantages of making bread for yourself:
You don’t have to look sideways at the bread in the store and wonder when it was really baked.
You won’t have to deal with a pesky plastic bag or other packaging.
You control the ingredients: organic flour, honey or sugar — no problem.
The only downside of making your bread, as I see it, is that you need to allow time for rising. If this is difficult for you during the week, make a couple of loaves during the weekend and store one in the refrigerator.
If you hate the kneading process, invest in a good stand mixer! I’m probably more lazy than I’d care to admit. One very probable reason I’ve recently started making more of my own bread is that I received a stand mixer as a gift. Making bread is much easier with a dough hook…
Another reason I started making my own bread was that a friend of mine, Jennifer at Growing a Green Family, started talking about how she wanted to get back to making more of her food from scratch to cut down on packaging. From scratch always taste better (don’t let the commercials for processed food fool you).
If you start making more food from scratch, you’ll notice something interesting happening: In the grocery store, you won’t shop the interior aisles as much. That’s where most of the canned and processed stuff lives. You may also end up with fewer items in your cart and a cheaper bill at checkout, not to mention more compliments from family and guests.
You’ll love this video of a black cat named Oscar. The kitty made medical history recently with his groovy new artificial cat feet. Oscar (no, not myOscar!) lost both of his hind legs in a combine accident. Ouch.
Watch to see him wake up from surgery and immediately start walking again. It’s enough to make the Grinch’s heart grow 10 times, plus two. The new prostheses will allow Oscar to jump and run like other cats. Read more about Oscar’s story at CNN.
Densely populated areas like New York City can become “their own overheated micro-climates,” says CBS News. However, planted rooftops can dramatically help cool things down. Plus, they’re pretty to gaze upon.
Besides having a cooling effect in busy urban areas, container gardening or roof landscaping may also help provide relaxing areas for people who don’t live near green spaces.
So, they’re cool in more ways than one! Learn more about rooftop gardening on a budget at Green Home Guide.
News on Rooftop Gardens
Stuart Gaffin and his students at Columbia University are studying the cooling effect of planted rooftops. He says that green roofs cool like street trees. That’s great news for crowded cities with few trees.
According to Stuart (via CBS), the rooftops in Times Square and other NYC locations can do the work of “20 tree-filled Central Parks!”
You can put old tires to good use. Well, for those of us who aren’t extra crafty like that, you can buy tires that have been turned into a purse or iPod or mobile phone case. And the prices are reasonable. Plus, you’re supporting Fair Trade when you pick up these recycled tire products from Taraluna, one of my fave online shops for Fair Trade items.
I don’t have any kind of affiliation with Taraluna, and they don’t advertise on this site. But when I saw these new Fair Trade and recycled items at a very reasonable price, I had to pass it along. Plus, this is an easy and fun back-from-vacation type post!
One of Taraluna’s producers in Nepal was situated directly across from a place that was burning tires (eek), so they came up with this solution and stopped the burning. The waterproof tire purses and other accessories (like coin purses or wallets) help provide work at fair wages. And the tire bags have a lot of pockets and details. Some may even have the Goodyear logo!
You read about the reaction of my cats, Choco and Oscar, to Feline Holistic Select wet food. Now, how did the dry food fare with these picky felines?
They love it. While the cats weren’t wild for Holistic Select’s wet food recipes, they were extremely enthusiastic over their dry food: Feline Radiant Adult & Kitten Health Chicken Meal Recipe and Feline Radiant Adult Health Anchovy, Sardine & Salmon Meals Recipe. (Many more varieties are available.)
My cats used to love Pet Promise cat food, but many of you know that the food, which was sourced from family farms, was discontinued a few months ago. Continue reading »
When asked by email whether they’d like to review a particular cat food, both Choco and Oscar, being the gluttons they are, eagerly agreed. A package of Feline Holistic Select dry food and two cans of wet food arrived shortly thereafter. (Coming up next, the review of Feline Holistic Select dry food.)
They are most ravenous for their wet food first thing in the morning, so that’s when they had the Duck & Chicken Recipe wet food for cats and kittens.
Oscar, a kitten still and the more finicky of the two, took a whiff and walked away. Choco, my seven-year-old darling, dove in and stayed for a bit, but never finished the serving. Oscar returned later for a second whiff and repeat performance. There you have it — one of two cats like the taste.
When the cats tried another variety of the wet food, Salmon & Shrimp Recipe, Oscar went for it and ate the whole serving while Choco hesitated and merely nibbled.
In general, my cats tend to be much more finicky when it comes to wet food, but they liked Holistic Select much better than the last new wet food I offered to them: Halo Spot’s Stew, which seemed to greatly offend them though they like Halo’s dry food. For reasons I don’t understand, my cats regularly turn down more natural and even organic wet food to go for Fancy Feast! I’m encouraged though my their response to this wet food. Plus, there are three more varieties we can try.
