Category Archives: Natural Food

It’s Easy (& Economical) Being Green

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Awhile back in Natural Life Magazine, we published a letter from someone who wrote in to say that she couldn’t afford to be green anymore (meaning, in her case, buying organic food and green cleaning products) because she’d lost her job. I hope I was able to dispel that myth for her! While organic food and so-called “green” cleaning products can be more expensive than their conventional counterparts, and installing solar panels on your roof costs a lot of money upfront, there are frugal alternatives and small projects that you can undertake that don’t cost as much. Recycling and re-using cost nothing; mending, swapping, and shopping second-hand are more frugal than buying new clothing; baking soda and vinegar can replace almost any high-priced commercial cleaner; making your home draft-proof can save a lot of energy and money; gardening, canning,  preserving, and baking take time, but they are economical and satisfying. Making your own and doing it yourself are becoming trendy for good reasons!

The little things you do can add up – both in terms of helping the environment and saving money – as some of our readers have told us. (Our readers have been sending us their green and frugal living tips since we started publishing in 1976!) In fact, Natural Life Magazine is full of helpful tips for going green easily and economically and you’ll find some of those articles online. You can navigate the site by using the article indexes that appear near the top of every page; you could begin with the frugal living index and the green living index.

One thing you won’t see in Natural Life Magazine is recommendations about buying green products. We have a strict policy of not endorsing any particular brands or products. (Usually when magazines and websites write about products, they’re doing so in order to attract advertisers, and we don’t believe that’s ethical.) So we explain the issues in a well-researched manner that is not influenced by any particular company, then let you decide how to make decisions to make your home greener and healthier and where to spend your money – or, in many cases, not to spend it at all.

I have written many articles of that sort for the magazine over the years. And now, we’ve updated them in an exciting new book called Natural Life Magazine’s Green & Healthy Homes. This is a unique guide to making your home both green and healthy…while saving money at the same time. It’s available now, directly from us, in both print and the less expensive e-book format.

As far as food goes, one solution to the problem of expensive organic grocery bills (aside from growing your own and buying directly from farmers) is to choose organic when you are purchasing those foods that carry the heaviest burden of pesticides, chemicals, additives and hormones when grown conventionally. Here is just one article that will help stretch your organic spending power, while reducing your family’s exposure to harmful chemicals. There are lots more in back issues of Natural Life Magazine, with some archived on the website.

So if you’re wondering how to get started with green living – or just need to move beyond the expensive, green products trap – spend some time with us!

Home-Grown Chickens Lay Healthy Eggs

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chickensMost people who are concerned about the quality of their food supply will have heard by now about the massive egg recall in the U.S. due to salmonella poisoning.

The Food and Drug Administration officials have said the recall stands at 550 million eggs, which originated at two factory farms in Iowa. A team of investigators is still trying to figure out what caused the contamination. An estimated 1,300 people have been made sick and the illness can be life-threatening, especially for those with weakened immune systems.

Eggs can be contaminated in two ways. Hens with infected ovaries can contaminate eggs before they’re laid, and the bacteria can penetrate the shell when a laid egg is exposed to fecal material.

The recall is bound to be good for sales of organic eggs, as well as for the organic and locavore movements in general. Anecdotal reports from farmers’ markets across the country suggest a spike in interest in eggs and other food from small farms as a direct result of the publicity surrounding the recall. And it’s sure to draw more people to the already popular backyard chicken movement.

Buying eggs directly from a farmer, or even growing your own is not a total guarantee that you will avoid contamination and illness. But it’s a good bet that chickens and their eggs (as well as other animal products) will be healthier and safer when they have regular exposure to the outdoors, eat naturally, aren’t cooped up in cages on top of one another, and not dosed with the antibiotics and vaccinations that industrial raised hens require.

We have been publishing articles for years in Natural Life Magazine about the problems with intensive factory farming – including the potential for the spread of diseases like this one, the resulting over-use of antibiotics, and the cruelty involved with caging animals.

But we like to provide positive information for our readers about how to live naturally. So here are a couple of articles from our archives about the positive aspects of keeping chickens – aside from the benefits of fresh, disease-free eggs.

Chickens in Your Backyard

The Multi-Function Chicken

ADHD Diagnosis Linked to Diet

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Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the descriptive label given to an ever-increasing number of children – especially boys – who have trouble fitting into the school system and disrupt family life. Complaints about their behavioral “problems” include hyperactivity, poor attention span, lack of concentration, disruptiveness, clumsiness, recklessness, defiance, and irritability. 

As I wrote in my Ask Natural Life column in 2006, the label has become a disorder recognized by the American Psychiatric Association. And the remedy is often the stimulant Ritalin, prescriptions for which have risen by something like six hundred percent. At best, Ritalin treats the symptoms and not the problem. At worst, it is a habit-forming amphetamine.

I believe that the ADHD diagnosis problematizes and medicalizes the behavior of active, normal children within classroom situations that don’t suit their learning needs. However, researchers have been finding that hyperactive behavior in children can also be caused by nutritional imbalances and environmental pollution.

Research in recent years has focused on prenatal exposures to agents such as lead, cigarette byproducts and alcohol. High levels of lead in the blood are known to cause aggression, poor impulse control and short attention span. Studies have also found links between high levels of copper and aluminum and hyperactivity symptoms. Other research suggests that PCBs may also cause hyperactivity or contribute to the changes in brain function that characterize ADHD diagnoses.

The negative behavior and health effects of synthetic food additives – artificial colorings and flavorings, as well as aspartame and preservatives like BHA and BHT –  on certain sensitive people was documented thirty years ago by the late Dr. Benjamin Feingold in his book Why Your Child is Hyperactive. According to research cited by the Feingold Association, children diagnosed with ADHD are seven times more likely to have food allergies than other children. Foods most likely to cause allergic reactions include food colorings, flavorings, synthetic additives, wheat, dairy products, corn, yeast, soy, citrus, chocolate, peanuts, eggs and foods containing salicylates.

And now, a new study out of Australia published in the Journal of Attention Disorders suggests that our modern junk food diet heightens the risk of ADHD in kids. Scientists from the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Perth looked at the diets of 1,800 teens involved in an ongoing long-term health study. They classified the participants’ diets into two categories, “Western” and “Healthy,” with a “Healthy Diet” being one high in fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains, and fish. They found the Western diet was associated with more than double the risk of having an ADHD diagnosis, compared to other ways of eating. Foods in the Western diet included takeout and fast foods, processed meats, red meat, high fat dairy products, and candy.