We All Knew This Was Coming

While at the airport, a contributor to the site happened upon something very interesting.  So, he took a picture with what was available and sent it along.

Now, I don’t know much except that, as advertized, it is “limited time” and a co-promotion with Delta ONLY.  But, you have to know more things like this will be on the way.

opinion: carbon calculator, week 8

 

 

Week 8 in the continuing series of what is missing from Carbon Calculators.  

There is a list of the things that those calculators don’t ask, thereby eliminating them from their algorithm. These are the things that are sometimes the meat of the matter, so to speak. By altering these things, you could affect your true footprint in ways unimaginable and truly make our planet sustainable.

 

DRINKING SODA

The way this simple drink impacts our lives is incredible.  

There are the obvious things like the emissions produced from the production, marketing and transportation of the cola.  But, what about the not so obvious things.

The can is made out of aluminum.  While most of us recycle, it doesn’t change the fact that the raw material, or resource, was taken from the Earth in the first place, never to be returned.  Also, the recycling process does not have a 100% reclamation rate.  There are residual losses that have to be made up for by taking from the resource, again.  In other words, lets say you need 100 cans, so you recycle 100 cans.  However, that process only makes 80 cans, so you need to obtain 20 cans worth of raw material.  But now, you need 200 cans because sales have increased this year.  Now, you need to obtain 120 cans worth of raw material.  

The cans, until the FDA issues a ban, contains Bisphenol-A.  This is a chemical that is used in the synthesis of making the cans or plastic bottles.  Most research indicates that this is an environmental hazard, in that it is toxin in our bodies that acts as a hormone mimicker, creating cancers and deformities on vast scales.

The biggest culprit to making sodas an environmental cesspool… the high fructose corn syrup.  In the last 50 years, corn has become the largest commodity crop in the world, but mainly the United States.  It now accounts for 80% of our agriculture, althought 0% of it is edible to humans.  Unless, of course, it goes through a chemical process altering it into HFCS.  Despite what the commercials say, this stuff is NOT as natural as sugar.  

How does this hurt the environment?  There are many, but the biggest issue: pollution.  Commodity corn is very different than the corn you grill during the summer.  Commodity corn is the corn that is used to sweeten everything in your cupboard, feed our livestock, makes the cereal you eat in the morning, and even makes the boxes that the cereal comes in.  Commodity corn is 100% genetically modified.  

This means that a farm that used to only be able to produce 10 bales of corn, can now produce 200 bales of corn.  The plant has been genetically engineered to not mind close quarters.  However, the problem with this is that because of how much corn is being grown and lack of little else, it has sucked up anything good from the soil and left it barren.  Currently, for every American there is considered to be 4 acres of food available to them.  In ten years (!), that number is expected to decrease by 50%.  A major part of this is because some of the land has to be taken out of the equation because it is dead.  In order to grow all that corn you need fertilizer and pesticides.  And, not the stuff that used to be available to us.  As we have gotten stronger and stronger pesticides, we have gotten stronger and stronger pests.  There is one weed that has proliferated across 22 states, and the only thing that will kill it is Agent Orange.  Want to know how they found that out?  The same company that made the GMO corn, well, they make Agent Orange.

So we have barren land, we have weeds and bugs that won’t die and are killing every crop that is not corn, and we also have dead zones in the ocean.  All the poisons we are putting on the corn to make it usable, are getting washed off the plant and that water is making its way into the ocean.  In fact, like clock work, at harvest time, there is a plume of dead in the Gulf of Mexico because of fertilizer and pesticide runoff that traveled down the Mississippi.  Therefore, our fish are dying and the ones that are alive are pumped full of these awful chemicals that we are then grilling up to eat with the corn!  

Lastly, your soda is making you fat.  The science can be explained, point by point.  However it is interesting to note that as our intake of HFCS has gone up, our waste lines have increased.  But, the point that is necessary from this… the heavier you are the more likely you are going to turn up the air conditioning, stick to a commute in your car, buy more clothes because your size is going up, and so on.

The heavier you are the more of a drain on the environment you are.

mercury rising

New data shows that mercury is present in high fructose corn syrup, which is the sweetener used for almost all of the products on the shelves of your neighborhood mega-mart.  The study was released through Environmental Health.

Mercury has been linked to learning disabilities in children and heart disease in adults. It is thought that the mercury is entering the sugary substitute during processing, thinking that it comes from the hydrochloric acid that is used to manufacture the product.  The toxin was detected in just under 50% of the total samples taken.

It is believed that, on average, Americans consume 12 teaspoons of HFCS, daily.  Although, it is expected that children ingest more than adults. 

There is no established safe dose for elemental mercury, the type discovered in corn syrup. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says an average-sized woman should limit her exposure to 5.5 micrograms a day of methylmercury, the kind found in fish. If that same woman regularly ate corn syrup contaminated at the highest level detected in the study—0.57 micrograms per gram—the researchers estimated that she could end up consuming an amount of mercury that is five times higher than the EPA‘s safe dose.

Given that HFCS is found in a very high percentage of products, it is safe to assume that we will be exposed to mercury, which was once thought to only be transferred through fish.  Now, it seems that anything we eat will do more harm than good.

another reason for a water bottle

The most comprehensive survey so far has found a slew of drugs, personal care products, pesticides and other contaminants in drinking water being delivered to millions of people across the United States. None of the compounds appeared at levels thought to be immediately harmful to human health. But the researchers were surprised to find widespread traces of a pesticide, used largely in corn (maize) growing, that has, at higher levels, been linked to cancer and other problems.

Released by Environmental Science and Technology, the team tested 19 utility companies, servicing 28 million people. Pharmaceuticals were found in the water, but they didn’t feel anything was at a harmful level.

Of course, I find it interesting that the number one toxin found in the water was a pesticide used in the farming of corn. Corn is the number one commodity crop of this country, and is more often than not, genetically modified. The most interesting finding about this, however, is what the scientists have concluded: Atrazine could be getting into water through food and drink, the researchers suggest, with, for example, many soft drinks containing corn syrup helping the pesticide to spread through the water-treatment system.

The final conclusion of the study was that if the source water was clean… guess what? The tap water was clean.

“We should be going toward protecting water resources,” says Obolensky. She believes preventing pollutants getting into the water supply in the first place is the most efficient way of tackling contamination — rather than putting money into advanced treatment at drinking water plants.

This week I posted about EcoUsable’s water bottles. I highly recommend these bottles, for many reasons. One reason is their new filtration bottles. You fill the bottle with normal tap water, and because of the tap water in the cap, the water is purified. Based on a reader question, I contacted the company and found out that the company has done some studies to ensure the filter removes pharmaceuticals from the water.

Give your family the gift of good health this season. I did!!

The article can be found HERE.

move over HFCS, there’s a new kid in town

I don’t really think that is true. The corn industry is way to big to fall off the face of the Earth. However, there is a new sweetener making a prolific rise to the top of the food chain.

Sugar Beets. A new player on the GMO scene and currently accounts for 30% of the world’s sugar consumption.

It is genetically modified by Monsanto and requires FOUR TIMES the space of a typical cane field. And, this shouldn’t surprise you, but the EPA just changed the requirements for sugar beets, by allowing a 5000% increase in the amount of pesticide allowed to remain on the beet prior to processing. Yum… sugar pesticide! Also remember that the FDA has allowed for legislation absolutely no labeling requirements of GMO products. So, you have no idea what you might be ingesting.

This is always a nice follow-up to their mess of the whole Bisphenol A situation:

In fact, FDA took no substantive action to study the food safety risks of GM food even after it concluded that the GM supplement, L-tryptophan, was the possible cause of 37 deaths and 1,500 disabling illnesses from a rare condition known as eosinophilia myalgia syndrome.

Hershey’s and Mars (yes, Mom, your M&M’s) are slated to switch over this year, if not already.

Look for products labeled: made with sugar cane, cane juice or certified organic.