50 Ways to Make Your Home Eco-Friendly

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50 Ways to Make Your Home Eco-Friendly Eco WALK the Talk.com 550 Wa 14.Minimise your consumption of processed foods Processed foods like biscuits, crisps, ketchups, sauces, sweets and confectionaries, cereals, ice creams, beverages contain a wide range of allergy inducing additives whose primary aim is to increase shelf life. Processed foods also come with a lot of packaging. Typically they are imported from far away countries, and this adds to fossil fuel usage and carbon emissions. Most processed foods are products of large scale industrial farming that create a host of environmental problems. Michael Pollan, author of the best selling book, “The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals” and “In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto” feels that most diet related health problems arise from eating too much processed foods. He has a simple rule. Avoid processed foods with more than five ingredients or with names that your greatgrandmother wouldn’t recognise- high fructose corn syrup, or non-dairy creamer or breakfast cereal bars! Eat fresh food as far as possible. Cooking your own food is a great way to get back control over what goes into your food. You know what ingredients you’re using especially if you exclude pre-prepared sauces and dressings. Resources: Here’s a guide to help you read food labels and watch out for additives. 15.Watch out for palm oil Look out for Palm Oil content in processed foods. Did you know that one out of 10 supermarket products contains palm oil in some form or the other? Palm oil is a versatile product as it’s colourless and odourless, and improves the shelf life of several products. The problem is much of palm oil comes from plantations in countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, where primary rainforests are cleared. These are home to the endangered orangutans and a number of other species. Burning down rainforests also leads to high carbon emissions of these countries. Resources Palm oil is not always mentioned as such in food lables. Here’s a guide to find out how you can detect hidden palm oil in supermarkets. 16.Avoid genetically modified (GM) content in food Genetic modification (GM) is the process by which genes which are unrelated to the species are injected into the DNA to achieve certain characteristics. For example, the gene of the arctic flounder fish which has anti-freeze properties may be injected into a strawberry gene to prevent the fruit from freezing during winter. © www.ecowalkthetalk.com Join us on Facebook : http:// www.facebook.com/ecowalkthetalk Twitter: http://twitter.com/ecowalkthetalk YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/user/ecowalkthetalk
50 Ways to Make Your Home Eco-Friendly Eco WALK the Talk.com 550 Wa GM foods are very controversial, and not enough testing has been done on them to conclusively prove their safety for human consumption, despite industry claims that they are safe. Studies in rats have shown allergic reactions as well as growth of cancer like tumours. The worrying trend is that government regulatory bodies are approving industry funded tests, rather than investigating deeper into the studies of independent scientists who have shown there is cause for concern. In such a scenario, it is unwise to release GM crops into nature, when long term consequences are not known with certainty. Claims made by industry that they increase crop yield and reduce pesticide use have not been realised. On the contrary, super-weeds which are resistant to the pesticides used on GM crops are developing and spreading. When we should be minimising the use of toxic chemicals, GM crops only compound the problem by increasing their use. There is danger that GM crops may contaminate fields that are growing food organically, as has already happened in many countries. Avoid products with GM content, to avoid increasing your exposure to what could be allergy inducing and carcinogenic foods. Resources For more information, read 10 reasons why we don’t need GM foods. How can you tell if food has GM content? In general, if you buy products which are certified organic, they are most likely not to have GM ingredients. Here are two guides that may help. This articlehas links to Safe Food Guides in India and North America. Read Dr Mira Shiva’s interview and links on Health Effects of GM food © www.ecowalkthetalk.com Join us on GARDENING 17.Grow your own food Enjoy the pleasures and benefits of growing your own food, even if you only have a tiny space in a balcony or corridor, where you can use container pots. This way you can ensure that what you eat is pesticide free. Besides, it can’t get more ‘local’ and sustainable than this. Or try to grow an organic patch in a community garden. Herbs like mint and basil are great for starters. Most greens such as kailan, chyesim, lettuce, chinese cabbage and a variety of salad leaves, grow very easily in small container pots and you’ll be able to harvest within a few weeks. Even small fruiting trees like guava, pomegranate, mulberry, custard apples can be grown in container pots. Facebook : http:// www.facebook.com/ecowalkthetalk Twitter: http://twitter.com/ecowalkthetalk YouTube : http://www.youtube.com/user/ecowalkthetalk
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50 Ways to Make Your Home Eco-Friendly

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