Organic Change, Organic Life, Eco-Friendly Water

They're hiding under your sink, deep in the basement and out in your garage. And they pose a real threat to your health. November 23, 2010   |         They're hiding under your sink, deep in the basement and out in your garage. They seem to be multiplying and most of them are  green , for gosh sakes! They are cleaning products. We have one for every conceivable job: floors, walls, dishes, laundry, windows, bathroom porcelain and ceramic tiles, wooden decks, cement surfaces, silverware, one for car paint and another for the chrome, and on and on. Whatever happened to just plain soap? Well, it seems it wasn't fast enough for our busy lives. And these new cleaners certainly are fast. Just spray and wipe or swish with a mop and the job is done. If you want really fast general cleaning products, commercial ones like Formula 409, Simple Green and Windex clean faster than any soap and water could. This is because they contain small amounts, usually in t...

Post a comment By Caroline Scott-Thomas, 22-Nov-2010 Related topics:  Organics ,  Legislation ,  Cultures, enzymes, yeast ,  Emulsifiers, stabilizers, hydrocolloids The National List of permitted non-organic ingredients in organic foods is not encouraging innovation in organic supply, claims a new paper published in  Food Technology. The  National List  of Allowed and Prohibited Substances details non-agricultural ingredients that are allowed to be used as ingredients in foods labeled  organic  or made with organic ingredients, and is reviewed every five years. It includes carrageenan and agar agar (both from seaweed), animal enzymes, mined calcium sulfate, and glucono delta lactone, among others. The original thinking behind the establishment of a National List was that it would allow a wide range of USDA certified organic foods to come to market without being restricted by scarcity of minor ingredients. “The NOSB ( National Organic Standard...

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/19-0 Fear and fertility are the two biggest stumbling blocks to Australian farmers shifting their agricultural model from industrial to artisan, writes Helen Greenwood. by Helen Greenwood ''AUSTRALIAN farmers are looking for the same thing that American farmers need, and that is to farm profitably, and build soil and heal the land while farming.'' Salatin believes: "At the end of the day, it all comes back to the soil. You and I and every other human being ... depend on literally a couple of inches of earth for our existence. The most dangerous notion is that we can continue creating fertile soil out of petrochemicals." (photo of Joel Salatin at Polyface Farm by Flickr user dabdiputs / nick v) Joel Salatin, hailed by Time magazine for his prize-winning, pioneering work as a sustainable farmer, is in Sydney to convince farmers that small-scale food producers can be financially successful and rejuvenate the environ...

By Warren Beaumont There is global concern over palm oil being sourced from Indonesia and South East Asia where tropical forests have been cleared to make way for plantations, which have threatened the orangutan. This has led to major food retailers and suppliers to introduce plans to source sustainable palm oil or to ban palm oil in food. Nestle announced it had stopped sourcing palm oil from the Indonesian company Sinar Mas and was moving to meet high standards for sustainability. Unilever suspended purchases of palm oil from PT SMART, part of the Sinar Mas group. It followed allegations by Greenpeace that Sinar Mas, Indonesia’s biggest palm oil producer, had been responsible for widespread deforestation and peatland clearance. French supermarket giant Casino has announced that it will no longer use palm oil in 200 of its private label products by the end of 2010 and will eventually remove palm oil from all its food products, citing concerns over palm oil’s environmental impact and h...

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2010 Is Resilience the New Sustainability? "Resilience is the ability to absorb ecological, social and economic changes." Andres Edwards, the author of  Thriving Beyond Sustainability The International Energy Agency (IEA) has just released it's  World Energy Outlook 2010  and it looks like oil may have reached it's peak in 2006. According to the IEA's report, which looked at the next 25-years of oil production, the most likely scenario is for oil production to stay on it's plateau of about 68 to 69 million barrels per day. The IEA says in this scenario oil "never regains its all-time peak of 70 million barrels per day reached in 2006." This is the first year that the IEA's report has not shown oil production rising for the next couple of decades. With the end of cheap oil likely in slight we may have to think past sustainability and think more about resilience.