Easy Being Green

Yawn.

I’ll give President Barack Obama’s team credit for trying to make school lunches healthier, but that’s about as far as I can go.

By the time all the rules are in place schools will be using whole grain breads and pastas , reducing sodium and fat content considerably, and upping the servings of fruits and veggies.

Great so far, until you hear this: these things are being “phased in” so parents don’t have to worry about tensions over food with their kids.

Seriously? You’re the parent, they are the kids. Act accordingly and it won’t be an issue.

And worse still, they caved because of Congress being beholden to lobbyists for the starch and pizza industries.

Yes, pizza is still considered a vegetable and there are no rules limiting french fries.

I’ll say that again, pizza is considered a vegetable.

So, do any of you wonder why we pack our daughter’s lunch every day and have since the first week of kindergarten?

– Linda J.

A hat tip to Lu-Ann Farrar for finding this and putting in her Kentucky News Review today.  It’s an important update especially since a white-nosed bat was found in the state last April:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (PDF) has issued a report saying that at least 5.7 million to 6.7 million bats have died from white-nose syndrome since its detection in 2006.

When the disease is found in a location, the mortality rate can be 100 percent.

“This startling new information illustrates the severity of the threat that white-nose syndrome poses for bats, as well as the scope of the problem facing our nation. Bats provide tremendous value to the U.S. economy as natural pest control for American farms and forests every year, while playing an essential role in helping to control insects that can spread disease to people,” said Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe.

The disease was found in Kentucky in April 2011 in a little brown bat from a cave in Trigg County in Western Kentucky, about 30 miles southeast of Paducah. The Herald-Leader and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has collected information and reported on the disease.

All but a small portion of western Kentucky are in the highest two levels of elevated radon, an odorless invisible naturally occurring gas.

While the EPA suggests every householder test for radon, it is more imperative in the highest two levels. Click this link to see map where Kentucky is.

My mother-in-law, the best person in the world, got us a radon tester for Christmas after she saw news stories about deaths in Kentucky due to radon.

We’re installing it this week and I will let you know what we find, if we have something to fix and how it’s fixed.

What a great Christmas present, don’t you think?

Here’s a blog item from the EPA on radon. It’s worth a minute of your time to read.

– Linda J.

Still using nail polish? I am, but I’ve made sure the brands I use don’t contain toluene. Now I need to add formaldeyde and dibutyl phthalate (DBP), the other two that make up the “toxic three”.

Many brands still use those chemicals. That’s why they are so shiny and stay put so well.

You’ve no doubt heard of formaldehyde,  the chemical that preserves dead animals, but what about the other two?

According to an article on HuffPost Green, “DBP is a known reproductive and developmental toxin, while toluene is a possible reproductive and developmental toxin and can also cause headaches, dizziness and fatigue.

While reading this article, I started thinking about my daughter, who always comes home from a weekend at Grandma’s house with newly painted toes and fingers.

I think I’m going to have to start furnishing as safe a polish as I can find for them to use, because I don’t want to stop their fun.

And here’s where I’m going to find it: The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has a searchable database where you can look up all sorts of things about the products you use.

– Linda  J.

‘Tis the season to set resolutions for making yourself healthier, wealthier and maybe wise.

But has anyone set a new green resolution, which will cover healthier and wise, if not wealthier?

Are you going to start doing something green? Or stop doing something that isn’t green?

Here’s a link, Detox your life, with some tips to get you going if you need it.

I’ve done several of these thing already, and debating which one to add now: eliminate Styrofoam? That would be good.

And, I will absolutely do this: “look for cans labeled ‘BPA-free’ and choose food items packaged in glass or other safer containers.

How about you?

– Linda J.

Have you ever read the ingredients on a cereal box label?

You do know that ingredients are listed in order by most to least amount, right?

Pull out a box of cereal that you let you kids eat. What’s the first ingredient? I bet it’s sugar.

A new study by the Environmental Working Group details the amount of sugar in many kid cereals and it’s astounding, even to someone like me who now routinely reads labels before buying anything.

They titled it “Twinkees for breakfast” for a reason.

Here’s what they said: A serving of Twinkees has 18 grams of sugar and a serving of Kellogg’s Honey Smacks has two grams more, at 20 grams of sugar. By weight, Honey Smacks are more than 55% sugar.

And what about Honey Nut Cheerios, which I used to buy until my husband pointed out the sugar content: It’s got 12 grams of sugar, one more than three Chips Ahoy! cookies. (We switched to the multi-grain version, which I’m going to double-check tonight.)

Think about what all that sugar does to kids at the start of the school day. They get a sugar buzz, which then crashes in what, an hour maybe? Right smack (pardon the pun) in the middle of math.

Fortunately, EWG’s study contains a downloadable document (.pdf) that lists some of the healthiest cereals in addition to bashing the worst. You can find it here.
– Linda J.

Yesterday, ecosalon.com posted an article suggesting 20 different ways to use garlic.

Now, I’m a big fan of garlic and any time a recipe calls for two cloves, I usually double if not triple it.

And because my husband is part Italian, we cook with a lot of garlic.

Consequently, if their story is right, I should never have a mosquito bite.

But clearly injesting it doesn’t work, so maybe I’ll try the spray option.

The other garlic remedies sound somewhat plausible at least:

• Splinter removal
• Acne
• Pesticide
• Fish bait
• Cough syrup

And many more. I may try a few with the garlic we have from the summer’s harvest (we planted 75 cloves last fall).

And if you have some garlic and want to try a few yourself, let me know how they work (or don’t work).

– Linda J.

Isn’t that way with most changes we face?

A new generation comes along, using common sense and not stuck in the old ways of doing things, and slowly the rest of us catch on (we hope).

Here’s a graphic by the Pew Research Center poll (linked from grist.org) showing priorities on energy policy by age:

Broken out by age grouping, it considers those 66 and up as "Silent".

I sometimes wonder if, and therefore how, the climate debates would be different today had the folks who started using the term “global warming” publicly instead used climate change, as most folks use now.

As I tried to explain it once to an acquaintance, in the short term climate change means more storms — all seasons — and more intense storms, and that the end result is a warming trend, but not on a season to season or year to year basis.

He said, and I quote, “Oh, I’ve never heard it explained like that before.”

I suggested he expand his daily news digest to include something fact-based, but I don’t know if he did.

And here’s some new reporting from the Associated Press on this topic; more severe weather and storms. It’s from a draft report to be issued in the next few weeks from the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

– Linda J.

Three strikes and you are out, at least in baseball.

But in the U.S. Senate, who know if the latest attempt to stop federal funding for bike and walking trails — among other things — will be the final try?

In the latest attempt, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul filed an amendment to “eliminate federal money for bike paths, walking trails and other transportation enhancement projects,” according to an Associated Press article.

Paul’s amendment was defeated by a vote of 60 to 38. It would have forbidden the government from spending any money on enhancement projects and re-directed funds to bridge repairs, the story said.

Paul on Tuesday told senators “this amendment simply takes funds from beautification and puts them into bridges.”

But that’s not true, according to reporting by AP.

While landscaping and beautification are part of the funding, there are 12 different categories states can use the money on.

Two others, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, tried similar measures earlier this fall and failed.