Why Go Organic?

By Tracy Kearns

You will notice that Bradventures offers numerous organic products - Sharkies, Betty Lou's Smackers, Organic Vegan Bars, the Organic Food Bar, Clif Bar, Active Greens Superfood and more. Organic products are the fastest growing segment in the food industry for good reason - our toxic environment introduces hazardous elements in the food supply. Forget processed junk, even foods that seem helathy like fresh fruit and produce can be objectionable.

It's important to become informed about the healthiest food choices for you and your family. The strawberries that you enjoyed in your youth decades ago were likely grown organically by local farmers. Today commercially produced strawberries are on the 'Dirty Dozen List' of most objectionable crops to eat, due to pesticide content. Here is the rest of the Dirty Dozen:

• Apples
• Bell Peppers
• Celery
• Cherries
• Grapes (imported)
• Nectarines
• Peaches
• Pears
• Potatoes
• Red Raspberries
• Spinach
• Strawberries

If you consume the products on this list, please make a special effort to buy organic. The World's Healthiest Foods web site offers detailed information about eating and cooking healthy. Click here to help you learn more about the standards, health benefits, regulation, environmental benefits and labeling of organic foods

Fortunately, with the increase health risks of modern processed foods and crops, there is increased interest in healthy, natural alternatives. Buying pesticide-free food and chemical-free cleaning and gardening supplies is easier than ever. Many grocery stores now carry food and cleaning products once found only in natural food stores. It is also easier to find products like breakfast cereals, peanut butter, breads and snack foods without harmful ingredients such as trans fats in the natural food section of the grocery store.

Many conventional grocery stores such as Raley’s and Bel Air in Northern California have separate “organic” sections within their produce aisles. Better yet is the national chain Whole Foods Market, which does your homework for you by allowing only the most natural and healthy products onto their store shelves. The natural food aisles are another great place to quickly find the organic counterparts to many of the staples in your pantry. Some of the brand names for these counterparts include:

• Annie’s Homegrown – macaroni and cheese, crackers
• Cascadian Farm – breakfast cereals, frozen vegetables and dinners, jams
• Muir Glen Organic – pasta sauce and canned tomatoes
• Heinz Organic ketchup
• Westbrae Natural – canned organic beans
• Imagine – organic soups
• Newman’s Own –includes snacks like pretzels and cookies
• Horizon – dairy products

The national chain of Trader Joe’s has its own line of organic products including spinach, lettuce, strawberries, avocados and other produce. It also carries a variety of organic nuts and dried fruits along with organic soups, canned items and pasta sauces. Like the grocery store, Trader Joe’s carries “greener” cleaning products such as dish and dishwasher detergent, laundry soap, shampoos and conditioners.

Natural Cleaning Products and Strategies

Store bought brands and ingredients:

• Ecover - dishwashing liquid and cream cleaner
• Bon Ami cleaning powder
• Seventh Generation - laundry detergent, non-chlorine bleach and dish detergents
• Holy Cow – concentrated cleaner
• Simple Green – all-purpose cleaner
• Arm & Hammer Baking Soda and Super Washing Soda
• 20 Mule Team Borax
• Dr. Bronner’s pure castile soap
• vinegar
• vegetable-oil-based soap
• lemons
• essential oils

Home made solutions

FANTASTIC CLEANER (spray cleaner)
1 teaspoon borax, 1/2 teaspoon washing soda, 2 tablespoons vinegar or lemon juice, 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon vegetable-oil-based liquid soap, 2 cups very hot tap water, spray bottle

Combine the borax, washing soda, vinegar and liquid soap in a spray bottle. Add very hot tap water, shaking the bottle gently until the minerals have dissolved. Spray onto the area to be cleaned and wipe off with a sponge, rag or cellulose sponge cloth.

SOFT SCRUBBER
1/4 cup baking soda, enough vegetable-oil-based liquid soap to make a paste. Place the baking soda in a bowl and stir in liquid soap, stirring as you add, until you have a rich, creamy, texture. Scoop the mixture onto a sponge, wash the surface and rinse thoroughly. (Non-abrasive soft scrubber: substitute powdered chalk for baking soda and follow the above directions).

DRAIN MAINTENANCE
1/2 cup baking soda, 3 cups boiling water
Pour the baking soda down the drain and follow with the boiling water. Let the baking soda and boiling water gurgle and bubble for a while before rinsing with hot tap water.

GARBAGE DISPOSAL CLEANER
1/4 cup borax
Every two weeks or so pour some borax into the garbage disposal as a disinfectant

ANNIE’S FAVORITE WOOD-FLOOR SOAP
1/8 cup vegetable-oil-based liquid soap, 1/4 to 1/2 cup vinegar or lemon juice, 1/2 cup fragrant herb tea, 2 gallons warm water
Combine ingredients in a pail or bucket. Swirl the water around until it is sudsy. Proceed as normal.

Vegetable-oil-based liquid soaps, such as Soapworks’ At Home all-purpose cleaner or Dr. Bronner’s Pure-Castile Soaps are primarily coconut oil based soaps and biodegrade quickly.

Australian tea tree oil is a natural fungicide and bactericide. It is harmful if swallowed so keep away from children.

Lemon juice and just a few drops of essential oils like lavender can also be added as a freshener to home made cleaning solutions. The acid in lemon juice is great for cleaning mineral buildup and grease.

Excerpts from Clean & Green: The Complete Guide to Nontoxic and Environmentally Safe Housekeeping by Annie Berthold-Bond

Pesticides in Our Food and Environment
Chemicals used in conventional farming pose many risks to human health. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is charged with evaluating pesticides and setting “acceptable risk” levels of exposure. EPA’s tests have largely been conducted on fully grown adult men or non-human animal species, exposing them to one chemical at a time. Evidence now shows that chemicals in combination—the way we are usually exposed to them in everyday life—may exponentially increase health risk.

Additionally, many EPA-approved pesticides were registered long before extensive research linked these chemicals to cancer and other diseases. Now the EPA considers 60% of all herbicides, 90% of all fungicides, and 30% of all insecticides as potentially cancer-causing.

***

Excerpts from www.drgreene.com
Dr. Greene is the Founder & CEO of DrGreene.com.
He is on the Clinical Faculty at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Natural Gardening

Chemical plant foods are commonly antagonistic to balanced mineral content in soils, they kill many of the beneficial microbes that live in soil, and they have this funny tendency to end up in the storm drain system. Synthetic chemicals also do very little if anything to improve the physical quality of soils they are applied to. It has actually been observed that these chemicals actually deplete soils of their mineral and organic wealth. This is exactly the opposite effect of using natural fertilizers.

***

Pg. 21 “The Complete Natural Gardener” by Donald W. Trotter, Ph.D.

Simple ingredients from dish soaps, baking soda and hydrogen peroxide to citrus oil and neem are but a few components in dormant sprays used on fruit trees. Corn gluten meal is an effective weed and feed for lawns as it provides nitrogen for existing lawns at the same time the corn gluten helps to control new weed growth.

Natural vegetable food mixtures contain ingredients like guano, bone meal and Sul-Po-Mag. Prepared natural fertilizers such as the brand, E.B. Stone Organics are available at local nurseries like Eisleys’ and Peaceful Valley Farm Supply (www.groworganic.com).

Don Trotter’s Fast-Acting Natural Fertilizers for Vegetable Gardens
(High-nitrogen booster)
2 parts bat guano
1 part fish meal
2 parts alfalfa meal
2 parts shrimp meal
1 part bone meal
1 part kelp meal

“This blend really works fast and should be followed by a really thorough watering of the entire area that was just fed. It can last as long as three months, but is best if repeated every 60 days or so. This one is very good at reviving slow-growing and stressed plants. Apply this plant food at a rate of 8 cups per 100 square feet of garden space.” (pg. 91)

The Natural Lawn

A natural lawn grows in soil that is alive and whose roots can reach deeper, thanks to earthworms and other garden helpers. The natural lawn doesn’t stress as easily in extremely hot or cold weather and doesn’t need watering as often, because the soil and all of its organic matter holds on to water better. A natural lawn doesn’t require feeding every week or two, and most natural lawns only require two feedings per year. A natural lawn supplies the rest of the garden with superfast compost and stays green all the while. Natural lawns don’t harm the health of your children because of the high nitrogen content (of chemical fertilizers) blocking oxygen to their brains.
Pg. 142-3

Trotter recommends using a finely screened compost in early to middle spring and then again in midsummer. He adds chicken manure on the same day to feed the lawn. Nitrogen can be provided by recycling grass clippings back into the lawn with a mulching lawnmower. Corn gluten meal is another source of nitrogen for established lawns. It can be spread onto a lawn like a chemical fertilizer and will help hold down the growth of weeds. Since corn gluten meal retards the growth of new seedlings, it is not advised for newly seeded lawns. Corn gluten meal is available at finer Nursery’s.

Trotter winterizes his lawn by applying Kelzyme fossilized kelp (for calcium) or a mixture of lime or gypsum, sulfur, soft rock phosphate, and sulfate of potash magnesia (Sul-Po-Mag) at a 5-1-2-1 ratio. Apply Kelzyme or the mineral mix at a rate of 10 pounds per 1,000 square feet of turf and water after application. He also recommends against applying nitrogen-rich fertilizers from the beginning of November to the start of March.

***

Rodale’s All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening suggests gardeners:

Choose a finely pulverized, weed-free organic fertilizer, such as processed manure or sifted compost, and spread evenly over the lawn just before rain is expected. Mow the grass about a week after you fertilize. Let the nitrogen-rich clippings remain on the lawn…If you mow regularly, let your grass clippings lay where they fall. They will eventually rot and add organic matter to the soil beneath. Large clumps of clippings sitting on our lawn block sunlight and promote disease. Gather them up and use as mulch in other parts of your yard.
Pg. 365-6

***

Pesticides in Our Food and Environment

Chemicals used in conventional farming pose many risks to human health. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is charged with evaluating pesticides and setting “acceptable risk” levels of exposure. EPA’s tests have largely been conducted on fully grown adult men or non-human animal species, exposing them to one chemical at a time. Evidence now shows that chemicals in combination—the way we are usually exposed to them in everyday life—may exponentially increase health risk.

Additionally, many EPA-approved pesticides were registered long before extensive research linked these chemicals to cancer and other diseases. Now the EPA considers 60% of all herbicides, 90% of all fungicides, and 30% of all insecticides as potentially cancer-causing.

From www.drgreene.com
Dr. Greene is the Founder & CEO of DrGreene.com. He is on the Clinical Faculty at Stanford University
School of Medicine where he sees patients and teaches residents

Fact Sheet: Safe Substitutes at Home: Non-toxic Household Products

Reprinted with permission by
Tennessee Valley Authority
Regional Waste Management Department

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