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Everywhere we turn someone is selling a new, green, eco-friendly, whoose-a-ma-gigger! Sometimes the greenest difference you can see is the price tag. As consumers, we know companies are worse than a cheating partner, in telling us what we want to hear. We want to do the right thing but please, what is it?
Where do we go to navigate this maze? Let's take a peek at the Pilgrims and the first feast. Before science and advertising got into the act, foods were things that nature made and local man adopted to their diet.
The waste was used to make soaps and cleaners but the main ingredients to clean were elbow grease and water. The menu was a reflection of the season and exact location. It was always uniquely different by region as a reflection of the biodiversity and all life flourished around a fresh water supply. That plus a roof and it was survival. What was taken from the planet was not much; what was changed or left behind, was very small.
In the process of modernizing we added a lot of energy, a lot of waste and have begun to lose the natural balances. Our planet and our bodies are calling for things to start getting cleaner. There's just so much unwanted trash a planetary or human body can absorb. So what's hype?
Read the ingredients not the boasts. The more words that are things you might find in nature, the better off you are. It's that simple, the less messing the chemical processors have done with things, the better.
The greener things are those that try for a gentler impact on human health and the environment. That's like agreeing babies are cute, its an idea we all like. But what do you do when you don't feel like spending the price of a pizza for a bar of soap and hoping it will be doing anything, even clean!
You don't need to. Simpler and purer does not need to cost more. Here's where hope reward everyone. Many small farms and artisans make soaps and other small quantity products that they could never get into stores. They need consumers to skip the mall shops and give a small farmer a try.
With an aim of building local sources for things we reduce the distance so many things need to travel to get to us.
In a way it is a step back in time but the world being the flawed project of humans, we go too far one direction before we figure out we need to go back and change course.
When we are rebuilding the local economy and food sovereignty we are creating another level of green because the soap from nearby didn't need so much fuel for shipping either and now the production and profits also stay near home. See how it grows! Local Harvest, community CSA and CooP efforts are exploding and those are the really rewarding ways to invest in a greener route, when everyone wins, the community, the farmer, the consumer with fresher food.
The simplest way for me to begin thinking about a product or method is part of a "greener" lifestyle, is to try to imagine the things our grandmothers had in the kitchen and the ways things were done. Then I think of what is different. Hot water, baking soda and white vinegar were used to keep the drains clear. Now we have industrial chemicals to get the clogs. Scary stuff under our sinks to clean the oven, the floors, burn, to scent the air.
Multiply, each and every one of us, using all of those products is adding a lot to the entire process, of creating and disposing of chemicals. A barrel of rotten apples will turn into vinegar with a bit of sugar and yeast in no time at all. It even smells fresh and is fun to watch foam.
They're Mother Nature's scrubbing bubbles and when they go down the drain, my grandchild won't find them in the water supply.. Once a week with the vinegar and baking soda makes the fixture shine too.
Then maybe you think we need to plant more apple trees, so we never run out of vinegar and boom, you are a full blown green geenie! You'll skip the dryer to let clothes hang dry in the summer air. There is nothing like clean sheets, dried in fresh air, ahh. Don't worry about the whole world of products, just one by one think of how gently what you are using is being to your body and world. One thing, anything and everything helps us all.
Awareness is the biggest part, once you know to think about the whole cycle, things look differently. If we're going to imagine all we dispose of going into the earth and water, it gets simpler to find something more ecofriendly. At first all change feels strange but with a pinch of time it is almost natural. Nothing feels better than that.
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