Category Archives: health

Eco Back to School: Green Schools, Green Classrooms

Posted on August 3, 2011 by | Leave a comment

We insure our children’s safety in a thousand different ways every day.  Car seats.  Bicycle helmets.  Mosquito repellent and sunscreen.  Safety locks.  Flu shots.  Teaching them “stranger danger” and how to avoid being bullied on the playground.  Playgrounds with rubber mats and inches of mulch to pad falling children and prevent injuries.  Nationwide recalls on Happy Meal toys posing a choking hazard.

Despite all these measures to keep children safe, most of us think nothing of sending our children to toxic school buildings to spend 7 hours a day, 180 days of a year, for 12-13 years of their lives.

What makes a school a healthy learning environment for millions of  children attending them and the  teachers and support staff working in them?

“Green schools ” need to take things further than providing recycle bins in every classroom and installing energy-efficient light bulbs.  Most school buildings are industrial boxes with few windows and even fewer that open.  Older buildings, while not full of asbestos any longer, often have poor ventilation and high levels of pollutants.  Environmentally healthy schools provide a safe infrastructure and an environment that combine to produce healthy and safe students.


Green Schools, or  Environmentally Healthy Schools, by definition, should include:

*Daylight.  Simply having windows in classrooms alters mood and behavior and reduces electrical use, which saves money and energy.

* Transportation.  Efficient, safe, and emission free are good guidelines.  Safe walking paths are ideal since they leave the least environmental impact (emission free!) and give children a chance to exercise and enjoy fresh air.  Enviro Girl lives in a rural district and she simply asked her school’s principal to have the buses turn off their engines while waiting for students at the end of the day.  By turning off their diesel engines, the air is cleaner, there is less noise pollution and the bus company saves money on fuel.  Encouraging car pooling is another way to reduce energy consumption.

* Good air quality.  Adequate ventilation and reduced environmental toxins mean healthier students.  Simply being able to open windows improves circulation.  This can also help reduce mold.

* Temperature control.  A well-constructed building won’t have drafty classrooms or overheated classrooms.  Radiant heat is one excellent way to efficiently heat large buildings because it maintains even temperatures and uses less fuel.  If your school district is building a new school, chime in on the heating/cool system to maximize your taxpayers’ investment.  Likewise, if your school buildings have extreme temperature fluctuations, advocate for an energy audit to discover if there are more efficient ways to heat/cool the school.

*  Water use.  Safe drinking water should be available at water fountains or spigots.  Low flow toilets and faucets reduce waste and use.  The greenest schools encourage students to bring their own water bottles and refuse to sell bottled water and soft drinks out of vending machines during the school day.

* Access to nature.  Fresh air, exercise, playground areas, “green spaces” for learning make children physically healthier and more able to think and learn.  Trees provide wind, dust and noise barriers while creating shade.  Gardens and native plantings can educate students in a range of topics, including nutrition and biology.

* Healthy food.  The Eco Women could write a week’s worth of posts on this issue, but chemical free, unprocessed, locally produced, nutritious food should be available for students.  Many schools have instituted “healthy snack” policies and banned vending and soda machines.  This is a good start.  The bigger issue is the food served on those cafeteria trays.  Many school cafeterias serve high-salt, high-sugar, high-fat foods like chicken nuggets and canned vegetables.  Enviro Girl was glad her children’s school began contracting with local farmers to make fresh produce available.  It’s a small step in the right direction, even though they have miles to go to make hot lunch healthy and palatable.  Most schools have hired out the cafeteria to a large corporation (like Aramark).  Aramark does provide healthy meal options to customers demanding them.  It’s a small thing to rally parents to put fresh fruit and vegetables on those cafeteria trays.

* No bad chemicals.  Chemicals are used all over school buildings–waste management, pest management, cleaning supplies, mold control, laboratory waste management.  Environmentally healthy schools adopt integrated pest management (IPM) and use nontoxic cleaning supplies.

* Curriculum.  Lessons in all subject areas should include environmental knowledge and awareness of environmental issues.  From Biology to Social Studies, Language Arts to Health, students should learn how their behavior and actions affect the world around them and how nature and people are deeply connected.  For teachers, Planet Pals and The Sierra Club are great resources.

All of these elements combine to make our students healthier and improve their ability to learn.  These factors also combine to make public education cost-effective by reducing consumption.  According to Building Green Schools, the cost benefits include: less electrical use, lowered emissions, and reduced illness.  Whether lobbying for nontoxic, biodegradable cleaning supplies, new ventilation systems, or improved lunch programs, there are many ways parents can advocate for a healthier school environment.  The majority of our nation’s schools don’t meet the healthiest, greenest standard.  These issues encompass more than the physical structure of a school.

Is your children’s school green?  Which of these areas might your school improve?

By coordinating parent support for these issues and lobbying your school board, your school’s administrators and your school’s PTA/PTO, you can make your school greener and healthier for everyone learning and working there.  By tackling one issue, one project, one area at a time, this challenge is less daunting and the payoff is immediate.    It’s about a cleaner planet AND our children’s safety.

All images are from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Green School Poster Program.

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Posted in 3 Rs, green around the world, health, issues, living green on a budget, school, transportation

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Slow down… and teach your children too

Posted on July 5, 2011 by | 5 Comments

Recycla has been working on a fun project with her daughters this summer: She’s teaching them how to cook. And by cooking, Recycla means cooking real food from scratch, not assembling pre-packaged ingredients.

While there are plenty of people who default to eating McFood or mixing up boxes of this ‘n’ that because they think it’s quicker or easier or less expensive, Recycla is here to tell that it’s not so. Every day across America, thousands of people make the same choice. They opt for convenience over nutrition, flavor, and cost.

There is a better option — slow food. And that is what Recycla has been teaching her daughters.

Slow food is good food.

Slow food is real food.

Slow food is healthy food.

Slow food is less expensive than fast food.

The Slow Food movement began in Italy over 20 years ago as a reaction to the culinary horrors of fast food and has since spread to nearly all corners of the globe. The objectives of the Slow Food movement include, but are not limited to:

  • educating consumers about the risks of fast food
  • educating citizens about the drawbacks of commercial agribusiness and factory farms
  • lobbying against government funding of genetic engineering
  • lobbying against the use of pesticides
  • teaching gardening skills to students and prisoners
  • and more

Slow Food is about bringing back traditions that sustained humans for centuries but that are now being lost to the conveniences of fast food.

What can you do?

The most important thing is not to eat McCrap.  Instead, prepare your own meals.  Easier said than done, right? However, even if you cook only a couple of nights a week, it’s better than nothing. And these don’t have to be lavish, multi-course affairs.  Pasta tossed with some chopped tomatoes and freshly-grated Parmesan will take 20-25 minutes.  Omelettes and frittatas take 20 minutes.  A Greek salad can take 15 minutes.

And that is what Recycla is teaching her daughters. While she has long involved them in the kitchen and the girls already know a lot, this summer the girls are helping her plan meals for the week; they are going with her to the go to the grocery store, farmers’ market, and/or local organic butcher to get the food supplies; and then they are cooking alongside her in the kitchen. So far, the girls have made dinners as simple as pasta tossed with frozen vegetables to the slightly-more-involved baked chicken and mashed potatoes to the even-more-involved spaghetti and meatballs. Each meal has involved simple ingredients — no pre-packaged foods — and nothing has taken inordinate amounts of time to prepare.

Recycla will admit that it’s a bit more work for her to show her girls step-by-step what they need to do than if she just does the cooking herself. However, all humans need to eat; therefore, they need to learn how to cook. Recycla is going beyond just teaching her daughters how to follow a recipe — she’s explaining to them HOW and WHY things are in the kitchen so that they’ll understand the basic processes of cooking. She’s also teaching them basic kitchen skills that everyone should know — for example, how to use a knife properly and safely. (By the way, Recycla highly recommends In the Green Kitchen by Alice Waters, which teaches readers all the necessary basic kitchen skills.)

At this point, Recycla’s pre-teen daughters know how to do a lot, but there’s always more that they can learn.Eventually, she knows that they’ll be able to prepare a meal from start to finish without her input and she knows that day is coming soon.

In the larger scheme of things, Recycla is not only giving her daughters valuable life skills, she’s also creating memories with them — baking a birthday cake for their grandfather, inviting some friends over and working as a team to make ice cream and brownies for their sleepover, making their father’s favorite dinner and listening to him shower them with compliments for a delicious meal, and more. The girls are having a lot of fun, which is important because cooking should not be a burden.

Tell the Eco Women: Do you cook? If so, how much? How old were you when you learned how to cook?

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Posted in food, health, issues, living green on a budget

Carbonation in Moderation

Posted on June 24, 2011 by | 7 Comments

There have been debates about whether or not carbonation is healthy. Some people say that carbonation creates acidity in the body that breaks down bone density and that it ultimately contributes to osteoporosis in women. But the reviews are mixed. Others say, “It does no such thing.”

Another problem that some research talks about is that the CO2 raises Ph levels in the body, which prevents absorption of nutrients and destroys enzymes that aid in digestion.

But there are also possible benefits to CO2. It can kill bacteria which might make it a good option in beverages when you are in a foreign country where the water may not be safe.

Of course, most of the bubbles have already popped by the time the liquid reaches the stomach so most of its effects are gone by the time it settles inside you.

Another question that has been raised is whether or not CO2 has been linked to cellulite, there isn’t any research that the Green Queen has found to suggest the two are linked. So, it might simply be a silly rumor.

So, what does carbonation have to do with sustainability? It’s an interesting question the Green Queen has wondered about because in her family they try to eat whole foods that are processed as little as possible. But one thing they love is carbonated waters, so it’s nice to know that carbonated water doesn’t pose any serious health risks.

Still, even if carbonated water isn’t bad for you, it’s not the best option for the environment. Usually these beverages are sold in plastic and/or glass bottles, which means more waste in the world than if you simply drink the water directly out of the tap. And, a lot of people don’t just drink carbonated water, they drink soda pop and other carbonated drinks that add an entirely different level of complication to the question of health effects from those drinks. That’s one reason to keep the question simple: water and carbonation . . . ?

So, in the Green Queen’s opinion, the best motto is to use carbonation in moderation at least until we have more research. It might not make a big difference in your health but it will make a big difference to the environment.

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Posted in health, Uncategorized

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Earth- and human-friendly bug repellents

Posted on June 14, 2011 by | 1 Comment

Even though it’s only mid-June, mosquitoes have already become quite unbearable at dusk here in Virginia. Like everyone, Recycla hates mosquitoes, but her loathing goes a bit further:  Her younger daughter is actually allergic to mosquito bites, which swell into painful welts on her sensitive skin.  Rather than consign the child to a life of indoor living, Recycla has researched various options to see how she can keep mosquitoes from biting her daughter — but without resorting to such pesticides as DEET.

Most people don’t give mosquitoes a second thought. They just douse themselves in a spray that has DEET as the active ingredient and go on their merry way. However, studies show that, in the short-term, DEET can cause headaches and, in the long-term, neurological and other health problems. These are not chemicals you want to put on yourself or on your children.

What can you do?

Luckily, there are plenty of natural mosquito repellents available. Look for sprays or lotions that contain plant oils such as geranium, citronella, tea tree, catnip, marigold, lemon balm, lavender, and peppermint. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend oil of lemon eucalyptus or picaridin, which is considered just as effective as DEET, but much safer.  Recycla has heard that eating garlic will repel mosquitoes and if you are looking for a stronger variation, you can rub garlic on your skin. Bananas, on the other hand, attracts them.

Beyond spraying yourself, there are a few other things you can do to keep the blood-sucking little monsters at bay:

  • Standing water makes perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Empty water from all buckets, kiddie pools, spare tires, or whatever else you might have hanging around your yard.
  • Planting herbs in your backyard may help too. Basil and rosemary tend to repel mosquitoes.
  • Encourage animals that eat mosquitoes to live in your yard.  Install a bat house, hang a birdhouse for purple martins, plant butterfly-friendly flowers and bushes that will also attract dragonflies.  If you have frogs living nearby, rejoice, as they love mosquitoes!
  • Don’t use pesticides or bug-zappers. These indiscriminant killers are likely to kill more beneficial, mosquito-eating animals than mosquitoes.
  • Stay away from scented shampoos, deodorants and perfumes as these tend to attract pests.

If you follow these guidelines, you should have some relief and hopefully won’t hear the dreaded whine of a mosquito in your ear.

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Posted in eco kids, health, personal care

Laundry matters

Posted on June 9, 2011 by | 14 Comments

Recycla learned a very important lesson this week. Actually, it’s a lesson she had already learned once, but apparently it didn’t stick the first time.

Recycla has been having some laundry woes this spring, in the form of clothes that still smell bad even after they’ve been washed. Specifically, her running gear, her husband’s soccer and biking gear, and her kids’ athletic clothes. After discussing things with her running friends on Twitter, she decided to try some new laundry detergents to deal with the stinkle.

A few years ago, Recycla switched from conventional laundry detergents and experimented with different organic versions. Conventional brands contain harsh chemicals and strong scents that are bad for humans and the environment. And, in Recycla’s household, both she and one of her daughters have very sensitive skin and other allergies, so they have to be careful with what they use on their skin and their clothes.

Recycla’s favorite eco laundry detergents are Zum, Seventh Generation, and Method. Unfortunately, Recycla’s husband does not like these detergents and does not feel that they do a sufficient job of cleaning the family’s dirty clothes, sheets, and towels, so there has been a back-and-forth tug o’ war between husband and wife over laundry matters for the past few years. For a while, they compromised by using a conventional detergent that is scent- and dye-free; however, neither Recycla nor her husband has been totally satisfied with this one either. It’s the worst of both worlds — it’s not organic, nor does it do a great job with cleaning their laundry.

Getting back to the stinky athletic clothes, Recycla perused the laundry aisle at her local Target and decided to try a brand that was conventional, but at least was concentrated, so far less detergent was needed for each load. Unfortunately, the detergent contained a very strong perfume that lingered and could be smelled long after the clean laundry was folded and put away. Recycla wasn’t pleased with the scent, but at least her running clothes didn’t reek before she even went for a run.

Last weekend, both of Recycla’s daughters developed strange rashes on various parts of their bodies.  One daughter, as mentioned before, has allergies, but since the other daughter also developed a rash, Recycla assumed that the girls had picked up some horrible disease. She called the pediatrician and took the girls in for an appointment. The doctor took one look at the girls and asked if they were using a new soap or lotion or laundry detergent. Yep, both girls are allergic to the new, heavily-perfumed laundry detergent. Recycla isn’t throwing the stuff out, but she’ll save it for when she washes cleaning rags and other things that won’t be touching her family’s skin.

So now Recycla is on the hunt for a new detergent — one that will actually clean and remove the smells left by running, biking, soccer, and other sports, while containing no strong perfumes or harsh chemicals. She honestly doesn’t know what laundry detergent will offer all of the above, so is hoping that her fellow Eco Warriors will have some suggestions.

Tell the Eco Women: What do you use to wash your clothes? Are you happy with this product?

The Eco Women are not employed by any of the companies mentioned, nor were they asked to do review their products. Photo credits: Yahoo Images.

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Posted in clothes, health, house stuff

Combat Nature Deficit Disorder in Your Family

Posted on June 6, 2011 by | 2 Comments

Bottom line:  we NEED to be outside.  Nature is a powerful, essential force that calibrates our bodies, our moods, our minds, our senses.

Check out what Plenty has to say on the topic.  And Salon.  And Psychology Today.  Enviro Girl is no clinical psychologist, but she recognizes that a walk in the woods restores her mental health.  She observes that her children fight less and seem less “bored” and more happy when they’re playing outside than when they’re cooped up in the house.  While her family does not suffer from Nature Deficit Disorder, Enviro Girl understands how it can happen.

Somewhere in the last 30 years the natural world has become our enemy, a myth propagated by the media (in Enviro Girl’s view).  Advertisers don’t have access to audiences when they’re tuned out an unplugged–it’s easy to sell a kid sugar-coated cereal and toys if they’re parked on the couch giving you their undivided attention.  If people play outside, they’re not shopping, paying gym fees or racking up credit card debt by spending money of stuff.  They’re not paying attention to advertising.

If you think about it, there are lots of reasons to spread the propaganda to keep people inside where they’re “safe”:  air pollution, risk of sunburn, animal bites, insect bites, unfenced ponds and lakes pose drowning hazards.  Stray dogs, pedophiles, playground bullies, traffic.  Allergies, rusty nails and pipes, broken glass, rockslides.  Frostbite, slipping on the ice, West Nile Virus, Lyme’s Disease, poison ivy.  A kid could get hit by a car, fall off the jungle gym, get kidnapped, be broadsided by a baseball bat and end up in the hospital with a concussion.  Parents feel safer if they keep their brood inside where they can keep an eye on them, where the outside world can’t get their kids.  Inside is a controlled environment, outside poses a myriad of threats.

How to get outside and stay safe–it seems so daunting, right?

Enviro Girl and her tribe are relishing the start of summer vacation.  Already there have been a little sunburn, a few flesh wounds, one small lump on the head.  Yet her children have limited their screen time to 2 hours a day and the screen door bangs open and shut all day long.  There are kites to fly, bikes to ride, a fort to build.  They’re swimming, hosing off the deck (and consequently, one another).  They’ve caught frogs, saved a baby opossum, captured bugs of all sizes in a jar.  They’ve looked for patterns in the clouds and constellations in the stars.  They’ve laid in the hammock, kicked balls, shot baskets, planted seeds and dug up worms.

How does Enviro Girl create a culture of kids playing outside in relative safety?

1.  She’s got an open door policy.  As soon as the weather permits, the doors and windows fly open, the sounds of nature and the smell of fresh air enter the house.  Inside feels like outside and there’s no climate-controlled spot available, a person’s just as comfortable in the shade of a tree as in the middle of her living room.

2.  She actively monitors her children’s screen time.  “Turn it off, get outside” gets repeated a lot, but her kids understand how crabby a full day of nonstop gaming and TV viewing make them.  They’ve learned to restrict their time to watch the shows they really want to watch and they know that eventually a little rain will fall and allow them the occasional afternoon slouched on the couch.

3.  She makes it easy to be outside.  Cans of sunscreen and insect repellent sit by every porch and in the garage, baseball caps and sandals are always handy.  The towels and suits are in baskets on the back porch.  Toys head inside and out without much interference.  She brings snacks and drinks to the patio every afternoon.  She keeps the days free of too much scheduling so the kids have TIME to enjoy playing outside.

4.  She provides sidewalk chalk, wheels (bikes, skateboards, scooters), water hoses, a tent for back yard camping, clothes that can get grass-stained and muddy, marshmallows for roasting, a basketball hoop for pick-up games.

5.  She limits the family’s “field trips”  by asking them to create a summer bucket list of what they want to DO instead of where they want to GO.  When she poses the question of what they’ll DO all summer, the list includes camping, fishing, building a fort.

Tell the Eco Women, how do you combat Nature Deficit Disorder at your house?

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Posted in eco kids, health, issues, personal care

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Be safe in the sun

Posted on May 31, 2011 by | 1 Comment

With the advent of Memorial Day weekend and the pools opening up, Recycla suddenly realized last week that she needed to stock up on sunblock for the summer.

Luckily, the Environmental Working Group has come out with their 2011 report on the best sunscreens, so everything you need to know is just one click away. Recycla was pleased to see that her favorite sunscreens by Alba Botanica, Badger Balm, and California Baby made the list of highly-rated products.

The important thing to remember is that you want to avoid certain ingredients, including oxybenzone. For more information, click here for different articles on ingredients to avoid, skin cancer, and more.

In addition to using the right sunblock, don’t forget the following tips:

  • Try to stay out of the sun from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
  • If you are outside, wear clothing and a hat that will help block the sun’s rays.
  • Always wear sunscreen, even on overcast days.
  • Apply sunscreen 15-30 minutes before going out.
  • Use enough sunscreen to fill a shotglass and coat your body in a thick layer.

For more information and tips, click here.

The Eco Women encourage you to get outside this summer, but be safe!

The Eco Women are not employed by any of the companies mentioned, nor were they asked to review any products. Photos courtesy of Yahoo Images.

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Posted in eco baby, eco kids, health, personal care

10 Green & Cheap Summer Sports

Posted on May 30, 2011 by | 3 Comments

As the temperatures rise, it’s time to pack away those skis and skates or take a leave of absence from your climate-controlled gym.  Summer, with her longer days and balmy weather, is a great time to keep fit while enjoying the Great Outdoors.  Plenty of opportunities abound to burn calories while leaving a minimal carbon footprint.  None of these sports require a gas-powered motor or make a lot of noise.  All of these sports are eco-friendly since they leave no emissions, no pollution and almost no environmental impact.

1.  Biking. Why, it’s as easy as riding a bike!  Expense:  you can find free and cheap used bikes at thrift stores, rummage sales and Craigslist.  Add a helmet for $20 and you’re good to go!  Accessibility: at your fingertips–many folks take up biking to reduce their dependence on driving–add a basket to your handlebars and you can get your exercise time while running errands.  Recreation trails or roads are near most people’s houses and biking can combine with mass transit as city buses have bike racks to help people navigate urban areas.   Difficulty: so easy–even a toddler can ride a bike with training wheels–biking can be a family affair!  Looking for a trail to ride?  Click here!

2.  Swimming.  Expense: a swim pass and a suit will run $100.  If you live near a lake or beach, you only have to pay for your suit.  Accessibility: can be limited depending on where you live–but if you’re near a public pool, they often have hours specifically for adults to swim laps uninterrupted by splashing children.  Difficulty: moderate.  Swimming offers excellent exercise without any harm to your joints, it’s the ultimate low-impact, high-intensity workout.  If you don’t know how to swim, however, many city pools and your local YMCA offer lessons starting at $30 on up.

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3.  Fishing.  Expense: moderate–rod, reel, license, bait and sometimes a boat.  Raid grandpa’s garage or attic for your fishing gear and your only cost will be that $20 license–offset if you catch yourself dinner!  Accessibility: again, depending on where you live you might not have a pier to fish from, but if you do, there is no finer way to spend a lazy afternoon.  Especially if you have kids.  Difficulty: it’s true, even a lousy day of fishing is better than a great day at work.  If you’re new to fishing, check out Take Me Fishing to get started!

4.  Kayaking/Canoing.  Expense: moderate to pricey.  You can rent a kayak or canoe with all the essentials, buy it used at a deal, or go full-bore and drop a month’s salary on this hobby.  Accessibility: this activity is water-dependent–but many areas have beautiful, unexplored areas only available to kayakers or canoeists.  Difficulty: moderate–but this sport offers excellent upper body exercise!  Check out Kayak Online to get started!

5.  Basketball.  Expense: cheap–a ball costs $20, you can find free courts almost anywhere.  Accessibility: quite good in most areas.  Difficulty: moderate to challenging.  Whether you’re playing one-on-one, a friendly game of Around the World, or going full-throttle NBA-style, you can get your blood pumping and all your major muscle groups working.

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6.  Skating.  Expense: cheap–used skates will run under $40.  Accessibility: outstanding–unless you live on a gravel or dirt road, you can skate.  Difficulty: moderate–and a fantastic cardiovascular exercise.

7.  Tennis.  Expense: cheap–a used racket and a sleeve of balls will cost under $50.  Accessibility: great.  Most high schools and public parks have tennis courts free for the public to use.  Difficulty: moderate to challenging depending on your opponent.  You’re guaranteed to work up a sweat and a thirst playing tennis.

8.  Baseball.  Expense: bat, ball, glove–you’re looking at $50 or less.  Accessibility: fantastic.  Whether playing in your back yard, in a public park or at a local schoolyard, you can find a grassy field for  a pick-up game anywhere.  If you’re looking for more “professional” competition, park & rec departments offer league play for $15 on up.  Difficulty: moderate.  But a game of catch with your little slugger in the back yard is worth learning how to throw and catch a ball.

9.  Soccer.  Expense: cheap–a ball is less than $20.  Add cleats and shin guards and soccer might cost $60.  Accessibility: fantastic.  Like baseball, all you need is a flat, grassy field to play on.  Drive anywhere in America and you’ll find kids and grown ups kicking balls around yards, empty lots and parks.  Difficulty: easy.  It’s kicking a ball–there’s a reason there are soccer leagues for pre-preschoolers!

10.  Walking/Hiking.  Expense: free. Accessibility: superb.  You can walk anywhere, anytime.  Difficulty: easy.  Even easier when you take a walk with a friend.

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Posted in health, living green on a budget, websites & blogs

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“Health Drinks” Not So Healthy

Posted on May 23, 2011 by | 3 Comments

A little label reading goes a long way in educating people about good choices for their health and for the environment.  Obviously, bottled drinks are wasteful, plastic pollutes water and soil and contains harmful chemicals.  But what about the ingredients inside the plastic bottle?  Bottled water or bottled tea can’t be that bad for you, can it?

Head into any grocery store, convenience store, or health food store and you’ll see “Health Drinks” selling by the gallon. Pick your poison, from Gatorade to Glaceau Mineral Water, you can rehydrate and “make yourself healthier.” Do these “health drinks” live up to their promises? Are they really a “healthy alternative?”

Soft drink companies know consumers have clued in to how “bad” soda is, so they’ve produced lines of new drink options ranging from vitamin waters to green tea to “juice drinks” to sport and energy drinks. Whether we’re talking Arizona Iced Tea or Red Bull, very few can be considered healthy for a person’s body.  In reality, the same old sugar and water and sodium have been given fancy labels that claim to “scientifically rehydrate and restore electrolytes” and “give a day’s supply of vitamins and minerals” and “restore muscle health.”

Let’s take a look at the aforementioned Glaceau Mineral Water. At 130 calories and 33 grams of sugar, this drink is on par with drinking a Coca-Cola. “Fat free” doesn’t really make a drink healthy for you either — cotton candy is fat free and contains the same amounts of sugar as many “health drinks” marketed with promises of providing your body with vitamins. A close look at the labels on these soda substitutes reveal that most bottles contain 2-2.5 servings per bottle, so you have to calculate the “nutritious value” accordingly. And while “energy drinks” will definitely get your heart pumping — with a combination of sugar and caffeine (as much as you’d find in an 8 oz. cup of coffee) — you’d be just as well off to get your heart pumping with adequate rest and exercise. Most of the “iced tea” beverages for sale by the bottle contain more sugar than tea, giving you few of the benefits of drinking real tea. Likewise, “juice drinks” usually contain only 10% real fruit juice, and a whole lot of high fructose corn syrup. Red Bull, Monster and Full Throttle differ only slightly from soda pop when you read their nutrition labels. Consider:

  • Full Throttle Blue Demon Energy Drink–16 oz. contains 110 calories, 29 carbohydrates and 80 mg of sodium.
  • SoBe No Fear Gold 130 calories, 35 carbohydrates and 115 mg sodium.
  • SoBe Orange Carrot Elixer 100 calories, 23 carbohydrates and 10 mg sodium.
  • Gatorade G Berry (16 oz.) 90 calories, 22 carbohydrates and 160 mg. sodium.
  • Nature’s Nitro2Go 20 calories, 5 carbohydrates and 180 mg sodium.
  • Lipton Brisk Green Tea 130 calories, 34 carbohydrates and 100 mg sodium.
  • Mountain Dew 110 calories, 31 carbohydrates and 40 mg sodium.

Whether you’re slurping soda, “green tea” or Gatorade, you’re not altering your calorie, carbohydrate or sodium intake. As you can see from this random survey of nutrition information gleaned from labels, they’re equally laden with unnecessary things. Sodium, sugar and empty calories are bad for your teeth, blood circulation, and maintaining a healthy weight.   The best option? Plain old water. It’s cheap and healthy for you. If you need a change of pace, Enviro Girl suggests the following less expensive and much healthier drinks to quench your thirst:

  • Water with a twist of lemon, lime or orange slice.
  • Seltzer with a splash of 100% fruit juice.
  • Home-brewed ice tea with sweetener you’ve added to taste.

That said, you can feel just as virtuous drinking a Cherry Coke as you would anything else offered at your local 7-Eleven! Or be like Enviro-Girl’s family — when they have to quench their thirst, they get a glass of ice water — the Real Health Drink of Champions.

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Posted in health, Uncategorized

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Eco-Friendly Summer Drinks from Scratch

Posted on May 11, 2011 by | 3 Comments

Summertime comes and the kids clamor for plastic bottles of Gatorade, Powerade, Koolade — all laced with chemical additives, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), dyes and other unpronounceable stuff.  Plus these drinks get expensive when added weekly to the grocery cart.  And they generate a fair amount of plastic waste that may or may not get recycled.

This eco-warrior heads into summer knowing her kids’ proclivity for sweet drinks and she serves up their favorites in a more healthy way.  Enviro Girl makes summer drinks from scratch.  Her kids still get a dose of sugar, but the sweet stuff is natural and Enviro Girl can manage the quantity when she brews the pitcher of refreshments.

To kick the bottled drinks habit, you have to be willing to plan ahead.  Enviro Girl has a couple of heavy-duty Tupperware pitchers and sets of glasses.  When mid-afternoon arrives and her crew gets thirsty, she grabs a set of glasses and a pitcher of home-brewed thirst-quencher from her fridge and heads outside to meet them.  It’s as easy to grab a pitcher and cup as it is to grab a plastic bottle, although you could pre-fill water bottles with other drinks and keep washing them by hand.  Enviro Girl likes cups because they can go in the dishwasher.

Check out the label on any lemonade – powdered or concentrate — it’s loaded with HFCS.  But making lemonade from scratch is simple:  lemons, water, sweetener.  Enviro Girl uses fresh lemons on occasion or lemon juice concentrate — 4 lemons, 5 cups water, 1/2 cup sugar or honey.  Stir and pour over ice.  Cheaper than the manufactured version and healthier.  Get a little crazy and add crushed berries and you can rival McDonald’s with a raspberry-lemonade or strawberry-lemonade.

Iced tea is notoriously full of HFCS — check out the cans, bottles and powdered stuff at your grocery store.  They’re no healthier than a can of Coke, don’t fool yourself.  Making iced tea at home is cheaper and easy — add boiling water to a glass pitcher and dunk 7-8 teabags.  Enviro Girl uses fruity herbal tea bags like Raspberry Zinger and Peach to duplicate popular “flavored” iced teas.  Add sweetener (honey or sugar) to taste.  Toss in lemon slices if you’re inclined.  Let it brew 5 minutes and pour over ice or store in the fridge for when you’re thirsty.  If you’re lazy (like Enviro Girl sometimes is), you can dunk 7-8 teabags in a pitcher of cold water and let the sun steep it for you.  And you can kick it Southern-style by leaving that container of sweet tea on your counter in easy reach all the time.

Soda has fallen out of favor as the refreshing drink of choice, but Enviro Girl has found that mixing some fruit juice with seltzer water makes a sweet and bubbly beverage.  To kick the Gator/Power/Kool Ade habit, keep a pitcher of water on ice infused with sliced fruit — oranges, lime, lemons, berries all make a flavorful and handy way to hydrate.

In fact, Enviro Girl plans to invest in one of these to keep her kids happy all summer at a fraction of the price and with none of the waste produced by store-bought drinks:

She can picture it on her kitchen counter or on the patio beside a stack of Tupperware cups, standing ready for thirsty kids and party guests!  Less packaging waste, less plastic, less money, no chemicals, no additives, no HFCS, no food dye, more taste and more control over the ingredients — all great reasons to brew your own summer drinks!

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Posted in eco kids, food, health, living green on a budget

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