Natural and Organic Food

It doesn’t take much, but there are several small things that everyone can do that will go a little way to helping the environment.

First, I notice a lot of people don’t think when throwing stuff away. I don’t mean they become stupid the moment they throw something into the garbage, I mean they don’t think about what impact their action has when you multiply it a few thousandfold as everyone else does the same thing.

Landfill sites are bursting at the seams because people throw away so much stuff. A lot of it needn’t even go into landfill, it’s just that people don’t realize they can dispose of things in a different way that will have a huge impact on the rate at which landfills get filled up.

Here are a few things that just a tiny bit of extra thought will make a difference.

Plastic bottles. If there is no recycling bank near you, then the next best thing you can do is at least reduce the volume of the waster that you dump. That means squeezing up the bottles when they’re empty to make them as small as possible. That will in itself save a huge volume in landfill if everyone did this.

Milk and juice cartons. These shouldn’t be chucked in the bin whole either. It doesn’t take much to fold them into a small block and reduce their volume by 90%.

Paper and cardboard – don’t even throw it out. Why would you? If you have a garden then you should have a compost heap. If you have a compost heap, rip up paper and cardboard into manageable pieces and mix them into your heap. It all biodegrades with the rest of the composting material.

Kitchen waste. Again, if you have a compost heap, you should be throwing all peelings and unused leafy and vegetable material onto the compost heap. Some gardeners don’t like throwing potato peelings on the heap because they have a tendency to grow in the heap. What are they worried about? As the things grow, just turn them in and let the composting process break the additional plant matter down!

Incidentally, if you don’t have a garden or a compost heap, surely you know a friend, relative or neighbour who has and could be convinced to take your compost-able material for their own heaps.

These are just a few things you can do to help make a difference.

For one person to do these things the effect will be barely noticeable, but for a thousand people to do these things an impact will be felt!

I’ll post more ideas like this in future posts.

Terry Didcott
Natural and Organic Food

A slight change of tack for this blog, but still on topic is the subject of additives that are in what you eat and what you drink.

This post will concern itself about what’s in the water that comes out of your tap.

Don’t despair – in most western countries, the water that comes out of your tap is relatively safe to drink and cook with because it is treated at huge water treatment plants before it enters the water main and finds its way to your home.

But not in all countries.

In southern Spain, where I live the water that comes out of the tap is not so safe to drink. The authorities will tell you a different story, of course, but the fact remains that there is no true water main in the area that I live in despite it being one of the most urbanized areas outside of the cities of Madrid and Barcelona.

So what do we have to contend with here?

Tap water is heavily treated with chlorine to combat the high levels of dangerous bacteria that would run riot through the area if it were not so treated. This in itself is a huge problem for the unwary, as chlorine binds with other particulates in the water to form tri-methane based carcinogens.

Oh.

There are also high levels of pollution from farms as the farmers here are lunatics when it comes to spraying their fields. They use just about every kind of chemical available to them to kill their soil stone dead with herbicides and pesticides before dumping huge quantities of chemical fertilizers on it so stuff will actually grow. All these chemicals have leeched through the soil into the subterranean aquifiers and reservoirs that supply the whole of Andalucia.

Oh.

Because of the additional lunacy of successive local authorities the landfill situation here is out of control. Further chemical pollutants from these overused landfill sites has also leeched into the water supply. This includes heavy metals such as aluminium and lead, which are known causes of Alzheimer’s disease in adults and intelligence retardation in children.

Oh.

Because of all this pollution, particulate levels in our water are in excess of 200 ppm and often as high as 300 ppm. The World Health Organisation limit for drinking water is set at 150 ppm.

Oh.

But that’s here in Andalucia, southern Spain. Most of the United States and Canada, Australia and most other European countries are much better at treating their water. And there is always bottled water to drink when things get tough.

I for one am reluctant to believe anything that a local authority or for that matter any government official tells me, simply because most of them tell lies.
Get this:

Here in southern Spain, although no one will officially admit to it, the decision was made to add so much chlorine to the drinking water because it was cheaper for the local health authorities to deal with a few cases of cancer than an epidemic of cholera.

Tell that to the people who won the cancer in that lottery!

Terry Didcott
Natural and Organic Food