When to Shop Organic? Get the Food Guide!
July 2nd, 2007
Unsure about when to buy organic? When is it worth the extra few dollars when you’re choosing your fruit?
The Food Guide is a handy pocket-sized guide to tell you which fruits are the worst offenders. Turns out that peaches and apples are the ones to watch!
According to the Environmental Working Group,
There is growing consensus in the scientific community that small doses of pesticides and other chemicals can adversely affect people, especially during vulnerable periods of fetal development and childhood when exposures can have long lasting effects. Because the toxic effects of pesticides are worrisome, not well understood, or in some cases completely unstudied, shoppers are wise to minimize exposure to pesticides whenever possible.
Nearly all of the data used to create these lists already considers how people typically wash and prepare produce (for example, apples are washed before testing, bananas are peeled). While washing and rinsing fresh produce may reduce levels of some pesticides, it does not eliminate them. Peeling also reduces exposures, but valuable nutrients often go down the drain with the peel. The best option is to eat a varied diet, wash all produce, and choose organic when possible to reduce exposure to potentially harmful chemicals.
Click here to download the guide to stash in your own reusable grocery bag!
Half the World to Live in Cities
July 2nd, 2007
A United Nations Population Fund report released recently predicts that by next year, more than half the world’s population, 3.3 billion people, will for the first time live in towns and cities. By 2030, this number is expected to grow to almost 5 billion.
According to the New York Times,
The onrush of change will be particularly extraordinary in Africa and Asia, where between 2000 and 2030 “the accumulated urban growth of these two regions during the whole span of history will be duplicated in a single generation,†the report says.
Cities will edge out rural areas in more than sheer numbers of people. Poverty is now increasing more rapidly in urban areas as well, and governments need to plan for where the poor will live rather than leaving them to settle illegally in shanties without sewage and other services, the United Nations says.
A billion people, a sixth of the world’s population, already live in slums, 90 percent of them in developing countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, more than 7 in 10 urban dwellers live in a slum. The region’s slum population has almost doubled in just 15 years, reaching 200 million in 2005. Its urban population is already as large as North America’s.
The numbers can be daunting, but the report also states that though cities are magnets for poverty concentration, because of their tremendous economic potential, cities also represent the best hope of escaping it.