Kermit says, "It's not easy being green".....do you agree?

Ok, folks - in my last blog, I mentioned I was back and excited to share some things with you.....well it all started a LONG time ago, when I first learned about recycling and quickly realized this was something I believed in and was in for the long haul "for my grandkids" is what I believe I thought at the time, since I felt like surely we had plenty of what we needed for "now".... but like everyone else, sometimes I got a little lazy.....then the "bottled water" craze hit (SERIOUSLY - WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THAT!?) and while we all thought we needed our own "plastic bottle full of water", little did we realize that we are just polluting this world even more...and fast forward a bit, here I am....

My oldest daughter Emily was visiting from Abu Dhabi this summer and happened to pick up a book called "SUPERNATURAL HOME" at the library....well it happened to be 1 of those books that you are so in awe of, that you READ ALOUD TO EVERYONE IN THE ROOM whether they want to hear or not....while some were not so excited by the time she read the 15th excerpt out of the book, I was FASCINATED! So excited that when she left, I rechecked the book out of the library along with 2 others....Turns out the author of SUPERNATURAL HOME had quite an amazing health revelation and actually spent some time at the Optimum Health Institute in San Diego - a place that my sister just happens to treat herself to for her birthday every year to unwind, recharge and just get healthier; anyway, the author of this book had amazing results at this health clinic......as she said "I discovered that the body is a self- healing organism if we just get out of its way and don't gunk it up with bad food and stress"...boy, she has that right!

So what is green about that?! Well it isn't just what you put in your PIE HOLE that you have to worry about! Global warming, remember that catch phrase, well it is real and all around us, and everything we do impacts it.....these are all the little things I can't wait to share. I don't think I realize the impact that I, singly, have on this big planet of ours, or that I, singly, can really make a difference in so many daily decisions that I make, the way I think, eat, breathe, drive, buy, etc.

Kermit the frog, sings, "it's not easy being green". He wasn't talking about our environment, but I am. There are a million ways you can be "green". And even if you aren't ready to go all the way, you can at least start to make a BIG difference today.....how?? That is what I can't wait to tell you, but of course I can't tell you everyone in 1 blog, I'll have to space them out a bit...but just to wet your appetite - just think about a few of these things for starters...

Let's just start with bottled water....
-8 out of 10 plastic water bottles used in the US end up in the dump! We consume so many bottles of water that we use about 1.5 tons of plastic in AMERICA;
-Studies show that even though we started drinking this water because we thought it was better, safer, etc, often the tests on bottled water show significant chemical or bacterial contamination! WHAT AND I"M PAYING FOR THAT?!?!?!
-Or that it isn't any different than your TAP water! If the bottle says "form a municipal source" or "from a community water system" it is coming from the tap!
-The bottle of water sitting on a shelf in the store is likely to now contain a chemical called antimony, a potential carcinogen that leaches from the plastic! PLASTIC is a whole other subject and scary one at that....don't worry, I'll cover that later....
-BPA (bisphenol-A) is often found in plastic and is a chemical that acts like estrogen when it enters the body and can get into the body by leaching out of hard plastic bottles as they age, or are heated (in microwaves or diswashers) - what about those long truck rides those cases of bottled water makes or how long they sit in the hot warehouses!? And estrogen?!?! HELLOOOOOOOOO - I had "estrogen receptor positive cancer" - don't need anything that looks or acts like estrogen, but believe me, there are many things we use everyday that come into our body that act like estrogen...more on that later too!
-Research from our MIZZOU professor, Frederick vom Saal, who taught Biology there, and happens to be a leading BPA research scientist, said that in lab studies with animals, BPA changed their behavior, decreased sperm count, stimulated prostate cancer and caused symptoms of attention defict hyperactivity disorder! YIKES! No bottled water for me please!
And I haven't even covered the greenhouse gas effect of all the fossil fuel to get this bottled water to the stores all over the country!
OKAY, HAVE YOU PUT THE DANG WATER BOTTLE DOWN YET?! Come on, how about this - instead of buying your next case of bottled water, go out and get a stainless steel water bottle that you can not only use over and over, it will keep your drink HOT or COLD and you can avoid all the nastiness outlined above! And Kermit will be sooooooooo happy that you are green!
-Remember this whole blog is about taking care of ourselves AND our planet and that all starts with little old GREEN YOU!
-Don't worry - i have lots more to share.....just be happy you aren't here with me, listening to me as I read these things outloud and just shake my head....
Until tomorrow, fill up your water bottle and just say NO to those plastic bottles!