Good for You, Good for Our Earth

Take some time on Thursday September 9th to watch Urban Rush. Line up includes a power house of amazing women! Fall interior décor trends from JANETTE EWAN, fashion trends by JACOB, musical guest KIM KUZMA, registered dietitian LORI PETRYK tackles your lunch box, and from the new “Lost Girl” TV series on Showcase, actress ANNA SILK.

A lot of people wonder whether they should be taking a daily multivitamin.  Any health professional that has been following the research on multivitamins over the years, will not be able to give you a straight answer to that, and for good reason. There has been conflicting research, some of it stating multivitamins help to prevent certain diseases, some of it concluding it makes things worse. Medscape Medical News outlined two conflicting studies, one showing a 33% decrease in breast cancer risk associated with multivitamin use and yet another observed a 19% increased risk of breast cancer associated with multivitamin use. While the debate rages on, I recommend not worrying about taking a pill as there is no one multivitamin that will give you all the 10,000-100, 00 phytochemicals that you receive from eating whole foods. 1000′s of studies have shown that a diet of unprocessed whole foods when eaten in moderation helps to prevent cancer and other chronic disease. That you can be sure of!

Treehugger, a leading online one-stop shop for green news, solutions, and product information in honor of Earth Month and the fortieth anniversary of Earth Day, introduce their second annual Best of Green Awards, which highlight the individuals and organizations that are pushing the green movement forward. Click out this year winners for the Best of Green 2010 Food and Health!

So you thought the best thing you could do to reduce your output of CO2 emissions was to ride your bike? Well, that’s a great start; however, if you really want to reduce the amount of CO2 we produce, you need to start with what you put in your mouth.  When you account for all the emissions from seed, to plate, to landfill, the food we eat accounts for as much as 31% of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions. That’s a gigantic Food Footprint!

Top choices that are ‘Good for You & Good for Our Earth’

1. Eat less red meat and dairy
Research shows that a diet high in red meat increases the risk of colorectal cancer. The raising of livestock for human consumption is also responsible for 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. On average, red meat is around 150% more greenhouse-gas intensive than chicken or fish.

When eating red meat and dairy:
⇒    Buy organic, local or grass-fed meat and dairy whenever possible and choose the leanest meat and trim any visible fat before cooking
⇒    Limit the amount of red meat you eat each week to 3 servings. A serving is 85 grams (3 ounces) when cooked – this is smaller than   a   deck of cards
⇒    Choose  low or fat-free dairy products

2. Reduce your intake of processed and packaged foods

The majority of processed foods are filled with additives, high in sugar, fat, salt, and stripped of nutrients. Processed meats have a high level of sodium nitrate (salt), considered by many to be carcinogenic (causes cancer). Not only that, packaged food is extremely resource intense. Snack foods, most juices, even veggie burgers (prepared, boxed, frozen and transported) often consume much more energy through processing and packaging than non-packaged foods.

3. Pass on the air miles

Often we think ‘Eating Local’ is the best thing we can do for the environment. In reality 80 per cent of the energy used to get food from the farm to the table occurs during food production. Transportation accounts for 10% -15 %. The best thing about eating local is actually the quality of the food and supporting your local economy. Even when the highest post-harvest handling standards are met, foods grown far away spend significant time on the road, and therefore, have more time to lose nutrients before reaching the marketplace.  When shopping for foods that perish quickly, look for sustainable locally grown foods — your body and the earth will thank you for it.

4.  Say NO to supersize

The more food you pile on your plate, the more likely you are to eat it. Ordering larger portion sizes often causes over-consumption of food, and this can have a negative impact on weight. In addition, every time a person takes more then he or she can eat, what is left on the plate causes our landfills to also grow in size. As this wasted food rots in landfills, it generates methane gas that contributes to global warming. Worldwide, 1/2 of the food produced is wasted. Wasted food is wasted energy. Warm your heart, not the earth. Eat whole food and think twice before asking for that second helping.

For those that are looking to reduce there carbon foodprint, but still love the taste of a juicy steak every once in a while, I just came across this amazing website called Eat Wild. The site is an excellent way to locate safe, healthy, natural and nutritious grass-fed beef, lamb, goats, bison, poultry, pork, dairy and other wild edibles. Remember to read the fine print, so you are getting what you pay for.  Organic can still mean supplemented with a grain diet while they forage in the pasture. Organic lifetime grass-fed (no supplementation with grains), has been shown to be higher in omega-3, and lower in methane production.

Check it out: www.eatwild.com/products/canada.html