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10 Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint This Thanksgiving Posted: 24 Nov 2014 03:44 PM PST Thanksgiving is a favorite holiday for many. It's a time to eat, indulge and spend uninterrupted time with family. It's also a time for reflection. A time to think about what we're thankful for and a time to think about how the choices we make impact our families and the planet. Although every day provides an opportunity for reflection and change, Thanksgiving stands out as the perfect day to kick off a few new habits that will effect the longevity of our planet. If each of us revamped our consumption and waste habits by slightly adjusting what's already in place, the overall impact could be huge. Here are a few tips for the Thanksgiving holiday that will reduce our carbon footprint and help keep the planet healthy for generations to come. 1. Shop Local Shop locally this Thanksgiving and lend your support to the little local business rather than the big box stores. Go for holiday supplies that don't need to travel far to get to your Thanksgiving table. 2. Buy Organic Organic food typically requires 30-50 percent less energy during production than its conventional counterpart. Make the shift this Thanksgiving to a table with more organic food choices. Knowing that your food isn't sprayed with pesticides, chemicals or GMOs is enough reason to incorporate organic foods into your menu. 3. Turn the Heat Down Watch your home heat up on its own as your Thanksgiving guests arrive and as the oven is turned on to warm the food. Rather than opening windows to cool off the space, remember to set the thermostat a few degrees lower before the celebration begins. 4. Don't Use Disposables Make the switch to reusable napkins, skip the paper towels and pull out the good dishes this Thanksgiving. It's a bit more effort at the end of the evening, but it's worth it. Each person in the United States uses 749 pounds (340kg) of paper every year. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the pulp and paper industry may contribute to more global and local environmental problems than any other industry in the world. The industry is the third largest industrial emitter of global warming pollution. 5. Reduce the Amount You Buy Reducing is the first of the 3 Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle. When planning your Thanksgiving celebration, try making some slight alterations to your shopping list. Give some extra thought as to whether or not you truly need those items on your list and reduce the amount of food and decorations if possible. 6. Compost Table Scraps Did you know that a typical household throws away an estimated 474 pounds of food waste each year? That means about 1.5 lbs. per person a day in the United States. Food scraps generated by all households in the U.S. could be piled on a football field more than five miles (26,400 feet) high. Compost those vegetable scraps and watch your garden thrive. 7. Fill Your Dishwasher Before Running Fill your dishwasher to capacity before running a cycle. You'll end up saving water, energy and detergent. 8. Green Your Turkey A Cornell study shows it takes 14 units of fossil fuel to produce a serving of turkey. If you're planning to have turkey, try to make it a little greener by purchasing it from a local market or farm. If the turkey is traveling a long distance to get to your table, that's adding to your carbon footprint. Best option -- skip the turkey! 9. Clean with Non-Toxic Cleaners Make the switch to non-toxic cleaning products. When making the switch to green cleaning products, replace products you're currently using as they run out with a safer version. Take the time to research safer, non-toxic products and then make the switch. 10. Stay Local According to USA Today, it's predicted that 24.6 million passengers will fly on U.S. airlines domestically and internationally between November 21 and December 2 this year. That's a 1.5 percent increase from last year, or 31,000 more passengers on average a day. For many of us, traveling is a long-standing tradition and needed to visit with our family. Use this handy calculator from The Nature Conservancy to help you calculate the amount of carbon you emit and offer ways of offsetting those emissions. If your plan is to drive, make sure your tires are fully inflated and your car has been properly serviced. This will help reduce your carbon emissions and improve your gas mileage. [via Huffington Post | photo Benjamin Chun]

10 Reasons To Eat Sprouts Daily & How To Grow Your Own Posted: 24 Nov 2014 03:43 PM PST Sprouts are an amazing little nutrient dense, powerhouse superfood. Sprouts are shoots from a plant seed. They come in many different varieties and lucky for us a whole bunch of these are edible! Green, red leaf, alfalfa, radish, broccoli, and clover are a few different varieties of sprouts, but did you know that you can also sprout chickpeas, quinoa, lentils and even almonds? There are many reasons why sprouting is a good idea: it is extremely economical, you can ensure that you are getting extremely fresh, organic, local food into your diet daily and you can do it from home all winter long. I don't think there is one good reason not to sprout. Here are the top 10 reasons to eat sprouts daily. 1. Enzymes It has been estimated that there can be up to 100 times more enzymes in sprouts than in uncooked fruits and vegetables. Enzymes are types of proteins that act as catalysts for all of your bodily functions. Enzymes extract more vitamins, minerals, amino acids and fatty acids from the foods that you eat and ensures your body has the nutritional building blocks to ensure every process works as effectively as possible.  2. More Fiber Fiber is an extremely important factor in any diet, did you know it actually binds to fats and toxins within our bodies and helps us eliminate them? It also ensures that any fat our bodies break down is moved through the body before it has a chance to reabsorb through the walls of the intestines. 3. Higher Vitamin Content The vitamin content from certain seeds, grains, beans and nuts actually increases by up to 20 times the original value after only a few days of sprouting. Mung beansprouts, for example, increase in vitamin B1 by up to 285 percent, vitamin B2 by up to 515 percent and niacin by up to 256 percent. 4. Your Body Can Easily Utilize Sprouts During the sprouting process, minerals bind to the proteins in the seeds, nuts or grains making them more useable in the body. This is true especially for more alkalizing minerals such as calcium and magnesium, they help us balance our body chemistry for potential weight loss and better health. 5. Sprouts Have The Highest Concentration Of Phytonutrients Of Any Food That is a pretty bold statement, but according to this study from the Journal of Applied Science it is true. Phytonutrients play an active role in the amendment of disease. 6. Research Shows Sprouts May Prevent Cancer There have been numerous studies done to show that the consumption of sprouts can actually prevent various forms of cancer. One study in particular that was led by scientists from John Hopkins, found that a highly concentrated source of sulforaphane, a compound they identified in 1992 that helps mobilize the body's natural cancer-fighting resources and reduces the risk of developing cancer. Broccoli sprouts, contain unusually high levels of glucoraphanin, the naturally-occurring precursor of sulforaphane. 7. Sprouts Can Help Alkalize Your Body Sprouts themselves are quite alkaline, eating them can directly help maintain the acid alkaline balance within the body, which ultimately leads to good health overall. Nobel Prize winner Otto Heinrich Warburgh stated: "Cancer cannot exist in an alkaline oxygen rich environment." 8. Energizing The energy contained in the little seed, nut, bean, or grain is ignited through the soaking and sprouting process. 9. Extremely Economical Sprouting is extremely cheap! Sure you can buy little plastic containers at the store for around $2-$4 for conventional and $3-$5 for organic. Or you could save your money, save the environment, save the trip to the store and sprout your own for just pennies a batch! 10. Sprouts Are Extremely Easy To Grow Yourself Anytime Of The Year Sprouts are grown indoors, most varieties need only water, and many don't even need sunlight. All you need is a jar, a piece of mesh or old pantyhose, water and sprout seeds! Bonus: Sprouts are extremely tasty! I like to eat them sprinkled in salads, on sandwiches, and on flatbread type crackers with Vegenaise and tomato slices. Mmm mm good! How To Sprout Your Own Sprouts What You Need: A thoroughly cleaned mason jar A piece of fine mesh or a piece from an old pair of pantyhose big enough to cover the top of the jar (cheesecloth doesn't work very well for this because sometimes the seeds get caught in the material.) Sprouting seeds Water Instructions: Put between 2 and 4 Tablespoons of any kind of sprout seeds you choose. I really like Mumm's brand seeds. They are organic and they also have a variety of many yummy sprout combinations. My favorite is the "sandwich booster" blend. Sometimes I add a little "crunchy bean mix" and sprout these together. Its very simple. Cover the seeds with filtered water, let seeds soak for 8 hours or over night. Cover the top of the jar with the mesh or pantyhose and secure with either the ring only for the top of the jar or a tightly wrapped elastic band.  Drain the water. Pour some more water over the seeds, then swirl the jar around to rinse them, then discard the water. Put the jar in a bowl or container so that it can sit downwards at about a 45-degree angle, so the water can drain out. Place the jar in a dark area, or in a cupboard. Rinse the sprouts and replace them in the downward position twice daily. Your sprouts should be ready in about 3-5 days, enjoy! You can also buy nifty little sprouting devices in the form of jars or trays, but this isn't really necessary. The method above has worked very well for me over the years. Happy sprouting! [via Collective Evolution]

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