Another good reason to be eating more veg! And knowing how the meat you consume is farming. Talk to your farmer (or email them) and make sure you get a response! -

Sixty-nine and 55 percent of pork and beef samples, respectively, tested positive for antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but turkey and chicken pose much greater problems, as far as these “superbugs” are concerned. By far the most contaminated meat was turkey: 81 percent of turkey samples tested positive for antibiotic-resistant microbes, while just 39 percent of chicken samples did.

However, it’s the level of antibiotic resistance, and the rate at which resistance is climbing, the report concludes, that’s most concerning. Rates of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella, which causes acute illness and can lead to chronic arthritis, have increased from 48 percent in 2002 to 76 percent in 2011. Amounts of “superbug Salmonella” found on turkey have jumped from 62 to 78 percent during that same time period.

Another super-bacterium, campylobacter, can be even more damaging. Campylobacter is the most common cause of diarrheal disease in the U.S. and, left untreated, it can trigger Guillain-Barré syndrome, an autoimmune disease that can result in paralysis. Yet, 100 percent of the campylobacter found on turkey was resistant to antibiotics. “Is that the level of food safety we’re aiming for?” Underraga says.

EWG, along with the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming and the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, says the problem can be directly attributed to the heavy use of antibiotics in factory farms. Eighty percent of the antibiotics sold in the U.S. are given to animals, either directly or as feed additives, to help the animals grow faster and survive the unsanitary conditions of concentrated feedlots. “These antibiotics are available to farmers over the counter and without a prescription,” Underraga says. “It’s mind-boggling that we have these incredibly smart doctors who are working hard to preserve antibiotics for only the most necessary medical uses, yet anyone can pick up animal feed with antibiotics in it.”

Click here to read the full article.

Adding fragrance for the sake of it is a BIG no-no on the farm. None of our products contain ingredients that are fragranced – unless they are specifically for beneficial use! And this is why. The fragrance in your skincare is just as impenetrable as the stuff that’s in your air freshener. A good reason to keep yourself, your little one and your home smelling great without those added chemicals! -

1. Secret Ingredients

Don’t pick up your favorite air freshener and try to check the label for the ingredients. You won’t find any.

That’s because most companies keep fragrance ingredients a secret, dubbing them “confidential business information.” This scent secrecy is practiced across industries—cleaning products, personal care products, cosmetics, to name a few—but this problem becomes even more egregious when it comes to air fresheners, in which fragrance can make up 70 to 80 percent of the overall composition of the product. That means we have no information on the vast majority of chemicals we’re spraying in our homes.

I bet you’re thinking, Wait, seriously? Isn’t there some law that requires companies to tell us what’s in their products? The answer is no. In addition to the fragrance secrecy that’s practiced across industries, there’s no law that requires cleaning-product companies (which make air fresheners) to list any of the ingredients in their products—which means that companies can legally keep toxic chemicals a secret from you. We know, we think it’s ridiculous too—and we’re working on fixing that!

2. Fragrance Chemicals

In 2010, for the first time, the International Fragrance Association released a master list of more than 3,100 chemicals that are used by most manufacturers. Chemicals on that list include carcinogens like p-dichlorobenzene and styrene oxide; endocrine disruptors like galaxolide and tonalide; reproductive toxicants like phthalates; problematic disinfectants like triclosan and ammonium quaternary compounds; and numerous allergens.

A fragrance can be made up of more than 100 chemicals—and could include any of those harmful chemicals.

At Women’s Voices for the Earth (WVE), we were curious which of these chemicals might be hiding out in some brand-name air fresheners. So, in 2011, we independently tested some Glade products. Test results revealed synthetic musks and allergens. Test results also revealed the presence of phthalates, which the company had committed to phase out two years before. SC Johnson, the makers of Glade, claimed this was a contamination issue, but we have no confirmation that this issue has been resolved. We also tested Febreze and AirWick, which both came back positive for high levels of allergens.

Here’s the thing: The lab was only specifically testing for musks, phthalates, and allergens because we asked them to. Unfortunately, we don’t have the money to walk into a lab and say, “Tell us everything that’s in this fragrance.”  (Sure, companies deconstruct other companies’ scents all the time, but we don’t have that kind of budget.) In essence, that means that any of the thousands of ingredients we know are commonly used in fragrance could also make up a Febreze, AirWick, or Glade scent.

Click here to read the full article.

Looking to stop “brain fog” or frequent bouts of forgetfulness? Exercise turns out to be an excellent way to protect and enhance brain health, according to the May 2013 issue of the Harvard Men’s Health Watch.

“There’s a lot you can do to prevent cognitive decline, or slow it down, or recover memory function that you might feel you have lost,” says Dr. John Ratey, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

One key strategy is regular, moderately intense exercise. It helps maintain healthy blood pressure and weight, improves energy, lifts mood, lowers stress and anxiety, and keeps the heart healthy, all of which contribute to brain health. But exercise also stimulates brain regions that are involved in memory function to release a chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). BDNF rewires memory circuits so they work better. “When you exercise and move around, you are using more brain cells,” says Dr. Ratey, who is also the author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain (2008). “Using more brain cells turns on genes to make more BDNF.”

Click here to read the full article.

We’re big on reusing at the farm, nothing goes wasted (Granddad’s been saving bits of wood for years!). Great ideas on how to recycle other bits around the home -

Old construction components, such as doors and windows, can be found dirt-cheap at thrift stores. But many thrifty shoppers shy away from these picks simply because they think they have no use for them.

This inventive project from Embracing Change blogger Stacey Freet proves that there’s always a great use for an abandoned door. By adding a few coats of paint and two sawhorses from her garage, the crafty mom transformed an old door into a stunning outdoor table for family picnics.

Click here to read the full article.

Guess what? A new study shows that toddlers and younger children have a higher amount of contaminants in their systems than older children! Why it’s so important to start those good-eating habits early… -

Preschoolers and school-age children eat a large number of contaminants in a variety of foods at levels that have known health effects, according to a study of kids and adults in California. Exposure to the pollutants at the levels identified in the study is associated with a wide array of health effects including cancer, liver toxicity, and damage to the neurological and reproductive systems.The youngest children had higher exposures than school-aged children, parents, or older adults when comparing by body weight, according to researchers at UC Davis and UCLA. To find the exposure levels, the researchers asked participants how much and how often they ate certain foods then used national databases to estimate the amount of toxic chemicals they had eaten.Many of the pesticides, metals, or persistent compounds assessed in the study are banned, are considered carcinogens, or can interfere with the endocrine system. This was the first study to collectively look at exposures to multiple food contaminants based on the way in which they are consumed. People are typically exposed to multiple contaminants at the same time, yet most studies investigate one chemical at a time. The one-at-a-time approach ignores the ways chemicals can act together or in opposition to affect health.

Click here to read the full article.