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Your Go-to Guide for Healthy Green Living:
Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices by GreenerPenny's Mindy Pennybacker! As recommended on The Martha Stewart Show and by Meryl Streep.
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“Such a pleasure to read! Mindy’s solid research informs your healthy living choices."
-from the foreword by Meryl Streep
According to The New York Times, Do One Green Thing is “A handy guide to making more environmentally sound decisions,” with “well-organized chapters and easy-to-use tips.”
Buy from your local bookseller, or online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and others listed at St.Martins.com/DoOneGreenThing.
Do One Green Thing provides:
*Choose It/Lose It charts for labels and ingredients
*Lists of greenest, healthiest products:
- Clothing
- Cosmetics
- Food
- Home Deco & Furnishing
- Household/laundry cleaners
- Electronics & lighting
- Shoes
*Tips for recycling and reusing
*D.I.Y. recipes for cleaners |
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No Farms, No Food: Eat Local
Farms are under constant pressure from developers.
From orange groves and wildlife corridors to housing projects and malls, the Green Man has seen development swallow much of Southern California, but here’s one local eatery that’s survived, thanks to consumers who care.
Support your regional farm economies and preserve open space by buying local at a farmers’ market near you: Find one on USDA’s search page. Find a nearby farm where you can Pick Your Own. And grow your own! In the photo, mangoes from our front yard tree.
Food Safety Tips: Avoiding Pesticides and Pathogens
Rinsing produce in tap water for 30 seconds removes most surface pesticide residues, but not systemic pesticides like toxic chlorpyrifos that plants absorb. Organic produce, grown without synthetic pesticides, is more affordable in season. If you can’t buy everything organic, then choose it in favorite foods you eat a lot, or those which have higher pesticide residues when not organically grown.
Summer favorites such as strawberries, peaches, spinach, and sweet peppers have highest pesticide residues, according to EWG’s 2011 produce list. Top least toxic: onions, corn, pineapples, avocadoes, asparagus, eggplant.
In light of recent e.Coli, staph and salmonella outbreaks, here’s how to avoid contaminated meat and vegetables when grilling |
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Choose It / Lose It
Choose It:
Uncoated Cookware and Untreated, Natural Fabric
Lose It:
Nonstick Cookware, Water/Stain Repellent Finishes
A little rain can't hurt, but the chemicals used to make it slip off your raincoat are another story. Whether they're called Gore-tex, Scotchgard, Teflon or some other name, nonstick and water/stain-resistant coatings use polyfluoroalkyl chemicals ( PFCs), which are being increasingly implicated in all sorts of adverse health effects, from infertility in women to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children.
A startling new study, published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, finds that exposures to two types of PFCs, perfluorooctanaoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid
(PFOS),may interfere with children’s immune systems, making them less likely to defend against disease.
In addition to nonstick cookware and treated fabrics, PFCs are found in microwave popcorn bags, pizza boxes and other fast-food packaging. And, more’s the pity, in coated dental floss.
These nonstick chemicals actually stick to us: The latest “body burden” study by the CDC finds PFCs in 99 percent of Americans.
For a roundup of the science on PFCs and human health, including how these chemicals get into our bodies and how to choose PFC-free products, see our new Greenerpenny blog, “Risks of nonstick, water/stain resistant coatings.” |
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Who's the Fairest?
For your loved one, choose certified organic and fairly traded flowers and chocolates. You’ll be supporting the health and welfare of workers and the planet as well as protecting your sweetheart from chemical residues.
For flowers, see my Econundrums in this month’s Whole Living.
To pick chocolates, use our mobile-friendly Shopping List.
And for your romantic dinner, don’t forget eco-friendly wines. |
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Just Ask Mindy
I love answering your questions, so ask me! Also, check out my Econundrums Q &A column at WholeLiving.com, where I am a regular blogger.
Natural Skin Care and Cosmetics
Winter skin needs soothing products with certified organic plant oils, free of the Top Ten Worst Personal Care Ingredients.
For more personal care products without toxic phthalates, parabens and other ingredients of concern, see my cosmetics blog and list. Readers are contributing great comments!
Soothe winter-weary lips with these botanical balms free of toxic chemicals. |
More Do One Green Thing in the News
See Mindy's Econundrums column in Whole Living Magazine in print and online.
Time for Green Spring Cleaning! See Mindy’s 12 d.i.y. natural cleaning recipes in the April Natural Home Magazine.
Join the conversation at Huffington Post, where Mindy blogs about green living and food.
For more book reviews and media appearances see:
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