Chef Johan's Raw & Tasty

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1. GET THE NUTRITION YOU NEED & ENJOY TASTIER FOOD!

Many studies have shown that organically grown food has more minerals and nutrients that we need than food grown with synthetic pesticides. There’s a good reason why many chefs use organic foods in their recipes—they taste better. Organic farming starts with the nourishment of the soil, which eventually leads to the nourishment of the plant and, ultimately our bodies.

2. SAVE MONEY
Growing your own food can help cut the cost of the grocery bill. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars and month at the grocery store on foods that don’t really nourish you, spend time in the garden, outside, exercising, learning to grow your own food.

3. PROTECT FUTURE GENERATIONS
The average child receives four times more exposure than an adult to at least eight widely used cancer-causing pesticides in food. Food choices you make now will impact your child’s future health.

“We have not inherited the Earth from our fathers, we are borrowing it from our children.”
– Lester Brown

4. PREVENT SOIL EROSION
The Soil Conservation Service estimates more than 3 billion tons of topsoil are eroded from the United States’ croplands each year. That means soil erodes seven times faster than it’s built up naturally. Soil is the foundation of the food chain in organic farming. However, in conventional farming, the soil is used more as a medium for holding plants in a vertical position so they can be chemically fertilized. As a result, American farms are suffering from the worst soil erosion in history.

5. PROTECT WATER QUALITY
Water makes up two-thirds of our body mass and covers three-fourths of the planet. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates pesticides – some cancer causing – contaminate the groundwater in 38 states, polluting the primary source of drinking water for more than half the country’s population.

6. SAVE ENERGY
American farms have changed drastically in the last three generations, from family-based small businesses dependent on human energy to large-scale factory farms. Modern farming uses more petroleum than any other single industry, consuming 12 percent of the country’s totally energy supply. More energy is now used to produce synthetic fertilizers than to till, cultivate and harvest all the crops in the United States. If you are growing your own food in the city, you are cutting down on transportation and pollution costs.

7. KEEP CHEMICALS OFF YOUR PLATEMany pesticides approved for use by the EPA were registered long before extensive research linking these chemicals to cancer and other diseases had been established. Now the EPA considers 60 percent of all herbicides, 90 percent of all fungicides and 30 percent of all insecticides carcinogenic. A 1987 National Academy of Sciences report estimated that pesticides might cause an extra 4 million cancer cases among Americans. If you are growing your own food, you have control over what does, or doesn’t, go into it. The bottom line is that pesticides are poisons designed to kill living organisms and can also harm humans. In addition to cancer, pesticides are implicated in birth defects, nerve damage and genetic mutations.

8. PROTECT FARM WORKERS & HELP SMALL FARMERS
A National Cancer Institute study found that farmers exposed to herbici

des had six times more risk than non-farmers of contracting cancer. In California, reported pesticide poisonings among farm workers have risen an average of 14 percent a year since 1973 and doubled between 1975 and 1985. Field workers suffer the highest rates of occupational illness in the state. Farm worker health is also a serious problem in developing nations, where pesticide use can be poorly regulated. An estimated 1 million people are poisoned annually by pesticides.

Although more and more large-scale farms are making the conversion to organic practices, most organic farms are small, independently owned family farms of fewer than 100 acres. It’s estimated the United States has lost more than 650,000 family farms in the past decade. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicted that half of this country’s farm production will come from 1 percent of farms by the year 2000, organic farming could be one of the few survival tactics left for family farms.

9. PROMOTE BIODIVERSITY
Mono-cropping is the practice of planting large plots of land with the same crop year after year.

While this approach tripled farm production between 1950 and 1970, the lack of natural diversity of plant life has left the soil lacking in natural minerals and nutrients. To replace the nutrients, chemical fertilizers are used, often in increasing amounts. Single crops are also much more susceptible to pests, making farmers more reliant on pesticides. Despite a tenfold increase in the use of pesticides between 1947 and 1974, crop losses due to insects have doubled—partly because some insects have become genetically resistant to certain pesticides.

10. HELP BEAUTIFY YOUR COMMUNITY
Besides being used to grow food, community gardens are also a great way to beautify a community, and to bring pride in ownership.

Source PDF (Printable Version): http://longbeachorganic.org/

Written by Angelle Batten M.A., H.H.C.

Green cleaning doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact, it can be very inexpensive if you have a few non-toxic products on hand. You can find some of the basics listed below. These are some of the things our great-grandmothers probably used to keep their homes clean for their families.

• Baking Soda can be used in place of harsh and toxic cleansers. It also deodorizes and softens water. You can use it to clean your oven by sprinkling it on the oven floor, spraying with water until damp and letting sit overnight. Scrub in the morning and you’ve got a clean oven!
• Castile Soap is great for disinfecting, cutting grease and it is a great all-around cleaner. The term castile tells you that the soap is vegetable, rather than animal-based.
• Lemon Juice is effective for bleaching, deodorizing, cutting grease and removing stains.
• Olive Oil is a great furniture polish.
• White Vinegar actually kills bacteria, as well as deodorizing and cutting grease and wax buildup. It also removes mildew and dissolves hard water lime buildup on the inside of teapots. Just add four ounces of vinegar to a pot of water and boil. Rinse well.
• Cornstarch will clean windows and pick up spills on your carpet, especially the ones from juice, coffee and wine.

If you would like to create your own safe cleaning solutions, here are some ‘recipes’ for you:

A Safe Softscrub

Mix ½ cup of baking soda with enough vegetable-based liquid soap to create a frosting-like mixture. Use with a sponge to wash your surfaces. Doesn’t leave any grit and rinses easily.
You can make this as you need it, or store it in a covered glass jar with 1 teaspoon of vegetable glycerin, which will help keep it moist.

Non-Toxic Widow Cleaner

1/4-1/2 teaspoon natural liquid detergent
3 tablespoons vinegar
2 cups water
Spray bottle
Mix all of the above ingredients in a spray bottle and shake it up. The soap in this recipe cuts the wax residue from the commercial brands you might have used in the past.

Oven Cleaner

1 cup or more baking soda
Water
A squirt or two of natural liquid detergent
Wet the bottom of your oven generously and then cover all the grime with baking soda. The surface should be totally white. Spray some more water over the top and let the mixture sit overnight. Wipe up the grease the next morning. When the worst is cleaned up, go ahead and wipe up the rest with a sponge and a little castile soap. Using enough baking soda and water is the key – no skimping.

All-Around Cleaner

1/2 teaspoon washing soda
A dab of natural liquid soap
2 cups hot tap water
Mix the ingredients in a spray bottle until the washing soda is dissolved. Spray and clean!

Furniture Polish

1/2 teaspoon oil, such as olive (or jojoba, a liquid wax)
1/4 cup vinegar or fresh lemon juice
After mixing the ingredients in a glass jar you can use on a soft rag to wipe onto wood surfaces. Keep covered when not in use and store indefinitely.

Vinegar Deodorizer

Straight 5 percent vinegar in a spray bottle is a great deodorizer to use on your cutting board, on the counters and in the bathroom. You can let the vinegar sit on the cutting board overnight without wiping. The smell will dissipate. It is also great for getting the toilet rim clean.

Mold Cleaner

Combine 2 teaspoons of tea tree oil and 2 cups of water in a spray bottle. Shake well and spray on moldy areas. Do not rinse. Vinegar also works well to kill a lot of mold. Just spray at full strength and let sit.

Both of these homemade products have strong odors, but they dissipate and they are much safer than the majority of mold products on the market.

Source - http://www.nourishmd.com