A sampling of some of the useful information you'll find in E's guide to living lightly.
"Green Living: The E Magazine Handbook for Living Lightly on the Earth" (2005, Plume) offers a wealth of information and useful tips from the editors of E/The Environmental Magazine, including:
- Check the PLU code on the stickers clinging to your fruits and vegetables: a "4" at the beginning denotes conventionally grown produce, an "8" means the food has been genetically modified and a "9" means you've found something organic.
- Buying organic is a good way to avoid not only pesticide-laden produce but, in some cases, genetically modified fruits and vegetables as well. Among the conventional produce most likely to be genetically modified: papayas from Hawaii (more than 50 percent are GM). The next most likely: ears of sweet corn (3 to 5 percent are GM).
- Urban gardens -- little gardens on vacant lots, rooftops or balconies -- are vastly underrated. In fact, 15 percent of the world's food is grown in urban gardens; in Hong Kong alone, two-thirds of the city's poultry and half of its vegetables come from urban gardens.
- If you're shopping for vitamin supplements, look for products with a "USP" on the label. The designation means the vitamins have met the purity and absorption standards of the trade group U.S. Pharmacopeia.
- If you expect to be in a claustrophic situation, bring along something vanilla scented. A test of patients undergoing magnetic resonance imaging found they felt 63 percent less claustrophic when they entered the machine after being exposed to a vanilla scent.
- Want to avoid petroleum-based products? Start with the fragrances you use: according to the National Academy of Sciences, petroleum forms the basis for 95 percent of all perfume ingredients.
- When it's animal-derived products you want to avoid, check your cosmetics labels for these ingredients: benzoic acid, carmine (from the cochineal beetle), cetyl alcohol (unless it specifies coconut or vegetable sources), glycerin (from animal fat), keratin (from horns, hooves and feathers), lanolin (from sheep's wool), royal jelly (a bee secretion), silk powder (a silkworm secretion), stearic acid and urea (from animal urine and other fluids).
- Shopping for lumber for a home improvement project? Look for sustainably produced wood with the "FSC" (Forest Stewardship Council) label; the mark denotes lumber grown in a manner that protects watersheds, soil and native species, that limits the use of chemicals and genetically modified species, and that practices fair labor. Another label used on lumber, the "SFI" (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) designation, doesn't meet the same environmental standards.
The copyright of the article Green Living Tips and Insights in Green/Simple Living is owned by Shirley Siluk Gregory. Permission to republish Green Living Tips and Insights in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
