5 Tips For Picking a Gym

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5 Tips For Picking a Gym

guest post by Carl Turner

There may be tons of great gyms out there, but that doesn’t mean they’re all a good fit for you. Depending on your goals, you could be looking for anything from a hot yoga studio to a Cross Fit gym. When you consider your preferences and fitness goals, it’s also important to pick a facility that meets your standards, uses gym cleaning supplies regularly, and makes you feel comfortable and welcome. While you’re looking for a new gym, here are five tips to keep in mind.

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Lifestyle choices and the cancer connection: what you should know

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Lifestyle choices and the cancer connection: what you should know

Almost half of all Americans suffer from chronic health ailments; among these, cancer is second leading cause of death, after heart disease. Although screening and treatment options, as well as a reduction in smoking, have improved the survival odds for many different kinds of cancer, including the 4 most common kinds: lung, colorectal, breast, and lung, the numbers are still high. Over 595,000 Americans are expected to die from cancer in 2016, which translates into over 1600 people per day...

There's no foolproof way to completely eliminate your risk of developing cancer, but there are several ways to decrease your chances. These begin with making the kinds of lifestyle choices that will ensure that your immune system has the strength it needs to keep your body healthy and fight disease effectively.

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Happy Green Halloween: staying healthy and sane during the (month-long) candy rush

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Happy Green Halloween: staying healthy and sane during the (month-long) candy rush

Halloween, the Day of the Dead, is a little over a week away, and as usual, I am wondering how to manage the annual candy rush. It makes me anxious, and I am otherwise one of the least anxious people you could meet. That’s because, in our neighborhood, Halloween is a VERY BIG DEAL.

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10 Ways that Endocrine Disruptors are Screwing up your Health

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10 Ways that Endocrine Disruptors are Screwing up your Health

We are all exposed to endocrine disruptors like BPA, dioxin, lead, arsenic, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals. Here's a list of what they can do to the human body and the environment, along with a resource to help you minimize your exposure to these harmful synthetic chemicals.

 

 

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Farm Aid – the best event you’ve barely heard about

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Farm Aid – the best event you’ve barely heard about

When Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and John Mellencamp founded Farm Aid back in 1985, sponsoring its first concert in Champaign Illinois, American farmers were in crisis. A series of droughts had devastated farms in the Midwest, Ohio Valley, and Great Lakes regions, with Kentucky and Ohio suffering their driest spells of the 20th century. Family farms were struggling to stay afloat, with many of them deeply in debt. Although the drought conditions would continue (and in some places, worsen) throughout the 1980s, Farm Aid brought the troubles faced by American family farmers to public consciousness for the first time. It also raised money to help

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Cold prevention and treatment without the harmful chemicals

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Cold prevention and treatment without the harmful chemicals

It’s official: summer is over and fall is underway! Kids are back in school and (hopefully) settled into their daily routines. If your family is anything like mine, you’ve already had to deal with the fallout from cold and flu season. Without fail, each time the season changes, the sniffles begin and (if we’re not careful), someone comes down with a cold or flu.

It’s not the temperature changes that cause colds and flu; it’s that certain viruses thrive in the cooler temperatures. Rhinovirus and coronavirus are the most common culprits that cause illness this time of year.

If you have realized that the fall season ushers in the first bouts of cold and flu in your household, there is something you can do to prevent illness from getting your kids (and you too!) off track this season.

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Urban gardening: plant cover crops this fall for a better, faster, and more abundant harvest

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Urban gardening: plant cover crops this fall for a better, faster, and more abundant harvest

As more and more people around the world have become aware of the ongoing problems with industrial, large scale farming, we’ve seen a rise in urban and peri-urban farming. This is ultimately a good thing, but it can also present some problems that exacerbate existing problems.

Whether urban farming can solve any of the current global agricultural crises (food waste, food deserts, soil erosion, overuse of pesticides, increased use of GMOs, monocropping) is debatable, but done efficiently, it can address some of these problems on a small scale.

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Is Agritourism Really Eco-Friendly?→

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Is Agritourism Really Eco-Friendly?

Agritourism, or agrotourism, as it’s also known, is often described as the intersection between agriculture and tourism. Broadly, it refers to the activity of visiting a working farm (or ranch). These days, it’s considered a form of eco-tourism because it aims to be small-scale, environmentally low-impact, and involves educating paying visitors in some way. Farm owners also aim to showcase their products, and in many cases, invite visitors to harvest some of their produce. While agritourism is an increasingly popular activity around the world, it is not a new one. However, it has changed a lot in recent years, especially in the US.

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Go Green without Going Broke and upcoming events

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Go Green without Going Broke and upcoming events

After an unexpectedly long hiatus from blogging, the Green and Prosperous blog is lining up some engaging topics that relate to the book I've been researching and writing to bring to you, dear readers, Go Green without Going Broke, vol. 1. This is the second book in the series of Green Guidebooks (#greenguidebook), after The Little Guidebook for Green Moms & Dads. 

I am so tired of saying that the book is "coming out soon", but REALLY, it is coming out in about a week. I'm finally down to making the last edits, writing the front matter, and creating copy to help publicize the book.

I just got the cover back from the book cover designer and it looks fabulous! I was so excited I couldn't wait to share it with you!

Read on for more information about all the good things coming down the pike at Green and Prosperous...

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My favorite DIY green cleaners: safe, effective, and easy to make at home

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My favorite DIY green cleaners: safe, effective, and easy to make at home

Most household cleaning agents contain harmful chemicals that can cause a range of health problems.  One set of ingredients in these cleaners is especially problematic, because they are known to cause cancer in humans and animals: formaldehyde and formaldehyde releasers. Sometimes formaldehyde is not actually used as an ingredient in cleaning solutions, but is present as a by-product. For this reason, it does not appear in the list of ingredients; instead, you’ll know that a product contains formaldehyde if you see the names DMDM hydantoin, or 1,4 dioxane listed among a product’s ingredients. It may also be present if other chemical ingredients like formalin, formalith, methanol, methyl aldehyde, methylene glycol, methylene oxide, paraform, or BFV appear in the ingredient list.

On the other hand, you can always make your own green cleaning products.

By making your own household cleaners, you can not only have more control over the ingredients that go into them, thereby reducing your exposure to hazardous chemicals, you can also save money in the process (especially by buying them in bulk).

Here are a few of my favorite DIY green household cleaners. 

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10 Eco-Friendly Ways to Celebrate this Memorial Day

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10 Eco-Friendly Ways to Celebrate this Memorial Day

Memorial Day is coming in a little more than a week from now. if you’re preparing to fire up the grill, attend a parade, visit a cemetery or memorial, or get out and say welcome to the unofficial start of summer (here’s hoping you’ll have plenty of sunshine to enjoy), you’ll be joining the majority of over 300 million Americans who will be observing the holiday this year.

Memorial Day wouldn’t be quite complete without the usual round of recommendations and suggestions for how to enjoy the long weekend. This year, we’re joining the chorus and adding our voices with 10 fun, eco-friendly, and off-the-beaten track ways to celebrate this Memorial Day.

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What’s in your drinking water and should you be concerned?

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What’s in your drinking water and should you be concerned?

#CleanWaterWednesday

Although news about the ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan has waned in the face of the upcoming Presidential election, the water crisis is far from over. This water crisis was a wake-up call for many people and some of their elected representatives about the dangers of toxic lead (and other contaminants) that have leached into municipal water supplies, partly because of aging or flawed infrastructure.

But while Flint has become the poster child for lead poisoning in particular, and contaminated water systems in general, the attention that has been riveted on Flint by the mainstream media in the US has done little to inform – or alarm – us about the details of other ongoing water crises around the country.

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The Health Dangers of Prolonged Mold Exposure

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The Health Dangers of Prolonged Mold Exposure

guest post by R.S. Hall

Mold is a word used to describe an array of spore-producing fungi. Mildew is another term for certain types of mold and is generally associated with the growth in showers and tubs. These allergens pose a health risk, particularly with prolonged exposure.

While the mold growing in your shower may be obvious, there are many places in your home where you may have an undetected patch lurking, such as inside the walls. Although it prefers a warm, damp environment, the spores can survive in less hospitable conditions and wait to land in a moist area. You and your family may come in contact with the spores and begin to experience troubling symptoms before you realize what is causing these health challenges.

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Do We Really Need Earth Day Anymore?

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Do We Really Need Earth Day Anymore?

Somehow, this past Earth Day felt different. I’m not sure why, but somehow it struck me as strange that neither of my kids’ schools mentioned it in announcements, let alone did anything special to commemorate the day. While the news cycle in the US was dominated by the ongoing war in Ukraine and the presidential election in France, the omission of anything more than brief mentions of Earth Day in the major media outlets, and even the online ones I regularly consult, felt odd.

Whether or not people were actually thinking much about Earth Day and its significance, there is one thing that made this Earth Day important, and perhaps different than any previous Earth Day. But it also underscores the main reason why the largest secular holiday in the world has become obsolete.

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Are BPA-free plastics still poisoning you?

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Are BPA-free plastics still poisoning you?

In my book on toxic chemicals, I wrote about the health effects of Bisphenol-A (BPA) as being pervasive: this chemical compound, found in plastics and even in some cash register receipts, has been linked to problems with metabolism, behavior, reproduction, the development of placentas and stem cells, and the growth of cancerous tumors. BPA has been blamed (at least in part) for obesity, diabetes, asthma, infertility, and even…

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