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The geranium is a beautiful house and garden plant which has potentially useful healing properties. The geranium plant produces essential oils in small glands around the foliage and flowers. Geranium oil can be harvested when the plant starts flowering and can be taken 2 or 3 times a year. Geranium oil is a good astringent and can be diluted with water and used topically to help clean your face or it can be added to your bath water. It is also an antiseptic which can improve both dry or... Read Full Story

Many people have been using refillable metal containers as a healthier and environmentally friendlier alternative to water in plastic bottles. However, aluminum water bottles are typically lined with a type of plastic because no-one likes to drink straight from aluminum as it just doesn’t taste right and there is a potential health hazard from ingesting aluminum. The problem is that the plastic liner is typically an epoxy resin whose “key building block,” according to the American Chemistry... Read Full Story

* Your home and your clothes may have a “clean smell” like lemons or pine. * These synthetic fragrances found in laundry and cleaning products including laundry detergents, fabric softeners, dryer sheets as well as in “air fresheners” emit dozens of different chemicals. * A recent study found that a plug-in air freshener emitted 20 different volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which included seven compounds regulated as toxic or hazardous under U.S. federal laws yet the label simply lists... Read Full Story

In 1960, the minimum wage was $1.00 and the average wage was about $2.32 per hour. A 24 ounce loaf of bread costs $0.21 and requires 13 minutes of work to earn. A pound of ground beef costs $0.33 and requires 20 minutes of work to earn. 10 pounds of potatoes cost $0.49 which requires 29 minutes of work to earn. In 2009 the minimum wage is now $7.25. A 24 ounce loaf of bread costs $1.49 and requires 12 minutes of work to earn. A pound of ground beef costs $3.49 and requires 29 minutes... Read Full Story

* Chlorophenoxy compounds are often mixed into commercial fertilizers to control the growth of broad leaf weeds. * Several hundred commercial products contain chlorophenoxy herbicides in various forms and at various concentrations. * Chlorophenoxy herbicides are heavily used in wheat production. * An infant born in a rural, wheat-producing county in the United States has about twice the chance of suffering birth defects as one born in a rural place that doesn’t produce wheat... Read Full Story

* Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, just converted from one form to another, such as from sunlight to plant matter, and during this process energy is lost which is impractical to recover. * Each day, the sun provides a finite amount of energy to the earth which creates our weather, causes the winds to blow, rains to fall, the plants to grow and shapes the face of our planet. * All animals eat plants or eat animals that eat plants. * Plants use photosynthesis to turn sunlight into... Read Full Story

* Breakfast cereals are made of grains and are recommended by he Canada food guide and the USDA as part of a balanced diet. * The problem for society is that the grinding, milling, wetting, drying, and baking of a breakfast cereal requires about four calories of energy for every calorie of food energy it produces. * The manufacture of a two-pound bag of breakfast cereal requires the energy equivalent of a half-gallon of gasoline. * In general, processed food in North America and Europe... Read Full Story

* The mass consumption of sugar began with the industrialization of Victorian England. The British Empire has significant quantities of sugar available from plantations in the colonies. The cities of Britain will filled with factory workers who needed to be fed cheaply. * In the factories of Victorian Britain the “afternoon tea break” was born. The tea was primarily warm water and sugar to keep the workers “alive”. Some workers who were “well off” could also afford bread with heavily... Read Full Story

* Each day, the sun provides a finite amount of energy to the earth which creates our weather, causes the winds to blow, rains to fall, the plants to grow and shapes the face of our planet. * Humans engage in many different industries each day yet more than two thirds of humanity’s primary productivity results from agriculture, yet our farmers have been marginalized and their important position in society usurped by companies providing farmers with energy, fertilizers, and seeds which... Read Full Story

* All human activities consume resources including energy and materials. * All human activities produce waste byproducts. * If we consume energy and resources within what the sun and earth can provide in each year and we reuse and recycle our waste products, we can create a sustainable society. * In 2007, the U.S. spent $2.26 trillion on health care, $7,439 per person, which represents approximately 15% of the Gross domestic product of the country. * In the United States in 2007, 31... Read Full Story