| In This Issue |
| What's In Your Candy? |
| More On Food Awareness |
| Recommended Reading |
| Recommended Performance |
| RGG Events |
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Manchester City Marathon/Half Marathon Sunday, November 2, 2008, the 2nd Annual marathon
For more information
Tuesday November 4, 2008. Remember to VOTE in the Presidential Election!
America Recycles Day is November 15th. We're telling you ahead of time in the event you want to organize something in your community or school for increasing recycling awareness. America Recycles Day. Information and facts at this website include: "Every 3 months, Americans landfill enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet!" For more, be sure to visit the very interactive
"Conversionator", your personal online calculator
where you get to actually drop (click & drag) items into the Conversionator - and see what happens next.
RGG Events |
| New At RGG! |
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Rubia
Mending Afghanistan Stitch by Stitch. As an alternative to the illegal poppy industry, Rubia offers an income by the sale of lovely hand-embroidered scarves and bags. Poppy flowers and other designs can now be a legitimate source of income as noted by their motto: "Sew don't grow".
Natural textiles and vegetable dyes are used with ancient Afghan patterns, and each piece is signed in embroidery by the worker. The Rubia products are a perfect complement to our Arghand soaps, also from Afghanistan.
To add to our already popular and very special Sari Throws, we now have a selection of Sari Bags and Sari Scarves made in the same manner as the throws. Traditional Indian cotton sari materials are purchased second-hand at a fair rate and then sewn into one-of-a-kind scarves, bags, and throws.
Elayne's Garden Organics Shampoo Bars and Facial Bars. We have long been searching for a shampoo without added questionable ingredients and we are very happy with the results we have experienced with this new shampoo bar. And by customer requests, we are also happy to be offering soap specifically designated as a Facial Bar, made locally in NH from organic olive oil, organic coconut, organic castor bean, organic sunflower, and therapeutic grade essential oils. |
| Green Tip |
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Is your wooden drying rack showing signs of mold - little black dots along the rungs? Record rains this summer brought on unusually high constant humidity. What to do? Sand the rungs using fine grit paper or steel wool, apply vinegar or lemon juice, and let stand in the sun all day, then sand again.
For prevention...let your rack dry in between loads. |
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Dear Reader,
In many downtown stores on Main Street in Concord, shopping hours have been extended into the evening on Thursday nights beginning in October. Look for the open flags (to be in place soon!) to designate locations of participating businesses. |
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What's In Your Candy?
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Recent headlines about melamine (an industrial plastic resin) being added to infant formulas are of great concern. Over 53,000 children in China have been sickened and some deaths have occurred. Melamine is used in the plastics industry to make bowls and plates, glues, counter tops, and fertilizers. In an effort to increase their output, it is believed that suppliers in China actually diluted their milk, then added melamine - a completely non-food item - because of its high nitrogen content. The added melamine can trick lab tests which indicate a higher protein content because protein, like melamine, is also high in nitrogen. And it's cheap to make.
Several dairy organizations in China are responsible for adding melamine to their dried milk to make the milk appear to have a higher protein content. Apparently this has been known for some time but has been slow to be publicized. In the mean time, tainted milk by-products have circulated world wide where we now find it in...candy.
This is not the first time melamine has entered our food chain. Back in 2007 melamine was found in feed stock used for cattle and fish consumed by humans. It was also determined to be the cause of thousands of pet deaths in the U.S. from pet food contamination.
Back to candy... Contaminated candy was found in four stores in Connecticut. Melamine was also found in Cadbury candies, Snickers, M&Ms, milk chocolate made by Mars, as well as Kit Kat wafers made by Nestle and a biscuit by Lotte Confectionery Co. manufactured in South Korea. This is not an effort to scare as much as point out how far tentacles can reach and to also question: just what does go into our candy anyway?
So what's an eco-conscious Halloween participant to do? Our advice is to stay local. Head to your favorite locally made, candy shop and take advantage of the peace of mind that comes with buying local. Be sure to ask where their ingredients come from. Our guess is that they will have an answer and will be confident about what they sell.
Purchasing certified organic candy is another way is be sure your candy is safe. Either way, you can be sure that your little (and big) Halloween visitors will be safe from melamine. YummyEarth |
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More On Food Awareness
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According to EarthSave it takes 12 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of hamburger using up 70% of all U.S. grain in the process. This could have made 8 loaves of bread instead, for example. In addition, it takes 2,500 gallons of water to make that 1 pound of hamburger. Half of all water consumed in the U.S. is used to provide feed and water for cattle and other livestock.
The goal for us as consumers is to be aware of these facts and to consider eating more of a "plant-based" diet rather than be labeled a "vegetarian" or not. Moving toward a plant-based diet uses fewer resources and environmental expense. EarthSave states, "If everyone reduced their animal-food consumption by just 10 percent, the grain we save could be used to feed the hungry of the world."
For those of you who are already vegetarians and for those moving towards a more plant-based diet, October is Vegetarian Awareness Month. Read more here
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Recommended Reading |
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. In this memoir, Barbara Kingsolver describes moving her family in order to change lifestyles to one of living in a rural community with a vow to buy food only locally grown - or learn to live without it. In one quote from the book, "Each food item in a typical U.S. meal has traveled an average of 1,500 miles...farther than most families go on their annual vacations. Fossil fuels were consumed for the food's transport, refrigeration, and processing..." Food for thought! |
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Recommended Performance |
RGG is proud to support The Capital Center for the Arts in presenting the theatrical production of the epic novel Kite Runner on Wed. October 22. We will be show casing and selling Rubia Textiles and Arghand soaps at this production. Both of these hand-made products are made in Afghanistan with the goal of revitalizing their local economy with legitimate alternatives, away from the illicit poppy industry. RGG is honored to be the only seller of these products in the Concord area. We hope to see you at this production.
www.ccanh.com
www.rubiahandwork.org
www.arghand.org
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UNH Award
The University of New Hampshire is one of 15 universities in the U.S. to receive the highest score on its "Sustainability Report Card" for 2009. For the full report, go to UNH
Customer Question?
We are often asked many of the same questions here at Real Green Goods. Regarding water filters, the following link will be helpful: The Green Guide
Thank you for reading and for caring about the environment. And, as we say at Real Green Goods, Have a Green Day!™
Sincerely,
All of us from Real Green Goods |
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