Are we better off knowing what we do?
There was a time when we used to eat, sleep, play and enjoyed anything we wanted without worry about what it was made of, would it make us fat, damage the environment in anyway or even did an animal died for us to have it! Truthfully speaking, even before all the animal rights business came about, I hated the thought of any animals being hurt in order for us to have the latest makeup or use of any medicines. (Although there are animals that are bred for this purpose, and scientists have found varied ways of doing their testings now, and even that I don't want to know details about, not because I don't care, but it is just way too much information that I feel is not necessary for me to know!)
Think about it for a minute dear reader. Before you found out all the ingredients in your food, all the gory details, knowing what the roof over your head was made up of and even happily accepting and using plastic (not your credit card) in every way, shape and form, wasn't life OK, did it not run more smoothly because you don't have to worry about all this stuff?!
Now with everyone running around shouting about Going Green and what they will or will not eat, or even wear, is it just a fad that will move on as every other one that came along, or will it become a way of life for all of us? I know I'm asking a lot of questions here, but give it some thought if you haven't already!
Did you know that the materials used to build your house could be bad for you and the environment? The roof on your house may be made up of "cellulose mats soaked with asphalt, the residue from crude oil".* Your brand new house may have "cellulose fiber cement board or some form of synthetic stucco pretending to be real wood"! * Your floors, cabinets or surfaces might just be "particleboard that are laminated with foils"! * Your entire house could be fake! Unless of course you built it from scratch yourself, or you were there when the builders put in natural materials and not fake ones that passes for the real thing!
In the same way that we enjoy having our home look like the real thing, because we don't want to know the gory details, we expect the same from our foods, at least we used to. Before we found out that the one ingredient in most of our foods was high fructose corn syrup, which made everything taste good, so good that we had to have it in everything and if it wasn't in a food we didn't like, we wouldn't eat it!
Now that we know that these materials and these foods are bad for us, isn't that a good thing? Shouldn't we be happy that we are aware of this and do our best to continue to have our buildings and homes made up of natural materials and our food be raw (read fresh) without all that corn stuff or preservatives that manufacturers seem to believe that we need in everything we put in our mouth?!
In many ways knowing is a good thing. Have you ever heard the saying "knowing is half the battle"? Now that we know that we should know the make up of the food we eat so as to be more healthy, or else we wouldn't be so fat, (even if you're not fat, you can't be truly healthy & fit unless you exercise daily) (see my article questioning if being thin means you're healthy), we should take care of ourselves so as to live a better life. We can inform our children with what we learn and they in turn will learn to live more healthy and have a better future. They will be aware of the environment around them so that they will have a future to look forward to!
Have you ever heard this saying, "too much of a good thing doesn't mean it's good for you"? We won't be perfect at this. There will be times when you can't be bothered to recycle, or buy natural or eat healthy. Don't beat yourself up about it!
The one thing you should not continue to do is to "go green" just because everyone is doing it. Living healthy and making your environment cleaner, and better, should become a way of life. We do this by starting small, one step at a time to make a change or difference in your own life and you will be happy with the results!
* Some information taken from an article/rant by Barbara Flanagan, "Too Yellow to Be Green Admit it. America was way more fun before this whole organic sustainability thing got going." from the latest issue of I.D.