Green Options » junk food

Another Reason to Eat Healthy: Clean Fingerprints

Shirley Siluk Gregory — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:41:39 +0000

OK, looking for ways to keep your fingerprints from giving you away at a crime scene isn’t really a valid reason for eating well. But it does give one pause to learn that criminals who eat lots of junk food leave behind sweatier, saltier and easier-to-detect fingerprints.

You can learn more about this fascinating discovery at the University of Leicester’s news pages.

Image credit: Jeffrey O. Gustafson at Wikimedia Commons.

Seven Eco-friendly Options for Less Junky Junk Food

Sharon Troy — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:27:24 +0000

I confess: as much as I wish I could say every meal I eat is as healthy as my quinoa and kale salad, sometimes I just have a craving for junk food. Ya know?

When I first went vegetarian seven years ago I quickly realized how easy it was to replace meat with junk food. After all, I’d sacrificed so much my giving up chicken that I should reward myself with donuts, right? They’re vegetarian! And so are potato chips, and candy bars, and french fries…

But not only are these instant gratification foods loaded with calories, sodium, and often trans fats, but they’re not particularly eco-friendly. Consider even “healthy” choices like Nabisco’s 100 Calorie Packs of Oreos, Chips Ahoy, and the like. All come individually wrapped, and I’ve made it clear how I feel about overpackaging.

So what’s an eco-conscious consumer to do when you just want a quick bite? I’ve done you the favor of sampling some of the finest junk foods my co-op had to offer. (The things you do for research.) Consider some of these alternatives:

Junky! So Junky! Healthy Children, Healthy Planet Week 4

Ali Benjamin — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 03:40:37 +0000

This post reflects on the fourth week of my seven-part “Healthy Children, Healthy Planet” curriculum, a fantastic discussion group by the Northwest Earth Institute.

So far, our Healthy Children, Healthy Planet discussion group has tackled family dinners, consumer-free holidays, the over-programming of children’s activities, advertisements, and whether parents deserve a Bill of Rights, and what kind of moments can be used to pass down values. This week, the conversation turns to everyone’s favorite enemy: junk food.

Ah, junk food. It’s true what they say: we have become a junk food nation. We are a nation of processed food, of food in boxes, of omnipresent vending machines, of gas stations that stop selling gas, because the real money is in snacks.