Green Options

People are exposed to the fire retardants PBDEs from their furniture, electronics, and most plastic-containing household products.

But now, a new study shows that we’re getting them in our food, too. And meat-eaters are especially susceptible.

Environmental health researcher Alicia Fraser, of Boston University’s School of Public Health, warns us,

The more meat you eat, the more PBDEs you have in your serum.

If you’re not familiar with PBDEs, chances are you know of their chemical cousins: PCBs, the now-banned carcinogenic chemicals.

Think a romantic meal of beef tenderloin with a side of potatoes sounds delicious? Maybe with a nice Bordeaux?  Perhaps it does (especially if it’s grass-fed beef!), but it may decrease your chances of conception.

A new study shows that men who want to be fathers should increase their intake of fruits and veggies and decrease their consumption of fatty foods like red meat and creamy dishes.

Men who ate healthy diets not only had faster sperm, they had more sperm in their semen. It was both a quality and quantity effect.

Dr. Jaime Mendiola of the University of Murcia, Spain said of his research:

In this study, we have found that people who consume more fruits and vegetables are ingesting more anti-oxidants and this is the important point.

We saw that, among the couples with fertility problems coming to the clinic, the men with good semen quality ate more vegetables and fruit than those men with low seminal quality.

There are obviously many factors that influence fertility, and this is only one.

The city of Cincinatti joined the choir growing louder by the day, urging residents to consider eating less meat in an effort to combat climate change. As part of the Green Cincinatti Plan, the city’s Food Task Force met for the first time and discussed a campaign that would ask that residents replace some of the meat in their diet with fresh fruits and vegetables.

I’ve been attacked by naysayers who claim one cannot be an environmentalist and consume meat. I beg to differ, but that’s my opinion.

For years I was a happy vegetarian. My husband is a devoted carnivore. We have five children and my vegetarianism fell to the wayside. I’m not a short order cook, my husband DEMANDS meat (and luckily fish qualifies as meat in his world) in his dinner and chances are the kids and I are eating the same meal. That’s a little thing called life.

Does this mean we are not green?