Control Your Cravings
How do I overcome urges to eat. To answer this question, we first need to understand why we eat in the first place. It s probably safe to say, you likely already know the answers to that question. We eat for energy. We eat to stay alive. We eat to nourish our bodies. And, we eat to preserve our health. There are social reasons too such as a business lunch or a dinner party with friends. There are cultural reasons such as the Fourth of July BBQ and Thanksgiving dinner. And, of course, we can never forget to eat a piece or two of the traditional birthday cake during a celebration. Eating is even focused around religious observations like Easter dinner, Passover, or a Bar-mitzvah. And, for some of us, eating plays a role in our romantic activities as well the infamous late night dinner date or breakfast in bed. But why do we sometimes feel the overwhelming magnetic attraction to stop by the local fast-food joint and grab a...
Are There Safe Cigarettes?
Tobacco was initially used by pre-Columbian Native Americans, who smoked it in pipes and even used it for hallucinogenic purposes in shamanic rituals. Christopher Columbus was given tobacco by natives and introduced it Europe when he returned from North America. However, tobacco did not become widely used in Europe until the middle of the 16th century, when explorers and diplomats such as France s Jean Nicot for whom nicotine was named popularized its use. Initially, tobacco was produced for pipe smoking, chewing and snuff. Cigarettes were made in a crude, hand-rolled form since the early 1600s, but did not become popular in America until after the civil war. Cigarette sales surged with introduction of the cigarette rolling machine by James Bonsack in 1883, in a contest sponsored by tobacco company Allen and Ginter, who promised 75,000 to the first person to invent a fast cigarette-rolling machine. This facilitated industrialized...
Certified Organic Vs Fair Trade Certified
The title of this article is disturbing. The concepts of Organic and Fair Trade are very important to building rebuilding a sustainable society. The good news is that the certifications are not mutually exclusive and actually complement each other nicely. First, a word about certification. In our current market, third party certification is essential to both organic and fair trade. As the market for both fair trade and organic grows many businesses would rather change the definition than to change their practices. We are seeing this now in the fair trade coffee market place. As time goes on a search for fair trade coffee is more and more likely to turn up non-certified fair trade coffee, which is most likely just a marketing rouse to attract ethical customers. In a recent search of ebay for fair trade coffee 90 of the results were not third party certified, and upon further examination most looked very suspect. We have seen this already...