Green Daily

Push up bras may be uncomfortable but they certainly aren't supposed to give wearers scarring, welts, rashes and blisters. This is exactly what happened to some women who bought Victoria's Secret Angels Embrace and Very Sexy Extreme Me Push-Up bras. [Who comes up with these names?]

Ohio resident Roberta Ritter filed a lawsuit against the clothing manufacturer last spring. Once she did so, others joined in a class action suit claiming similar injuries. Ritter's firm did some testing and found the chemical formaldehyde in some brands of Victoria Secret's underwear.

Though Victoria Secret denies intentionally putting cancer causing chemicals in their brassieres. One has to wonder what else is making it's way into their unmentionables.

As you stare out of your windows at the frozen tundra of your backyard and dream of your spring garden, be sure to add a few flowers to the list. There are certain types of flowers and herbs that will repel harmful bugs naturally from your garden. This is a great way to keep your garden organic.

• Marigolds keep the aphids, Mexican bean beetles, squash bugs, thrips, tomato hornworms, whiteflies and nematodes away. They will especially benefit your tomatoes.
• Nasturtium will discourage Colorado potato bugs, squash bugs, and whiteflies from entering your vegetable plot.
• Got mosquitoes? Try growing some basil.
• Peppermint is another great herb to grow in the garden as it keeps away the ants, white cabbage moths, aphids, and flea beetles.

You can start growing all of these from seed indoors now for planting in the spring.

As I was growing up in Vermont, it was pretty much understood that you take your shoes off at the door year round. You did this at your own home as well as those that you were visiting. It helped to keep the snow and mud tracked in down to a minimum. Once I moved to the South, I realized that this is not a common practice everywhere. It's unfortunate because tracking the outside in can be bad for your health.

Shoes can track in all sorts of stuff from the outside including pesticides, fungi and animal excrement. All of this can get trapped into carpets where children and pets are especially vulnerable to exposure.

To combat this problem, set up a space near the front door for leaving shoes. I have a narrow cubby that I got from target with twelve slots for six to 12 pairs of shoes depending on the size. It has helped to keep the carpets clean and I feel good knowing that I'm not tracking muck through the house.

[via: Care2]

Yes, you read that right, but perhaps it was just a little bit misleading. Our sister site Lemondrop has a funny post about how a Florida company is collecting used sex toys and recycling them into a variety of products, including playground mulch.

I've posted before about the importance of recycling your sex toys -- anything to avoid a post-apocalyptic mound of dead vibrators, right?

At the time, I could only find one place to recycle them, sextoyrecycling.com, which also makes post-consumer-waste-plastic sex toys. Recyclers are even rewarded with a credit toward their fun products. Now that's an incentive.

And now you have a choice! You can also send your worn out pocket pal to Recycle My Sex Toy, the one in Florida that makes playground mulch.

Recycle My Sex Toy is connected to VibratorShopping.com, which has a full line of green friendly vibrating, non-vibrating, and glass toys, as well as your phlalate-free items and all natural lotions and lubricants. Fun!

It's great to hear that options are growing increasing expanding. Yay for the green economy!

As a former English teacher, I am, essentially, a recovering language junkie. Having spent a decade red-penning papers, correcting grammar and mechanics, and generally defending the ramparts of Western civilization against the incursion of logical fallacies, I still tend to be a little bit obsessive about the misuse of the English language.

For the most part, I have recovered from my teaching-imposed illness, but I still have my prickly side. When I see somebody deliberately misusing the language, I tend to get a little ticked off. I imagine myself, wearing a tunic emblazoned with the image of George Orwell, attending the execution of English abusers.

Don't judge me; we all have our little daydreams.

Recently, Audrae Erickson, President of the Corn Refiners Association, took her place in my personal rogues' gallery of language abusers. In response to a report that some brands of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) have been found to contain measurable levels of mercury, she offered the following press release:

Vilsack's first press conference on Monday provided further insight into how the Secretary of Agriculture plans to run his office. His first order of business was to brush up on ethics and sign an Ethics Agreement valuing transparency put forth by President Obama.

Vilsack then outlined his priorities as Secretary of Agriculture and that included promoting "a sustainable, safe, sufficient, and nutritious food supply for all Americans and for people around the world." He also plans on combating childhood obesity and providing block grants to promote nutrition. Vilsack has also expressed concerns about food safety.

As seed catalogs start pouring into your house (or your browser), you might be stuck with an array of choices beyond which tomato to choose. Words like heirloom and organic get thrown around a lot and I specifically wanted to know what made organic seeds different than conventional.

In order for a seed to be organic, it must come from a plant that has been raised organically. This means that it has lived its life without the use of pesticides or synthetic chemicals.

The term "organic" does not mean that your seeds were not genetically modified. There have been cases of organic crops being contaminated with GMO seed. The safest option for steering clear of GMOs would be to choose an heirloom variety or go with a company like Seeds of Change that guarantees the absence of genetic modification.

Last week's news of another salmonella outbreak in peanut products has us all on edge a bit about the popular food, but now we get word that inspectors actually knew about the contamination beforehand. According to a report in the Washington Post, the Georgia plant from which the contaminated peanut butter originated has knowingly shipped tainted product 12 times in the last two years.

How can something like this happen? It's obviously not carelessness, since the Peanut Corporation of America tests their products before they're distributed, but the kicker here is the fact that they aren't mandated to share those test results with state or federal regulators. I smell a costly cover-up.

[Via SuperEco]

A woman's menstrual cycle is a very personal thing. I don't mean to say that it is taboo. In fact, many women are perfectly comfortable talking about it. It is simply that each woman experiences her cycle somewhat differently.

Symptoms can range from none to nausea, back pain, and crankiness. The options for flow control are many, sporting wings, cardboard or plastic applicators, no applicators, liners, barriers and differently woven strings. Most of us become fairly specific about what works for us, and what we simply don't like.

Mentioning the possibility of using reusable pads is probably going to drum up the most variety in reactions. Many women don't even use pads to begin with, and the idea of somehow carrying the used ones around school or the office until you get home seems daunting.

Personally, I just don't think I could do it. On that note, if I had to switch, I'd definitely choose Moonpads. They're colorful and stylish, which is a total plus, considering its usage will make you fast friends. They also look bizarrely comfortable, and their "wing" system actually looks like it would work.

Here's another reason to skip that high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). In a recent study, almost half of the high-fructose corn syrup tested contained mercury. Also, a third of commercial food products that contained HFCS as an ingredient also contained mercury.

The study was reported in Environmental Health. The researchers found detectable levels of mercury in nine out of 20 HFCS samples. They also tested 55 commercial foods. The most common foods with HFCS that contained mercury were dairy products, dressings and condiments.

High-fructose corn syrup is produced using chemicals and it is thought that the chemicals caused the contamination. According to Dr. David Wallinga, the lead author, "Mercury is toxic in all its forms," and considering the amount of HFCS that children consume, "It could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered."

[Via AOL News]

When it comes to packed lunches, there are so many details that require attention. Whether you're worried about keeping your drink cold and your sandwich meat fresh and safe to eat, or you're wondering just how much lead or PVC is in that bag that you hand to your child each morning, there is much to think about.

Enter Harold the Lunch Monster from Ones and Zeros Fashion. He was born to munch up lunches and keep them safe and organized for everyone. In fact, there's a whole story behind his birth.

Each one is handmade from 100% organic cotton, and comes in a variety of colors. Organic cotton means pesticide and chemical-free. Remember to always wash your fruits and veggies diligently to keep them up to the same standards!

Packed lunches have the potential to reduce an awful lot of waste, and usually result in better eating habits. You also have more control over what your children eat, as well as self control. Grocery store and takeout goodies can seem all too tempting when you're hungry and pressed for time at noon.

Harold is very stylish and fun. My favorite part has to be the way that he opens. It actually looks like he's opening his mouth! Harold is also quite subtle, which means that he can be enjoyed by children, teens, college students, and even adults.

OMG, miraculous signs are coming forth that the EPA might soon be concerned with actually cleaning up the environment. It's too early to know for sure, but given the EPA's latest letter opposing plans for a coal power plant in South Dakota, it looks rather promising. Sent last Thursday, the letter expresses the EPA's concerns about a $1.3 billion dollar Big Stone II coal plant near Milbank, SD, and gives planners and energy authorities 90 days to address air quality concerns.

Sierra Club chieftains are claiming a victory as they believe that meeting the standards set by the EPA might raise the costs of the plants significantly, thus shutting the project down. Environmentalists hope the fact that the letter was sent on the third day of President Obama's term, signals a shift away from the coal loving policies of the Bush administration. However, EPA officials like Region 8 unit chief Carl Daly maintain that "It would be fair to say" that the letter would have been issued under Bush. Should the power plant meet the requirements within the 90 days, the 580MW plant will go ahead as scheduled.

Nature's Bounty, a vitamin and supplement supplier, is offering $10,000 for a green home makeover. As part of the company's Healthy You, Healthy Earth Sweepstakes, they hope to raise awareness about their environmentally friendly products and policies.

In addition to the makeover money, other prizes offered are a Nintendo® Wii Fit®, Nature's Bounty recycled fiber tote bags, and gift certificates up to $100 in value. To enter, go to their website and play a brief game of chance. You'll know immediately if you are a winner or not.

What would you do with a $10,000 green makeover? It's not enough to buy the kitchen of my dreams but I could certainly use it for solar panels.

When stocking up on peanut butter, I always choose the one with the fewest ingredients like ... "peanuts" and sometimes there's some salt thrown in there too. I do this because no one in my house needs the extra sugar and a lot of the big commercial brands add hydrogenated oils to the mix to attain that creamy texture.

When buying a jar of Jif you not only get peanuts but also sugar, molasses, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, fully hydrogenated vegetable oils, mono- and diglycerides and salt. Why does something as simple as peanut butter need so much extra?

I don't know exactly how epidemiologists were able to come up with this data, but somehow they did. According to researchers at BYU, by cleaning up the air in US cities, we've added an about 21 weeks to the lifespan of the average American. Apparently, an American's lifespan has increased by a modest 2.72 years since the early 1980's -- almost 15% of that comes from breathing cleaner air.

The decline in smoking, of course, was the biggest factor in the 2.72 extra years we're getting these days, but cutting down on the amount of particulate matter spewed out of tailpipes, factories, and coal-fired power plants has yielded unexpectedly dramatic results. In some formerly stinky cities like Pittsburgh, Buffalo, New York, researchers say that huge drops in particulate matter have improved life expectancies by as much as 43 weeks. Obviously, the biggest gains were made in the sootiest places, but basically, the cleaner the air the longer the life expectancy.