The Green environment in your home

The green environment in your home starts with cleanliness.

Antibacterial hand soap, dishwashing liquid, kitchen cleaners and many new products appearing every day promise to eliminate bacteria and other organisms blamed for causing illness. It sounds like a wonderful idea, but what does this practice mean in the long term?

If you carefully read labels, you will find that these products promise to eliminate 95 to 99% of all bacteria. What about the other 1 to 5%? Well, these are usually the strongest, most resistant ones. These are the ones that live through the antibacterial attack to reproduce. Therefore, the weaker ones are eliminated and the stronger ones left to breed.

What we are now doing in our kitchens is slowly, gradually producing super-bacteria. We are eliminating, for the most part, the weaker organisms, and leaving the fittest to survive and reproduce. This is happening not only in our kitchens, but in sewer systems and septic tanks, which eventually find their way into our streams, lakes, rivers, and oceans.

Hand washing, with natural soaps and water, is a proven method of reducing many communicable diseases, such as colds and flu, as well as helping to eliminate food-borne illnesses caused by bacteria. Wash your hands before, during, and after food preparation. Always wash when handling a different food and when you have handled anything unwashed or when preparing raw meat.

Choose an environmentally friendly soap that is labeled “biodegradable”. Wash your countertops regularly, and don’t forget the handles on the stove, refrigerator, cabinets, drawers, light switches and microwaves, which we often touch while handling raw and/or unwashed produce or meats.

Also in the kitchen, be aware of chemical hazards. Never spray cleaners near foods. Dr. Tonja Wynn Hampton of WebMD Medical News reported in her article “Brought Home the Bacon? Don’t Fry It Up in a Nonstick Pan” that polytetrafluoroethylene, or Teflon, degrades -when heated – into other compounds, one of which is known to be harmful to plants, while another accumulates in human and animal tissues. Though little is known about the health effects, it is known that it could take up to tens of thousands of years to break down.

The list of natural effective green living methods is endless. Live a green life, live healthy.

Jay is one of the county’s leading innovators and experts in organic gardening and farming he has worked in natural healing techniques for forty years… Jay North is not a medical doctor and is not writing prescriptions he is a natural healing consultant that is expressing his opinions on optimum health. Find more information at OneGlobePress.com.