Compact Fluorescent Bulbs Lighting a better way

If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified or Compact Fluorescent bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.energystar.gov

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Recycle your Compact fluorescent light bulbs

Compact fluorescent light bulbs are great. According to GE they use 2/3 less energy than regular incandescent light bulbs and last up to 10 times longer. Replacing a 60 watt incandescent with a 13 watt CFL can save you at least $30 in energy costs over the life of the bulb. In addition, last longer and use 70% less heat then standard bulbs so they are safer to operate. The down side is that CFLs contain a small amount of mercury- an average of 5 milligrams. That is why it is important to recycle your CFLs rather than throwing them in the garbage.The EPA has a basic website that can help you find a recycling center that will take your CFL bulbs EPA: CFL recycling centers. All Ikea stores will recycle your CFL as well.

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Health Notes Online from BBC.co.uk

The BBC has a great site that gives loads of information for those looking to self diagnose or explore health and medical conditions. Everything from cancer to child breathing problems.
BBC Medical Notes

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Trans fat free is anything but free

So now that the trans fat labeling on foods is in effect what does it really mean? Trans fat free doesn't actually mean that there are no trans fats in the food- it means that there is less than a half a gram of trans fat in a serving. Eat three servings of trans fat free foods and you may consume as much as 1.5 grams of trans fat. And as we all know there are no safe levels of trans fat. So what to do? As always read the label, look out for ingredients such as partially hydrogenated oils and vegetable shortening avoid margarine and hydrogenated anything.

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A real family business!

River Soap Company has been making all natural, all vegetable soaps since 1991. Owned and run by two sisters, River Soap is a real family business in the traditional sense.
Dad runs the retail end and Mom is our national sales rep. Both sisters still attend to the daily operations of River Soap Co. as they have for the last 16 years but the big credit to making River Soap run so smoothly is our great employees. Thanks everyone!

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Flax seed oil

This Wikipedia article gave me a better undertanding of the difference in fish oil versus flax seed oil (I always thought that fish oil was better- but being vegetarian I went with flax seed but put my son on fish oil). In turns out that flax seed oil has 6 times more omega-3's than fish oil. It is the ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 that is important, a Western diet typically gets a ratio between 10:1 and 30:1, an ideal ratio is 3:1 to 5:1. Dietary sources of omegas-6 are whole grain cereals, eggs and poultry, nuts and baked goods instead of eating less omega-6 consume more omega-3. Wikipedia:Omega-3

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How essential oils made

Most oils are collected by distillation (steaming) or enfleurage (in grease). Both methods are time consuming and labor intensive, and require expert use of complicated equipement and top quality materials. Huge amounts of plant stock are needed to distill minute quantities of oil: it takes about 250 pounds of rose petals to produce one fluid ounce of essential oil.

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