Go Beyond the Healthiest Foods [Step 8 of 8]

Welcome to the final part of our 10 part mini series on Conscious Buying Decisions to Help Climate Change. Last time we covered ‘Knowing Your Annuals and Perennials to Eatwell’. This time we’re looking at ‘Going Beyond the Healthiest Foods’, which is also part of our series on Eating Sustainably.

You can find all content in this mini series at Mini Series: Conscious Buying Decisions to Help Climate Change.

If you already know that you have the power to help climate change and improve your health and happiness, here are the options to make conscious decisions when buying the healthiest foods and drink:

1. Check out #VoteWithOurMoney with 6 Steps to Help Stop Climate Change
2. Try the Sustainability Roadmap with 40+ Solutions to Climate Change
3. Use the Company Directory to Help You Grow, Eat, and Live Sustainably

If you want some more facts before making any decisions about the healthiest foods, let’s get into the details:

Before we get started, it’s worth saying that this mini series is based on the Kiss the Ground Purchasing Guide. Many of the facts come from the book called Drawdown.

Find the Book Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed To Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken That You Can Find Here on Amazon*

There are 8 Steps To Eat for Your Health and the Climate:

1. Knowing Your Food Source
2. Growing Your Own
3. Composting
4. Choosing Meat That’s Regenerating Land
5. Choosing Dairy That’s Regenerating Land
6. Buying Seafood to Help Revitalise the Ocean and Ecosystems
7. Knowing Your Annuals and Perennials
8. Going Beyond the Healthiest Foods

In this piece we’re looking at step 10, Going Beyond the Healthiest Foods.

Going Beyond the Healthiest Foods with Clothing

Just like food, our clothing choices can have a positive or negative effect on our environment. By making smart clothing choices, you can help restore soils and rebalance the carbon cycle.

1. Choose used or upcycled clothing
2. Repair and repurpose clothing whenever possible
3. Invest in timeless, high quality pieces that will last
4. Support fibers grown in farming systems that are regenerating land
5. Choose organic cotton, wool, and hemp
6. Avoid synthetic fibers like polyester, nylon, and rayon
7. Look for naturally dyed garments
8. Purchase wool clothing from sheep that are helping to restore grasslands
9. Choose leather products made from animals that are helping to regenerate land
10. Don’t be fooled by “sustainable” bamboo—it takes a lot of chemicals to make something as hard as bamboo, as soft as a t-shirt.
11. Avoid clothes made from synthetic fibers derived from plastic. In the washing machine, these fibers break down and contaminate your washing machine’s wastewater with tiny plastic microfibers. When this wastewater eventually enters our waterways and oceans, it pollutes delicate ecosystems.

Watch True Cost Movie To Learn About the Clothing Industry, and What You Can Do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaGp5_Sfbss

Flowers & Houseplants

Have you ever stopped to wonder where your bunch of flowers from the supermarket were grown, or how far the houseplant you bought at Ikea had to travel before arriving in your living room?

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Instead, find a local farm or garden that’s growing flowers or plants in an ecological and biodiverse way.

Cosmetics

Purchase biodegradable soaps and cosmetics that are safe for your body and safe for the environment.

Or, You Can Make Your Own Soap, Here’s How:

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Some conventional cosmetics contain toxic ingredients. When we use these products, their components are flushed into waterways or absorbed through our skin, harming our health, and polluting the environment. If you can’t imagine feeding your cosmetics to a ‘hypothetical’ fishpond in your garden, then don’t use them.

Try buying locally-produced cosmetics, ideally organic, that contain easily recognisable, eco-friendly ingredients. Shop at farmers markets and health stores, and check-out the COSMOS Organic Certification for Beauty & Wellbeing products.

Sanitary Items

Conventional tampons and pads can contain pesticides, harmful dyes, and toxins. Switch to a reusable menstrual cup, or go for organic, chlorine-free tampons and pads.

Check Out Our How To on Reusable and Organic Sanitary Products:

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Cleaning Supplies

Have you ever stopped to think about what cleaning supplies looked like before we went to buy them from the shop in plastic bottles?

Salt, lemon, vinegar, and baking soda can be used to make great DIY home cleaners. There are great books, blogs, and other resources that outline other natural recipes for home cleaners.

There are also natural products that can be used to wash clothes, they’re called Soapnuts.

Check Out Our How To on Switching to Natural Cleaning Products:

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Don’t forget to source your lemons and vinegar from farms building healthy soil.

Packaging

Reduce the purchase and consumption of single-use plastics (and single-use packaging that goes straight in the bin or recycling once it’s unwrapped or used). Try to:

1. Avoid items with lots of packaging
2. Switch to a reusable water bottle, coffee cups and more
3. Check out how to switch to reusables
4. Use your own reusable containers when you take away food from a cafe
5. Carry reusable cutlery and straws
6. Use reusable shopping bags
7. Invest in bamboo rather than plastic toothbrushes

Read Our How To on Avoiding Plastic Pollution by Switching to Reusables:

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There are some amazing businesses rolling up their sleeves and doing good things for people and planet. Check out this video on compostable food packaging from Alter Eco:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgsMlC22aL4

The Healthiest Foods and Human Health

More and more studies are showing that regenerative farming produces more nutrient-dense food.

Check Out This Video From Dan Kittredge on Regenerating Soils To Improve Nutrient Density of Foods:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51mYOnQ4RFs

Improve Your Gut Health

We are what we eat. In the wake of extensive microbiome research, we now know how important a diverse gut biology is to our overall health and immunity to illness and disease. Eating the healthiest foods grown in biodiverse and healthy soils, eating fermented foods and probiotics, and avoiding pesticides and antibiotics all improve our gut health.

You can do a deep dive on gut health, eating the healthiest foods, and check out a book that changed my life, by reading Eat Dirt, by Dr Josh Axe*

Find the Eat Dirt Book by Dr. Axe Here on Amazon*

Avoid Toxins

Glyphosate (also known as RoundUp) is one of the most harmful chemicals in our environment. Think of glyphosate as an antibiotic: Designed to kill biology, to kill life.

In 2015, glyphosate was classified by the World Health Organization’s international agency for research on cancer as a probable carcinogen; glyphosate has been listed by the state of California as a known carcinogen; Mexico and other countries are banning glyphosate.

Today, as a result of its widespread use, glyphosate is showing up in everything from oatmeal to rainwater:

1. In ground water
2. In surface water
3. In industrial foods
4. In our bodies
5. In breast milk
6. Destabilising our microbiome
7. Linked to many so-called ‘modern’ chronic illness and disease

To get the low down on conventional food, toxic chemicals, modern lifestyles, the epidemic of chronic disease, and the benefits of eating the healthiest foods and regenerative organic food, check out this Rich Roll interview with Zach Bush. It’s absolutely amazing and SOOOOOO inspirational:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWgnkgYtqnw&t

Based on all of that information, we can agree that the use of pesticides in farming and the production of food, clothes, and other products, is not good for our health or the health of our planet.

For your long-term health, it’s best to avoid conventionally produced food products to decrease the agricultural use of glyphosate, and stop its release into the environment. In addition, avoid using any product containing glyphosate on your lawn or other outdoor spaces.

That’s it for this piece on going beyond eating the healthiest foods and for this 10-part mini series. You can find all articles in this mini series at Conscious Buying Decisions to Help Climate Change.

Want To Get Updates About This Mini Series?

You can get updates about this mini series by Subscribing to Our Newsletter, Subscribing to Our Podcast, or Subscribing to Our YouTube Channel.

Suggested Reading

If you like the topic of this mini series, you might be interested in these reading suggestions with links to each book on Amazon.

Find Kiss the Ground by Josh Tickell Here on Amazon*

Find Soil Will Save Us by Kristin Ohlson Here on Amazon*

Find Soil, Grass, Hope by Courtney White Here on Amazon*

Find Dawn Again: Tracking the Wisdom of the Wild by Markegard and Doniga Here on Amazon*

Find Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken Here on Amazon*

Find Diet for a Hot Planet by Anna Lappé Here on Amazon*

Find Cows Save the Planet: And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth by Judith D. Schwartz Here on Amazon*

Find Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life by David Montgomery Here on Amazon*

Here Is What You Can Do

• Use this mini series to help you buy products that help people and planet
• Check out #VoteWithOurMoney with 6 Steps to Help Stop Climate Change
• Try the Sustainability Roadmap with 40+ Solutions to Climate Change
• Use the Company Directory to Help You Grow, Eat, and Live Sustainably
• Be inspired. We can help climate change if we do something about it
• Talk to your friends and colleagues
• Share this with others

Want to Continue Your Journey?

VOTE

6 Steps to Start Helping Climate Change

Learn More

ROADMAP

Solutions to Help Stop Climate Change

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DIRECTORY

Companies to Help You Live Sustainably

Learn More

Where Next?

There is so much inspiring information to give you ideas of how to help climate change by growing, eating, and living sustainably, you can:

1. Read Our Articles
2. Sign-Up to Our Free Email Newsletter
3. Get Started and Vote with Your Money
4. Try the Sustainability Roadmap
5. Use the Company Directory
6. Support Nafford Junction

Help Us Inspire Others

If you are passionate about helping climate change, please consider supporting Nafford Junction, you can:

1. Become a Patron to Give Regular Contributions
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5. Go to NaffordJunction.co.uk/support

Production Notes

This was produced by me, James Walters, as a personal project to help stop climate change by inspiring others to grow, eat, and live sustainably.

Any advice given is the opinion of those involved and does not constitute medical, financial, or legal advice.

* We include links we think you will find useful. If you buy through those links, we may earn a small commission. It’s one way to support our work and to inspire as many people as possible.