A greener earth begins inside our body, in our homes...

To me, celebrating Earth day means celebrating life – in a natural way! If we adopt a greener lifestyle, it will reflect in our environment in a sure shot way. Hence, the need is to look inward – into our body and home. The change at this micro level will slowly but surely change our earth at a macro level – in a positive way.

Here are 5 simple and basic ways by which we can radically benefit our health and contribute towards a greener earth.

Raw Food is how nature designed it for us!

Eat More Raw, Uncooked Food:

Raw vegetables and fruits have enzymes that are healing to our bodies. The cooking process kills these enzymes depriving us of those beneficial enzymes that are so very essential for digestion. On the contrary, to digest the cooked food, our body has to give away some of the enzymes from our own systems! All green, leafy vegetables are rich in Chlorophyll and hence we like to add spinach and fenugreek leaves to our food. But then, we also cook them and cooking kills the very essence of the greens. The Chlorophyll rich greens, when exposed to heat, cease to exist in their natural form. Infact heating often creates toxic compounds that our systems cannot live with and hence have to eliminate them.
Some oils like the olive oil, when heated, become very toxic by releasing free radicals. These free radicals can create havoc in our system.

So, how do we add more raw food to our diet without compromising on taste.
Here are some easy ways:

1. Add more and more salad to the meals. And salads don’t have to be mere 4-5 slices of tomato and cucumber as is very standard in any Indian household We can add more veggies like – sprouted greens, sprouted chic peas, sprouted alfalfa, cabbage, carrots, beet.

2. Increase the portion of the salad.

3. Replace half the quantity of the breakfast with a bowl full of veggies and fruits.

4. Add raw veggies on top of cooked food. This will not only make them healthier but tastier too.

By eating raw, we are not only adding health, but saving on energy consumption too.

Juice fruits and veggies together for maximum health and taste!

Forget Pills. Juice your way to health and vitality: A glass-full of vegetable juice with breakfast can give that vital kick-start to our day. Fruit juices, I would say, are not that favourable, for their sugar and calorie content is too high to be good. But vegetable juice can really work wonders. Particularly, if we select the veggies well. Cabbage, for instance, is great for healing the stomach and related
gastrointestinal disorders. Beet juice is known for blood purification and builds red blood cells. Researchers also say that beet juice improves blood structure and cures diseases of the circulatory system, large intestine, and digestive system. They say, beet juice dissolves stones in the liver, kidneys and bladder.

Eat natural superfood:

1. Flax Seeds: As written in detail about this wonderful healing food in one of my earlier posts, Flax seeds are truly miraculous in more ways than one.

Packed with Omega 6 and Omega 3 fatty acids, Flax seeds have the potential to improve heart health, bone health, digestion, brain development, skin and hair and even peace of mind. Taken 2-3 teaspoons twice daily (smaller amount during pregnancy), it’s one of the best whole food supplement we can take without emptying our pockets. You see, it’s dirt cheap given all its natural healing
properties. Flax seeds should be powdered and refrigerated to avoid turning rancid.

Flax Seeds - For overall health and vitality

2.Chlorella and Spirulina: These two superfood are the most potent green algae we can take to keep all kinds of ailments and life threatening diseases, including cancer, at bay. Chlorophyll is packed with Vitamin B, K, C, E and amino acids. It is one of the few whole food sources of vitamin D. It also has zinc, iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium, rare trace minerals and essential fatty acids. Chlorella is known to have anti-cancer properties, treats many chronic dental problems, is excellent for brain development and growth and is a powerful detoxifying agent.
“Chlorella can neutralize and eliminate some of the contaminating heavy metals and strengthen the immune system…” Complete Encyclopedia Of Natural Healing by Gary Null PhD, page 135

Choose organic: Foods that are not sprayed with harmful chemicals or pesticides are higher in nutritional value and richer in antioxidants.

Let’s try to include more organically grown fruits, vegetables and grains in our food. We can even grow our own vegetables by creating a kitchen-garden in the backyard or even in planters/pots. This will not just ensure chemical-free food but also serve as a great stress buster and work out. And to top it all, lesser pollution of our soils.

Walking or cycling can add to our cardio workout and reduce carbon foot print

Walk the talk: A walk to the local market, stairs instead of the ubiquitous lift, cycle instead of the treadmill – all these greener means of commute and lifestyle will reduce carbon print on our earth and improve our heart health by adding cardio.

Green homes:

Eco-friendly Cleaning agents: One of the biggest hazards to our health and earth is the tremendous amount of chemicals that are released from cleaning agents – floor cleaners, washing powders, disinfectants. It may seem hard to find natural substitute for them. But, there are actually some natural cleaning agents that are effective without any of the negative effects of the chemical-based cleaners.
Lemon grass oil, for instance, is one such disinfectant that we can use for floor and bathroom sanitizing. A few drops of this oil can make our house germ free and leave a wonderfully invigorating freshness and aroma. Neem leaves, boiled in water can be effectively used to disinfect clothes. Infact, in Indian houses, we have used neem leaves since time immemorial to bathe after skin-diseases like chicken pox etc.

Switching off electricity – this is much talked about again and again and again, but unless and until this habit is internalized and comes to us naturally, we cannot truly say that we are doing our best. The electrical gadgets emit radiations, kill body cells and weaken our immune systems. There are ways we can reduce their negative influence. Keeping the cell phones and chargers away from our heads while sleeping or turning off microwaves and laptops when not in use will help reduce the long-term negative impact of the emissions.

Green beauty products: Skin care products that are naturally made, will benefit the skin as well as our environment. Excessive use of perfumes and deodorants are harmful for the skin and the environment.

Instead, use naturally made ‘ittars’ or essential oils like lavender, prim rose, sandal, lemon grass etc by diluting them. These essential oils are not just aromatic, they are also very healing
for the senses. Whether to cure insomnia or muscle aches, nausea or fatigue, these oils come handy.

– Aloevera gel is an excellent for healthy skin. You can grow aloevera in pots and easily extract the gel to use as moisturizer for your face and body, to heal cracked heals or cuts and bruises.

– Rose water (gulab jal) is a wonderful natural cleanser and toner.

– Fuller’s earth (multani mitti) is great as a face pack and mask. There are hundreds of such natural home-based products that can substitute the chemical-intense beauty products and cosmetics we are so used to.

Let’s implement these ideas and make our home, office, body and mind and eventually – our environment – green and pollution free.

Wish you a Happy Earth day and a beaming you!

———————————————————————————————————
All photos in this article are copyright of Rashmie Jaaju and should not be copied and used in any media format – print or digital – without my exclusive and explicit permission.

References:

Complete Encyclopedia Of Natural Healing by Gary Null PhD
Mike Adam’s – www.naturalnews.com
Healing With Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford

I wanted to post some ideas on how to encourage our kids to reduce waste by reusing, recycling and *upcycling* and then realized ‘upcycling’ is a relatively lesser known and even less understood term and hence we just may confuse it with ‘reusing’. So, here’s a quick post on what ‘upcycling’ actually means, how’s it different from ‘recycling’ and ‘reusing’.

Upcycling is similar to recycling in that we take something (that’s otherwise a waste) and revamp/remodel it into a new form for continued use. However the main difference is that in the case of upcycling we generally do not alter its form back into its components for reuse. Also, in recycing – the quality of the original material may degrade (recycled plastic) but in upcycle, we actually retain the quality of the original product and infact sometimes enhance it.

For example, we have an old glass bottle.

In recycling, the recycling center sorts the glass from other recyclable material and sends them out to be recycled, where the glass would most likely be melted down to make a new bottle/jar along with all the other glass containers that are no longer in use. In upcycling we would clean the glass bottle, beautify it with some glass colours etc and reuse it as a flower vase!

Upcycling is different from simply ‘reusing’ the product for same purpose – for example, reusing the glass bottle to store oil or juice.
Reusing it as a flower vase means upcycling. The glass bottle got a new lease of life when we revamped it to use as flower vase.

This term (‘upcycling’) was originally coined by the authors McDonaugh and Braugart and is being extended to revamping anything for a different use/purpose. Anything that was intended to end up in the landfill.

Upcycling reduces substantial amount of waste and industrial production. Besides being a boon to environment, its wallet friendly as well as we buy less. I find it much more satisfying than just ‘creating’ anything new because in upcycling, we are reinventing and repurposing an old item that may have outlasted its purpose or usability. When we repurpose it, we are giving it a new life and meaning…