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Green Living Now News, Edition Eighteen

1. Don't let the door hit ya when you leave, Gale...

Gale Norton, former Secretary of the Interior, has left her position. Phew! Over the five years that she held that office, she ferociously attacked public lands and wildlife. Like a gale force wind (I coudln't' resist the pun...), she swept away as many publicly owned resources as she could and gave them to her friends in the timber, energy and mining industries for free, or at drastically low prices. I guess we shouldn't be surprised, considering she used to be a lobbyist and lawyer for the mining and timber industry.

Like what, you ask?

Well, she opened millions of acres of important wildlife habitat to oil and gas tycoons, developers and loggers. She REALLY wanted the Artic Wildlife Refuge to be open to drilling for oil, and blocked plans to control the use of those nasty polluting noisy snowmobiles in Yellowstone Park. Not bad enough for ya? How about this one…She suppressed dozens of scientific studies if their findings challenged corporations' ability to do what they wanted to do. And, perhaps most egregiously, and a common trend in the current administration, she put polluters and lobbyists in charge of nearly all of the agencies in the government that are supposed to protect American's from polluters. How the heck did this woman sleep at night?

Do you remember the name Steven Griles? That was her deputy (also formerly a lobbyist for mining and oil companies) who we learned from the Interior Department's Inspector General, had given away multi-million dollar favors to his former clients. She never reprimanded him for that. Shocked? Me either.

Unfortunately, Norton's replacement, Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne, (who earned a whopping zero rating from the League of Conservation Voters during 5 of his 6 years in the Senate) doesn't look much better.

Source: "Good Riddance, Gale Norton", by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Rolling Stone Magazine, April 20, 2006.

2. Hey Dude, Where's The Fresh Grass?

That's what I'd be saying if I were a dairy cow at two of the largest organic dairy companies in the Nation: Horizon Organic (a subsidiary of Dean Foods), which supplies organic milk to Wal-Mart and many natural food stores, and Aurora Organic, which supplies to Costco, Wild Oats and others.

In order for the dairy farms to be certified organic, the cows on organic farms are supposed to be given access to green pastures outdoors in the sun. Apparently, those two organic dairies aren't interested in playing by the rules. And, these guys make up 65% of the organic dairy market. To make matters worse, the USDA and the industry-controlled Organic Trade Association, don't seem to care. Seems as though the fox are guarding the hen houses (and the dairy barns) in every area of our government these days. Geeez.

It gets worse though... These dairies operate more like conventional dairies in other ways too. For example, they both have thousands of cows, and they get calves from conventional farms where they have been weaned on blood (yuck-and these animals are vegetarians by nature), have been fed slaughterhouse waste and genetically engineered grains, and are given antibiotics. These are all "no-no's " for organic dairy farms.

So, what this all means to you and me is that the majority of the "organic" milk products in stores do not meet the criteria to be certified organic. In other words, they're cheating, and we the consumers, are paying higher prices for these substandard products (milk, butter, cheese, yogurt, etc.) If you're like me, you buy organic products because you believe that they adhere to higher standards. You're willing to pay the extra price for cleaner food, free of many of the toxins present in conventional food. Allowing essentially conventional factory farms to call their products certified organic is disgusting.

If you want to speak out, please go to: http://www.organicconsumers.org/nosb2.htm

Also, to find out how the Cornucopia Institute rated the organic dairy your buy from, then check out their survey at: http://www.cornucopia.org/dairysurvey/Ratings_Alphabetical.html

3. Selling Out To The "Man"?

Tom's of Maine is selling itself to Colgate-Palmolive Company for approximately $100 million dollars. That's the same Colgate-Palmolive that co-founder, Tom Chappell, used to make fun of for using artificial additives in their toothpastes.

When I read the ingredients on the labels of some of the Tom's of Maine products, I'm not particularly impressed. They claim to be natural, but they use ingredients derived from petroleum, and other synthetics, some considered toxic. Besides fluoride (check this out: here), which I'm not a fan of because it's considered a poison (just read the warning on any fluoride toothpaste about not ingesting more than a pea sized amount), there's also Polaxamer 335 and 407. Here's what the Tom's of Maine website says about those chemicals: "Derived from natural gas and oil, Poloxamer 335 and 407 belong to a category of ingredients generally known as surfactants. Poloxamer 407 is in all of our mouthwashes except the Natural Cleansing Mouthwash, which contains poloxamer 335." Okay, so we're talking about petroleum products.

And, there's propylene glycol, another petroleum product with questionable safety. In fact, according to The Consumer's Dictionary of Cosmetic Ingredients, by Ruth Winter, she says "in 1992 the FDA proposed a ban on propylene glycol in louse killing because it has not been shown to be safe and effective for its stated claims." They also use sodium lauryl sulfate, which they claim has gotten a bad rap, and isn't really toxic.

I know I'm a purist, and I don't trust anything synthetic, especially when there are companies using ingredients that are either certified organic, or at least natural and in their natural state, and not just "derived from" natural ingredients. Once it's "derived" or chemically manipulated it becomes a synthetic chemical, as I understand it. So, just because a surfactant in a cleaner started out as coconut oil, makes no difference at all at the end of the day. It's no longer natural; it's a synthetic chemical. There are too many "natural products" companies that are using synthetic chemicals, some of them toxic, not disclosing the ingredient's real name, just giving a category, and putting in parentheses "from coconuts", or some other item from nature. And, these products are usually priced higher than the conventional junk in the supermarket. Well, I'm not buying it. Literally. From what I've read, our bodies don't know what to do with synthetic chemicals. We've evolved with the natural ingredients, and used them for centuries, I'd rather stick with what we know is safe. That's not to say that everything that comes from nature is safe. Take mold, for instance. Given the rampant health problems our society is experiencing, why take the chance?

Back to Tom's of Maine…don't be surprised if the new Tom's of Maine labels don't say Colgate anywhere. That's a strategic decision. Associate Dean at Boston University's School of Communication, Tobe Berkovitz, said of the decision to hide Colgate's name, "You try to keep it stealthy…I think the average person in the store thinks that Ben & Jerry's ice cream is still being mixed by two guys in a Vermont barn" (instead of Unilever-Ben & Jerry's corporate owner). Sounds like deception to me. And, who gets hurt from this kind of deception? We do, especially when we are trying to shop according to our values..

Did you know that Nantucket Nectars (the "Juice Guys") sold to Cadbury Schweppes? Stoneyfield Yogurt sold to the French company, Groupe Danone, and of course, Ben and Jerry no longer own or run their ice cream company after they sold out to Unilever. Very sad, I think. That said, these companies are also doing some good things. For instance, Ben & Jerry's has a few organic ice creams, and their pint containers are unbleached. Stonyfield still makes good organic yogurt products, and is spearheading a campaign against global warming, and Tom's of Maine, encourages their employees to use 5% of their paid vacation time to volunteer, and all of them give grants to worthy causes. Nantucket Nectars also has some organic juice choices.

Don't worry folks; I'm in the process of adding the same toothpaste that I use onto my site. It'll be on the site in the first two weeks of May. Stay tuned…

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