…& a heart for our earth

do you read the packaging  on your products? when you reach for the morning o.j., are you sure your juice is 100% organic & free of potentially harmful chemicals? what about your recycled paper? do you know where its content comes from? if you’re like me, you probably assume that when the box says, “all natural” or “biodegradable”, that the product i’m buying is the eco-friendly & healthy.

sometimes, companies throw out “green”-sounding words to lure people into buying their product. & sometimes people [like me] fall for it & buy it. so i wanted to know what’s really going on with all those eco-friendly sounding labels.  here’s what I found about some of the common terms you see when strolling through the grocery store….

[natural]     i think this is the most popular word to grace the packaging of goods. the biggest thing i learned, is that calling something “natural” is making an undefined claim. it’s just a term that companies can throw out there to make their product sound more appealing. there is no standard definition for the word, which means that individual standards can very from company to company.  however, this does not mean that all natural claims are false. i did learn one interesting tidbit- you can use natural when it comes to meat & poultry processing, & it is considered a legal term.  So i guess mickey d’s hasn’t been lying to us about the chicken nuggets after all!

[organic]     this is another common term that i found has a few meanings, too. but what does organic ally grown really mean? organic food is grown or produced without toxic pesticides & fertilizers, synthetic hormones, antibiotics, sewage sludge , GMOs [genetically modified organisms], or irradiation.  & for clarification on those labels: “100% organic”- states the obvious, all ingredients are organic. “organic”- 95% of ingredients are organic. “made with organic products”- at least 70% of the ingredients are grown organically.

[recycled paper]     buyer beware! i was surprised to learn that recycled paper isn’t always what it seems. manufactures can still claim that paper is “recycled”, when in fact, it could have as little as 10% recycled fibers! that means the other 90% still comes from virgin tree pulp! so check the package. if there are 3 white chasing arrows on a black background, your paper is made from 100% recycled materials. if the arrows are black on a white background, your paper is made from recycled & virgin fibers. manufactures are required to disclose what percentage of the paper is made from actual recycled fiber. to make sure that the paper you’re buying is really made from post-consumer recycled materials, look for these letters: PCC [post-consumer content] & PCW [post-consumer waste].

hopefully you learned a few things too. all of the information i found is taken from its easy being green: a handbook for earth-friendly livingby crissy trask. it’s an extremely resourceful book, full of great tips, websites & businesses to check out, & it clarifies a lot of terminology that i was unsure & unaware of. i recommend checking it out.