Which is Better for You-Tap or Bottled Water?

A decade ago when you saw someone walking around with a plastic bottle of water in hand, you saw him or her as health conscious and perhaps even trendy because Hollywood celebrities also gravitated towards bottled water then.

Bottled water became all the rage back then because several studies had found tap water often contains unhealthy and unsafe amounts of chemicals and other substances, even after undergoing treatment at municipal water plants.

Recent studies have shown a sharp rise in drug levels from various discarded prescription drugs showing up in the drinking water flowing into people’s homes, businesses, parks and other public places.

There are still many celebs and others believing that bottled water is better for them than water straight from the tap. Neither is the best for your health and the health of your family. Current studies have shown plastic bottles to leech some of the chemicals used in their manufacture, which can pose health risks to humans and is harmful to the environment.

Placing a filter on your faucet to filter out impurities will provide you and your family with the safest drinking water. Install filters on your bathroom faucets too for cleaner water for your family to brush their teeth with and for washing face and hands.

The government itself has made many changes to become a better steward of our environment. There has also been a lot of green legislation introduced into legislation that places greater restrictions on the amount of permitted annual emissions from corporations and the cars we drive in an effort to protect the environment from further deterioration. The drafting of new legislation governing pollution and for protecting the environment occurs regularly, and so too does the debating over them by members of the house and senate.

Growing numbers of people are looking for ways to live greener lives these days. You may want to help protect the environment by using eco-friendly products in and around your home, by driving a hybrid car, or using public transit. In these difficult economic times, many families are searching for green ways to live in order to reduce their food, fuel, and other bills.

Environmentally friendly products are also safer and healthier for you and your family. There are many articles and informational resources where you can learn more about how eco-friendly products are good both for the environment and for the health of your family.

When I come across affordable green products and services that I feel would be of interest to individuals and families, looking for affordable solutions for living greener glad lives, I will place then under Green Things.

Once such affordable green product I have found and use myself is the Eco-Canteen for keeping my filtered water cool and it provides me an easy way to take water with me while on the go.
Learn more about the Eco Canteen now. Please, Bookmark this blog first, or just use your browsers back button to return here.

Safer Food Alternatives

Buying foods from Farmers Markets and growing their own foods in family gardens or in community garden projects, have become popular with many people these days. More and more people are fearful about the safety of foods sold in grocery stores, chain stores, and restaurants, with the numerous recalls that there have been on a variety of foods and food products in recent years.

Consumers feel that the foods offered for sale by local farmers are safer and certainly, farm families eat a portion of the crops they grow to provide their families with incomes. Organic foods are also hugely popular now as well. Organic farmers grow food crops without using pesticides that are dangerous to humans and the environment. Organically raised animals that people consume for food, feed on all-natural diets, and are not given hormones and other synthetic chemicals that can pose a health risk to people when they eat meats and other foods containing them.

Buying your families foods from a local farmers market can reduce your family’s grocery bills. Since smaller vehicles are used, and fewer miles driven by farmers to bring local foods to market, buying foods from your local farmers market is good for the environment too.

If you want to have more control over how the foods your family eats are grown, grow your own in a family garden. There are many books available to help you to plan a family garden, and to provide you with useful planting guides, and tips for preventing pests from damaging your food plants.

If you like the idea of community members working together towards the same goal, join with other members of your neighborhood or community to help build and oversee the care and tending of food plants in a community garden. Everyone shares in the work, and everyone shares in having the healthier fruits and vegetables grown there.

Do you buy your family’s food from a local farmers market, grow some or much of the foods your family eats in a family garden, or participate in a community garden? Please share with us the advantages you and your family have experienced as of a result. If you still buy all your foods from your local grocery store, we would like to read your thoughts on this subject as well.

Greener Lifestyles in Glad Living

Embracing a greener lifestyle does not have to be difficult or expensive, for the most part. Some greener choices have heftier price tags initially than others have, but most pay for themselves within 6 to 12 months, and then begin accumulating savings for you. Greener living also does not mean you have to deprive yourself or your family of the things that make your life glad. Greener glad living means finding ways for you, and your family and friends, to participate in protecting the environment while also creating comfortable and efficient living environments, and lives filled with exciting experiences for the greatest in glad living. There is an extensive list of choices available to you for consideration in adopting a greener lifestyle that you can feel good and glad about having decided to give to yourself, family, friends, and to the planet.

We will be exploring a number of greener alternatives to help you make your glad life-greener. Covering topics like greener choices in foods and for family, home, fitness, health, car, yard, work, pets, shopping, travel, community, and much more.

Since May 1 is nary a day away now, this gives me the perfect opportunity to suggest a few green tips for spring cleaning your home and getting ready for the heat of summer.


☼This is a good time to change out a dirty furnace filter for a clean one. Consider furnace filters with 3M technology to help reduce the amount of allergens in the air circulated throughout your home.

☼ Install a digital thermostat in your home so that you can easily adjust to lower heating and cooling settings when you are away from home or while sleeping.


☼ Go around your home, checking door and window seals to ensure that they are still in good working order. Fix any breeches in the tight sealing of these that may have occurred over winter. You need these to be in great shape and working to keep hotter summer temperatures out, and to reduce placing strain and forcing increased energy consumption to keep your home cool, on your cooling system

☼ Next get out the screens for the windows in your home and inspect them for holes or tears, and hose them off before placing them in windows. With screens in your windows, you can take advantage of cooler evening temperatures to cool your home and use your air conditioner unit less often, which cuts your homes energy usage, and saves you money.

☼ Replace filament light bulbs with florescent light bulbs and Led technology lighting, that although costing a little more, do consume much less energy while providing sufficient lighting for inside and outside the home.*Turn off lights when you leave a room and shut off and unplug other power devices whenever they are not in use to decrease energy usage.

☼Purchase inexpensive shelves, bins, racks, storage containers, and other products for organizing and storing made from renewable, enviro-friendly materials, to help you keep your home tidy.

☼help decrease the wasting of water in your home by installing flow-control devices on showerheads, inside toilet tanks, and on all the faucets in your home to eliminate, using and wasting more water than is necessary.

☼Gat three boxes and mark them as Keep, Donate, and Trash. Then go through your home, one room at a time to simplify the organizing and cleaning of a room, and place items that you find in one of the three boxes. *Check the box marked for “trash” before tossing anything away, as the items it holds may be recyclable or better donated to someone who may be able to use them. **Your “keep” box may be holding onto electronic, battery and voltage powered things that no longer work, or are not as energy efficient as they used to be or could be. Unless they have sentimental value to you, consider donating them to worthwhile charitable organizations like Goodwill and the Salvation Army, and purchasing newer, more energy efficient models.

☼When it comes to using cleaning agents to clean your home, choose those that are less harmful to the environment and to the health of you and your family.

☼ Try buying more of the packaged foods you and your family consumes in packaging that can be recycled, or in smaller boxes and sacks packaged with materials that cannot be recycled, for less waste ending up in your garbage can.

Okay, these tips should give you a nice start on sprucing up your home in anticipation of summer, and a helpful beginning to living greener. I wish you well on your journey to a greener state of glad living.