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Archive for July, 2010

Text poll: What’s the Best Way to Green Halloween?

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

Fair Trade Mania!

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

Who doesn’t love chocolate? It’s creamy, sweet, melts in your mouth and all-around delicious! Despite our obsession with this product, numerous health concerns have been raised as well as the issue of sustainability and fair trade. So now, companies are trying to find ways to make their sweets and confections appeal to a more eco-aware crowd of consumers. Last year two giants in the candy industry, Cadbury and Mars Incorporated announced they were creating fair trade chocolates.

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Cadbury, a step ahead of Mars, already has fair trade chocolate for sale to the public. They claim that their chocolate bars are all now 100% fair trade certified cocoa. While Mars announced a partnership with The Rainforest Alliance to create sustainable chocolate. This is a very exciting collaboration between the candy giant and a NGO who works hard to “conserve biodiversity and sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior.

With more and more candy companies embracing healthy and sustainable alternatives, the holidays (especially Halloween) are looking sweeter and sweeter!

On the search for a theme song!

Saturday, July 17th, 2010

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Green Halloween is currently hosting a contest to find the perfect theme song. The winning piece will be used on GH’s websites, opening and ending in various video projects, as well as background music for presentations and/or slideshows.

What we’re looking for:

We’re looking for a jingly type song. Up tempo. Approximately 1-2 minutes. It can have a childlike feel, but our audience is moms of children to about age 10, so the song should not be aimed at kids. Please check out our website, www.GreenHalloween.org to learn more about the various aspects of what we do. We are totally focused on the positive, i.e. we are NOT taking candy away from kids on Halloween, but encouraging moms to consider healthier alternatives (i.e. organic candy, treasures, making costumes, composting uneaten candy and pumpkins.)

Oh and we are open to songs with and without lyrics. We’ll know it when we hear it!

Submit your entries here and click to hear all the contest entries!

Contest ends soon so submit your entries!!

Safe Comestics

Monday, July 12th, 2010

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics opened up our eyes to the dangers of harmful chemicals stored in the makeup that we use daily. If you’re curious about your own makeup collection sitting on the vanity, head on over to Skin Deep, a super helpful database that lets you search for specific products, ingredients and even companies! The database also conveniently organizes products by category to make the search easier, and created a user-friendly score key to let the users know where their products fall in the range of hazardous chemicals.

According to this article from the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics website:

“Lead may be a contaminant in over 650 products listed in Skin Deep. Lead can be found in a range of cosmetic products including sunscreens, foundation, nail colors, lipsticks and whitening toothpaste. Several ingredients derived from plant sources, such as cottonseed oils and rice derivatives, may contain heavy metals such as lead and mercury.

Titanium dioxide and zinc oxide are widely used in sunscreens, and zinc oxide is also common in foundations, concealers and diaper ointments (up to 4 percent of products in Skin Deep).

Some metals serve as colorants. For instance, chromium is used in a very small number of products as a colorant, and iron oxides are common colorants in eye shadows, blushes and concealers. Some aluminum compounds are colorants in lip glosses, lipsticks and nail polishes. In addition, some color additives may be contaminated by heavy metals, such as D&C Red 6, which can be contaminated by arsenic, lead and mercury.

Arsenic is a contaminant in about 641 products, or about 2.5 percent, of those listed in Skin Deep.

Zinc is used in a small number (47) but wide array of products, including moisturizers, shampoos and foundations.

Mercury has been reported in very few brands of mascara and eye drops.”

Wow! That’s a lot of chemicals in products that we often use on a daily basis. Perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate what should stay and what should go in our make-up bags and/or bathroom counters! For more information on natural skin care products, check out Safe Skin Care and this informative article titled “Are Your Skin Products Killing You?” as well as “Safe Cosmetics, Where Do You Get Them?”

Guest Post: Artificial Colors in Food “A Poison Rainbow?

Friday, July 9th, 2010

Guest post time! We were lucky enough to stumble across this extremely interesting (not to mention informative!) article on artificial coloring in foodstuffs. You know, those pretty colors that make kids gobble up anything it touches. Hemi Weingarten, the author of this article has his own blog called Fooducate, a very informative blog that is updated on a daily basis that offer various tips on choosing the healthiest, most nutritious food for you and your family.

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