Questions about the safety of aspartame are no exception.  Unfortunately for the consumer, ignorance does not protect us from impending risks.  Ultimately we are often left supposition even more misled besides superficial of administer.  Luckily thanks to the consumer, if in doubt about aspartame, you pledge play it safe and cleverly avoid it. Aspartame was developed in the 1960’s originally for critical other than calorie sweetener.  The sweetness was discovered by accident.  Suffice it to say, it is whereas used to sweeten for 6000 products, boasting colorless calories.

Aspartame is also known due to Neutral Sweet, Spoonful and likeness. Substantial is get going in, but not shriveled to home cooking dove-like drinks, crystal light, and diet yogurts and jell, some children’s vitamins besides medicines.  Certain popsicles, mints again gum also contain aspartame.  Sweetened products that are labeled zero or no calories, likely contain pseudo sweeteners.  You entrust accept to explain labels more diligently to avoid it. It is vague to me as a nutritional consultant that adept is even still debate about whether or not aspartame is dangerous to one’s health.  In my opinion, aspartame is on over of political reasons, not through shrinkage of credible, concrete, scientific evidence of its dangers.

It is comprised of three paramount constituents:  methanol, aspartic acid and phenylalanine.  And it is toxic. Methanol is also known being methyl alcohol or wood alcohol.  Sincere is a poisonous chemical.  It is and found in goods such as picture thinner and gasoline.  Prerogative the body methanol look-in desolate pursuit formaldehyde and further into formic acid, also ever toxic. Methanol is a money nervous framework depressant.  It can cause headaches, dizziness, nausea, insufficiency of coordination, confusion, unconsciousness again even grim reaper.  And as it metabolizes further racket more toxic components:  formaldehyde again formic acid the list of symptoms continue.  Formic acid causes hypoxia at the cellular level and metabolic disturbances. Aspartic acid, numerous component of aspartame is a free form amino acid.  Honest is lacking its protein chain, rendering it toxic.  In this form aspartic acid raises the blood plasma levels of aspartame and glutamate both of which tend to concentrate themselves prerogative clear-cut areas of the brain.  The carmine penetration barrier, which protects or shields the precocity from double toxins, is not all developed in children, doesn’t protect all areas of the mature and allows seepage of excesses of congener toxins.

Therefore unneeded levels of aspartame and glutamate slowly begin to destroy neurons.  Not until approximately 75% of neural cells are killed, do symptoms motivate to appear. Some facet effects of aspartame further glutamate are MS, ALS, memory loss, hormonal problems, hearing loss, epilepsy, Parkinson’s, hypoglycemia and additional. Phenylalanine, the third fixing’s of aspartame is also an amino acid hold it’s unchain form, unbound to protein.  This is not the natural access an amino acid appears in the body. Phenylalanine is concentrated in the maestro also excesses causes the serotonin spell the brain to decrease. A decrease in serotonin leads to emotional disorders such owing to depression, mood swings, rage and more. Finally, after ingesting all of the toxins that aspartame contains, it doesn’t in line work for to weight loss.  Juice fact, evidence has actually heavy aspartame due to a toxin that contributes to weight settle.  Strings gain over a result of aspartame consumption occurs for two main reasons.

First, after aspartame is ingested, it is curious through the tummy again goes directly to the liver.  It is involved in that the liver filters.  Here rightful is destitute down into its toxic components.  All of the energy the liver expends dominion metabolizing this envenom intensely reduces its available cellular energy. In addition to breaking rejected toxins, the liver is also answerable for fat gleaming besides metabolism.  However, unfortunately, once a great amount of energy is tired in the toxin breakdown process, there is less lonely to burn fat, resulting prerogative fat storing and in conclusion a fatty liver.  Stash a fatty liver, it is notably galling to lose might and strikingly easy to conclude it. The second reason aspartame contributes to weight gain is that phenylalanine and aspartic acid stimulates insulin release.  Rapid increases command insulin remove sugar from the blood stream and store it as fat.  It also inhibits the “I feel full” mechanisms, leading to food cravings, increased carbohydrate consumption also ultimately weight gain.

All is not lost though. You can do your part and solve this problem by recycling your food waste. By recycling your food waste you are create what is called compost. Compost is the end result of organic matter that decomposes.

Your food waste doesn’t simply sit in your kitchen and rot away, which wouldn’t be too pleasant, you actually do something with it and that is you bury it. I will get to more on that in a moment.

The first step is to get yourself a giant Tupperware bowl that, from now on, you can put your food scraps into. Everytime you have leftovers that would normally go into the garbage you redirect that food waste to your Tupperware bowl.

When the Tupperware bowl gets full you will bury it in your backyard. Dig a hole about one to two feet deep and empty the contents of the Tupperware bowl into the hole. Now cover the hole with the dirt. That is it you are now done. You have just recycled food waste.

Now comes the exciting part that you don’t actually see, but trust me it is happening. There is an entire ecosystem that lives underneath that top layer of soil. When you bury food they work hard decomposing that food and give back to you compost.

Compost is filled with nutrients and minerals that plants, trees, flowers, shrubs and any other type of plant require in order to grow and be healthy. By you burying your food waste you are reintroducing these nutrients back into your soil and at the same time recycling waste that would go to a landfill somewhere.

Just keep in mind not to bury food in the same spot sooner than 60 days. It will take about that time for the underlying ecosystem to decompose the waste thoroughly. Just pick a new spot and repeat. If space is limited you can dig a 3 foot hole, dump the waste in, then put a 2 to 3 inch layer of dirt on top, then when the Tupperware bowl is full again, you dump it on top of that, and then more dirt and so on until the hole is full. This helps use the same space more than once.

If you want to get even fancier when your space is limited, you can build what is called a compost bin or a worm box, put your food waste in there with some red worms and they will take care of the rest. When they are done eating the food you remove the compost that remains, mix it in with your soil around your flowers, trees and shrubs and keep doing it.

Someone once said garbage is just another product. It’s just that no one has found a use for garbage just yet. Well in this case you have. Pull double duty helping the environment by burying your food waste.

About the Author
Bruce is the co-author of the book “Vegetable Gardening for the Average Person: A guide to vegetable gardening for the rest of us”. It is a practical easy to follow book that teaches gardeners everything from composting techniques, aeration and frost conditions, to choosing the right tools and picking the right seeds. To learn more about Mr. Tucker or to inquire about the book you can visit: http://www.AveragePersonGardening.com.

One of the biggest landfill hogs is the waste of unrecyclable plastics. Not only do they take up a lot of space but they also take generations to decompose. Although a lot of supermarkets and shopping centers have made the switch to plastic bags that can be recycled, there is a better solution. Instead of using plastic bags of any kind make the switch to reusable cloth bags. My supermarket sells them for anywhere from one dollar to thirty dollars depending on the size, color and logos that are on them. I bought the bags that had the store logo on them and they cost me a dollar a piece. Inside each bag were loads of coupons, of which many I used so the bag basically paid for itself after one trip. Not only did I get the coupon but the store also gives me a nickel off for every bag I use. Sure it won’t make me rich, but it is something and a small incentive to make the switch. If every person in America made this change we would save over one billion plastic bags per year. That’s a whole lot of plastic!

Grass

I was shocked to hear that in most municipalities in this country that grass is thrown in with the regular trash which inevitably ends up in a landfill. In my area they pick up the grass on a separate day and it is recycled into compost and mulch. Of course you do not need to wait on your local, state or federal government to enact something similar. You can just as easily do it yourself. By switching your lawn mower’s blade to a mulching blade your grass will get cut up into very fine pieces and put back to the soil. When these fine pieces decompose they will introduce healthy nutrients back into your lawn. Even though my area picks up the grass, I use a mulching blade. My grass has far better benefits for me by mulching while I mow then having the government come pick it up. I haven’t “bagged” my own grass in nearly seven years! Imagine the landfill space we would save if everybody mulched their grass.

Plastic Milk Containers

Ok this one I have to give credit where credit is due and that is to my father who first introduced me to this technique and that is reusing one gall plastic milk containers before I recycle them. With this technique I get an extra use out of it in the form of a block of ice. After rinsing out the plastic container I then fill it up and place it in the freezer to create a huge block of ice. This is especially handy when I am having a barbecue and need to keep things cold outside. Once the water is frozen and I wish to use the block of ice, I simply take the container, run it under water for about 30 seconds so it will release from the sides. I then take a sharp knife or scissors and cut away the container. I toss then toss the container into my recycle bin and I am done. The plastic container ends up in recycle anyway so I mind as well use it for something before it goes.

As you can see none of these ideas are life altering or require you to make huge adjustments in your daily routine. But with over 300 million people making small changes like this on a daily basis we can reduce our needs for landfill space and the use of less plastic.

Would you like to make some extra money writing about your recycling experience? You can join Bukisa today and start earning residual income on every article that you write about recycling.

Recycling is more than just separating your trash into bins and waiting around for the right company to come and get it from your curb. Recycling is a process by which stuff you no longer need or use can be reused by someone or something else for a specific purpose.

For example, there are companies out there that recycle old tires. But they don’t recycle them into new tires, no, they melt them down and use the left over material as a road paving compound, or they mix it with gypsum for drywall and a whole slew of other things. Of course that is on the larger scale of solutions. We want to talk about the smaller scale such as a friend of mine who takes old wooden pallets and turns them into outdoor furniture. He obviously has a skill in woodworking, but he has been able to translate that skill into a business that also recycles. These are the ideas we will touch on here today.

Do you use aluminum foil? Of course you do, unless you don’t cook or store anything in the refrigerator or freezer. Aluminum foil is one of those products that can easily be recycled and people do not realize it. From now on do not throw your aluminum foil away. Instead wash it clean just like you would a dish, flatten the foil out and save it for a later day. Obviously if it is savable you would do this. You can easily save yourself two to four rolls every year. Imagine if every family in America did this? With 300 million families and growing, you can see the immense savings and impact on the environment.

A birthday is a happy time (or at least it should be). Most of the time you get to spend it with family and friends. A huge waste is the wrapping paper to cover the gifts. Sure it looks nice, but in a matter of seconds you quickly have a big pile of paper that ends up in the trash. Here is a better solution. Wrap your gifts in the comics section of the newspaper. The mere word comics can be associated with being happy which birthdays are. You save on wrapping paper, the comic section can be recycled by the gift recipient, and everyone (including the environment) is happy.

They say one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, so why are you hoarding or throwing away treasure? You know what I am talking about, your basement full of crap that you will never use. Somebody somewhere has a need for the items that you are saving (and will never use) or throwing away. Post an ad on craigslist in the free section to get rid of it, post items up for sale on eBay, have a yard sale, donate them to a church, before you throw them away and they end up in a landfill, make sure someone else does not need them.

A big impact on the environment could be less use of plastic shopping bags. They take hundreds of years to decompose and invariably end up in a landfill somewhere and forgotten about. Do yourself and the environment a favor, switch to reusable clothe shopping bags. My supermarket sells them for ninety-nine cents, they come with about twenty dollars in coupon savings and they give me a nickel per bag for each bag I use when I go shopping. In other words I get that ninety-nine cents back very quickly. Since I started using clothe bags (about a year now), I have reduced my need of nearly 260 plastic bags. If everyone did that the savings from plastic bags would be into the millions if not billions.

My final idea to give you that I use is to switch your lawn mower blade to a mulching blade. It cost me about $20 and a half hour of my time but it was well worth it. A mulching blade cuts the grass into fine particles so you do not have to bag the grass, and put it out to the curb to get picked up. Your grass clippings will serve as great nutrients for your lawn and you will save a paper bag, trash pick up and landfill space. Not bad for twenty bucks! This investment pays for itself in less than half a season, maybe even sooner depending on how big your lawn is and how often you mow it.

As you can see none of these ideas is life altering. With a few minor adjustments to the way you do certain tasks, you can be well on your way to making a huge impact on the environment in no time.

The reality of the situation is for many solar panels are an investment just as much as they are doing the right thing to reduce carbon emissions from burning coal or oil to produce electric. With solar panels, just like any other type of investment, whether it is a business or a piece of real estate, there are steps you will want to take to make sure you get the most bang for your buck.

Before you even purchase a solar panel system you should take an energy audit of your own home. You should write down the amount of electric you are using on average during each month over the past three years. This is easy to do if you kept your electric bills. If not I am sure you can get a printout from your power company. You are looking for the number of Kilowatt hours (kWh) used each month to see which months you are using more electric. If you have electric heat chances are it will be the winter months if you live in a cold climate and if you are in a warm climate the hotter months due to running the AC.

Now that you know what you use and how much of it use and when you use, you need to know some things that will help reduce these costs before you even put one solar panel on your roof. For starters are you still using those incandescent light bulbs? If so switch to CFLs. They have become very affordable and also now come in a variety of styles that meet every need. Start with replacing the bulbs in the rooms you use the most, such as the family room, kitchen, etc. Make sure you read the package because for lights on dimmer switches and motion sensors you need to buy a CFL specifically designed for that purpose. The ideal solution would be to use LCD lights, but they are very and I mean very expensive, so they are not an option right now. But keep an eye on them for the near future.

Do you have trees planted on your property? More importantly do you have them planted in an area where they would block out the sun in the hotter months? Trees take a long time to grow but they are an investment that pays off in so many ways. They beautify the home and provide shade from the sun. In the colder months they block out the wind and if you buy a tree that produces fruit such as apples or pears they can also provide a food source. The choice of tree is obviously up to you but you should definitely plant a tree or two for all the reason mentioned above.

I can not tell you how many people I have met do not do the basic thing of putting window shades over their windows to block the sun in the warmer months. Even more importantly is the fact that any shading they do use is fairly inadequate. On the windows that get the most sun, use a thicker or darker shade usually around 12mm. It will block out a lot of the sun and keep the room and house in general cooler.

For under $300 you can install a solar powered attic vent fan. Nothing reduces the life of your roof and makes the house warmer in the summertime that hot air that is not moving in your attic space. Installing a solar attic vent fan is the way to go. You do not need to hire an electrician because there are no wires to hook up and there are no costs to run the fan since the sun is free (always has been, always will be). This is a great investment that will pay huge dividends.

These are just a few of the many ways you can save on energy long before you invest the money into an expensive solar panel project. Make sure you maximize all of the ways first so the return on your investment will be its greatest.

Currently most of the world’s oil supply comes from OPEC.  A conglomerate of countries that dictate the flow of oil, its cost, and due to these factors, OPEC pretty much controls the way the world works, because without oil the world (in its current state) can not run.

In the book I read the author pointed out had Germany and Japan been the leaders of oil production at the time, the world would surely be a different place than it is today.  Due to the Allies attacks on various oil fields controlled by Axis powers this left them without the fuel they needed to advance their armies.  Eventually the Allies won and their ability to cut off the supply of oil to the Germans and Japanese played a major role in this outcome.

Twice in my lifetime the United States has to endure oil embargoes.  Once in 1973 after OPEC was formed and threw out foreign oil producing countries (i.e. U.S., France, Great Britain) and in again the late 70s when Iran extremists took over their country.  If you didn’t live during these times then you did not get the chance to experience the wonderful thrill of waiting in gas lines for more than 2 hours on odd and even license plate days.  Trust me you do not want to go through this.  It was not pleasant.

Saudi Arabia by far is the leading producer of oil.  What would happen if the Saudi’s oil fell into the hands of super extremists such as an Osama Bin Laden.  The world would once again see an energy crisis.  However it would unlike anything we have ever seen.

Every U.S. President since Richard Nixon has promised to do something about energy and make a commitment towards energy independence yet only minor changes have been made, none of which has made a huge impact on becoming independent of foreign oil.  In fact not only has it not done anything, our dependence on foreign oil has become worse.

Taking all this information into account you can see the importance of becoming independent of foreign oil.  Sure prices are starting to come down and historically when this occurs people tend to forget about alternative fuels such as ethanol, methanol, electric or coal. 

While prices were extremely high the country responded with the largest development of alternative fuels in the nation’s history.  Hopefully because of such a huge movement towards these other fuels we as a nation won’t turn our backs on them like we have done in the past. 

Now is the time to continue this development, get involved and use the skills you have towards helping make our country independent from foreign oil.  Start doing your research to find out how you can help.  Our safety and security depends on it!

In my process of doing research I found some fascinating information. According to a recent article that I read Americans consume nearly 25% of the entire world’s oil production. Ok so that one is not a show stopper, you can turn on any news station to find that out. However, did you know that over 30% of that oil is used to produce plastic? Yes plastics!

If you combine the use of oil for transportation (cars, boats, planes, etc) and the use of oil for plastics you are looking at over 80% of what oil is used for in this country. Another fascinating piece of information that I found out is that only 3% of the oil supplied is actually used to generate electricity in this country. The bulk of electric is generated by burning coal, of which the United States is one of the leading producers of.

So why not just build vehicles that run off of coal? Simply put it is impractical. I would love for it to be a reality that domestically mined coal could be used in our everyday vehicles but if you Google steam locomotives you will see why coal in its current form is not a good idea.

Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens currently has a plan that says build a wind farm from the Texas pan handle up through North Dakota. Ecological maps show that wind gusts along this corridor are some of the best in the world and because of this reason are ideal to produce all of the electricity that this country needs from wind, the ultimate renewable energy source.

Now you might be asking why go through all of that effort if only 3% of oil is used to create electricity? For one it would eliminate the need for that 3% which is obvious, the second reason is it eliminates the need to burn coal to create our electricity, which too may be obvious as well. But what may not be common knowledge is that you can actually turn coal into methanol which is a liquid combustible fuel that can be used in flex fuel vehicles.

Now I know environmentalists will go nuts with global warming and all of those topics, but the fact is right now we do not produce enough vegetation to sustain a complete ethanol supply for all of our transportation needs, therefore we need to bridge a gap until we get there and coal could be our answer.

Going back to T. Boone Pickens his bridge is using natural gas, which is also abundant in the U.S., burns cleaner than coal as well as gasoline and can be used to run our vehicles. The issue I have with this solution is that there are very few cars that run off of natural gas. Also it would become costly and complicated to convert existing vehicles to utilize this resource. Methanol on the other is a combustible liquid fuel just like gasoline, therefore requiring less to convert existing vehicles over and the auto industry only has to make minor changes in order to run vehicles on a gasoline/methanol/ethanol mixture, these vehicles, which already exist, are called flex fuel vehicles.

Flex fuel vehicles are just what the name implies a vehicle that can run on any or a combination of all of the previously mentioned liquid fuel sources. These types of vehicles are not new and they date back to the early 1980s where Ford engineers retro fitted special sensors on Pintos so that the vehicle could run off any combination mix of gasoline and methanol.

Unfortunately because oil prices were low during the 1980s and the early to mid 1990s to immediate need to mass produce flex fuel vehicles were not is as much demand. Also due to low oil prices the auto industry produced vehicles that people were craving, gas guzzling SUVs that could haul the boat, a trailer and half the neighbor hood kids all at the same time.

During the late 1990s and early the 2000 decade, oil prices jumped extremely high once again fueling a debate (no pun intended) as to the need for flex fuel vehicles. If the auto industry had just followed through since the 1980s producing flex fuel vehicles, I have no doubt that we would all be driving them today and our need for foreign oil would be near zero.