The world is sharply divided in terms of access to safe hydration. Those who can afford it are guzzling ever-increasing numbers of designer water bottles, while half the world’s population lacks basic sanitation facilities, according to the United Nations (UN). Diseases caused by unsanitary water kill five to 12 million people a year, most of them women and children. A child dies every eight seconds from a preventable water-borne disease.
If you haven’t thought about how much water you’re drinking lately, you’re probably drinking enough, says Dr. Heinz Valtin, a retired professor and kidney specialist at the Dartmouth Medical School, who recently spent 10 months studying the question. Valtin cautions that drinking too much water may increase exposure to water-borne pollutants, and may increase the risk of water intoxification, also called hyponatremia, a sometimes fatal condition that is the result of replacing lost fluids much faster than sodium.
In the parental rush to provide children with only the healthiest, purest, most wholesome ingredients for life, many families opt to serve bottled water along with the mashed carrots and multi-grain Cheerios. Why? Because they’re worried about the contaminants in tap water, including fluoride. But fluoride is added to many bottled waters, and it also gets in some brands unintentionally. Critics say that people who drink bottled water aren’t getting enough fluoride.
As Americans, we spend about a quarter of our electricity budget on lighting, yet we’re surprisingly ignorant about the basic properties of the lightbulb, let alone the recent innovations in energy-saving lighting design that can cut consumer costs 30 to 60 percent a year.
Soymilk’s popularity has soared since the health benefits of soy have been widely publicized, and its taste was reformulated in recent years to appeal to Americans.
If used with common sense, plastics and food can be a safe combination, experts say. But certain types of plastic are made with chemicals that may cause health problems if they leach into food.
Are you feeling tired most of the time? Does your spouse have a continuous cold and your child a mysterious rash? Chemical sensitivities could be responsible for these ailments. And your house—as well as the stuff in it—is likely to be the source of your discomforts. and its taste was reformulated in recent years to appeal to Americans.
For Wind Energy Investments, It’s the Potential That Counts As the fastest-growing energy source in the world, abundant, safe, renewable wind power seems like a very promising investment opportunity. But Americans looking to jump on the wind bandwagon had best be careful, because no U.S.-based wind power companies are publicly traded. Adventurous investors willing to […]
Visiting the homespun Chalalan Ecolodge in Bolivia.As we sped up the Tuichi River in a motorized canoe, scarlet macaws squawked by overhead; capybaras at the water’s edge defied my perceptions of rodents; and tapir’s footprints blemished the spotless sands. This was going to be no ordinary visit to the Amazon.
Cooking programs across the nation are discovering increasingly creative ways to dispose of their considerable leftovers.
