Three clicks a day ...

... for a better world

• Ett klick för skogen - help preserve ancient forests in Sweden.
  
• The Hunger Site - A click gives food for hunger relief efforts
  
• The rain Forest Site - A click preserves a part of the worlds rain forests
  

It only requires a click.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Although, I guess the sponsors want you to at least visit their sites ...

Kuyichi - more fair trade jeans

Once you start looking more and more names show up,
good names
fair trade names
the latest in my quest for fair trade jeans is:
http://www.kuyichi.com/

A snap from their website:

"The name Kuyichi is derived from the Peruvian god of the rainbow. There is a legend that the rainbow god of the Taquile Indians became angry with the people and took all colors away from life. After introducing and perfecting the art of weaving beautiful blankets, the Indians were able to bring the colors of the rainbow to the world."

Funny thing:
Type in Kuychi on wikipedia and you get redirected to Fair Trade (sic!)

I have spotted some stores in Stockholm and Göteborg that sell their clothes. I will definitively check them out when I go there, soon, on saturday!

Stay away from Coke in India

Weary travellers probably now that drinking stream or tap water might not be so good for your health, at least it would mean spending most of the vacation under the scurge of Montezuma´s revenge.

Nowadays but without the Montezuma hanging over you one should avoid drinking soft drinks such as Coca Cola whilst in India because there Coke Cola and others alike contain very high levels of pesticides (sic!). You may not die on the spot but most of the pestidicides that CSE detected are definitely not good for anyone...

Read more on:
CSE India.

Organic jeans

In a recent post I mentioned that Levi´s will soon start to sell jeans made by organic cotton.

Today I bumped into the company HUG that already sell such jeans. And better still they are Fair Trade!

One pair of jeans costs a cool 90 pounds sterling ...

I think it is Peru Natur Tex that does the actual fabric.

BTW
Did you know that there are natural varities of cotton that are coloured? See Pakucho that sell such beauties, ie T-shirts made from that kind of cotton. Also from PeruNaturTex.

Note:
the things you learn and read about on TreeHugger are good for you and the environment ...

Pineapple chutney

Ingredients:
1 can of pineapple (ca 330 grams)
1/2 tsp cumin, powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon, powder
1/2 tsp cloves, whole
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp turmeric, powder
1/2 tsp ginger, dried
3 dl sugar
1 dl vinegar
Dash of olive oil

Spices, pineapple and sugar are available as Fair Trade.
Vinegar and olive oil are available from organic agriculture.

Grind the clove and finely chop the ginger.
Briefly heat up all the spices in some olive oil.
Add vinegar, sugar and some of the pineapple juice.
Let simmer for half hour.

If you want it thicker use pectin, flour or maizena.

Put in (boiled) glass jars.
Use as condiment to chicken or meat.

Btw:
Packs quite a kick alone but with food it adds a nice set of flavours...

Note : tsp - table spoon.

Everyclick counts

Everyclick - The search engine that supports charity.

In my case I support War on Want.

50% of the profits of Everclick goes to charity.
Great!

Spiced mud cake or chocolate cake

Ingredients
2 dl flour
1 tea spoon clove, whole
1 tea spoon allspice, whole
1 tea spoon cinnamon
200 gr butter
2.5 dl sugar
3 eggs, large or 4 small
2.5 dl walnuts, coarsely chopped
100gr dark chocolate

Flour, butter, sugar, chocolate and walnuts are available from organic agriculture.

Clove, cinnamon, sugar and chocolate are available as fair trade products.

I have not found allspice as neither Fair Trade nor Organic. Instead I used by some of my private stash my father gave me some years back...


How to do it:

Turn on the over at 175 Celcius.

Grind the allspice and clove.
Mix them and cinnamon with the flour.

Mix butter and sugar til it gets smooth.

Melt the chocolate and add to the sugar-butter mix.

Add one egg at a time to the chocolate mix,
and stir til it gets smooth and shiny.

Add the spiced flour and the walnuts to the mix.

Butter and bread crumb a oven proof container,
ca 20 by 30 cm.
Put the dough in their and in to oven.

15-20 minutes will make mud cake
30 minutes will make a sponge cake.

In either case:
It is good served with some whipped cream :-)
Btw:
whipping cream is also available from organic agriculture!

What is in a tooth paste?

What is in a tooth paste?

I have yet to find a toothpaste with fluoride AND the rest being derived from organic production. I have seen some ”natural” tooth pastes but they invariably skip the fluor. And I want that it in my tooth paste especially since my dentist told to eat fluoride pills. But then I prefer to have the fluoride in the mouth and teeth and not circulating around my body. So, tooth paste with fluor it is...

I just bought Aquafresh Flúor Branqueadora that contains in the order of the list:

Water
Used as solvent

Hydrated silica
Is used as a thickening agent.
Present as microparticles? If yes, will polish the enamel.

Sorbitol
Is sugar first found in birch trees. It is used an emulsifier, ie enhances foaming. Also helps to give consistency of the tooth paste and it is generally believed to have a bacteriostatic effect.

Pentasodium triphosphate
Used to adjust viscosity ie consistency and also can make complexes (with what?).
CAS: 7758-29-4
Class I water pollutant (weakly water polluting).
Will normally be hydrolysed into orthophosphates and act as source of phosphates to water sewage which can lead to eutrophication of lakes and water ways since it is normally not collected in sewage plants.

Glycerin
Glycerol
Thickener, hygroscopic

PEG-6
Poly-Ethylene glycol with 6 repeating units.
Used as emulsifier, is easily dissolved in water.

Sodium lauryl sulfate
Detergent, helps clean the teeth. Some believe that it can cause increased sensitivity and permeability of the mucus membranes in the mouth.
IUPAC: sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS).
CAS: 151-21-3

Flavour
Can be anything ...

Titanium dioxide
Is an opacifier that gives white colour.
Probably in microparticle form so will help to polish the enamel of teeth.
CI 77891.
CAS: 13463-67-7

Xanthan gum
Used as thickener.
Biodegradable biopolymer, factory produced by bacterial fermentation.
E415

Sodium hydroxide
Alkaline, ie helps to increase the pH of the mouth that in turn can help to prevent enamel decay.

Sodium saccharin
Artificial sweetener.

Sodium Fluoride
Source of fluorine ions.
Which is generally believed to be good to maintaining enamel integrity.

Limonene
Is a terpene that gives orange flavour.
CAS 5989-27-5
Limonene is listed in annex 1 of the directive 67/548/EEC under index number 601-029-00-7 [2]. The pure substance is classified as irritant (Xi) and dangerous for the environment (N).

CI 73360
Probably colour agent.
Red 30
CAS: 2379-74-0
IUPAC: 6-Chlor-2-(6-chlor-4-methyl-3-oxobenzo[b]thien-2(3H)-yliden)-4-methylbenzo[b]thiophen-3(2H)-on

CI 74160
Probably colour agent
IUPAC: Tetrabenzo-5,10,15,20-diazaporphyrinphthalocyanin
CAS: 147-14-8

CI 74260
Probably colour agent
Polychloro copper phthalocyanine.
CAS: 1328-53-6

---

Summary:
Consistency regulators:
Water
Hydrated silica
Glycerin
PEG-6
Pentasodium phosphate
Xantham gum

Colours:
Titandioxide
CI 73360
CI 74160
CI 74260

Polishing agents:
Titanium dioxide ?
Hydrate silica ?

Flavours:
Limonene
Sodum saccharin (sweetener)
+ unknown ingredients

Surface active and detergents:
Sodium lauryl sulfate
Sorbitol
Pentasodium phosphate (by complexation?)

---

My suggestions:
- Use fewer consistency agents and skip the phosphates!
- Skip the Limonene and sodium saccharine.
- There probably are better options for colouring agents (ie the replace the CI).
- I am not sure what gives the polishing effect, but one ingredient should be enough.

Which leaves us with:
Water
Sorbitol
Thickener – one should be enough
Sodium fluoride (or other source of fluorine)
Detergent – one should be enough
Flavour – use Mentha × piperita from organic production!

Sorbitol, thickener, detergent and flavour can all be derived from organic production. With maximum of ca 1400 ppm of fluorine it should be very possible to make a tooth paste that can be eco-labelled (at least according to the hopefully upcoming EU regulations).
Still, such a beauty could probably be approved by the Swedish Bra Miljöval (Good Environmental Choice) ecolabel, under its general classification of “chemicals” under its rules of biodegradability and non-toxicity.

---

This is where I found most of the info:
http://ecb.jrc.it/esis/esis.php?PGM=ein&DEPUIS=autre
http://www.inhaltsstoffe-kosmetik.de/
http://www.2k-software.de/ingo/farbe/farbursache.html
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/cosmetics/html/cosm_inci_list.htm
http://www.wikipedia.org/
http://www.inchem.org/

Two GMO free products

Recently I have bought two products that both are stated to be GMO free.

The first is ice cream from the Greek company EVGA. I guess it is from conventional ingredients although none of them are GMO. So far so good! Quite literally!

The second is Kingfisher natural toothpaste, mint with lemon.
Do normal toothpaste any GMO?
As far as I know it is just a bunch of chemicals mostly derived from fossil fuels.

So lets have a look the list of ingredients:
- calcium carbonate : chalk
- vegetable glycerine : palm oil
- Aqua = water, why cant they just write water?
- silica : ore
- sodium lauryl sulfate : palm oil
- cellolusa gum : plant fibre
- sodium mono-fluoro phosphate
- mentha piperita : mint
- citrus limonum : lemon
- foeniculum vulgare : fennel

Two minerals: silica and fluor etc
Three herbs: mint, lemon and fennel.
Two products derived from palm oil
and one from plant fibre.
Plant fibre could be anything, and potentially GMO.
I dont think that the "herbs" nor palms tree are availble as GMO.
But there are plenty of unsustainable oil palm plantations!

It has been suggested that the EU eco-label for agricultural products should include the possibility to label ingregredients (not the whole product) as ecological.
As far as I know all the above plant based products are availble from ecological agriculture. So if Kingfisher really wanted they could probably step up the stringency a bit more.

I think both chalk and silica is there to polish the enamel.
Probably they could drastically decrease the relative amounts of these two quite a bit and still get a good toothpaste, with the added advantage of achieving a product that as whole can be eco-labelled. If all mineral content is less than 5% and all other are derived from organic production.

Injecting carbon dioxide will dissolve the rock?!

In a recent study the injection of liquid carbon dioxide caused a drop a pH which in termed helped to dissolve the surrounding rock bed. Would that mean that large scale sequestering of carbon dioxide from burning coal and other fossil fuel still would lead to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide?
Although first after a trip around the ground water. Or could that dissolve the overhead rock bead causing the carbon dioxide to be burped up into the atmosphere?

Reference:
Gas-water-rock interactions in Frio Formation following CO2 injection: Implications for the storage of greenhouse gases in sedimentary basins
Geology 34(7): 577-58, 2006
Y.K. Kharaka, D.R. Cole, S.D. Hovorka, W.D. Gunter, K.G. Knauss, B.M. Freifeld
DOI 10.1130/G22357.1