Strawberries

In Sweden strawberries are the biggest sign that summer has finally arrived. Ask any Swede and he/she will tell you that there is absolutely no strawberries anywhere in the world as good as the Swedish ones. We eat them for breakfast, lunch and dessert and we put them in salads for dinner together with grilled meat. We eat them as snacks, as appetizers together with feta-cheese, or in smoothies. The best thing ever is to go to your local farmer and pick them yourself. You spend hours in the fields eating as many as you're picking and leave sunburnt with red fingertips and many, many liters of bright red berries. Those get in the freezer to enjoy wintertime or they are turned into jam or cordials.

Pesticides used when growing strawberries in Sweden are Betanal SC/Kemifam SC. The company that sells these products in Sweden (Bayer CropScience) writes on their own website that whatever is left of the pesticide after spraying the fields shall be kept away from children and animals and separated from food. I really don't see how that goes together since we serve those sprayed strawberries to our children later....

In a test carried out in 2009, 94% of the conventionally grown strawberries (Swedish and others) contained traces of pesticides. Several of the pesticides discovered are suspected to cause cancer.

The good news is that the industry is working to find solutions that allow less harmful farming, so I hope it will soon be easier to find organic ones. Strawberries grown organically will meet challenges like weed, fungus and different pests, so you need to grow tough species and to put in more work to keep your plants free. It's definitely worth doing so though since studies have shown that organic strawberries can actually prevent cancer. Makes the choice quite easy... You can read more about this at krav.se. 

According to a recent study made at Lunds University in Sweden, bees really like organic strawberries. They pollinated 45% of the strawberry-flowers on the organic farms and only 17% on the conventional farms. So you can basically turn one wrong into two rights and have bee-hives next to your strawberry-farm.

Diamonds are forever

If you want to make sure that your gold and diamonds come from a sustainable source there are a few things to consider.

The Kimberley Process is a social initiative that started in May 2000 to stop diamonds from conflict areas, so called Blood Diamonds. Many countries and companies in the diamond trade participate in this important task and they have reached great results in just over ten years. You can read a lot of interesting information about the process in the webpage. Since the KP certification is not legally binding for the participants every consumer plays an important role. The Kimberly Process really emphasis the importance we all play as consumers and what we need to ask for when shopping jewellery.

You can also look at Fair Trade Gems for more information and finding retailers.

Coalition for Green Gold is an interesting initiative on sustainable mining. Working against rainforest deforestation and mercury, cyanide and arsenic contamination this is extremely important. For example; mercury is used when extracting gold, and it's poisoning the water, the animals and the people living close to the mines. You can also find information about this work on Fairtrade and on Alliance for Responsible Mining.

If you want to shop some gorgeous jewellery, check out these websites;

Noën is a german company making beautiful jewellery in organic gold and diamonds. They don't want to compromise between beauty and social responsibility, and they really manage to mix those two together. The gold is extracted without chemicals and their diamonds are certified through the Kimberley Process. On their homepage you can even watch a video from one of the sites where they extract gold.

Ekoguld is Sweden's first Fairtrade certified goldsmith. Their gold are Fairmined certified and their gems are from sustainable and fairtrade sources. They even offer their customers to use recycled gold if they want to.

Power of consumption

Nobody can do it alone, but with the small steps and choices we make every day, we can all do our part. That's the most important thing I want to show with this blog. We can really do it together. All consumers of food, drink, clothes, fuel, skincare etc etc can put the pressure on our governments and all companies to work for a better and more sustainable future for all of us simply by choosing what we spend our money on.

-Buying organic milk/wine/juice/coffee instead of regular shows our farmers that we don't want to drink chemicals and hormones.
-Buying toys painted with non-toxic paint or made of non-toxic plastic shows our toy-stores that they need to produce and sell things that won't give off poison when our children put them in their mouth.
-Buying organic skincare will tell the producers that we don't want to rub chemicals on the biggest organ we have; our skin.
-Using public transportation whenever possible and buy cars with alternative fuel-sources will show the oil-industry that enough is enough.

If we keep asking at our local stores for those products and keep buying the things that are good for us those things will be produced in a larger scale. We can make the power of money work in our favour.

Yes we can!

Amalgam decontamination

Are you walking around with a ticking bomb in your mouth?

A lot of people walk around with fillings in their teeth that releases mercury and mercury vapors. Autopsies on human bodies indicate that the number, size and age of an idividual's amalgam fillings is directly related to the concentration of mercury in the body. The greater the size and number of fillings and the longer the fillings have been in the mouth the stronger the toxic effects of the amalgam.

There are several diseases that can be related to exposure to this toxic metal in your body. For example; alzheimer’s, IBS, multiple sclerosis, reproductive disorders, allergies, psoriasis, hair loss, headaches and acne.

In the USA the umbilical cords of newborns must be disposed of as hazardous waste due to their toxicity. The toxic effects of their mothers amalgam fillings accumulate in the uterus and are passed on from mother to child.

When you replace you amalgam fillings it will take approximately six weeks until mercury no longer will be detected in your blood. This does not mean that the mercury is no longer present in your body. In animal experiments, radioactive-markered mercury from amalgam fillings appeared in the kidneys, brain, bone marrow, ovaries or testicles within 24 hours. Since the mercury had incorporated itself into the internal organs, it was no longer traceable in the blood.

To get your fillings replaced you should make sure you go to a specialist that knows exactly what he or she is doing.

I replaced my fillings after I started to have migraines which is one of the many side-effects of mercury poisoning. No doctor told me this could be caused by my amalgam fillings, I had to look that up on the internet.  It was a very strict schedule to have them replaced. They used a special kind of oxygen supply that disposed of the mercury safely, being very cautious not to harm me, themselves or the environment.  I was only allowed to remove one filling a month becuse of the high risk of contamination. I had to eat a lot of antioxidants during the entire period the replacements took place to help my body sort out any toxic vapours.

It is bloody expensive since the Swedish government don't include this in the insurance for dental care (I think this is true in many countries). But, I assure you, it is worth every penny.  

Apart from amalgam, mercury can also be found in antiseptics, blood-pressure medicines, eye drops and in vaccines. So check out you medicine cabinet.

Read more about this here; Amalgamskadefonden (Swedish) or here; Hal Huggins (English)

Underkastelsen - Submission

I've just finished watching Stefan Jarls film Submission (Underkastelsen in Swedish). It's a fantastic documentary that teaches us how much chemicals we are exposed to every day. With the help of professors from all over the world Stefan shows us how everything around us affects our bodies, our hormones, our fertility, our overall health. From technical gadgets, the medicines we use, the toys our kids play with, the air we breathe, the water we drink.... It's a frightening picture of our everyday life. I can really recommend this movie for everybody that has just the slightest interest in where our lifestyle is taking us...
You can read more (in Swedish and English) here.