New Ethical Shop

we've revamped the Health & Goodness shop, and will be adding lots more stuff over the next few weeks.

new things include:

a homeopathy kit for labour /childbirth - we already had a basic kit and a homeopathic hay fever kit on the site

some great natural skin care products

the bestselling (UK) range of self-help CDs

We give 12% of our profits to various charities, so with the relaunch of the shop there should be even more money to give away :-)

Do please take a look.

Safe Alternatives To HRT

HRT replacement therapy may have caused 1000+ women in the UK to die of ovarian cancer since 1991 says a study published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet. This is added to the risks of breast cancer and womb cancer.

Many women unfortunately believe that the only way to deal with the menopause is to take HRT or suffer the misery of hot flushes, low energy levels and more. But there are lots of safe alternatives. The study shows that the longer you are on HRT the more likely you are to get ovarian cancer, but it also shows that if you stop taking HRT your risk is the same as for women not taking HRT. So, if you’re taking it now, why not consider some of the safe and effective alternatives to menopausal medication.?

So what are the safe alternatives? Here are some ideas:

1. Try taking vitamin E for hot flushes / flashes.
2. Get fit and stay fit. Exercise stimulates endorphins (the body’s feel good hormones, revs up your metabolism, tones your body and gives you more energy)
3. If you’re feeling miserable, old and without purpose try taking flower remedies.
4. See an alternative and complementary therapist. Many can help and some even specialise in these sort of problems.
5. Irregular or heavy periods? Then try Neways Wild Yam and Chaste Berry cream. It worked for me.

Don’t believe that the only solution is HRT. There’s a whole world of alternatives out there. Explore some of them first.

Good Miles and Local Food

When you stop and think about the miles that food travels it's crazy:

Buying food from local farms and farmers’ markets is not just good for your taste-buds, health and wealth, there are wider benefits too. Comparing some foods which travelled from field direct to farmers’ market or farm shop with the same products air-freighted to reach UK supermarket shelves from overseas, Sustain’s researchers found that the carbon-dioxide emissions associated with distribution were 650 times lower when food was bought locally from a farmers’ market. The ingredients for an air-freighted Sunday lunch created 37 kilograms of greenhouse gasses but when bought from local farms only 58.2 grams of greenhouse gasses were released – a reduction of 99.8 per cent. (From
www.sustainweb.org)

I've written an article for Health & Goodness on seasonal food and food miles too.

Complaining

I really liked this from Charity Focus:

How long can you go without complaining? A few months ago, the pastor of a Kansas City church told people in his congregation he wanted them to test their limits. "The one thing we can agree on," said Rev. Will Bowen, "is there's too much complaining." And so he asked the group to give up complaining, criticizing, gossiping or using sarcasm for 21 days. People who joined in were issued purple bracelets as a reminder of their pledge. If they caught themselves complaining, they were supposed to take off the bracelet, switch it to the opposite wrist and start counting the days from scratch. Rev. Bowen said it took him three and a half months to put together 21 complaint-free days. Now, about a half a million people around the world have requested free wristbands to rise to the challenge.