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Backpacking is a growing recreation. Thousands of people, every year, saddle up and set out on isolated trails to appreciate the beauty of nature and to meditate in its serenity. Backpacking is essentially free, but is a great way to break away from work and take a break from the mundane, everyday routine. However, when exploring the wilds of nature, maintaining one’s health is of the utmost importance. Hikers are always reporting backpacking-related accidents that could have easily been prevented, had the hikers been more prepared. By taking along the appropriate products, you can ensure personal safety on your next hiking adventure.
Below is a list of five of the most important products to keep your health strong while backpacking.
1. Sanitizers
When walking through the beautiful forests of a national park, backpackers often neglect basic hygiene routines they normally practice every day. Keeping clean hands, washing the face, and cleansing open wounds are as important on a backpacking expedition as they are anywhere else. Certain pathogenic bacteria can live in heavily wooded or tropical regions that your immune system is not regularly exposed to. (Read More....)
 Farmers Market- Image courtesy of farmersmarketla.com
At a quick glance, it may seem like there is little difference between a farmer's market and a grocery store, but the experience could not be more different when it comes to buying food. Produce at the farmer's market is sold by the farmers that grow it, while produce at the grocery store goes through a series of distribution chains before winding up on the shelf. The difference between these models affects price, quality, selection, experience and environmental impact. In the end, farmer's markets come out on top. If the location of a farmer's market is not known, sites like Local Harvest can reveal the locations of fruit stands, co-ops and farms that happily sell fresh produce to the public.
Pay Less for Produce
The vendors at a farmer's market can sell their produce at a cheaper price because they have cut out the middleman. A fruit and vegetable stand at the farmer's market doesn't have the same enormous overhead costs of a grocery store. This means savings for the customer and more money in the pocket of the farmer. Customers can (Read More....)
Little doubt exists about the many negative consequences of drought in the agricultural industry. However, the additional impacts of drought in other large industries and experienced throughout the world are less apparent. This is due to an economic chain of events that ripple through industries, and even governments in the form of less income or higher associated costs.
Production
Drought has a large impact on the quality and viability of grain crops. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, global crop yields around the world fell short of preliminary expectations for 2012. Moreover, the United States was expected to produce 35.8 percent of the World's corn in 2012, but by August that percentage had fallen to near 32.2 percent. That decline came despite additional shortfalls in corn production across the globe.
Inflation
Global crop yields affected by drought had also caused food prices to rise 10 percent in July 2012 per The World Bank. Another substantial impact of drought is the price of non-perishable consumer goods. For example, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported over 75 percent of total U.S. corn crops had become poor to (Read More....)
 Produce Market Cortona , Italy
Even the most conscientious-about-their-diets individuals often find eating abroad–especially on mssionary trips to remote regions–to be decidedly more challenging than at home. While at home you have access to all of your favorite grocery haunts and a well-appointed kitchen in which to prepare meals that fit in perfectly with your dietary requirements. While abroad, you have neither of these luxuries. Particularly if you only eat organic or stick to a strict vegan lifestyle, two of the more difficult lifestyle choices to replicate on the road, you may find yourself struggling to stay true to your diet-specific eating plan. This does not mean, however, that you have to drop your mission to eat healthy while away from home. With pre-planning and attention to detail, you can stay true to your dining desires and stick with any food-related commitments you have made.
Do Your Homework
As you are preparing for your trip, packing your bags, planning your itinerary and doing whatever other trip-specific things you may needs, such as
(Read More....)
Feeding the world has become harder and harder as the human population balloons. One of the ways that this problem is being tackled is through the use of technology to grow crops where they previously would not have been able to live. Drought resistant crops that can thrive where water is limited increase the ability of farmers to feed the world.
Drought-Associated Crop Issues
Water is not an unlimited resource, and it tends to be fairly unpredictable. All freshwater originally fell as rain, and tends to turn over fairly quickly. This means that if a given region has a dry winter, there's less water in all of the rivers that drain from that region, potentially affected huge swaths area. Drought resistant crops are very helpful in these situations.
Farmers already plant crops that they think will grow well on their land whenever possible. However, sometimes the crop that sells the best is the one that is least likely to grow in a particular region. In these cases, people often have to make do with meager yields or switch to a less popular, less profitable crop. When the crop serves as a major food source, the situation is even more dire than loss of income.
The Development of Drought Resistant Crops
Drought resistant plants can either be artificially selected for or genetically engineered. Artificial (Read More....)
What could be better than stepping out the door first thing in the morning and picking a bowl of organic and natural strawberries or grapes for breakfast? It’s so easy to do that there is no reason not to plant a grape and strawberry garden. It’s cheap and very environmentally friendly.
How to Start a Grape Vine
Grapes come in various seedless and seed varieties and can be started for free. Take a cruise through the neighborhood, and look for neighbors growing grapes. After finding a variety of grape that’s ideal, ask the neighbor for a first year branch that’s about eight-inches in length. This will be a young and succulent branch that’s bright green and not woody. The best time to find this branch is in spring, right after the leaves open on the grape plant.
Take it home and stick it in a vase with water while the planting medium is prepared. Fill a shallow wooden box with clean sand. Beach sand will work fine. Make sure the box has drain holes. Take the grape branch and snip the lower leaves away, leaving a stem with a bunch of leaves at the top. Moisten the sand with water. Now stick only the branch in the sand, covering it to a depth of about one-half inch.
Use River Bottom Soil
In about six to eight weeks, roots will sprout from the grape (Read More....)
When it comes time to head to the store, whether we are struggling college students or six-figure entrepreneurs, our minds inevitably head first to our checkbooks. As important as it is to buy as many organic and environmentally-conscious products as we can, we must admit that these types of items also come with heftier price tags. However, the reason we buy organic is, first and foremost, to protect our bodies from harmful toxins and to provide them with better nutrients, and there are many ways to get the most bang for your buck with this primary goal in mind. Here are a few ways that you can divide up your shopping list according to what most definitely should be purchased organic, and what can be fulfilled with generic products. Read on for some of the top products to buy organic, and where to skimp:
Buy Organic:
1. Thin-skinned produce.
One of the determining factors in the level of pesticides that will be found in a piece of produce is the amount of protection the fruit or vegetable has against these sprays. Fruits and veggies that are especially absorbent or that have very thin skins are most susceptible to pesticide contamination. Fruits like strawberries, blueberries, (Read More....)
 Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has been a viable alternative model for food production and acquisition for many years. Begun in the 1960s in Europe and Japan under the influence of Rudolf Steiner, CSAs provide consumers with ready access to farm-fresh produce and products while building strong community ties that foster shared risks and benefits.
Picture Credit-Grant Family Farms CSA
Benefits for Farmers
For farmers, the benefits of offering shares in the form of weekly produce boxes for member subscribers are multiple. With the opportunity to market the product early in the season, the farmer can focus on production during the peak season, secure in the knowledge that she has already sold the majority of her produce.
CSAs also build a strong community tie for farmers who not only become personally acquainted with the shareholders but also have the opportunity to network with other farming families to provide additional farm products such as honey, flowers, herbs, and meat to consumers who hold shares in the farm.
The community spirit fostered by the shared risk model of the CSA also means that if a farmer falls (Read More....)
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