Learning how to lose weight by eating ethically isn’t just about buying organic produce. It’s also about decreasing the toxic load to which you expose both your body and your environment. You may try to decrease the amount of artificial chemicals and pesticides you put in your mouth by following a detox diet and selecting more organic produce, but there are other, wider issues to consider.

Organic food is now widely available. When selecting organic – or standard – produce, another issue to think about is where it has come from. For example, you may buy organic apples from America or seasonal organic asparagus from France. Transporting such produce to your local store puts more of a burden on the environment than if the apple or asparagus were grown in your country. Another thing to consider is the time it takes to get the food to the store. The longer it takes, the fewer nutrients are likely to be in the food – which is why frozen vegetables are so good for you.

Some foods on our shelves will have come from developing countries where workers may have been exploited and farmers have received an unfair price for their goods. Working conditions for many in the developing world are often unpleasant, with people caught in the poverty trap.

Eating ethically is not about going without – it’s about eating with a little more thought about the true cost of our food. That cost may be to the environment, to others in terms of their quality of life and families, or to the toxic load on our bodies. So while there is no evidence that genetically modified (GM) foods are detrimental to our health, there is evidence that these foods damage the environment in which they are produced.

Eating ethically is about trying to source foods, where possible, that are best for you and the environment. Buying unprocessed, organic, local produce will support local or national farmers. It will also minimize the environmental cost to our countryside and climate as the food will have travelled a relatively short distance. The food items themselves may have a higher nutrient content as the time between picking, harvesting and arriving on your table may be less.

To support improvements for workers’ conditions and pay, look for the Fairtrade sign on your food. Fairtrade strengthens the position of poor producers, enabling them to find solutions and tackle their poverty. For growers this means prices always cover the cost of production and allow sustainable livelihoods, no matter how low the world price goes for their crops.

For workers Fairtrade means decent working conditions and wages that meet international and local labor standards. Importantly, the Fairtrade price includes an additional social premium so that growers can invest in their communities and businesses. There is a growing awareness of the exploitation of workers in developing countries. Ethical trading primarily directs its efforts at improving the conditions of employees rather than independent growers, and it works with employers to help ensure basic human and labor rights, development of safe and decent working conditions and improved general standards of living. The objective is to improve these aims for millions of waged workers.

You may not always be able to eat ethically but being aware of it and making some small changes to your shopping basket can be a start. If we all did this, it would make a difference to our health, it would support local farmers and producers, and it would make a contribution to developing countries and the quality of other people’s lives.

How To Eat More Ethically

Always look for the Fairtrade sign or information on packaging

Find the organic section in your supermarket.

Buy Locally sourced products wherever possible – find your local farmers’ market and shops that stock locally produced goods.

Buy home grown and home-reared meat wherever possible.

Order an organic fruit and veg box. This doesn’t need to be expensive.

Make your food staples ethical: tea, coffee, salt and pepper can all be bought ethically.

Try to eat seasonally – this means you’ll be getting a variety of nutrients and enjoying fruits and vegetables at their most delicious.

Start reading the Ecologist magazine, which addresses the issues of our developing world. You may feel it is a little political at first, but don’t let that put you off – it provides a valuable insight into eating and living ethically and I think you’ll find it enlightening! There’s also a section each month on what’s in season and eating cheaply.

Ditch GN foods wherever possible

Ditch the mindset that eating ethically is all about being a hippie and eating beans.

Discover how to lose weight fast with these simple yet effective weight loss tips. Losing weight is not rocket science – you just need to understand how your body works and how many calories you need to lose weight.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/domain-names-articles/how-to-lose-weight-eat-ethically-1512918.html

Related posts:

  1. How Do I Delete A Domain User Profile In Windows Vista?