I remember growing up and my parents teaching me that I should never throw trash on the ground. She never really explained why other than to leave me with the impression that it looks bad when you see trash on the ground. I really wish she had explained the damage trash does to our planet and the impact it has on our health. I genuinely believe that she had no idea. Through most of her life, the only trash her generation had to deal with was paper. It wasn’t until the 1950’s that plastic production began in earnest. Environmental pollution in the form of plastics, pesticides, and genetically modified organisms were non-existent prior to 1950 (Ealy, 2018).

Did you know that more than 99% of the peer-reviewed scientific literature on climate change attributes the cause to humans? When I read the title of that article, I really wanted to laugh. Climate change is nothing to laugh about but for anyone to think that the planet got into the condition it is now without the help of the people that live on her just seemed ridiculous.
More than 88,000 climate-related papers have been written since 2012. All but less than 1% acknowledge the major contribution of human beings to climate change.

There are days when the summer heat has you worn out and nothing will quench your thirst like a tall glass of iced tea. Can you just taste it? Well you are not alone. In 2021, 3.9 billion gallons of tea were consumed in the United States. It is the most popular non-alcoholic drink, after water. Most of it in the Southern and Northeastern states. Of that about 15% was green tea and less than 5% were oolong or white teas. That means about 80% of the tea we drank was black tea which is made by fermenting the green tea leaves. The fermentation process makes the tea taste less bitter and have a less astringent taste that comes from the tannins in the tea leaves. That may explain who so many people reach for black tea over the healthier green tea option.

Every decision you make in your life is based on a memory, a belief you heard somewhere else, from your family or friends, your teachers or medical professionals, on the radio or TV. You should look like this. Eat this. Don’t eat that. Take this pill. Don’t trust your intuition – we know better. This is FDA or USDA approved so it must be safe for me - right? Not always. Sometimes beliefs are beneficial to health and wellness - sometimes they can actually be making you sick from the inside out.