What is The Green Sisterhood and #greensisters?

If you follow me on Twitter, you might have noticed an avalanche of tweets this weekend with the hashtag #greensisters. I do apologize for the volume of grouped tweets, it should only have happened once. When you see tweets or shares with the hashtag #greensisters, you can know that I am sharing something from another blogger who is a member of The Green Sisterhood with me. You might be asking, "what is The Green Sisterhood?". The short answer is that we're a group of bloggers who blog about green living, the environment, various forms of low impact living, handmade and DIY, and who are all passionate about making positive changes for our future.

What does The Green Sisterhood do?

If you are a blog reader or someone interested in green living, climate change, or environmental advocacy, The Green Sisterhood is a great place to learn! Subscribe to our weekly email to receive summaries of what each sister is blogging about this week. Or, visit the main GS blog on Fridays for a weekly reading list of the best of the sisters' posts each week.

If you are a blogger (green or not), The Green Sisterhood hosts free blogging-related webinars regularly. Today at 12pm CST we'll be hosting Lara Galloway for a webinar entitled "Blogging is NOT a business".

If you are a business or PR professional, The Green Sisterhood is a great way to reach people who are interested in your product, service, or book. With a combined 2 million page views per month, all the green sisters function as a unit to reach a relevant audience through our individual blog voices and social media channels. You can contact us for rates and options by emailing info {at} greensisterhood {dot} com!

What does The Green Sisterhood mean to me?

On a personal level, I feel really privileged to be a part of this group of women. I would not be tweeting out links to these ladies' posts if I wasn't truly interested in what they have to say. They encourage me daily to keep up a greener lifestyle and to advocate for change when I might otherwise be silent. I've found that The Green Sisterhood encourages me when I get discouraged about blogging or making positive changes in my own life and the lives of others. It can be difficult to "be green" when no one around you is doing it. I don't know how many times I've had friends ask me a question about green living that I can answer by passing on a link to a post from one of my green sisters. Some of us are greener than others in various areas. Together, we have experience in nearly every area of sustainable living, or we know someone who does.

I feel like we also serve as sounding boards for each other when it comes to blogging decisions. For example, if I have a question about how to handle the business end of blogging, I ask these ladies. We had a great discussion just last week on working with PR reps, the points which we discussed will likely come up when I speak at BlogHer in Chicago in July. When Google shut it's RSS reader shut down, there was Karen Lee with a post about alternatives to Google Reader. They've recently encouraged me to (reluctantly, awkwardly) embrace Google Plus.

I hope that you love The Green Sisterhood as much as I do and that you'll follow along with us as we move forward for a greener future!

Women in the U.S. and China work together for #green consumer impact

Have you ever stopped to consider the impact that living an ever-greener lifestyle has on our economy? If you have followed this blog for long, I hope that you do consider the impact that your personal consumer behavior has on what kind of products are offered in the marketplace. I hope that you remain aware that each product you buy (or refuse to buy!) is sending a message about what kinds of products we want companies to make (or stop making) in the future.

Since women influence at least 80% of all consumer purchases in the U.S., we are in a position to really influence change in our country. Beyond our own country, the #1 largest importer of goods into the United States is China. It might surprise you to know that women in China, who contribute about half of all household income and influence and make more than half of all purchasing decisions, are equally concerned about consumer decisions and how they impact our shared climate.

It is for this reason that The U.S. - China Greener Consumption Forum is taking place on March 22 in Washington, D.C. Through my membership with the Green Sisterhood, I have met Diane MacEachern of Big Green Purse, a leading green consumer advocate and an award-winning entrepreneur who is both organizing the event and speaking. Together, we are urging all women to get involved in this forum by attending, listening in via social media, and spreading the word.

Why join in?

At first it might all sound very distant and far away, but did you know that you, too, can listen, participate, and benefit from this international forum on conscientious consumerism? If you choose to follow along, whether by attending in person or from home (see "How can you join in?", below), you will learn from the speakers:

• why our purses have so much power to make a difference
• how McMansions, meat-based agriculture, and toxic chemicals in common household problems affect our health (agenda item "The impacts of consumption on the environment and human health") 
• how lack of equality between women and men undermines sustainability
• obstacles that make it difficult for people to shift their spending and habits to greener products and services
• strategies to reduce consumption (focusing on the sharing economy, a really interesting project in China to help communities come up with a mission and vision around sustainable consumption, and energy efficiency)

The afternoon workshops will focus on new green products and services that have been introduced to meet the demand of women and mothers. In the behavior change set, we'll be highlighting campaigns to reduce the use of plastic, helping people to become more energy efficient, and reduce consumption.

The product innovation set will include a group on home renovation and cleaning products, food and drink featuring the VP of Honest Tea, MOM's organic market, Green America, and the CEOs of an organic cosmetics company and an organic skin lotion company (full speaker list).

How can you join in?

If you live in D.C., you might actually consider registering to attend the event. There are fabulous speakers and practical consumer tips throughout the event that will be particularly engaging in person. There will be simultaneous translation for all of the plenary sessions, and on-site translators in the workshops. There will be opportunities throughout the day for Q&A between the audience and presenters, but also among all attendees.

Follow along on Twitter. All of The Green Sisterhood bloggers will be re-tweeting segments and links from the forum with the official hashtag #USChinaGreenForum, but specifically be sure to follow @dianemaceachern and @biggreenpurse. Our Green Sisterhood hashtag for this event is #GSGF13 if you want to follow only Green Sisters tweeting about the forum. Make a special list or stream on Hootsuite for those hashtags in preparation for the day!

Make sure you are following The Green Sisterhood Facebook page and The U.S. - China Greener Consumption Facebook page. If you hover over "Like" and check "Notifications", you'll be sure to get links to great content on the day of the event, allowing you to follow along.

Help us spread the word!

Since you already follow me on Twitter (of course you do, right? Cause you really want to hear about how many times my kids wake up at night or see Instagram photos of my food...), you can just retweet my messages from the forum, or you can click here to tweet a pre-formatted message about the forum! You can also share the things you learn from the Facebook page posts with your Facebook friends.

Most of all, just tell someone one thing you learned about the forum or from the forum!

For today: learn more about how pollution in China affects us here (thanks to ecokaren for the link!).

My green smoothie recipe (sort of)

I posted this photo yesterday of a green smoothie I created that contained 5 fruits and veggies (peaches, blueberries, kale, avocado, and bananas) plus probiotics, because I used my homemade kombucha in it:

I've been doing green smoothies a lot recently to increase my antioxidant intake during cold and flu season. If I start to feel a little worn out, I try a green smoothie and quick nap during the kids' nap rather than caffeine.

I'd like to post a single green smoothie recipe but honestly, my recipe changes every time based on what I have in my refrigerator and freezer. What I'll do instead is post a list of things that are in almost every smoothie and the ingredients that vary, to give a kind of formula for green smoothies that can be altered to fit your needs.

Every smoothie:

2 cups dark, leafy greens - Usually kale, but sometimes swiss chard, spinach, or even arugula.
Yogurt - Now that my son is dairy-free, I use cultured coconut milk yogurt. Leave out the yogurt if you are using kombucha for the liquid, those don't play well together!
1/2 cup frozen bananas - I buy "day old" bananas in a bag at the grocery store, slice them up, and keep them in the freezer so I can just grab a few. Because they are frozen, they work well in lieu of ice cubes, which helps the smoothie be creamier rather than watery. I wouldn't go much above 3/4 cup of bananas because using too many can make the smoothie too thick.
1/2 - 1 cup Frozen organic berries - Berries have great antioxidants, but since they aren't available year-round, I stock up during the summer months and freeze them. Blueberries freeze the best and are most cost effective for our area.
1 cup+ unsweetened fruit juice - Since I don't use ice cubes, I have to add a liquid. Most of the time, I use apple juice because it is the most cost effective. As I've mentioned, I have used kombucha in lieu of juice but you definitely have to add honey and/or peanut butter to balance out the tart-ness of kombucha.
Food grade lemon essential oil - The original recipe I started using for my green smoothies used lemon juice, but sometimes I don't have lemon juice. I always have lemon essential oil, and it's a lot more concentrated. I usually use 2-3 drops. Again, have to leave this out if you use kombucha because that would make the smoothie way too acidic/tart.

Optional/varying ingredients:

1 scoop flax powder - for protein
honey - when I'm using a more tart green, like arugula, or when I use kombucha instead of juice, it needs sweetening
peanut butter - if I end up with too many watery or tart ingredients, I'll need peanut butter to balance out the acidity
fresh fruit - most of the time I eat fresh fruit plain!
veggies - I particularly like to add celery to a kale and apple smoothie
different juices - I've used carrot juice, kombucha, cranberry juice, orange juice...
raw ginger - or other herbs/spices, but this is the main one that I use to settle my stomach
soaked cashews - I blame Stephanie for the fact that I frequently have this raw vegan staple on hand!

Here's an example of a typical smoothie without kombucha:

1/2 cup bananas
1/2 cup yogurt (or cultured coconut milk)
2 cups kale
1 scoop flax powder
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1 cup apple juice
3 drops lemon essential oil
1 scoop flax powder
2 tbsp honey

I have a pretty good Black & Decker blender, so I just throw everything in and blend it all at once. I usually have to blend for around 2 minutes total.

Kids love to participate in making smoothies! I unplug the blender and let my toddlers throw the ingredients into the blender container. Then we sit down with our cups and drink the smoothies. If I have leftover, I pour it into silicon popsicle molds for special "treats" later.

What are your favorite green smoothie ingredients? Anything I'm missing?

How I make kombucha

Have you heard of kombucha? It's a fermented drink made from tea and a live organism called a scoby, which is a bacteria or fungus. It sounds gross, and I'm not going to lie, it looks kinda gross too...but it tastes good! And the resulting tea is full of good bacteria (probiotics) that can help balance your stomach and strengthen your immune system.

My husband thinks I am a little crazy because this is what the scoby looks like the jar:

So while it is brewing I make sure the cloth I cover it with is long enough to hang over the edge and cover the organism.

How do I make kombucha?

1. Get a scoby and at least 1/2 a cup of the kombucha it created from someone. If you are interested in making your own and live in the Dallas area, let me know -- my scoby makes a baby each time I brew, so I should almost always have one available.

2. Brew black or green tea with at least 1/2 cup of sugar per 1/2 gallon. I have seen people say use only white, processed sugar, but I didn't know about that until after I brewed my 2nd batch and I used organic raw sugar both times. I think the white sugar keeps the possibility of contamination lower so I will use that going forward.

3. Put the tea into a glass jar and it sit out overnight to reach room temperature.

4. Wash your hands with apple cider vinegar. If you wash using traditional soap, even soap made with essential oils, the germ-killing properties of the soap can also kill the scoby!

5. Gently place the scoby into the jar and cover with a cloth or towel secured with a rubber band. You want it to get plenty of air but keep bugs out.

6. Put the jar in a warm (70 degrees or above) place out of direct sunlight. A friend of mine keeps hers in the pantry, but I have no room in my pantry and my cupboards are all colder than the rest of the house, so I keep mine on the counter because it is not in the sunlight.

7. Allow the kombucha to ferment until it reaches your desired strength or taste. It is ready when it has formed a baby scoby on top of the jar, but you can let it sit longer if you'd like.

When you are ready to drink it, you can refrigerate the kombucha if you want or drink it room temperature. I have noticed that it gets bitter fast when refrigerated, and I don't like the way it tastes, but some people do.

Things that can go wrong.
I killed my first scoby, I think because I forgot to add the sugar and tried to add it later. Either bacteria from the spoon I stirred it with or the stirring motion itself must have killed the scoby. You can tell that you have failed if your jar grows any kind of mold. Mold is NOT what you want. You will have to throw everything out and start over with clean jars and new tea. The good news is, you can compost the scoby.

I recently read an article on WebMD that claimed homemade kombucha is rather dangerous. I had actually not heard anything about this before and, as you might have noticed from my Instagram and Twitter, I have allowed my children to drink it. I do dilute what they get with water (because fermentation can create alcohol in the beverage, the equivalent to what you'd get with any fermenting fruit), so they get a very small amount. But they looooove it and ask for it. Little Lady goes so far as to try and take the jar down from the counter sometimes.

Basically, kombucha is one of those weird things that crunchy people do because it might be healthy or not. I don't know how long I'll keep it up, but it's nice for now. For more info on kombucha, my fellow Green Sister Tiffany Washko posted on NatureMoms about making kombucha also.

What do you think about kombucha? Yes or no?

Essential oils and cold/flu symptoms

I was offline for a while this weekend with the suspicion that I might have contracted the flu, since this year is supposedly an epidemic and I forgot to get my flu shot. I was just sure that someone in our family was going to get sick since I just published this post about Natural Cold and Flu Prevention and Treatment on Dallas Moms Blog. The minute I tell the whole internets that neither of my children has had anything more severe than a cough this season, I am just sure we'll be waiting in a doctor's office for some Tamiflu within the week.

Friday morning I did a more hardcore workout than usual -- the heat wasn't working in our studio, so I constructed a routine that would keep us warmed up and sweating throughout. Friday night I started to feel "off". Quick side note: the more often you work out, the faster you can tell when your body is off balance because you know you usually feel during and after workouts, and you can tell when you feel differently. That afternoon I had a green smoothie and took a nap. I immediately had my husband help me with Anna from Green Talk's hydrogen peroxide treatment! I went to bed with Thyme oil on my feet as well. Thyme is very effective in causing your body to sweat and purge out anything that might be starting to take hold.

I actually felt pretty good Saturday morning but quickly started to ache all over and I felt exhausted. I started to panic that I had the flu, but there was no fever. I took a warm shower and rubbed my neck and back muscles with lavender and peppermint oil, putting Thieves oil on my feet. I had another green smoothie and napped again (shout out to my husband who played with the kids while I treated my symptoms!). That evening, I took Young Living's Inner Defense, a supplement that makes me nauseated if I take it when I'm not sick but is good for warding off sickness if there is truly an immunity threat present. I took a bath with epsom salts, eucalyptus, and lavender oils. Epsom salt is great at soothing sore muscles and pulling out toxins, and the oils facilitate that effect. I again treated my feet with Thieves oil before bed. I have found that Thyme is so potent that it isn't wise to use it 2 nights in a row, I alternate it with another oil depending on my symptoms.

While I felt the worst on Saturday, by Sunday morning I was more or less normal! Which was good because I got a text at 7am saying that the instructor who usually teaches the 9am and 10:15am classes had a fever and I ended up teaching 3 Pilates classes on Sunday. By this time, I had no more achiness and I felt pretty good except for a pretty severe sinus headache. Unfortunately, I was in Plano all day and my essential oils were at home in Richardson.

By this time, I had identified that my symptoms were definitely seasonal allergies. Fortunately, I know what essential oils to use for allergies, so when I got home that afternoon I used my lavender and melaleuca (tea tree) oils. I also took another bath in epsom salts with eucalyptus and lavender to counter the achiness that was setting in from teaching three classes in a row. Again, I went to bed with Thieves on my feet.

It's Monday morning and I woke up (at 5am! to teach another class!) with a dry throat but absolutely no other symptoms. Did I cure myself of the flu? Probably not. Most likely, my workout Friday caused the achiness on Saturday, which means I did not have the flu. But it's clear that my immune system was compromised in some way, at some point, and I do think I was able to alleviate my symptoms and clear them up using my essential oils.

While this is definitely not a tutorial for how to cure yourself from the flu using essential oils, I hope it's at least a testimonial to how symptoms can be treated without conventional medications and how helpful and beneficial essential oils can be. Thanks, also, to Anna of Green Talk for her hydrogen peroxide treatment!

Exciting news: I'm speaking at BlogHer 2013!

I'm so excited to officially announce that I've been invited to speak at BlogHer 2013 in Chicago this year!



The panel I will be part of is the Beginner Marketing & Monetization Track, the title of the session is "Perfect Pitch":

From your stats to your ‘special sauce’, learn what to include in a pitch to catch a potential partner/client’s attention and earn their business.

As you know, this will be my 4th year at BlogHer, and I am super excited and honored to be speaking! I will be representing not only this blog, but also The Green Sisterhood, offering insight and experience from our collective niche blogging perspectives over the years.

If you are planning to be at BlogHer this year, please make sure you stay in touch via email or Twitter so that we can plan to meet up. I've never been to Chicago, so this is going to be an adventure!

Bloggers: Green Sisterhood hosting free webinar today!

Today at 1:00 pm CST, The Green Sisterhood is proud to present Amy Lynn Andrews in a webinar critiquing some of our blogs in a special webinar:

Learn How to Simplify and Organize Your Blog for More traffic and Lower Bounce Rate!

Register here

If you register online now, even if you cannot attend, you will have access to the recorded call.
While my blog was not selected for review, I am very interested to hear her suggestions.

Who else thinks she's going to suggest everyone moving to WordPress? * cowers in fear *

7 Quick Takes #47

--- 1 ---

This is going to be really fast because I need to go nap. I'm teaching at 6:30am 3 mornings a week now instead of only 2, and it's really hard for me to get up at 5am 3 days a week if I don't get enough sleep somehow. Naps have really been standing in lieu of going to bed early since we have so much going on most evenings.

--- 2 ---

Speaking of teaching Pilates, if you are in the Plano area and would like to try out our Megaformer Pilates classes, we are running a great special on VOICE Daily Deals here. I recommend the 3-pack deal. Come see us!

--- 3---

vIf you follow me on Facebook and Twitter, you know that I dyed my hair pink. Here's a quick pick I took just now wearing very little makeup.

I have discovered that this haircolor really looks better if I wear some kind of color on my lips but, oops, I wasn't doing that in this picture.

--- 4 ---

Hopefully this will be invisible to you, the readers, but I'll probably be migrating this blog to WordPress (it's on Blogger now) some time in the next few months. I am worried and reluctant to make this move, but there are reasons bigger than my personal preference that are involved. Some of the primary goals are to make the site much more usable for my readers, and make commenting easier.

--- 5 ---

Everyone here is freaked out about the flu, how about where you are? My friend EcoKaren did a great post today about natural ways to prevent the flu, aside from or in addition to vaccination. I highly recommend checking it out! As for handwashing, remember that last week I blogged about how to make your own antibacterial hand soap from essential oils and castille soap.

--- 6 ---

It's January 11 and I have already completed one of the items on my To Do List: making our family blog books for 2011 and 2012. They take about 2 weeks to arrive from the publisher. Can't wait to see how they turned out!

--- 7 ---

Have to give one last shout-out to my sponsor, Happy Feet, Healthy Body! Along the lines of flu prevention, remember that she has hand sanitizer pens made from essential oils. If you've just started a New Year's workout routine (or you take one of my classes, haha!), I highly recommend her Lavender bath salts - lavender soothes sore muscles and will help you sleep at night.


~~~
Well that's all for this week, be sure to visit Conversion Diary for links to more 7 Quick Takes Fridays.

Green Wish List 2012

Everyone else is doing it, it's THAT time of year...when bloggers publish their gift guides. While a lot of bloggers are paid to list certain products, I am not, so I am free to make an incredibly unrealistic wish list and no one can stop me, BWAHAHAHA! Here, in no particular order, are things I highly recommend or drool over:

• Plastic-Free Gift Pack - includes Beth Terry's book Plastic Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too, packaged together with a DVD of the documentary Bag It in a handy fabric non-plastic reusable gift bag. I actually already own this, but I want to recommend it to anyone on their "green" journey. I am in the middle of it, and so far it's great! Which reminds me, I should probably write a review some time in 2013...

• NatureMill Automatic Composter - it's a pipe dream, but I include this every year because it's awesome. An under-the-counter composter that does all the work for you and just spits out beautiful compost! Of course, considering my kitchen layout, this gift would have to come along with a kitchen remodel.

• Cuisinart 12 cup food processor - ever since I started reading my friend Stephanie Moram's blog, Good Girl Gone Green, I've realized that my 3 cup processor just won't work for vegan treats. I actually have the 7 cup version on my Amazon wish list, but if we are going to be unrealistic, let's just go for the 12 cup, huh?!

• Rain barrel - I've seen ways to make rain barrels out of trash cans on Pinterest, but when I clicked to the instructions they require a lot of messing around with tiny hoses, leaf grates, rubber seals, etc. Phrases like "cut a hole with a miter saw and use a plastic sealant" are used... Neither my husband or I are that handy. So my wish would be for a rain barrel that is ready to go as-is, that we can just hook our hose right up to!

• Another Stokke Tripp Trapp - these aren't just high chairs for babies, they are also great toddler, big kid, and adult chairs, depending on how you configure them. I really wish we had a second so that both my kids had one. My 3 year old hates the booster seat and I hate that all booster seats are a) unsteady and b) made of plastic.

• New windows upstairs in our house - I'd always heard that installing more energy-efficient windows on a house can save on heating and cooling but now I know for sure. The previous owners replaced all the windows downstairs but none upstairs. In the winter, even though heat rises, it's actually warmer downstairs than upstairs because the downstairs windows hold the heat in so much better! My son's room upstairs is freezing cold sometimes, poor guy. I'd love to have some windows that would keep him more cozy and save us money on heating the whole house just to keep him warm.

• Nest "smart" thermostat - we've drooled over this since long before it was available, but now that it's out on the market and even in 2.0, we can't really afford it. Any programmable thermostat would probably be preferable to our old-school manual model but this one can also be controlled from your smartphone and "learns" your heating and cooling habits. Fancy!

• Green Apple workout clothing - being a Pilates instructor, I am in my workout clothing nearly all day at least twice a week. I like this brand because it is made from natural (eco-friendly) fabrics. We also sell it at the studio and I get it at a discount, so that makes it pretty handy! My wish would be for ALL OF THEIR CLOTHING.

I'm sure there are more, but I'm going to stop there for now.

What items are on your "green" wish list?

*NOTE: I was not paid by anybody to list their product, but it would be totally awesome if I was. Two of the links to the food processors are affiliate links, so if you click on them and actually buy a food processor, I think I get $2. Oooo.

Green Sisterhood: All about arsenic in rice

Last week I briefly mentioned a new story about arsenic in rice, but didn't elaborate. It's a very important issue to our family, though, because we do eat a fair amount of rice. As you may or may not be aware, I've recently joined forces with some amazingly powerful green female bloggers, most of whom I met in person at BlogHer 2012 this year in NYC. We have joined together to form Green Sisterhood, a collection of green bloggers who work as a unit to create change and promote green living. One of these bloggers is Anna Hackman, who is kind enough to guest post today to give my readers more information about arsenic in rice and what we can do.

~~~~
Anna Hackman is the organizer of the Change.org arsenic in rice petition and thanks everyone who signs and gets the word out about the petition. She is also a sustainability consultant, co-founder of the Green Sisterhood, editor of Green Talk a green living and business blog, and obsessed gardener. But her most important job is being a mom of four boys.

Arsenic in rice is back in the news again. The latest report is from Consumer Reports’ study that revealed dangerous levels in both rice and products containing rice. The Consumer Reports study joins a long list of several prior studies, which includes the recent Dartmouth study. Despite all the studies, the FDA and the European Union have failed to act. This inaction prompted a petition calling on the FDA and EU to regulate arsenic in rice and by-products. We are all at risk. It is not simply a baby, gluten free or ethnic food but its byproduct is in many foods.

How did Arsenic get into rice in the first place? Arsenic is a naturally occurring element in the soil. However, inorganic arsenic is found in the soils that were contaminated by arsenic based pesticides and fertilizers, industrial districts or mining areas, municipal waste, or contaminated water.

Eighty percent of the rice is grown in the US is from the south central area on lands that were previously sprayed with arsenic pesticide to reduce cotton boll weevils. In addition, arsenic laden manure has been used as fertilizer. Arsenic remains in the soil. Due to the nature of how rice is grown in flooded waters, it sucks up the arsenic from the soil.

What is the danger? According to the EPA, the ingestion of inorganic arsenic can lead to cancer of the skin, bladder, liver, and lung. There are no studies of low levels long term arsenic exposure in food; however studies relating to low level arsenic exposure in water have shown increased likelihood of diabetes 2 and poorer neuropsychological functioning.

According to Michael Harbut, M.D., chief of the environmental cancer program at Karmanos Institute in Detroit, he suspects “there is an awful lot of chronic, low-level arsenic poisoning going on that’s never properly diagnosed.”

Why should YOU be concerned? You might be thinking, “I don’t eat rice so I can’t be affected.” Not true, since many products contain rice and its by products. Look for rice flour, brown rice syrup, and simply rice in the crackers, cereal, cereal bars, baby food, gluten free food, energy bars, and energy drinks just for starters. Worse yet, babies eat a lot of rice products such as cereals and needless to say, they are more sensitive to chemicals like arsenic.

Does it affect all rice? No. However, 80% of all rice grown in the US comes from areas where inorganic arsenic is an issue. However, this takes some legwork to know which rice products are safer than others. And It doesn’t matter if you only eat organic rice since arsenic is already in the soil before rice is planted.

What can you do to reduce Arsenic level? Consumer Reports recommends certain guidelines to limit your rice intake. But simply, wash your rice first and cook it in 6 parts water to 1 part rice. Read here for more tips, different grains to source, and how agricultural changes can reduce the problem.

But we need to change regulation by urging FDA to change the standard. Sign the petition asking for regulation. We should not have to agonize over the ingredients so that we don’t exceed the daily rice limitations recommended by Consumer Reports. And please share the petition with your friends and family (ten per day) right on the petition page. You can also share on Facebook, Twitter, and email. It takes a village.