I spend my workdays reading, writing, and talking about the health impacts of poor air quality, so when the Canadian wildfire smoke hit Pittsburgh this summer, I took a cheap and simple step to clean the air in our home. This DIY air filter is something I actually put in other people’s homes for my last job, which is why I know it works.
One of the best things you can do to fight sickness while traveling is to go in with a robust, healthy gut. Strong gut microbiomes take time and discipline to cultivate, but they, in turn, keep us healthy on a number of fronts, physically and mentally. I’ve been tracking my own progress in rebuilding my gut after a course of antibiotics this spring.
A friend recently warned me against using my electric blanket. While there are established risks (including burns and fires), she was talking about health conditions that could be caused by electromagnetic fields. Hypothesizing about health impacts from environmental exposures can walk a fine line between conscientious public health research and pseudoscience. The difference between the two lies in what we do with answers we get.
There are clear benefits to organic gardening, but are there situations in which an organic solution can do more harm than the chemical alternative? As much as I hate to say it, there may be some grey area when it comes to the best course of action for eradicating my tenacious thistle. I found a safer alternative to glyphosate, though safer doesn’t mean safe.
Physics, cooking, energy efficiency, and public health: so many of my passions are the ingredients of this blog post about our new induction cooktop. Magnetic induction cooking equipment has recently been getting cheaper, more accessible, and more popular, but it has long been safer, cleaner, and more energy efficient than the conventional alternatives, such as gas flames and electric coils.
As we enter July, it is once again time to examine our relationship with plastic (which permeates so much of our daily lives and this blog already). While it can be difficult to find alternatives to plastic, especially in food packaging, it is important to understand how some so-called alternatives can be harmful (or not really be alternatives at all).
After several years of trying to replace my turf lawn with clover, I’m no longer sure clover is what I want. Native alternatives to turf grass can require a massive amount of time, effort, and maybe some unsavory chemicals to ensure a successful conversion. While I won’t be doing that any time soon, I still hope that what I have is “better,” if not “best.”
Last year a friend told me he was very excited now that he knew he could take his hard-to-recycle plastic to our local recycling company. I bit my tongue, knowing that it was probably too good to be true. At best, those plastics would end up in a landfill, but I had also heard that chemical recycling might be even worse for the environment.
Misconceptions abound when it comes to recycling, and a new technology called “chemical recycling” is being positioned as a major win for recycling hard-to-recycle plastics. No matter their intentions for the future, most chemical recycling facilities are currently turning plastics into fuel to be burned, not recycled plastics to replace virgin plastics. Perception is everything in the court of public opinion, and information matters.
The growing use of semaglutide drugs for people who don’t medically need them is causing harm to people who do but also ripples across the business world, with risks and surprising benefits projected in different sectors. Ultimately we need to ask ourselves why weight loss is the goal – and whether thinness is worth the cost: our money, our health, or someone else’s health.