So often I’ve tried to figure out where a product was made, so I look for a “made in” notation on the label. It’s not always there. Now I know a way to tell–by the first three numbers of the bar code. For example, 690, 691, and 692 mean it was made in China, 471 means Taiwan, 750 Mexico, and anything starting with 0 means United States.
For a full list of numbers and their corresponding countries, go to Barcode Prefixes and Product Country of Origin.
That’s how much money is wasted every year by discarding perfectly good milk. That’s 34 pounds of safe-to-drink milk per person. And mostly because of the carton’s confusing date label, which isn’t even regulated by law. We look at it as an expiration date, when it’s really just the date the manufacturer thinks the milk is at its highest quality (tastes best).
Milk is the most wasted food in the U.S.–by weight, 12% of all food products wasted.
There is an easy fix. Ignore the date and let your eyes and nose be the judge of whether the milk is still safe to drink. You’ll see a color or texture change, and your nose certainly knows. If you take a swig and it’s sour, remember that experts tell us that drinking sour milk won’t make us sick. But the land and water it takes to produce that much lost milk does take a toll on our Earth.
Know your “green” language on packaging. “Natural” really means nothing. “Made with organic ingredients”means that 70% of the ingredients are organic, and with “Organic,”95% are. Only “100% organic” means what it says.
[For more easy, money-saving, Earth-friendly tips, download a FREE copy of Green Riches: Help the Earth & Your Budget. Go to www.Smashwords.com/books/view/7000 or your favorite e-book seller and download to your computer or e-book device. Totally free, with no strings attached.]
It’s confusing. What does “free range” mean? Or “organic” or “grass-fed”? If you want to buy meat from animals that have been treated humanely, you need to begin by understanding what the labels mean.
For an easy-to-understand (and enlightening) guide, go to http://www.humaneitarian.org/what-is-humanely-raised-meat/meat-labels/#.Vo7q4hUrKM8. It will give you an idea of how complicated eating humanely can be, and how our thinking is so often manipulated.
