Portsmouth Goes Generous News

Cereal That Changes The Milk Colour

2010-01-29T11:56:58Z

The Daily Mail is good for your health. Today anyway, by publishing a rather fine list of FOOD RULES – from the bread we should avoid to the size of our plates and the effect certain cereal has on the milk we mix it with.

Here’s a few of their food commandments – actually, not theirs, but those of Michael Pollan from Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual.

Don’t eat cereals that change the colour of the milk
If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t
Eat when you’re hungry, not when you’re bored
Eat your colours
Eat like the French, Japanese, Italians or Greeks
Try not to eat on your own

After consulting dietitians, nutritionists, anthropologists, folklorists, doctors and nurses – as well as a large number of mothers and grandmothers – author Michael Pollan has come up with a fascinating list of so-called ’Food Rules’ that could help change your eating habits for ever…

Turn Your Cards Back Into Trees

2010-01-29T11:53:07Z

Back of envelope this, but … two and a half thousand Generous members times, say, 30 Christmas cards each, makes … 75,000 Christmas cards. All ready to recycle. Here’s how.

Take down your cards from the mantelpiece, unpin the drawing pins holding up the string on which they sway below your ceiling, take a final, lingering look at the names of all those people you forgot to drop a card to … and bag them up and head to M&S. Or WH Smith. Or TK Max.

Drop your cards into the special bins provided in their stores through January and, in partnership with The Woodland Trust, they’ll be turned into thousands of new trees. There’s a clever little graphic here which explains how it works.

And then you’ll have gone Generous so you can tick off this Generous action here.

Act for Copenhagen

2009-11-30T16:50:17Z

With a surprising amount of political momentum generated at the Commonwealth Conference in Trinidad, hopes are picking up again for an agreement that might mean lasting change being made in Copenhagen in just a few days time.

Here’s just one way that you can play your part in keeping the pressure up:

Sign a petition to ask Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen to not double count money to help developing countries adapt to climate change at the Copenhagen Conference on the One International website. The people at One are after 25,000 signatures before the Conference starts and they’re just over 15,000 now. Make it one of your Generous actions here.

And in case you think the jury’s still out on climate change and you live in the UK, consider one of our wettest, warmest Novembers ever – a month when in many parts of the country there’s been rain of some sort or another on literally every day. Also, take a listen to the Iona Community’s John Bell’s Generous ‘Thought for the Day’ in the aftermath of the devastating Cumbrian floods.

Buy Nothing Day - 28.11.09

2009-11-26T11:34:50Z

This Saturday, November 28th, is Buy Nothing Day (UK). It’s a day where you challenge yourself, your family and friends to switch off from shopping and tune into life. The rules are simple: for 24 hours you will detox from shopping and anyone can take part provided they spend a day without spending!

Click here for more.

Make it one of your Generous actions here.

Terminating TVs?

2009-11-22T20:58:26Z

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has praised his State’s legislature for passing new regulations that will require manufacturers of LCD and plasma televisions to meet progressively stricter energy guidelines, starting in 2011.

The average plasma screen TV uses more than three times the power as an old-style, bulky cathode ray tube TV. And as televisions account for about 10 per cent of a home’s electricity use, it is estimated that people will use 8 per cent more electricity a year as they switch to these larger, flatscreen televisions.

The television industry in the States was understandably opposed the new regulations but environmental groups reckon the new rules could save the State of California a whopping 1 billion dollars a year.

Flickr photosource – thanks Adam