The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide

Jury finds Roundup caused groundskeeper’s cancer

A California jury found in favor of a man who said his cancer was caused by exposure Roundup, a weed killer. The verdict on Tuesday is further evidence that glyphosate, the herbicide’s active ingredient, is carcinogenic to humans, said Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook.

The jury agreed with evidence presented by the attorneys for Edward Hardeman in Edward Hardeman v. Monsanto Co. that glyphosate was the cause of his non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“Today’s verdict reinforces what another jury found last year, and what scientists with the state of California and the World Health Organization have concluded: Glyphosate causes cancer in people,” said Cook.

Celebrating, traveling, and shopping on Saint Patrick’s Day 2019

In 1991, the U.S. Congress designated March as Irish-American Heritage Month.

Saint Patrick introduced Christianity to Ireland in the fifth century, and Saint Patrick’s Day was originally a religious holiday to honor him. It has evolved into a celebration of being Irish and Ireland. On March 17, 1762, New York City hosted the first Saint Patrick’s Day parade. Irish soldiers serving in the English military were featured. President Harry Truman attending the parade in 1948, and it has become an annual event.

Spending

Consumers plan to spend an average of $40 for Saint Patrick’s Day this year, according to a survey conducted for the National Retail Federation. Unlike other holidays where consumer spending has grown, the average amount consumers spend has stayed the same even as the nation recovered from the Great Recession.

Working toward a plastic-free life

Most people have been horrified to see photos of plastic floating down streams, beaches littered with plastic, and tons of plastic being hauled out of the ocean. And with China no longer willing to accept plastic from the United States because it could no longer handle the tons of it sent there, the effects of plastic pollution is mounting.

What can you do to diminish the effects of plastic pollution?

Set a goal to buy no plastic water bottles.

Although bottled water is convenient, you can avoid it by thinking through alternatives to it. Buy refillable bottles for everyone in your family. They range in cost from $3 to $10 and up. Make a special shelf for the refillable bottles so they’re easy to find when family members are in a rush to leave the house. If you don’t like the taste of tap water, try pitcher, faucet, or countertop filters. Other options include filling five-gallon jugs of water at the grocery store or getting water delivered.

Trump’s EPA slows down review of toxic chemicals

Under the direction of top political appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency, scientists were told to “limit” chemical safety assessments, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.

The GAO audit was requested by Senator Tom Carper, Del., the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Carper asked the GAO to investigate how the EPA is carrying out the Toxic Substances Control Act and its Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS, program.

In June 2018, the office of then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt “told IRIS officials that they could not release any IRIS-associated documentation” without formal permission from top political leadership from the chemicals safety division at EPA, according to the GAO investigation. By October, the scientists were informed they must cut back on the number of chemical safety assessments.

Which store has the cheapest ingredients for a stew?

Last week, I was coming home and I realized I forgot to stop at the local co-op to get the ingredients I wanted to make a crock pot stew. Instead of driving back across town, I decided to stop at Safeway and shop there instead.

My priority in buying groceries is to purchase as much organic food as I can. So, at Safeway, I set about buying organic vegetables for the stew. I was shocked when I got to the checkout and found out that the large sweet potato that I selected cost $3.41 cents.

I decided to compare prices and see if the makings for the stew were cheaper at my local co-op, Safeway, or Trader Joe’s. I’ve shopped at Trader Joe’s a few times recently because I heard an article on National Public Radio that said it had good prices and service.

Here’s the comparison for the stew ingredients:

Turkey fryers are being recalled by Academy Sports + Outdoors due to fire hazard

Academy Sports + Outdoors is recalling about 3,000 outdoor gourmet turkey keg turkey fryers.

The turkey fryer spout can leak oil, posing a fire hazard. Academy Sports + Outdoors has received two reports of a turkey keg leaking. No injuries or property damage have been reported.

This recall involves the Academy Sports + Outdoors outdoor gourmet turkey keg which is a turkey fryer made of stainless steel and powered by propane. The fryer, including the legs, measures 34-inches high by 17-inches wide. The item number is 157826 and is located on a label on one of the four legs.

EPA’s plan to regulate harmful PFAS chemicals is too little, too late, environmental group says

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a plan Thursday to regulate PFAS chemicals, which includes making a determination by the end of the year about how the harmful chemicals should be regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act and listing them as hazardous substances to aid in cleanup efforts.

PFAS, short for perfluoroalky and polyfluoroalkyl, are a group of highly fluorinated chemicals used in nonstick cookware, fire retardants, oil and water repellents, furniture, carpets, waterproof clothes, take out containers, and fire-fighting foam. The chemicals are very persistent in the environment and in the human body – meaning they don’t break down and they can accumulate over time.

EPA’s PFAS management plan would only make the nationwide crisis of pollution from fluorinated compounds worse, according to the Environmental Working Group. It wouldn’t stop the introduction of new PFAS chemicals, end the use of in everyday products, alert Americans to the risk of PFAS pollution, or clean up contaminated drinking water supplies for an estimated 110 million Americans.

Diet drinks can cause increased risk of strokes in older women, study finds

Drinking two or more diet drinks daily was associated with an increase in the risk of having a stroke caused by a blocked artery, especially small arteries, among post-menopausal women, according to research published in Stroke, a journal of the American Heart Association.

While this study identifies an association between diet drinks and stroke, it doesn’t prove cause and effect because it was an observational study based on self-reported information about diet drink consumption, said Yasmin Mossavar-Rahmani, Ph.D., lead author of the study and associate professor of clinical epidemiology and population health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

Compared with women who consumed diet drinks less than once a week or not at all, women who consumed two or more artificially sweetened beverages per day were:

Happy Valentine’s Day

It’s the big day for sweethearts.

Fewer people are celebrating Valentine’s Day this year, 50 percent which is down from 55 percent last year.

Of those celebrating, 18 percent are giving the gift of jewelry; 34 percent, an evening out; 18 percent, clothing; 35 percent, flowers; 52 percent, candy; 15 percent, gift cards; 44 percent, greeting cards; and 25 percent, a gift of experience, such as an event or a trip to a spa.

What are the best chocolates to buy for your sweetheart on Valentine’s Day?

Like most people, I love chocolate – any kind of chocolate. A box of chocolate from the supermarket or drug store are fine with me. However, I really enjoy Belgium chocolate when I visit my daughter in Madrid.

So, since I’m not a chocolate connoisseur, I read a dozen articles that recommended the best chocolates.

Most often rated highly in the articles are Godiva Chocolatier, Jacques Torres Chocolate, L.A. Burdick Chocolates, La Maison du Chocolat, Lindt, Michel Cluizel, Recchiuti Confections, and Vosges Haut-Chocolat.