What is the Best Way to Observe Earth Day?

Saturday, April 22, 2023, is Earth Day, celebrated worldwide.

On the Earthday.org website, the theme this year is to “Invest in Our Planet,” Their focus is to engage ” the more than 1 billion people, governments, institutions, and businesses who participate in Earth Day to recognize our collective responsibility and to help accelerate the transition to an equitable, prosperous green economy for all. We are focused on reframing the conversation, accelerating action, and bringing everyone together to understand that this is within our reach if we work together. “

When we homeschooled, we didn’t get involved in Earth Day activities (read more in this post at my homeschool blog, Muses of a Mom). Our family still has not gotten involved in any environmental or ecological movements or causes. 

However, we do believe in being good stewards of the earth’s resources that we have been given and do our best to act on that daily. We think strategically about waste, recycling everything we can. We repurpose before we buy. We use canvas bags at the grocery store. But we aren’t perfect.

My oldest son, when he was finishing his senior year in college, teased me one day when he saw that I grabbed a large plastic straw to drink my homemade smoothie. When I asked him what he would suggest instead, he said people his age were encouraging others to buy one of the alternatives, like aluminum. 

Really?

I questioned him in return. “So, if you order lunch in a fast-food restaurant, and you decline a plastic straw, but leave the restaurant with a drink in a Styrofoam cup with a plastic lid, paper wrapping on your sandwich that you carry in a paper bag, which is the greater sin?”

We laughed at the irony. Everyone has their own environmental cause, yet we are not at the point where we can all be ecologically perfect.

Cue the doorbell as we received an Amazon order in a cardboard box.

We are all sinners of cardboard, paper, and plastic.

The reason? Chemicals. Another reason? Chemicals.

Our bodies are not created to naturally digest and “recycle” these modified foods.

A book that explains this problem is Wheat Belly by William Davis M.D. I have added this resource to my bookshelf, as it is an excellent reference.

In the book, Davis explains why the wheat of today is unhealthy and not nutritious for our bodies. Wheat’s toxicity is the reason we have a large obesity rate in our country and the world. What we make bread with, even whole wheat flour, is still not healthy food. It isn’t completely natural or whole food. We are not able to digest it properly.

Using many sources of research, he explains that today’s wheat is not the wheat of ancient times, which was prevalent up to 100 years ago, and even 60-70 years ago. It is when we started messing with the makeup of wheat that we created a food source that will haunt us in years to come with illnesses such as diabetes. As a result of his research, Davis recommends a wheat-free diet. (He provides some good recipes at the end of the book to help start a wheat-free diet.)

We have tried to be diligent in how we consume wheat in our home. And amazingly, I have seen the result of a wheat-free diet for our German Shepherd Mix, Zoey. As a pup, we learned that she would have to be a gluten-free dog, since she got sick from eating dog food that used any type of wheat fillers. Even today, if I give her a small piece of bread, she will become sick and throw up by the next morning.

During the pandemic, we had to switch brands of food for what was available to be shipped to us. This caused us to re-examine her food, tweaking her menu for even better options, staying away from wheat and corn fillers, and even grains. She is nine years old today, with the energy of a young dog, With her healthy diet, we only visit the vet every six months for required shots, and she maintains the perfect weight. If it works for our beloved pets, it surely is better for us too!

Many of us see Earth Day and the environment differently.  Do we worry about the climate, or do we focus on going as green as possible? Is genetically modifying our earth’s resources a cause that is just as important as focusing on climate change? What are your thoughts? Share them in the comments below!

Disclosures: This article was originally published on my homeschool blog, Muses of a Mom, and reposted here with updates and additional information for the reader. As an Amazon Affiliate, there may be links in this post, which, if you click through and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission that helps support this blog. You are in no way obligated to use these links.