The EU will soon require all foods containing six specified artificial colours - sunset yellow (E110), quinoline yellow (E104) allura red (E129), carmoisine (E112) tartrazine (E102) ponceau 4R (E124) - to have warning labels on packaging due to their link in causing hyperactivity in children. The UK Food Standards Agency is asking food producers and manufacturers to voluntarily remove them altogether.

Food companies will have two years to add labels such as "may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children." Unfortunately imported food will not be required to follow the new EU labelling system so it's best to continue reading ingredient lists if you're concerned about the effects these colours have on your kids.

Beyond making kids hyper these colours may have other adverse effects on your family's health. Tartrazine, for example, can provoke asthma attacks and interfere with digestive enzymes.

With no real purpose other than to delight the eye and entice the kiddies, the quicker we see the back of these artificial colours the better.

It's official. More of us than ever are dropping our rubbish - but not in the way you may think. Defra (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) recently published figures that indicate UK households have reduced their total waste (down 0.2 million tonnes in the final three months of last year). Also 33.9% less waste is being sent to landfill and more is being diverted to recycling plants.

It's feedback like this that encourages us to recycle more. And we sure need to. Britain dumps more waste into the ground than any other European country. But at least now we know we're making headway.
Along the same landfill avoidance lines the Olympic Development Agency recently announced the development of the 2012 London Olympic Park will aim to reuse or recycle 90% of waste created during its construction.

Also Keep Britain Tidy is launching The Big Tidy Up this September encouraging schools, businesses plus other groups and individuals to participate in the country's biggest ever litter clean up.

If we keep this up we may soon be the least wasteful country in the EU.

How many of us make our own bread? Not a lot I'm guessing. Well, there are a few campaigns at the moment encouraging bread lovers to give it a try and risk the prospect of never turning back to the mass manufactured, additive loaded variety again.

Sustain and Resurgence are two organisations asking us to buckle up our bread heads and make our own. Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming, are starting The Real Bread Campaign to encourage people to use ‘natural ingredients, appropriate fermentation and no adulterants.'

Resurgence, a magazine committed to raising awareness of ecological and spiritual issues, are making bread baking the centre of their first Slow Sunday to empower people to take symbolic actions for greater change.

Visit their web pages to discover how and why making your own bread is cheaper, healthier and more environmentally friendly. And for those who think it's a lot easier to run to the shop for a ready-made loaf obviously haven't tried our organic yeast free quick cook recipe - 35 minutes including baking time!

It's such a treat to have the result of your own labours wafting through the house. So hop on the bread bandwagon and act locally, think globally and make your own!

350

The latest research tells us that 350 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere is the upper most limit to which irreversible damage occurs to the earth.

We have already passed this number but it's not too late to lower it... yet.

A huge global campaign is swinging in to effect and it's not just the activists and scientists pushing to lower our emissions below the 350 line. In the US businesses, governments, schools, politicians and churches are starting to embrace this new target and it will hopefully catch on in the rest of the world soon too.

The 350 campaigners envision their aim to be met by evolving into a totally clean energy economy.

Check out this educational film by the team at Free Range Studios for a more visual preview of what the 350 campaign is all about.

We are told fluoride is added to water supply in parts of England because it helps prevent tooth decay. The long-term medical consequences are unknown and studies have shown links between fluoride and the increase of bone fractures and cancers. Chemical oxides like chlorine are added to our public water supply in the UK for the purpose of disinfecting it. The US Council of Environmental Quality believe there is a 93% higher risk of cancer amongst people drinking chlorinated water than those who drink un-chlorinated water.

Traces of Cryptosporidium, a naturally occurring bacteria which can cause gastroenteritis in people, was found in the water supply of over 100,000 properties in Northamptonshire recently. And then, there's the report earlier in the year by the Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI), that traces of pharmaceuticals like cancer therapy drugs have been found in some UK tap water.

Whilst not all tap water everywhere is filled with additives and unintentional substances, it is unlikely any of us are sipping H2O piped straight from the sacred spring of the Water God. Reports like these are enough to sway people to purchase home filtering systems or sadly reach for another bottle of plastic encased Evian.

Our advice - invest in a filter. The cost in the long run will be worth it. It doesn't have to be expensive either. You can get subscriptions where you pay a flat rate each month (we pay £17.99/month for ours) with service and parts replacement included.

Best of all you can rest assured you're drinking cleaner water, without contributing to the plastic waste of our landfills.