Can’t think of what to cook?

Well put down that takeout menu. The New York Times put together a great list of meal suggestions that can each be thrown together in about ten minutes. I guarantee that if you love food, you won’t be able to read this list without salivating.

Not all of the ideas are easy, and not all of them are low-calorie. They are all, however, much better for you than that Kung Pao Chicken you were just going to order.

UPDATE: Damn you, New York Times. Apparently you now need a Times Select membership to download the article. That’s OK — you can either sign up for a free 2-week membership or just ask me to email you the article directly.

Very few suncreens actually effective

Nope. The SPF of a sunscreen refers to the level of protection it provides against UVB rays only. In fact, many high SPF lotions do absolutely nothing against UVA rays, the rays which penetrate the skin more deeply and do more damage. Manufacturers in the United States, however, still make false claims that their lotions “block all harmful rays.”

In Europe, such claims are illegal. In fact, the term “sunblock” has recently been banned.

So how does one sort through the hundreds of possibilities for suntan lotions? Thankfully the folks at the Environmental Working Group did the investigating for us. They compiled a list of the best lotions, as well as a list of the worst. (Remember, a low score mean the product is safer.)

The bottled water myth (continued)

Funny how that seems to bother people, yet hopping into the corner deli to grab a bottle of Dasani or Aquafina seems perfectly logical. If the idea of drinking municipal tap water is repellent to you, then don’t buy either of these brands — they are simply filtered city tap water. You can do that at home with a Brita filter, for heaven’s sake.

In fact, you don’t even need to filter New York tap water. The FDA requires all water to be filtered before it reaches our faucets. On top of that, five cities are exempt from this requirement because the source of water is so fresh, and you guessed it, New York is one of those cities!

But Fiji water is from Fiji, you say. Indeed it is. However, consider how wasteful it is to bottle and ship water. The stuff is so heavy that an eighteen-wheeler full of it can barely move. Furthermore, although water is natural, the plants which bottle it are not exactly eco-friendly. You don’t have to be Al Gore for this to bother you just a little bit.

(Thanks, Barbara, for the second link. A great but frustrating article.)