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Take an Empty Bag on Your Next Walk—and Bring It Home Full

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  Take an Empty Bag on Your Next Walk—and Bring It Home Full Imagine what Britain would look like if every walk left the neighbourhood slightly cleaner than before. We often talk about environmental action in terms of enormous projects. Renewable energy. Electric cars. Heat pumps. Recycling plants. Rewilding. Government targets. Changes to agriculture and industry. All of these matter. But there is another kind of environmental action that requires almost no technology, very little money and no committee meeting. Take a bag with you when you go for a walk. Bring it home with some litter in it. That really can be the whole idea. I am not suggesting that everyone suddenly becomes an unpaid street-cleaning service, nor that anyone should pick up anything potentially dangerous. The point is much simpler. If you are already walking along a road, through a park, beside a river, around an estate or across a footpath, could you safely remove two or three pieces of rubbish as you go? One ca...
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Exercise for Every Age: You Don’t Need a Gym to Stay Fit

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  Exercise for Every Age: You Don’t Need a Gym to Stay Fit “Exercise doesn’t begin when you enter a gym and stop when you leave it.” For many people, the word exercise immediately conjures up images of treadmills, exercise bikes, weights, changing rooms and expensive monthly memberships. There is nothing wrong with gyms. They can be excellent places to exercise, particularly for people who enjoy structured training and the social side of attending regularly. But we have perhaps allowed the fitness industry to persuade us that physical activity is something separate from ordinary life. It isn’t. Walking to the shops is physical activity. Digging a garden is physical activity. Cycling to see a friend is physical activity. Dancing is physical activity. Carrying shopping, climbing stairs, washing the car, pruning a hedge, doing DIY, playing football with the grandchildren and, depending on the conditions, sailing a dinghy can all make demands on the body. The important questi...
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Healthy Eating Without the Expensive “Healthy” Label

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Healthy Eating Without the Expensive “Healthy” Label Some of the healthiest foods in the supermarket don't have the word “healthy” written anywhere on the packet. Walk through a modern supermarket and it would be very easy to conclude that healthy eating is an expensive hobby. There are protein bars, protein shakes, vitamin drinks, superfood powders, fortified snacks, low-carbohydrate products, high-protein yoghurts, specialist breakfast pots and shelves of supplements. Many are attractively packaged. Some undoubtedly have their uses. But there is a danger that we have begun to confuse food marketed as healthy with food that actually forms part of a healthy diet . A packet of ordinary porridge oats does not need a picture of an athlete on the front. A potato does not need to advertise that it contains fibre, potassium and other nutrients. A bag of frozen vegetables does not need the word “superfood”. A tin of chickpeas does not need to be sold as a protein supplement. And an egg ha...
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