Brilliance in Blogging Awards: Please vote for this waste-busting blogger.

I've just discovered the wonderful news that The Rubbish Diet has been shortlisted for the Brilliance in Blogging awards, which will be hosted by the BritMums Live event in June.I'd firstly like to thank all the kind folk who nominated my blog. The news was a fabulous surprise, especially as over the last two months I've had my head firmly buried in other people's virtual bins.Apparently there were over 12,000 nominations registered across many blogs, so I feel especially honoured to have made it to the top 20 blogs listed in the category of CHANGE.The public vote has already commenced, and if The Rubbish Diet makes it to the final list, I will...

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Monday Meeting: The final weigh-in for the Rubbish Diet Challenge 2012

Welcome to the last Monday Meeting for the Rubbish Diet Challenge 2012.Last November I put a request on Twitter and Facebook to see if anyone fancied slimming their bins in 2012.  Amazingly eight people volunteered straight-away and at the end of January, when routines had settled back to normal after the festivities of Christmas, the Rubbish Diet Challenge began, featuring weekly Monday weigh-ins and mini-challenges throughout the course of eight weeks.Eight households slimming their bins in just eight weeks, all living in different parts of the country, including one in the US, all with different routines, contrasting priorities, variations...

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The 2012 red meat-mortality study (Arch Intern Med): The data suggests that red meat is protective

var citeN=0; I am not a big fan of using arguments such as “food questionnaires are unreliable” and “observational studies are worthless” to completely dismiss a study. There are many reasons for this. One of them is that, when people misreport certain diet and lifestyle patterns, but do that consistently (i.e., everybody underreports food intake), the biasing effect on coefficients of association is minor. Measurement errors may remain for this or other reasons, but regression methods (linear and nonlinear) assume the existence of such errors, and are designed to yield robust coefficients in their presence. Besides, for me to use these types...

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It's reached Hong Kong: Tracking my mobile phone with O2Recycle.

Back in January, I did something I'd never done before.  I recycled my old battered mobile phone, working with O2Recycle to track it through their system. Now, my phone was in a pretty poor condition when it left the UK.  The screen was scratched, the casing was broken and it needed a rubber band to stop the battery falling out.  And there was also the issue of it randomly rebooting itself.   Yet, after assessment, I still received £24 for it, which illustrates how valuable these devices are.But I wasn't just interested in the cash, I was also interested in how the mobile phone recycling process worked, as well as keen...

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Slimming your waste at work: a Suffolk case-study

Regular visitors to this blog will be familiar with my passion for slimming down our rubbish at home, but I am also a sticky-beak when it comes to finding out what goes on behind closed doors in organisations across the country.Inspired by my recent Smart Mums visit to British Gas, where I managed only a passing glimpse of their internal recycling activities, I was keen to find a smaller company closer to home that would allow me to have a poke about their own waste management facilities.  I really don't think I could have found a finer example of corporate recycling.Music Sales is an international company which specialises in music copyright,...

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BritMums, Smarter Living & British Gas

Dana, from British Gas Smart Homes, demonstrating the Smart Meter handsets.During the last couple of months I have been working with British Gas and BritMums as a Smart Mums ambassador, discussing ways to save energy in the home.  A couple of weeks ago, I was privileged to visit the British Gas Headquarters in Staines, for a behind-the-scenes peek at some of the products that are already appearing in homes across the UK.Moving forward from its traditional business as an energy provider, which historically has been dependent on creating energy from fossil fuels, British Gas is now also focusing on innovations that enable its customers to...

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A much needed Food Waste Bill

Kerry McCarthy MP, pictured 3rd from right, with parliamentary supporters, including Caroline Lucas MP and Zac Goldsmith MP.Yesterday I had the honour of being invited to Westminster, to meet Kerry McCarthy MP and to hear more about the Food Waste Bill, which she is presenting to the House of Commons today.In a nutshell, the Bill would significantly reduce the obscene amount of food wasted by supermarkets and manufacturers by increasing the donation of good food to charities for managed redistribution to those who are living in food poverty in the UK.Voluntary food distribution does exist in the UK, but this bill would see a much wider implementation, ...

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Madam, would you like a dash of rubbish with that? No thanks!

Thankfully, when eating out, I don't get asked that question.  It would put me right off my food.However, if you take responsibility for your waste footprint, you really have to have your wits about you, to know that the drink you're consuming isn't going to result in the bottle ending up in landfill, along with any excess plate waste going to the dump.Over the last few years, I've become increasingly aware of the sustainability practices of my favourite eateries and yes I confess that I am much happier to frequent those that take this subject seriously, much more than those that don't, even if their motivation for reducing waste is simply...

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Monday Meeting: The Rubbish Diet Challenge Wk 8, The finale

OK, down with the trumpet fanfare. It's too soon for that, but what a fine start to Week 8 of The Rubbish Diet challenge, with reports already coming in from some of our fabulous bin slimmers about how little rubbish has been created last week. Terry-Anna's rubbish bag is so small, it's dumpier than a HP sauce bottle and you can fit it into the palm of your hand.  As for Tim's rubbish, there's much excitement that for the first time throughout the challenge, it's possible to see the bottom of his bin.This is indeed the last week of the challenge, the finale week that comes with an extra mission, which should they choose to accept it, will give our volunteers the opportunity to attempt a Zero Waste Week.  That's going one whole week, trying to create no rubbish at all.  Of course...

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Gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time: A more customized approach based on strength training and calorie intake variation

var citeN=0; In the two last posts I discussed the idea of gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN)) 1) (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN)) 2). This post outlines one approach to make that happen, based on my own experience and that of several HCE (citeN=citeN+1;document.write(Number(citeN)) 3) users. This approach may well be the most natural from an evolutionary perspective.But first let us address one important question: Why would anyone want to reach a certain body weight and keep it constant, resorting to the more difficult and slow strategy of “turning fat into muscle”, so to speak?...

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The Rubbish Diet, Wk 7: Saturday catchup. Composting, radio & packaging protest

"Gee, I never guessed it would be as big as that!" were the words utttered by Rubbish Dieter Ness, as she collected her compost bin this week and tried to squeeze it into the boot of her car.I did my best to reassure her that when placed in situ, it really would look considerably smaller.Ness has never composted before, but since the start of her Rubbish Diet, she's been keen to give it a go and on hearing this news, Suffolk County Council were delighted to support the project by providing one of the 'dalek' style bins, similar to the ones I've been using for years. Earlier this week, we went to collect it from my local council in Bury St Edmunds...

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