Make your Dollar Mean More!

We American's are always looking to get more bang for our buck. Take the fast food industry for instance: Dollar Menu-aire's , Three-fer-nomics, and value menus galore (even Starbucks is getting into the cheap food gig). But is it really worth it? When our paltry dollars are going toward cheap burgers and 2 for 1 apple pies can it really be a good thing? Sure you get to fill your stomach for less than a gallon of gas but think of the consequences? Your body isn't the only thing being destroyed by cheap food! Small farmers lose customers to corporations that are clearing rain forests to create grazing lands for genetically enhanced cows, Mom and Pop Diner's are going belly up, Styrofoam is piling up in land fills, more and more Americans are getting fat causing the costs of health care to sky rocket, and the world becomes a little less nicer place to live all because you refused to pay more than $2.25 for a McChicken and a gigantic sweet tea!

You know you do it; I do it too!

This year, though, I've decided to stop spending my dollars on cheap, unhealthy fast food and start spending them on products whose companies actually use their profits to help make the world a better place. It's actually a lot easier than you think! And before you go calling me a tree hugger or granola cruncher you might want to check out the labels on the back of your groceries because you've probably already been buying these products and not even realizing it!! I was!

Lots of health conscious foods and even fashionable drinks and snacks are being made these days by companies that give back not only to the community but the planet as well. Pedigree, Ethos, Annie's, and Ben and Jerry's just to name a few (yes, even the fat boys are philanthropists).

So, today I start out with the one thing we all need to live, water. Bottled water albeit, but water all the same. Ethos Water (http://www.ethoswater.com/) has been a force for the good from the very beginning, pledging a portion of their profits to help provide clean water to children worldwide (something like 5 cents U.S. for every bottle sold!). Anyone who has ever been to Starbucks has seen a bottle of this upscale looking water and a lot of us have probably walked right by it in grocery stores thinking "great, just what the world needs, another over priced bottle of water," but it's so much more! Instead of pocketing those extra cents it slaps onto the price tag and passing out fat cat bonuses to its higher ups, Ethos and its founder Peter Thum actually take all those extra cents, put 'em all together, and provide hundred of thousands of people worldwide with clean, drinkable water! You feel bad about not spending those extra few cents now don't ya? (Don't worry, I did to when I first found out). The good news is that Ethos is still selling water and still working toward it's goal of donating $10 million in clean water and water technology to the World by 2010. So, next time you're at Starbucks, or the grocery store, or even the gas station, pick up a bottle and do something good for yourself and the World.