This plant ally, currently known as goldenrod, has been revered and used as medicine and food since ancient times.  The latin name is 'solidago', meaning “to make whole or heal”.

Goldenrod is high in vitamins and minerals.  As a nourishing food, goldenrod is drank as a tea/infusion or cooked [sauteed or used in baking and stews].

As medicine, Goldenrod supplies many powerful, beneficial plant compounds, including flavonoid antioxidants [quercetin, kaempferol, astragalin and rutoside], anthocyanidins, triterpenes, saponins, glycosides, lactones, phenolic acids and a small amount of essential oil.

Saponins are plant compounds linked to many health benefits➡️ effective in inhibiting the growth of harmful bacteria and yeast like Candida albicans. Saponins have also been shown to possess anticancer and anti-inflammatory effects.

The flavonoid antioxidants, quercetin and kaempferol, in goldenrod help protect our cells from damage caused by unstable molecules called free radicals. [1]

The rate of the oxidation of our stem-cells/telomers, via free radical damage, is a factor in how quickly we age, and a major factor in our overall health ➡️ ANTI-OXIDANTS protect our cells from oxidation, and the antioxidant activity of goldenrod is more than that of green tea!

What does it mean to be sustainable: sustainable is a term used to describe a process that does NOT degrade the health of the environment to the extent that the coming generations would not be able to enjoy the natural bounties of that environment
 
EXAMPLES:
one can say that industrial agriculture in unsustainable because it pollutes the environment and strips the soil of nutrients to the extent that future generations may become sick from consequent pollutants and may not be able to grow healthy vegetation on that land therefore to be sustainable we should endorse ORGANIC small-scale, local agriculture as much as possible
 
one could say that polluting waterways with chemicals is unsustainable because it can inhibit future generations from being able to get clean water and healthy food sources from that water supply. In order to be sustainable, we must avoid industries that are guilty of polluting our environment with chemicals, boycott known products that contain chemicals & use chemicals in production...
buy ORGANIC as much as possible, these products come from earth and are therefore biodegradable and are easily processed by earth’s naturals processes
 
one could say that leaving all of your lights on all day when no one is home is unsustainable because you are wasting energy that is in a finite supply (there is an ending, we do not have an infinite supply of FOSSIL FUELS, the source of where the energy is coming from). This fossil fuel energy also emits greenhouse gases into our atmosphere at high rates, which is a cause of climate change. To be sustainable we should try to conserve as much energy as possible and also support the research and usage of alternative energies such as BIOFUELS, WIND ENERGY, SOLAR ENERGY etc..

simple ways to lead a
SUSTAINABLE LIFESTYLE:
 
 | BUY ORGANIC | 
What is Organic Agriculture?
Organic agriculture produces products using methods that preserve the environment and avoid most synthetic materials, such as pesticides and antibiotics. USDA organic standards describe how farmers grow crops and raise livestock and which materials they may use.
Organic farmers, ranchers, and food processors follow a defined set of standards to produce organic food and fiber. Congress described general organic principles in the Organic Foods Production Act, and the USDA defines specific organic standards. These standards cover the product from farm to table, including soil and water quality, pest control, livestock practices, and rules for food additives. [1]

LOOK FOR these LABELS

Anthropogenic or that which is the result of human activity, is a term that can be used to help define certain pollutants which our species is responsible for emitting into the environment of planet Earth.  To refer to a pollutant as being anthropogenic, one is saying that the source of the pollutant is a direct result of human activity.

Throughout the passing of generations, specifics and statistics may vary; however, since our divergence from a natural lifestyle to that of a chemical lifestyle, as a species, we have undoubtedly magnified the rate at which we emit toxic chemicals into our environment through unsustainable infrastructural and lifestyle practices.

Lets examine some of the largest contributors of toxic pollutants in our environment... 
​

industrial agriculture |
ALSO KNOWN AS FACTORY FARMING, is the modern farming technique that endorses high-density occupation of farmlands, chemical dependence, genetic-modification, skewed life-spans of animals... among other tactics in order to achieve the goal of increasing yield (product per acre) while decreasing cost of production.

These methods include the use of toxic, carcinogenic chemicals including neonicotinoid pesticides and blatant unethical treatment of sentient beings.
Not only do these types of farming practices inflict immediate pain and suffering on the sentient beings enduring these unethical conditions, but we all suffer from the damage to the environment from having such high concentrations of pollutants coming from a single land area.

A grassroots movement is a type of social movement that emerges from the local level and comes together due to a pressing issue the community feels needs to be changed or improved— the movement could spread nationally or globally, but a grassroots movement is perpetuated by the action of the individual and not the endorsement of large corporations or political actors.

Started in 2013, a grassroots movement called March Against Monsanto (MAM) has come together and is held annually on the global scale in response to the business practices of the historical and now transnational corporation, Monsanto.

MARCH AGAINST MONSANTO this year on SATURDAY MAY 23rd, 2015 →→→  Check this spreadsheet for global locations
​
​Monsanto is a current day transnational company (TNC) that was originally established in 1901 by a self-educated chemist, John Francis Queeny, who named the chemical company,Monsanto Chemical Works to honor his wife, Olga Mendez Monsanto. Commencement of business, and a shift to production of industrial products occurred around 1929 when Monsanto bought shares of American and Australian chemical companies on the New York Stock Exchange— just a month later the stock market crashed and Monsanto emerged being renamed the Monsanto Chemical Company.

The Monsanto Chemical Company’s business commenced in Georgia in 1935 with the production of the chemical sweetener saccharin— this was sold to Coca-Cola which then too was a growing company in Georgia and marked the beginning of the long and controversial history Monsanto has on planet Earth.

In the 1940’s Monsanto became “one of the world’s major producer of rubber, followed by plastics and synthetic fibers” [Robin, 12].  The nature of a chemical company innately produces much environmental degradation— these rubber and plastic factories in Anniston, Alabama were estimated to pollute from 1929-1971, sixty-thousand pounds ofPCBs emitted into atmosphere and 1.8 million pounds dumped into waterways.

Today, the environmental protection agency has finally publicly named Monsanto as the perpetrator, and taken steps to help clean up this problem by deeming Aniston, Alabama a superfund site.