Next weekend's Green Fair goes beyond the merely organic into truly helpful lifestyles

How can you stuff yourself with organic food and clean the toilet with a cleanser that wouldn't even dream of being toxic - and still not be green?

All right, so you're green. But you could be greener.

Find out how at the Green Fair '08 this Thursday through Sunday at Thammasat Univer-sity.

Somewhere around 80 small, independent, "green network" manufacturers from around the country will be selling and explaining cooking ingredients, ready-to-eat food, clothes and books.

But the main point of the Green Fair is to educate people about the impact their buying choices have on their own health and the global ecology.

It will be a great place to test the popular complaint that organic products cost too much.

The event's coordinator, Preyanuch Putthama, will tell you that the care that goes into making these products justifies the expense, especially when the environment - and our future - are the beneficiaries.

There is, for example, the farm that raises 50,000 chickens when it could have half a million and be making a lot more cash.

"These chickens live freely out in the yard," Preyanuch points out, "not like the birds that are clamped up in huge factories where they can't even move their legs."

Raising produce organically relies on the whims of the season too, says Tortip Pechporee.

She owns the shop called Help Me and delivers her fresh veggies and dairy products to customers around Bangkok, and she's often asked why she's not as fast and cheap as the food mega-corporations.

Tortip points out, though, that the milk she delivers fresh from independent farmers is far healthier - thanks to the cows' diet - than the supermarket milk shipped by the big manufacturers.

She thinks we should all be preparing more of our own meals rather than buying whatever's convenient.

"People these days are better with their computers than they are at cooking," she says. "That's not a green life."

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Planting ideas

>> Pop by the "Green Fair '08 Living Green Together" at Thammasat University's Pridi Plaza Thursday through Sunday, 10am to 8pm daily.

>> There's also a small greenmarket every Thursday morning at the Regent House Building on Rajdamri Road.

>> Get the details at www.ThaiGreenMarket.com or call (089) 790 6790 or (085) 910 1823.