Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Happy New Year



















Text of this ecard written by Heather Havey, as a prayer for you all:
May we experience delight, joy, astonishment, mystery, & beauty, for these fill hearts with peace. these are gifts & examples of nature - God as form.

May we experience love & care -
these are gifts & examples of essence - God as formless.

Earth is a mirror of God; so are you.

May we listen to rivers, thank oceans, learn from animals, play with dogs, swim with fishes, serve birds, behold wilderness, feel wind, plant trees, grow food, watch life grow, replace lawn with wildflower & garden habitats, honor organic, choose no poison, build bat & bee homes, encounter willdness, remember the miracles & beauty of all forms, & enjoy the silence that designs & guides it all.
All life is sacred, including you.
~ Lalita (Heather Havey)

© 2004-2009 Peace Through Kindness

John Francis - a wonderful hero & example for our new year


"As we walk upon the road we meet ourselves. And at the end, perhaps we'll find that there are no sides to take, no ememies of state, no arguments against the other. There's only death that waits. But on this tiny planet, and in this precious moment, we have the chance to live in peace together. If only we could take a walk." ~John Francis

an interview with john francis about his years of walking and silence, in honor of the earth:
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/05/10/hertsgaard-francis/

His nonprofit organization: PlanetWalk

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Chocolate =).

"Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces
with your bare hands-- and then eat just one of the pieces." ~
Judith Viorst

Cadbury...Godiva...
Ghirardelli... Hershey... Lindt. Chocoholics
beware: Today is National Chocolate Day. As if you needed the
perfect excuse to devour some delectable "feel good" food.

Actress Katharine Hepburn, a notorious brownie lover, once
said, "What you see before you, my friend, is the result of a
lifetime of chocolate."

Chocolate is made from the seeds of the tropical cacao tree,
theobroma cacao, which means "food of the gods." Cacao grows 15-20
feet tall with fruits shaped like pods. Each pod holds about 20-50
beans.

The first known cacao plantations were established in South
America's Yucatan by the Mayans in 600 A.D. According to Aztec
Indian legend, the cacao tree came from Paradise and eating its
fruit gave man wisdom and power.

"Once in a while I say, `Go for it' and I eat chocolate," confessed
model Claudia Schiffer. Obviously, the luxury of chocolate is worth
the calories.

It is believed that in 1502, Christopher Columbus brought back cacao
beans to King Ferdinand from the New World. The first chocolate bar
was made in 1828 when Conrad Van Houten, a Dutch chemist, invented a
cocoa press that mixed cocoa butter with finely ground sugar.

Writer Geneen Roth explained, "Chocolate is no ordinary food. It is
not something you can take or leave, something you like only
moderately. You don't like chocolate. You don't even love chocolate.
Chocolate is something you have an affair with."

AND Chocolate can be good for you in small doses. Research has shown
that the cocoa-based confection, which contains chemicals called
flavanols, can improve blood flow and reduce blood pressure.
Flavanols are found in apples, red wine, and green tea.

Studies also showed that chocolate contains, phenyl ethylamine, the
same chemical that your brain produces when you fall in love. So,
indulge!

~~Chocolate, anyone?

Look and Feel Younger By Avoiding the Top Contributors to Aging

Look and Feel Younger by Avoiding the Top Contributors to Aging
By Dr. Joseph Mercola with Sarah Potts

http://www.mercola.com/2003/dec/17/feel_younger.htm

In a general sense, premature aging means that outwardly the way you
appear is older than it should be for your age, and inwardly the way you
feel and the way your brain, bones and the rest of your body functions is
below par to what it should be for your age. Your appearance is
inextricably linked to your “inside” health, of course, as is how long and
how well you live. Therefore, taking the necessary steps to avoid
premature aging is a crucial goal.

While multiple factors can contribute to premature aging, none are so
prevalent in the United States, Canada, Australia, and most of Europe than
the over-consumption of grains and sugars. As detailed below, not only
will avoiding this form of carbs and instead eating the right foods
prevent premature aging but also no matter what your condition today, it
will also actually help you look and feel younger than you currently do.

Insulin Levels

It is vital to understand what insulin actually is. Insulin is something
all humans have, as without it we would go into hyperglycemic coma and
die, but nearly all of us have insulin levels that are too high.

The pancreas releases insulin--produced by beta cells--after you eat
carbohydrates. This causes a rise in blood sugar. Insulin ensures your
cells receive some blood sugar necessary for life, and increases glycogen
storage. However, it also drives your body to use more carbohydrate, and
less fat, as fuel. And, insulin converts almost half of your dietary
carbohydrate to fat for storage. In other words, when we eat too much
carbohydrate, we're essentially sending a hormonal message, via insulin,
to the body (actually, to the adipose cells). The message: "Store fat."

Not only do increased insulin levels tell the body to store carbohydrates
as fat, they also tell it not to release any stored fat. This makes it
impossible for you to use your own stored body fat for energy. So the
excess carbohydrates in your diet not only make you fat, they make sure
you stay fat.

High levels of insulin can cause major damage to your body. The most
recognized of these is diabetes. In addition, hypertension, obesity, high
levels of cholesterol and other lipids, heart disease, kidney disease,
female infertility and neurodegeration are all causes of eating too many
carbohydrates, resulting in high insulin levels.

If you want to use more fats for energy, the insulin response must be
moderated. Diets high in refined sugars release more insulin thereby
allowing less stored fat to be burned.

The #1 Way to Avoid Premature Aging: Avoid Sugars and Grains

If you look and/or feel older than you should, whether the symptoms are
showing themselves in your skin, face, bones, energy, or mind, chances are
that the excess sugars and grains in your diet are the primary culprit. We
all need a certain amount of carbohydrates, of course, but we need the
good carbohydrates that foods like vegetables provide.

In other words, the popular Atkins diet got it partly right--people are
consuming too many carbs, but more particularly, they’re consuming too
many of the carbs found in grains and sugars while most are not consuming
enough of the healthy carbs found in vegetables.

Through the Western addiction to grains, sweets, soft drinks, and
high-starch foods like potatoes, the modern diet virtually guarantees that
not only will a majority of the population become overweight, but they
will also look and feel much older than they should. That’s because any
meal or snack high in the carbohydrates found in grains and sugars
generates a rapid rise in blood glucose. To adjust for this rise, the
pancreas secretes the hormone insulin into the bloodstream, which lowers
the glucose.

Unfortunately, the body is not designed to accommodate these unnaturally
high levels of insulin spiked by grains and sugars. So not only does this
excess insulin store calories from the carbs in the form of fat (which is
why so many are overweight and obese these days), but the excess insulin
also suppresses essential hormones and the immune system--all absolutely
essential for avoiding premature aging.

Meanwhile, in addition to avoiding grains and sugars to avoid premature
aging, what you should be eating instead also has everything to do with
it. If you really want to look and feel younger, live longer and prevent
disease, and optimize your weight while you are at it, the key to remember
is this:

Eating the right forms of foods--the right forms of carbohydrates,
proteins and fats--is absolutely essential.
Eating the right proportion of these carbohydrates, proteins and fats for
your specific body biochemistry, or “metabolic type,” is also absolutely
essential.
Eat the Right Forms of Foods to Look and Feel Younger

There are healthy forms of carbohydrates, fats and proteins that make all
the difference in the world to whether you will age prematurely or look
and feel as young as you are supposed to (and prevent disease and live
longer). You should not “reduce all carbs” in your diet, as some popular
diets suggest, but instead reduce or completely eliminate the bad carbs
like grains and sugars and instead eat the healthy carbs like
vegetables--particularly vegetables that grow above ground (most root
vegetables are high in starch and would best be limited).

Similarly, you should focus on eating healthy fats and proteins, like
those found in naturally raised meats, toxin-free fish, and healthy oils
like coconut oil.

To delve into all the carbs, fats and proteins you should avoid and those
you should be consuming takes an entire book--and I have written that
book, which I encourage you to consider if you really want to avoid
premature aging--but on the topic of avoiding premature aging by eating
the right foods, here are a few links you can explore right now:

Reduce Grains and Sugars to Improve Health
Increase Intake of Omega-3 Fats to Prevent Disease
Six Foods that Will Give You the Most Health Bang for Your Buck
What Does Europe’s Ban of Most U.S. Meats Mean to You?
Why Do You Need Organic Food?
Trans-fat: What is It, and Why is It So Dangerous?
Eat Clean Poultry If you can’t find it locally we have Free-Range
Certified 100% Organic Chicken: An Exceptionally Clean, Healthy and
Delicious Source of Protein
Eat the Right Proportion of Carbs, Proteins and Fats for Your Metabolic
Type

Just as important as eating the right forms of carbs, proteins and fats
are eating the right proportion of them for your particular body
biochemistry. For some this may be a new concept, but there is a reason
most people fail on those one-size-fits-all diets: just as on the outside
you are unique, on the inside you are unique as well. In other words, your
body biochemistry, or metabolism, is distinct, and therefore you have
distinct nutritional needs.

One of the most important steps you should take right now if you want to
avoid premature aging (and optimize your weight and increase your energy)
is to learn your metabolic type, and then start eating the right
proportion of healthy carbs, proteins and fats for your type.

My book presenting my entire dietary program is a must-have resource if
you do not know your metabolic type or the proportions of nutrients you
should be consuming to ensure you look and feel younger. It provides a
test and the means to help you determine your type, and a full
understanding of how to find the proportions of foods that are ideal for
you.

Beyond proportions, there are certain healthy foods that are ideal for one
metabolic type that are not as ideal for other types. For instance, if you
are a “Protein Type,” there are six types of vegetables that you should
definitely be eating to help you avoid premature aging, optimize weight
and live longer.

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

http://www.mercola.com/2003/dec/20/feel_younger.htm

Listed below are several other contributors to premature aging that you
should be aware of.

Cigarettes

Whether you smoke yourself or are around people who do, cigarette smoke
exposes you to damaging free radicals that will accelerate the aging
process by damaging the microcapillaries in the skin. This limits the
skin’s ability to absorb nutrients, which accelerates wrinkling and aging.
Antioxidants, such as those found in fresh vegetables and fruit like
organic blueberries, can help to fight free-radical damage and will
naturally promote healthy, young-looking skin. A diet with plenty of
vegetables will also provide plenty of micronutrients and antioxidants.

Lack of Sleep


Regularly catching only a few hours of sleep can hinder metabolism and
hormone production in a way that is similar to the effects of aging.

I think most of us do not fully appreciate the value of a full night’s
sleep. Getting seven hours is an absolute minimum for most all of us, and
most of us would benefit from closer to nine hours. In the winter months
try and be in bed by 9 p.m., other months, 10 p.m. would be ideal. Read
“Sleep Well to Live Well” for all of my recommendations on how to sleep
for your health.

Distilled Water

Many health conscious people are often surprised to hear me state that
distilled water on a routine basis may actually damage your health. While
the issue of distilled water is somewhat controversial in natural medicine
circles, I believe distilled water is an active absorber and when it comes
into contact with air, it absorbs carbon dioxide, making it acidic. The
more distilled water a person drinks, the higher the body acidity becomes.
More importantly the water loses its healthy structure. If you do a search
on Google you will find the many health benefits of properly structured
water. This maybe is the single largest reason why distilled water is not
a wise choice.

The most toxic commercial beverages that people consume (i.e. cola
beverages and other soft drinks) are made from distilled water. Studies
have consistently shown that heavy consumers of soft drinks (with or
without sugar) lose huge amounts of calcium, magnesium and other necessary
trace minerals into their urine.

Additionally, distilled water will tend to leach healthy minerals from
your body, which is very difficult to compensate for in the long run, even
with mineral supplements. The more mineral loss the greater the risk for
osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, hypothyroidism, coronary artery disease,
high blood pressure and a long list of degenerative diseases generally
associated with premature aging. Read, “Drink More Spring or Filtered
Water to Improve Every Facet of Your Health” for details on drinking
clean, healthy water.

The Sun

Exposing your skin to intense sunlight (UV-A rays) for an extended period
of time may result in sunburn, wrinkling and premature aging. Sunburned
skin is more susceptible to damage and may age more quickly. Also please
read my article, “Sunscreen is a toxic chemical” to learn about the
dangers of sunscreen use.

Remember that sunlight is not something to be avoided. You need sunlight
in order for the body produce vitamin D. The key is to gradually build up
your resistance to the sun by going out slowly in the beginning of the
season, perhaps 10 minutes at a time to start, and always avoid getting
burned.

Certain Diets

A recurrent cycle of gaining and losing weight will cause your skin to
stretch and become less elastic. As you age, this loose skin will be more
prone to sagging and wrinkles simply by the force of gravity. If you need
to lose weight, my book is designed to help you keep the weight off for
good.

Omega-3

The main sources of omega-6 fats are vegetable oils such as corn and soy
oil that contain a high proportion of linoleic acid. Please read my
article “The Great Con-ola” to learn more about the dangers of these oils.
It has become clear that an excess of omega-6 fatty acids can have dire
consequences, and most people are consuming far too much omega-6 while
consuming not nearly enough omega-3.

Omega-3 fatty acids are essential to healthy skin. Making sure you get
enough omega-3 in your diet, by taking high-quality fish oil or cod liver
oil regularly, will help to keep your skin looking young and healthy.

Dry Skin

Finally, using virgin coconut oil as you would any lotion is an ideal way
to rejuvenate skin. Not only does it prevent the formation of damaging
free radicals and protect against them, but also it can help to keep the
skin from developing liver spots and other blemishes caused by aging and
overexposure to sunlight.

Monday, December 29, 2008

Top 10 ways to deal with overwhelm

Top Ten Ways to Deal with Overwhelm
by Michael Angier

http://www.stretcher.com/stories/03/03oct13j.cfm

Lately, many of the people I've been talking with or coaching have been
complaining about being overwhelmed. I have to admit that I've been
wrestling with it too.

My ideas and my commitments seem to far outpace my time and energy. So
here's my advice to you--and to myself--for dealing with overwhelm.

Recognize that overwhelm isn't real. It's not something that attacks us.
It's a feeling we experience based upon a belief there's too much to do
and too little time to do it. It's fear--plain and simple. And once we
recognize and acknowledge it, we're better equipped to deal with it.

Be grateful. Just think, the alternative is that you have little to do and
you're bored. Appreciate the fact that you have the opportunities and the
projects that allow you to contribute to the world.

Accept the fact you'll never be caught up. If you're a person of
action--someone with goals and aspirations--it's not too likely you'll
ever have an empty inbox. The times in which we live and our ability to do
meaningful work throughout our lives leads me to believe that we will
always have things left to do.

Understand that we can only think about one thing at a time. We may be
able to multi-task and we may be able to switch our thoughts very rapidly,
but we really can hold only one thought in our mind at a time. Trying to
think about more than one thing at once is very tiring and frustrating.

Be selective. The biggest weapon you have in fighting overwhelm is your
ability to prioritize what you need to do. By making intelligent choices
based upon urgent, non-urgent, important and non-important, we can focus
better. By basing these choices on our core values, we can relax in the
belief that we're doing what matters most.

Delegate. Learn to gain the assistance of others. People like to help, but
you have to ask. Anything that can be adequately done by someone else
should be delegated. It's an important skill worth developing.

Learn to say no. Our feelings of overwhelm largely come from taking on too
much. If you're asked to do something, don't be too quick to accept the
assignment. You might think you're being a nice person, but if you succumb
to health problems because of it, you won't be nice for very much longer.

If you're TOLD to do something (by a boss, for instance), ask them which
things they would like to have you put off while you complete the new
assignment.

Take care of yourself. There will always be times when we're called upon
to put forth extra effort. And we can if we've been taking good care of
ourselves right along. For those periods where extra drive, a few extra
hours and hard work are required, we need to be in good shape--mentally
and physically.

If we've been eating, sleeping and exercising properly, we'll be far
better prepared for the extra stress our lives require.

Remember to take breaks. The tendency for many of us is to work harder and
longer. In actuality, we can get more done in less time and with less
effort if we take breaks.

Breathe. When we feel overwhelmed, we have a tendency to tighten up
instead of relax. It seems like there are many things we HAVE to do, but
the only thing we REALLY have to do is breathe. Take some long deep
breaths and feel yourself returning to the present.

Focus on the task at hand. If we're thinking about what's NOT getting done
or all the other things we have to do, we can't focus well on what we're
doing now. Think about what you ARE doing rather than what you're NOT
getting done. Otherwise, you're going to be defeated by your feelings of
overwhelm.

Use these ten tips in dealing with overwhelm and you'll find yourself
feeling more in charge and at peace.

The Greens Party

The greens party
by Bonnie Liebman
Nutrition Action Healthletter
July-August, 2007

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0813/is_6_34/ai_n27333489

Spinach, kale, collards, mustard greens, beet greens, romaine lettuce, and other leafy greens. They're the standout vegetables, jam-packed with vitamins A, C, and K, folate, potassium, magnesium, iron, lutein, and phytochemicals.

And it's not unusual to see studies on diet and disease give them special recognition with a phrase like "vegetables--especially green leafy vegetables--were associated with a lower risk of...."

All vegetables are good vegetables (except, perhaps, white potatoes). But greens have something more going for them. Here's a sampling of some findings--and a few hunches--that may explain what's so good about greens.

EYES

As you age, your eyes age.

The older lens no longer adjusts as well to see accurately at different distances, and the older pupil no longer dilates as much to let light reach the retina. An 80-year-old retina receives one-sixth the light of a 20-year-old retina in a well-lit room and one-sixteenth as much light in a darker room.

Worse yet, the older eye is more vulnerable to cataracts (clouded lens) and macular degeneration (deterioration of the center of the retina, or macula). Macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness in people over the age of 60.

On the bright side, two carotenoid pigments in leafy greens--lutein and zeaxanthin--may help protect both the lens and the retina.

"Leafy greens are incredibly high in lutein and zeaxanthin, so just one or two servings a week places people in the highest intakes," says Julie Mares of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Wisconsin.

Researchers got interested in the two carotenoids in part because both concentrate in the eye. "The macular pigment is composed of lutein and zeaxanthin," says Mares. "The concentration in the macula is 100-fold higher than in the blood."

What's more, she adds, "they're the only carotenoids that accumulate in the lens, though the level in the lens is much lower than in the macula."

How might lutein and zeaxanthin protect the eye?

"In both the lens and the retina, we suspect that they act as antioxidants that scavenge marauding oxygen molecules called free radicals," says Mares.

"In the retina, we think that they also act as a filter that absorbs short wavelength--or blue--light, which is toxic to the retina."

But the human evidence that leafy greens--or lutein and zeaxanthin--can protect the eye is still modest.

In several large studies, people who reported consuming the most lutein and zeaxanthin had a 20 to 50 percent lower risk of cataract extractions. (1,2) Other studies found a lower risk of macular degeneration in people who consumed the most lutein and zeaxanthin. (3,4) However, some studies found no link or only saw it in women younger than 75. (5,6)

"The data are stronger for cataracts than for macular degeneration to date," says Mares. But that could be because cataracts are so much more common, which makes them easier to study.

Bottom line: it's too early to conclude that lutein and zeaxanthin can protect the eyes, but it's still worth eating leafy greens. "I do," says Mares. "They're so rich in micronutrients, there's sufficient evidence that they may protect the eyes, and there's no evidence that they're deleterious."

BONES

Which foods keep your skeleton strong? Most people would never think of kale, collards, spinach, and other greens as bone builders.

Yet researchers suspect that green leafy vegetables protect bone because they're loaded with vitamin K.

"They're the best known source of vitamin K," says Sarah Booth of the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston. "It's part of photosynthesis, so anything that's green has vitamin K."

Vitamin K is best known for its ability to help blood clot, but a growing body of evidence suggests that it does much more.

"Vitamin K is important for proper functioning of bone-dependent proteins," explains the Research Center's Katherine Tucker. "Bone is constantly breaking down and rebuilding, and it needs those proteins to rebuild."

When Tufts researchers looked at nearly 900 men and women in the Framingham Heart Study, those who consumed roughly 250 micrograms of vitamin K a day (largely from food) had a 65 percent lower risk of hip fractures than those who averaged around 55 micrograms a day. (7)

And in another study, of nearly 1,500 Framingham women, those who consumed more than about 200 micrograms of vitamin K a day had greater spine and hip bone density than those who typically ate less than about 100 micrograms a day. (8)

The question is whether it's vitamin K, something else in leafy greens, or something else about people who eat leafy greens that protects their bones. "People who eat leafy greens also eat a healthier diet and lead a healthier lifestyle," says Booth.

So clinical trials have given women either a placebo or vitamin K (with or without vitamin D) to see if it boosts their bone density. Three trials--testing 200 to 1,000 micrograms of vitamin K per day--have been done so far. (9-11)

- - -

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0813/is_6_34/ai_n27333489/pg_2?tag=artBody;col1

"A Dutch study found less bone loss at the hip, a British study found less bone loss only at the wrist, and a University of Wisconsin study found no effect anywhere," says Booth. "So the results are inconsistent."

Two larger studies--one at Tufts and one at the University of Toronto--are due out within the next year. "Together, they'll have 900 men and postmenopausal women, so that should answer the question," says Booth.

In the meantime, you can easily get enough vitamin K from greens. "You can get 500 micrograms in just half a cup of cooked collards," says Booth.

And even if the vitamin K in greens doesn't make bones denser, the greens may still strengthen your skeleton.

In several studies, people who reported eating more of any fruits and vegetables had higher bone density. (12,13) Researchers think that's because the potassium, magnesium, and other alkaline-forming minerals in produce neutralize acid-forming foods in the body.

"We get acids from the metabolism of foods like meat, some grains, and food additives like phosphoric acid in colas," says Tufts' Tucker.

(What matters isn't whether a food contains acid, but whether it makes the blood more acidic once the food is broken down and absorbed, she adds. Orange juice, for example, contains citric acid but makes the blood more alkaline.)

"If there's enough potassium, magnesium, and calcium in the diet, those minerals neutralize the acidic compounds," Tucker explains. "But if there's not enough alkaline to do the job, the blood gets acidic."

The body has to keep the acid-base balance in the blood within an extremely narrow range, she adds, "so it takes calcium out of bone to keep the balance."

Taking calcium from bones is no problem if it happens occasionally. "But if it happens continually, it's a major contributor to lower bone mineral density," says Tucker.

THE BRAIN & BEYOND

Researchers are hunting down clues that leafy greens may do more. For example:

* Memory. Women who consumed the most leafy greens had less cognitive decline--that is, a smaller drop in memory and other test scores over two years--than did women who consumed the fewest green leafy vegetables. (14)

* Diabetes. When researchers studied nearly 40,000 female health professionals, they found no link overall with fruits and vegetables. But among overweight women, those who consumed the most green leafy vegetables had about a 15 percent lower risk of diabetes than those who consumed the least. (15)

* Colon Cancer. Men who consumed the most green leafy vegetables (about two servings per day) had a 14 percent lower risk of colorectal cancer than those who consumed the least (about one serving per week). (16)

Some researchers think that the chlorophyll in green vegetables may counter the harm caused by heme, the iron-carrying pro-oxidant pigment that gives meat its red color. Feeding heme to rats makes their colon cells proliferate more, but adding either spinach or purified chlorophyll to their diet reverses the damage. (17)

- - -

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0813/is_6_34/ai_n27333489/pg_3?tag=artBody;col1

* Stroke. In a study of more than 75,000 women and 38,000 men, the risk of non-hemorrhagic stroke (which accounts for 80 percent of all strokes in the United States) was about 20 percent lower for every serving of green leafy vegetables people consumed per day, though other vegetables were also linked to a lower risk. (18)

And if those potential benefits--which need to be confirmed--aren't convincing, it's indisputable that leafy greens are a low-calorie, nutritional powerhouse.

"They've got vitamin K, potassium, and magnesium, along with antioxidants and other phytochemicals that are not well understood but that may also have protective effects," says Tucker. "They're super foods."

(1) Am. J. Epidemiol. 149: 810, 1999.

(2) Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 70: 509, 517, 1999.

(3) Am. J. Epidemiol. 153: 424, 2001.

(4) Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci. 47: 2329, 2006.

(5) Arch. Ophthalmol. 124: 1151, 2006.

(6) Ophthalmology 109: 2272, 2002.

(7) Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 71: 1201, 2000.

(8) Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 77: 512, 2003.

(9) Osteoporos. Int. (Feb. 8, 2007), doi:10.1007/s00198-007-0337-9.

(10) J. Bone Miner. Res. 22: 509, 2007.

(11) www.uwosteoporosis.org/Pdf%20land/ VitKabstract.pdf.

(12) Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 69: 727, 1999,

(13) Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 79: 155, 2004.

(14) Ann. Neurol. 57: 713, 2005.

(15) Diabetes Care 27: 2993, 2004.

(16) Am. J. Epidemiol. doi:10.1093/aje/kwm067.

(17) Carcinogenesis 26: 387, 2005.

(18) JAMA 282: 1233, 1999.

Greens with Envy

Most green leafy vegetables supply not just vitamin
K and lutein, but one to three days' worth of
vitamin A and 10% to 20% of a day's vitamin C and
folate. (If you take Coumadin or other blood thinners,
ask your doctor to adjust the dose to accommodate
the vitamin K in the greens you eat regularly.)

Vegetable
(1/2 cup cooked, Vitamin K Lutein *
unless noted) (mcg) (mcg)

Kale 530 11,900
Spinach 440 10,200
Swiss chard 290 9,600
Collards 500 7,300
Turnip greens 260 6,100
Mustard greens 210 4,200
Spinach (1 cup raw) 140 3,700
Dandelion greens 100 2,500
Beet greens 350 1,300
Romaine lettuce (1 cup raw) 50 1,100
Boston (Bibb) lettuce (1 cup raw) 60 700
Parsley (10 sprigs raw) 160 600
Iceberg lettuce (1 cup raw) 20 200

* Includes zeaxanthin.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.

7 Things you can do to save the rainforest

7 things you can do to save the rainforest

http://www.certisource.co.uk/Press_Articles/Article_Archive/articles/7%20things%20you%20can%20do%20to%20save%20the%20rainforest%20by%20the%20rainforest%20action%20network.htm

1) reduce your paper and wood consumption.
Logging companies are cutting down some of the most endangered forests on the planet to make wood and paper products such as office paper, phone books, toilet paper, window trim, lawn furniture, and 2 x 4's. Over seventy-eight percent of the Earth's original old growth forests have already been logged or degraded.

You can help reduce the pressure on our remaining forests by taking simple steps to reduce your own wood and paper use. For example, use both sides of each piece of paper, use your own cloth bags at the grocery store, use cloth napkins and towels, and avoid disposable paper plates and cups.

When purchasing paper products, choose products with the highest percentage of recycled content —post-consumer recycled content is the best. Choose tree-free paper alternatives if possible. Tree-free paper is made from agricultural products like waste straw, kenaf, and hemp, so not a single tree is cut down for its production!

If you are building a house or adding on to your home, utilize wood efficient building techniques and avoid old growth wood products. Learn about alternatives such as reclaimed or recycled lumber, composite lumber, and independently certified wood. See our website for more information on old growth wood alternatives.

2) reduce your oil consumption.
The burning of oil, gas, and coal is the primary cause of climate change, a trend that is threatening the stability of the global climate. Scientists have predicted that if we stay on our current path, global temperatures will rise between 2° and 9° Fahrenheit in the next century —a warming rate faster than any occurring in the last ten thousand years. In addition, oil exploration projects lead to toxic pollution and massive deforestation, posing a threat to pristine ecosystems and indigenous cultures worldwide.

You can help alleviate oil's impact on the environment by reducing your own oil and gas consumption. The next time you purchase a car, choose one that gets good gas mileage and avoid gas guzzling sports utility vehicles. If you drive somewhere regularly, start a carpool. Whenever possible, leave your car at home and instead walk, ride your bike, or take local mass transportation. Support funding for mass transportation and bike lanes —options that will serve our transportation needs and our planet much better in the long run than an ever-expanding maze of roads and highways!

3) reduce your beef consumption.
Rainforest beef is typically found in fast food hamburgers or processed beef products. In both 1993 and 1994 the U. S. imported over 200 million pounds of fresh and frozen beef from Central American countries. Two-thirds of these countries' rainforests have been cleared, in part to raise cattle whose meat is exported to profit the U. S. food industry. When it enters the U. S. the beef is not labeled with its country of origin, so there is no way to trace it to its source. Reducing your consumption of beef will reduce demand for it, cutting back on pressure to clear more forests for cattle. For more information on the connection between beef and the environment, contact Earthsave International, 1509 Seabright Avenue, Suite B1, Santa Cruz, CA 95062; 1-800-362-3648; http://www.earthsave.org/.

4) hold businesses accountable.
Corporations need to know that the public will hold them accountable for business practices that are socially or environmentally destructive. If you feel that a company's business practices are environmentally irresponsible, send the company a letter expressing your concern, or organize a boycott of the company. Below you'll find information about two companies that you can write to today to help protect the Earth's forests. To learn more about these companies, please visit our website at http://www.ran.org/.

a. Boise sells wood products from the world's most endangered forests, including the tropical rainforests of the Amazon and Southeast Asia and the temperate rainforests of Chile. Boise is also the country's largest logger of U. S. public lands. Please ask Boise to phase out its logging and distribution of old growth wood. Write to George Harad, Chairman &CEO, Boise Corporation, 1111 West Jefferson Street, PO Box 50, Boise, ID 83728.

b. Citigroup is a key financial player in many of the world's most destructive projects, including construction of the Chad/Cameroon oil pipeline in Africa, the replacement of orangutan habitat with palm plantations in Indonesia, and the logging of California's Headwaters Forest. If you have a Citibank credit card, cut it up! Mail the cut up card back to Citibank in your next bill statement, and let them know why you no longer want to be a customer. If you are not a Citigroup customer, let them know that you will never be a customer unless they change their business practices. Call Citigroup at 1-800-456-4277 or write to Mr. Sandy Weill, Chairman and CEO, Citigroup, 153 East 53rd Street, New York, New York 10043.

5) invest in rainforest communities.
RAN's Protect-an-Acre Program was created to protect the world's rainforests and to support the rights of rainforest communities. The Protect-an-Acre Program is an alternative to "buy-an-acre" programs, which tend to ignore the fact that there are often people who depend on the forest and have lived in the forest sustainably for centuries. Protect-an-Acre provides funding to help forest peoples gain legal recognition of their territories, develop locally-based alternative economic initiatives, and resist destructive practices such as logging and fossil fuel development. For information about how you can support the Protect-an-Acre program, visit the Protect-an-Acre section of our website.

6) Support the grassroots.
In 1999, Home Depot, the single largest retailer of lumber in the world, agreed to phase out its sales of old growth wood. This victory was a direct result of the hard work of grassroots activists, who staged more than six hundred demonstrations at Home Depot stores across the U. S. and Canada. You can play a critical role in future victories by joining or starting a Grassroots Action Group in your area! Contact RAN's Grassroots Coordinator at 415-398-4404 or organize@ran.org for help in finding a local group or advice on starting your own group. Equally important, help protect the forests in your region by getting involved with a local forest preservation group.

7) support Rainforest Action Network.
Rainforest Action Network is an effective, hard-hitting organization. In 1985, RAN launched a nationwide boycott of Burger King, which was importing cheap beef from tropical rainforest countries. Two years later, Burger King canceled thirty-five million dollars worth of beef contracts and agreed to stop importing beef from the rainforest. RAN then led a global consumer boycott against Mitsubishi, which resulted in Mitsubishi Motor Sales America and Mitsubishi Electric America committing to unprecedented environmental reviews of their business activities. Most recently, as a result of a two year campaign led by RAN, the nation's top home improvement etailers and largest home builders agreed to phase out the sale and use of wood from the Earth's endangered forests. None of these victories would have been possible without the support of our members. To join RAN, please call us at (415) 398-4404 or join online!

Resources for more information
Breeden, Stanley. Visions of a Rainforest: A Year in Australia’s Tropical Rainforest. Ten Speed Press, 1993.

Brown, Lester R. State of the World: A Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Toward a Sustainable Society. W. W. Norton & Company, published yearly.

Caufield, Catherine. In the Rainforest. University of Chicago Press, 1984.

Forsyth, Adrian and Ken Miyata. Tropical Nature: Life and Death in the Rain Forests of Central and South America. MacMillan Publishing Co., 1987.

Hawken, Paul. The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability. HarperBusiness, 1993.

Korten, David C. When Corporations Rule the World. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1996.

Rifkin, Jeremy. Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of Cattle Culture. Dutton/Penguin, 1992.

Schoonmaker, Peter K., Bettina Von Hagen and Edward C. Wolf, eds. The Rain Forests of Home: Profile of a North American Bioregion. Island Press, 1997.

Rainforestweb.org: http://www.rainforestweb.org/

Rainforest Action Network: http://www.ran.org/

World Resources Institute: http://www.wri.org/

Worldwatch Institute: http://www.worldwatch.org

Gaia Forest Conservation Archives: http://forests.org/

Wendell Berry, from "The Unsettling of America"

“By now the [commercial] revolution has deprived the mass of consumers of any independent access to the staples of life: clothing, shelter, food, even water,” Wendell Berry wrote in “The Unsettling of America.” “Air remains the only necessity that the average user can still get for himself, and the revolution had imposed a heavy tax on that by way of pollution. Commercial conquest is far more thorough and final than military defeat.”

~Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture

Wendell Berry: "In Distrust of Movements"

The movements which deal with single issues or single solutions are bound to fail because they cannot control effects while leaving causes in place.

From Resurgance Issue 198

More articles by Wendell Berry

I HAVE HAD WITH MY friend Wes Jackson a number of useful conversations about the necessity of getting out of movements — even movements that have seemed necessary and dear to us — when they have lapsed into self-righteousness and self-betrayal, as movements seem almost invariably to do. People in movements too readily learn to deny to others the rights and privileges they demand for themselves. They too easily become unable to mean their own language, as when a “peace movement” becomes violent. They often become too specialized, as if finally they cannot help taking refuge in the pinhole vision of the institutional intellectuals. They almost always fail to be radical enough, dealing finally in effects rather than causes. Or they deal with single issues or single solutions, as if to assure themselves that they will not be radical enough.

resurgence.jpg

And so I must declare my dissatisfaction with movements to promote soil conservation or clean water or clean air or wilderness preservation or sustainable agriculture or community health or the welfare of children. Worthy as these and other goals may be, they cannot be achieved alone. I am dissatisfied with such efforts because they are too specialized, they are not comprehensive enough, they are not radical enough, they virtually predict their own failure by implying that we can remedy or control effects while leaving causes in place. Ultimately, I think, they are insincere; they propose that the trouble is caused by other people; they would like to change policy but not behaviour.

The worst danger may be that a movement will lose its language either to its own confusion about meaning and practice, or to pre-emption by its enemies. I remember, for example, my naïve confusion at learning that it was possible for advocates of organic agriculture to look upon the “organic method” as an end in itself. To me, organic farming was attractive both as a way of conserving nature and as a strategy of survival for small farmers.

Imagine my surprise in discovering that there could be huge “organic” monocultures. And so I was not too surprised by the recent attempt of the United States Department of Agriculture to appropriate the “organic” label for food irradiation, genetic engineering, and other desecrations of the corporate food economy. Once we allow our language to mean anything that anybody wants it to mean, it becomes impossible to mean what we say. When “homemade” ceases to mean neither more nor less than “made at home”, then it means anything, which is to say that it means nothing.

AS YOU SEE, I have good reasons for declining to name the movement I think I am a part of. I am reconciled to the likelihood that from time to time it will name itself and have slogans, but I am not going to use its slogans or call it by any of its names.

Let us suppose that we have a Nameless Movement for Better Land Use and that we know we must try to keep it active, responsive and intelligent for a long time. What must we do?

What we must do above all, I think, is try to see the problem in its full size and difficulty. If we are concerned about land abuse, then we must see that this is an economic problem. Every economy is, by definition, a land-using economy. If we are using our land wrongly, then something is wrong with our economy. This is difficult. It becomes more difficult when we recognize that, in modern times, every one of us is a member of the economy of everybody else.

But if we are concerned about land abuse, we have begun a profound work of economic criticism. Study of the history of land use (and any local history will do) informs us that we have had for a long time an economy that thrives by undermining its own foundations. Industrialism, which is the name of our economy, and which is now virtually the only economy of the world, has been from its beginnings in a state of riot. It is based squarely upon the principle of violence toward everything on which it depends, and it has not mattered whether the form of industrialism was communist or capitalist or whatever; the violence toward nature, human communities, traditional agricultures and local economies has been constant. The bad news is coming in, literally, from all over the world. Can such an economy be fixed without being radically changed? I don’t think it can.

The Captains of Industry have always counselled the rest of us to be “realistic”. Let us, therefore, be realistic. Is it realistic to assume that the present economy would be just fine if only it would stop poisoning the air and water, or if only it would stop soil erosion, or if only it would stop degrading watersheds and forest ecosystems, or if only it would stop seducing children, or if only it would quit buying politicians, or if only it would give women and favoured minorities an equitable share of the loot? Realism, I think, is a very limited programme, but it informs us at least that we should not look for bird eggs in a cuckoo clock.

OR WE CAN SHOW the hopelessness of single-issue causes and single-issue movements by following a line of thought such as this: We need a continuous supply of uncontaminated water. Therefore, we need (among other things) soil-and-water-conserving ways of agriculture and forestry that are not dependent on monoculture, toxic chemicals, or the indifference and violence that always accompany big-scale industrial enterprises on the land.

Therefore, we need diversified, small-scale land economies that are dependent on people. Therefore, we need people with the knowledge, skills, motives and attitudes required by diversified, small-scale land economies. And all this is clear and comfortable enough, until we recognize the question we have come to: Where are the people?

Well, all of us who live in the suffering rural landscapes of the United States know that most people are available to those landscapes only recreationally. We see them bicycling or boating or hiking or camping or hunting or fishing or driving along and looking around. They do not, in Mary Austin’s phrase, “summer and winter with the land”. They are unacquainted with the land’s human and natural economies. Though people have not progressed beyond the need to eat food and drink water and wear clothes and live in houses, most people have progressed beyond the domestic arts — the husbandry and wifery of the world — by which those needful things are produced and conserved. In fact, the comparative few who still practise that necessary husbandry and wifery often are inclined to apologize for doing so, having been carefully taught in our education system that those arts are degrading and unworthy of people’s talents. Educated minds, in the modern era, are unlikely to know anything about food and drink, clothing and shelter. In merely taking these things for granted, the modern educated mind reveals itself also to be as superstitious a mind as ever has existed in the world. What could be more superstitious than the idea that money brings forth food?

I AM NOT SUGGESTING, of course, that everybody ought to be a farmer or a forester. Heaven forbid! I am suggesting that most people now are living on the far side of a broken connection, and that this is potentially catastrophic. Most people are now fed, clothed and sheltered from sources toward which they feel no gratitude and exercise no responsibility. There is no significant urban constituency, no formidable consumer lobby, no noticeable political leadership, for good land-use practices, for good farming and good forestry, for restoration of abused land, or for halting the destruction of land by so-called “development”.

We are involved now in a profound failure of imagination. Most of us cannot imagine the wheat beyond the bread, or the farmer beyond the wheat, or the farm beyond the farmer, or the history beyond the farm. Most people cannot imagine the forest and the forest economy that produced their houses and furniture and paper; or the landscapes, the streams and the weather that fill their pitchers and bathtubs and swimming pools with water. Most people appear to assume that when they have paid their money for these things they have entirely met their obligations.

Money does not bring forth food. Neither does the technology of the food system. Food comes from nature and from the work of people. If the supply of food is to be continuous for a long time, then people must work in harmony with nature. That means that people must find the right answers to a lot of hard practical questions. The same applies to forestry and the possibility of a continuous supply of timber.

One way we could describe the task ahead of us is by saying that we need to enlarge the consciousness and the conscience of the economy. Our economy needs to know — and care — what it is doing. This is revolutionary, of course, if you have a taste for revolution, but it is also a matter of common sense.

Undoubtedly some people will want to start a movement to bring this about. They probably will call it the Movement to Teach the Economy What It Is Doing — the mtewiid. Despite my very considerable uneasiness, I will agree to this, but on three conditions.

My first condition is that this movement should begin by giving up all hope and belief in piecemeal, one-shot solutions. The present scientific quest for odourless hog manure should give us sufficient proof that the specialist is no longer with us. Even now, after centuries of reductionist propaganda, the world is still intricate and vast, as dark as it is light, a place of mystery, where we cannot do one thing without doing many things, or put two things together without putting many things together. Water quality, for example, cannot be improved without improving farming and forestry, but farming and forestry cannot be improved without improving the education of consumers — and so on.

The proper business of a human economy is to make one whole thing of ourselves and this world. To make ourselves into a practical wholeness with the land under our feet is maybe not altogether possible — how would we know? — but, as a goal, it at least carries us beyond hubris, beyond the utterly groundless assumption that we can subdivide our present great failure into a thousand separate problems that can be fixed by a thousand task forces of academic and bureaucratic specialists. That programme has been given more than a fair chance to prove itself, and we ought to know by now that it won’t work.

My second condition is that the people in this movement (the mtewiid) should take full responsibility for themselves as members of the economy. If we are going to teach the economy what it is doing, then we need to learn what we are doing. This is going to have to be a private movement as well as a public one. If it is unrealistic to expect wasteful industries to be conservers, then obviously we must lead in part the public life of complainers, petitioners, protesters, advocates and supporters of stricter regulations and saner policies. But that is not enough.

If it is unreasonable to expect a bad economy to try to become a good one, then we must go to work to build a good economy. It is appropriate that this duty should fall to us, for good economic behaviour is more possible for us than it is for the great corporations with their miseducated managers and their greedy and oblivious stockholders. Because it is possible for us, we must try in every way we can to make good economic sense in our own lives, in our households, and in our communities. We must do more for ourselves and our neighbours. We must learn to spend our money with our friends and not with our enemies. But to do this it is necessary to renew local economies and revive the domestic arts.

In seeking to change our economic use of the world, we are seeking inescapably to change our lives. The outward harmony that we desire between our economy and the world depends finally upon an inward harmony between our own hearts and the originating spirit that is the life of all creatures, a spirit as near us as our flesh and yet forever beyond the measures of this obsessively measuring age. We can grow good wheat and make good bread only if we understand that we do not live by bread alone.

My third condition is that this movement should content itself to be poor. We need to find cheap solutions, solutions within the reach of everybody, and the availability of a lot of money prevents the discovery of cheap solutions. The solutions of modern medicine and modern agriculture are all staggeringly expensive, and this is caused in part, and maybe altogether, because of the availability of huge sums of money for medical and agricultural research.

Too much money, moreover, attracts administrators and experts as sugar attracts ants — look at what is happening in our universities. We should not envy rich movements that are organized and led by an alternative bureaucracy living on the problems it is supposed to solve. We want a movement that is a movement because it is advanced by all its members in their daily lives.

NOW, HAVING COMPLETED this very formidable list of the problems and difficulties, fears and fearful hopes that lie ahead of us, I am relieved to see that I have been preparing myself all along to end by saying something cheerful. What I have been talking about is the possibility of renewing human respect for this Earth and all the good, useful and beautiful things that come from it. I have made it clear, I hope, that I don’t think this respect can be adequately enacted or conveyed by tipping our hats to nature or by representing natural loveliness in art or by prayers of thanksgiving or by preserving tracts of wilderness — although I recommend all those things. The respect I mean can be given only by using well the world’s goods that are given to us. This good use, which renews respect — which is the only currency, so to speak, of respect — also renews our pleasure. The callings and disciplines that I have spoken of as the domestic arts are stationed all along the way from the farm to the prepared dinner, from the forest to the dinner table, from stewardship of the land to hospitality to friends and strangers. These arts are as demanding and gratifying, as instructive and as pleasing, as the so-called “fine arts”. To learn them is, I believe, the work that is our profoundest calling. Our reward is that they will enrich our lives and make us glad.
This article is reprinted from Orion magazine.
Wendell Berry is a farmer, a poet and a novelist.

Wendell Berry

"It is better to sustain a small population indefinitely than to build up a large artificial population on an agricultural system of which the basic principle is its willingness to destroy itself."

-Wendell Berry

Dog's New Years Resolutions

Dog's New Years resolutions

1. I will not play tug-of-war with Daddy's underwear when he's on the
can.

2. I will remember the garbage collector is NOT stealing our stuff.

3. I will not suddenly stand straight up when I'm lying under the
coffee table.

4. I will not roll my toys behind the fridge.

5. I will shake the rainwater out of my fur BEFORE entering the
house.

6. I will not eat the cat's food before or after he eats it.

7. I will stop trying to find new places on the carpet when I am
about to throw up.

8. I will not throw up in the car.

9. I will not roll on dead things.

10. I will stop considering the cat's litter box as a cookie jar.

11. I will not wake up Mommy by putting my cold, wet nose up her
bottom end.

12. I will not chew my human's toothbrush and not tell them.

13. I will not chew crayons or pens, especially not the red ones, or
my people will think that I am hemorrhaging.

14. When in the car, I will not insist on having the window rolled
down when it's raining outside.

15. I will not drop soggy tennis balls in the underwear of anyone who
is sitting on the can.

16. We do not have a doorbell. Therefore, I will not bark each time I
hear one on the television.

17. I will not steal my Mommy's underwear out of the laundry basket
and then dance all over the back yard with them.

18. I will remember the sofa is not a face towel and neither are
Mommy's & Daddy's laps.

19. I will remember my head does not belong in the refrigerator.

20. I will not bite the officer's hand when he reaches in for Mommy's
driver's license and car registration.

Be an inspiration in 2009

Be an Inspiration in 2009!

Start fresh for the New Year and be an inspiration to yourself and others. Make your New Year’s Resolution one that will benefit your health, the environment, and the animals! If you haven’t yet “kicked the meat habit,” gradually work to replace meat in your diet with wholesome fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and legumes. If you’re already vegetarian, resolve to make the transition to a completely plant-based diet by choosing healthy alternatives to eggs and dairy.

Here are some tips on how you can further explore a plant-based diet:

* Check out meat-free items at the grocery store, such as tofu and other soy-based products, as well as ready-made meals.
* Expand your options and try new fruits and vegetables – you’ll find there are many more you’ll enjoy.
* Sample meat-free options at ethnic restaurants.
* Experiment in the kitchen and be more creative with your meals.
* Keep your kitchen stocked with healthy snacks such as nuts, fruits, and vegetables.
* For decadent fun, try soy or rice based ice creams and puddings.
* Have fun with it and relax! Nobody is perfect, so if you slip up, just get back on track rather than feeling bad about it.

Order a Free Vegetarian Starter Kit for you or a friend at www.VegKit.org [ http://www.vegkit.org/ ]

7 New Years Resolutions that Factory Farm Animals Wish We'd Make: How to Be a Kinder Carnivore In the Coming Year

7 New Year's Resolutions That Factory Farm Animals Wish We'd Make
How to be a kinder carnivore in the coming year

http://www.thedailygreen.com/print-this/environmental-news/blogs/american/7-New-Years-Resolutions-That-Factory-Farm-Animals-Wish-We'd-Make-491217

Factory farm animals are raised under extremely difficult conditions that you really don't want many details about. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be aware of their plight. Here are some ways you can make a difference with your dollars...in support of compassionately raised animals in the new year. factory farm cow

1. Shop for meats labeled “raised without antibiotics.” Shooting us up with antibiotics allows them to raise us in inhumanely close, hideously dirty conditions where we'd otherwise get sick and die if we weren't preemptively administered this stuff. If more people demand drug-free meat, they'd have to improve our living conditions. Which would be nice for us, and probably healthier for you, too.

2. Shop for meats raised on local family farms. Traditional farmers are more likely to practice compassionate farming techniques, raising us in more traditional fields and barns. The more that people buy their meats, the more local farmers there will be, and the less expensive their products will become. Then there will be enough suffering-free foods for everyone.

3. Shop for milk labeled “no artficial growth hormones.” The reason they use this stuff is to get more milk per cow, which seems like a great idea except that it often causes infected udders and then they have to treat us with those antibiotics again. Not to mention these hormones are banned in Japan, Europe and Canada. Hello???.

4. Try to eat at least one vegetarian meal a week. Not only will it be healthy and delicious, and you know, it won't kill you.

5. Try explaining to your beloved family dog or cat why you have to eat meat every single day. Look ʻem right in the eyes to gauge their reaction to this.

6. Remember that if God did mean for people to eat us, he certainly didn't mean for us to have to suffer for it. You might mention this to a factory farm CEO.

7. Don't just look for the cheapest meat you can find. There's usually a reason this meat is cheap (antibiotics, harsh living conditions, E. coli recalls, etc.). Believe us. We factory animals pay a big price for cheaply produced meats.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

RIDE THAT WAVE! =)

"10 Ways to Eat Healthy on a Budget" by Heather Havey, M.A.

"10 Ways to Eat Healthy on a Budget" by Heather Havey, M.A.

1. Grow your own organic food. Seeds are very affordable. Simply takes a bit of prep, water, sunlight, and TLC. The joy of harvesting food that you grew yourself is priceless, will bring you great joy, and can change your life. Watching these plants grow can bring you peace, gratitude, and awe. Feeding yourself, friends, and loved ones will also bring you great joy.

2. Buy organic from local farmers. Food that has been shipped around the country or world is more expensive than food grown in your own town. Also, by supporting local organic farmers, you are supporting a healthier world (no poisons), and you are not supporting the destructive corporatization of the bigger farms. Huge companies typically care about profit and growth; consideration of your health is an afterthought, if a thought at all.

3. Buy seasonal produce. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and grains that are in season, are cheaper to buy.

4. Drink more water. People spend a LOT of money on sodas, alcohol, coffee, tea, and so on. Drink more water. Also, do not buy bottled water. Drink water purified from your own faucet or well. Also, you can easily grow camomile, peppermint, lavender, and other herbs to make your own tea with.

5. Buy bulk. You will save money by not buying quantities of foods with no need for packaging materials.

6. Prepare your own food rather than eating our or buying prepackaged meals. This always saves money. Also, typically your own homemade meals will be significantly healthier than any canned, jarred, packaged, processed, altered, or restaurant foods (though some restaurants can be very healthy).

7. Be a grazer. Rather than prepare elaborate and expensive meals, eat simply. Make a simple salad. Eat a cucumber, sliced. Eat a piece of fruit. Make a simple fruit salad. Make a simple soup. If you have fruit trees in your yard, you can eat those fruits for a snack. Be a grazer, of natural foods.

8. Eat less: when you feel hungry, sometimes all you need is a big glass of water. Americans eat far too much food!!! Eat smaller quantities of more nutritious food.

9. Organize potluck dinners or picnics with friends...and enjoy them out in nature.

10. If you see a particular sale on an item, eat that for the day or week.

Heather Havey, M.A., is a naturalist, veganic farmer, and author. She teaches yoga/meditation as well as organic farming techniques. She supports the "food not lawns" philosophy of filling your life with natural organic beauty, wildlife, and nature - rather than overly-manicured, poison-filled "lawns." To reach her: www.peacethroughkindness.com

Click here to read more articles by Heather Havey.
Click here to see books published by Heather Havey.

God's pharmacy

God's Pharmacy

A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye... and YES, science now shows carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.

A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart has four chambers and is red. All of the research shows tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and are indeed pure heart and blood food.

Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.

A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrum and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are just like the neocortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than three (3) dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.
Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.

Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and many more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don't have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.

Avocados, Eggplant and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today's research shows that when a woman eats one Avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? It takes exactly nine (9) months to grow an Avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 proteolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).

Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm as well to overcome male sterility.

Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.
Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries

Oranges, Grapefruits, and other Citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.
Onions, look like the body's cells. Today's research shows onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes. A working companion, Garlic, also helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from the body.

How the West's Energy Boom Could Threaten Drinking Water for 1 in 12 Americans

How the West's Energy Boom Could Threaten Drinking Water for 1 in 12 Americans
By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica
December 26, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/115017
http://www.alternet.org/water/115017/
http://www.alternet.org/story/115017/

This story was co-published with the San Diego Union-Tribune and also appears in that newspaper's Dec. 21, 2008 issue.

The Colorado River, the life vein of the Southwestern United States, is in trouble.

The river's water is hoarded the moment it trickles out of the mountains of Wyoming and Colorado and begins its 1,450-mile journey to Mexico's border. It runs south through seven states and the Grand Canyon, delivering water to Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Diego. Along the way, it powers homes for 3 million people, nourishes 15 percent of the nation's crops and provides drinking water to one in 12 Americans.

Now a rush to develop domestic oil, gas and uranium deposits along the river and its tributaries threatens its future.

The region could contain more oil than Alaska's National Arctic Wildlife Refuge. It has the richest natural gas fields in the country. And nuclear energy, viewed as a key solution to the nation's dependence on foreign energy, could use the uranium deposits held there.

But getting those resources would suck up vast quantities of the river's water and could pollute what is left. That's why those most concerned are water managers in places like Los Angeles and San Diego. They have the most to lose.

The river is already so beleaguered by drought and climate change that one environmental study called it the nation's "most endangered" waterway. Researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography warn the river's reservoirs could dry up in 13 years.

The industrial push has already begun.

In the eight years George W. Bush has been in office, the Colorado River watershed has seen more oil and gas drilling than at any time in the past 25 years. Uranium claims have reached a 10-year high. Last week the departing administration auctioned off an additional 148,598 acres of federal land for gas drilling projects outside Moab, Utah.

As still more land is leased for drilling and a last-minute change in federal rules has paved the way for water-intensive oil shale mining, politicians and water managers are now being forced to ask which is more valuable: energy or water.

"The decisions we are making today will be dictating how we will be living the rest of our lives," said Jim Pokrandt, a spokesman with the Colorado River Conservation District, a state-run policy agency. "We may have reached mutually exclusive demands on our water supply."

Some experts and officials say the economic and ecological importance of the Colorado is just as vital to American security as the natural resources that can be extracted from around it.

"Without (the Colorado), there is no Western United States," said Jim Baca, who directed the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, in the Clinton administration and says the agency's current policy is narrow-sighted. "If it becomes unusable, you move the entire Western United States out of any sort of economic position for growth."

Balancing that risk with the need for energy is complicated, because scientific understanding of the Colorado is limited and no single agency manages the river as a national resource.

The Interior Department, which includes the BLM, oversees where the water goes, but not how it is kept clean. The EPA is charged with maintaining water quality, but it can't control who uses it and doesn't conduct its own research. Furthermore, the EPA delegates much of its authority to the states that the river runs through, and the federal, state and local authorities in charge of separate aspects of the river don't always coordinate or cooperate.

"I don't know that there is, quite honestly, anyone that looks at an entire overview impact statement of the Colorado River," said Robert Walsh, a spokesman for the Bureau of Reclamation, which governs the allocation and flow of the southern part of the waterway.

Desolation Canyon, Utah. (Ray Bloxham/SUWA)
Oil and natural gas drilling in Colorado already require so much water that if its annual demand were satisfied all at once, it would be the equivalent of shutting off most of Southern California's water for five days. If Colorado's oil shale is mined, it would turn off the spigot for 79 days.

Although company executives insist they adhere to environmental laws, natural gas drilling has led to numerous toxic spills across the West. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, mining has contaminated four out of 10 streams and rivers in the West. Similarly, mining has topped the government's list of the most polluting industries for the past decade, and new mine problems continue to arise today.

Industry representatives and the Bush administration say breaking America's dependence on foreign oil makes using all available energy resources here at home a priority.

"I believe this country needs to offer domestic resources to be energy independent," said Tim Spisak, a senior official who heads the BLM's oil and gas development group. "The way to do that is to responsibly develop public resources on our lands."

Critics of Bush's energy policies said they favor business interests at a time when climate change demands a fundamental shift in the way the nation values water. They also complain that the administration doesn't grasp the West's looming water problem.

"When Lake Mead goes dry, you cut off supply to the fifth largest economy in the world," said Patricia Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, referring to the reservoir that sits behind the Hoover Dam and controls water flow to the Southwest's cities. She points out that while some dispute the timing of Lake Mead's demise, no one says it won't happen.

"We've ignored the need to adapt," Mulroy said. "We've never looked at what the secondary impact of, say, an energy decision is."

Both the U.S. House and Senate are considering bills that would require better management of the nation's water quality and water assets. But the bills focus more on the threat of climate change than the threat of industrial development. A growing number of water professionals say even a congressional act isn't enough to clarify the government's responsibility. They want the president to appoint a new national water authority -- or even a cabinet-level water czar.

"If you are really going to deal with water, the nation needs to deal with it in a far more comprehensive manner," said Brad Udall, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's water assessment program at the University of Colorado. "We can't afford to play around with potentially damaging activities."

The Southern Nevada Water Authority, the state of Arizona and the Metropolitan Water District, which governs the water supply to Los Angeles and San Diego, have implored Bush's Interior to proceed with caution as it races in these last days to develop mining, gas and oil near the river.

"We have other sources of power," said Jeffrey Kightlinger, MWD's General Manager. "We don't have other sources of water."

Hot Water

One of those alternative sources of energy is uranium, which is essential to the production of nuclear energy. In the last six years, new uranium mining claims within five miles of the river have nearly tripled, from 395 to 1,195, according to a review of BLM records by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based policy organization.

Although few of those claims will actually be mined, mining has a track record of contamination that alarms water officials dependant on the river. The Metropolitan Water District points to a 16 million ton pile of radioactive waste near Moab as a warning of what can happen when mining isn’t carefully controlled.

The pile sits on the banks of the Colorado at the site of a mill that once processed uranium for nuclear warheads. The plant closed in 1984, but the Grand Canyon Trust estimates 110,000 gallons of radioactive groundwater still seep into the river there each day. The U.S. Department of Energy decided in 2000 to move the pile away from the river. But the planning was so complicated and the cost so high -- estimates top $1 billion -- that the first loads of waste won't be hauled off until next year.

The mill site in Moab, Utah (Nuclear Regulatory Commission)
The industry says the Moab case is an outdated blight from the distant past.

"What gets my ire up is when we get compared to stuff that happened in the 60s. There is no argument from us now about being careful... with an eye to preserving the environment," said Peter Farmer, CEO of Denison Mines, a Canadian company that operates seven U.S. mines as well as the nation's only operating uranium mill in Blanding, Utah.

Denison recently spent more than $5 million to triple-line a waste pit and outfit it with leak detection sensors. It's cheaper to pay up front, Farmer says, than to clean up later.

Roger Haskins, a specialist in mining law at the BLM, agrees that concerns over mining are overblown. He says landmark environmental regulations in the 1970s prepared the industry for the 21st century. While it's still easy to stake a mining claim, projects must now undergo extensive environmental review before they can be turned into mines.

"Whatever happens out there is thoroughly manageable in today's regulatory environment," Haskins said.

Scientists say some degree of pollution is inevitable, because mining sometimes uses toxic chemicals like cyanide. It also exposes naturally toxic metals that would otherwise remain deep underground.

Drilling for uranium creates pathways where raw, radioactive material can migrate into underground aquifers that drain into the river. Surface water can seep into the drill holes and mine shafts, picking up traces of uranium and then percolating into underground water sources. The milling process itself creates six pounds of radioactive and toxic waste -- including ammonia, arsenic, lead and mercury -- for every ounce of uranium produced.

"There has to be some impact to downstream water. Whether or not we can measure -- that is the question," said David Naftz, a hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Salt Lake City who studies uranium mining.

Naftz has documented dangerous levels of uranium near waste dumps at more than 50 separate test sites in Utah. While much of the mining happens in high, dry places where contaminants don't easily seep into surface water, he says periodic storms can still wash them into the river.

"What we've done is kind of upset the geochemical equilibriums in these basins by taking these ores and exposing them to conditions on the surface," he said. "The question is, how long is it going to take to transport them down to water systems?"

Pollution problems with gold, copper and other mines also challenge the assertion that technology and better regulation have eliminated the environmental risks.

One study compared the EPA's environmental impact statements for 25 sites to what really happened after mining took place. Water at three quarters of the mines was found to be contaminated, even though the mines used technology and techniques that the EPA had said would keep the environment clean, according to the research done for the Earthworks by Jim Kuipers, an environmental engineer in Butte, Mont. and Ann Maest in Boulder, Colo.

At least four large mines that operated as recently as the 1990s -- long after new regulatory standards were put in place -- have caused so much contamination that the EPA designated them as priority Superfund cleanup sites. One rendered a 20-mile stretch of a Colorado River tributary completely dead.

"Promises are made and promises are broken," said Roger Clark, who is director of the Grand Canyon Trust's air and energy program and has been monitoring the rise in mining claims near the Grand Canyon. "This is not something we can sit back and take industry's word for."

Clark, who explored the Colorado River as a Boy Scout and later as a river guide, already has seen signs of the park's decline. On a recent hike along the Grand Canyon's rim, he passed a stream whose water he drank freely as a boy. Now it's marked with a sign saying, "Drinking and bathing in these waters is not advisable." The Park Service posted the same warning along five other canyon streams that feed into the Colorado, because high concentrations of uranium have leached into the water, likely from old mines.

In June, the House Natural Resources Committee invoked a rarely-used authority to force the Bush administration to make one million acres of public land adjacent to the park ineligible for exploration. Two months later, though, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne allowed some 20 new claims in the area by deciding that the committee's move violated executive authority.

Secret Chemicals

In the last decade, a pattern of contamination has also emerged in places where natural gas drilling has intensified. If drilling increases substantially across Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, it could also imperil the river.

A waste pit at a natural gas drilling site (Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica)
Most wells rely on a process called

hydraulic fracturing

, which requires as much as two million gallons of water plus small amounts of often-toxic chemicals for a single well. The waste water then sits in open pits until it is treated, recycled or disposed of.

In February a waste pit high on a mesa overlooking the town of Parachute, Colo. sprang a leak, allowing some 1.6 million gallons of fluid to soak into the arid earth. According to state records, the spill migrated underground until it seeped from a cliff side and froze into a gray pillar of ice more than 200 feet tall. When it melted, the fluids dripped into the torrid currents of Parachute Creek and finally dumped into the Colorado River.

Although the number of gas drilling accidents in the upper Colorado River watershed is small relative to the amount of drilling, they have begun adding up. Colorado state records show that of some 1,500 spills in drilling areas since 2003, more than 300 have seeped into water. In one case last summer a truck carrying drilling fluids crashed into the Colorado, where it remained partially submerged for more than three weeks.

In neighboring Wyoming, the BLM found a 28-mile-long plume of benzene contamination in an aquifer beneath a gigantic gas field. The aquifer is near a tributary to the Green River, which in turn flows into the Colorado.

Doug Hock, a spokesman for the Canadian gas company Encana, which drills in Colorado and Wyoming, says that while there will always be spills, the fears of pollution are exaggerated. Encana uses steel and concrete casing around its drill pipes, lines its waste pits and, increasingly, cleans its waste water and re-uses it inside its wells.

"We have put in place safeguards to protect the water," Hock said. "There is always a balance -- this country has a great demand for energy."

But because the energy industry has been exempted from so many federal environmental regulations during the Bush administration, it's difficult to assess the industry's true impact on the river.

The mix of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing is held as proprietary competitive information by the industry and kept secret from even the EPA. Scientists say that without knowing the specific ingredients in the mix, they don't know what compounds to test for after a spill and can't check to see if they've reached the river.

The 2005 Energy Policy Act exempted hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act. Also exempted from federal control and water protection laws are the drilling industry's construction activities, including the sediments and dust produced from thousands of miles of road building, site grading and the drilling itself, even though that debris often ends up in waterways.

"We have seen an explosion in drilling, and at the same time we have seen a weakening of the federal standards under which drilling occurs," said Dusty Horwitt, an analyst with the Environmental Working Group.

Given the relaxation in regulatory authority, the development may be out-pacing scientists' ability to measure the implications.

In August drilling companies bid on 55,000 acres of federal parcels atop the Roan Plateau, a cherished wilderness area in central Colorado that drains into the Colorado River. A September report from the University of Colorado Denver predicted that in 15 years Garfield County, a western drilling area bisected by the river, will have 23,000 wells, six times what is has now, based on permit applications already filed with the state.

The push to drill continued last week, when the BLM opened 148,598 more acres of federal land near Moab to drilling. Quarterly lease sales in that area during the last two years were typically about 75,000 acres.

"It seems reckless," said Bill Hedden, director of the Grand Canyon Trust. Near his home outside Moab, natural gas drilling rigs may soon be visible through Delicate Arch, the wind-hewn bridge of rock at Arches National Park that graces Utah's license plate.

"We Americans have tried to export a lot of our problems off to the boondocks -- but in this case the boondocks is the watershed and the problem is coming right back to us," Hedden said.

According to Spisak, the BLM official in charge of drilling, the Maob sale is the result of "pent up build-up" in the cue of requests the agency is handling. Companies that want to drill on federal land ask the BLM to consider listing that land for a future lease sale. Over the past few years, Spisak said, environmental organizations have challenged some of the listings the BLM approved, delaying their sale. Now the agency is catching up.

"We are required to push them forward," Spisak said. "It's due to pressures of prices and industry, and we are responding to the market demand."

An Unprecedented Demand

Colorado River (Flickr User: WisDoc)
No project poses a greater threat to the Colorado River -- or better represents the choice between water and energy -- than mining for oil shale.

In mid November the BLM quietly approved a rule change that paved the way for extracting oil from rock deposits in Colorado and Utah, smack in the heart of the river's watershed. If the vast deposits are mined to their potential -- and it could be a decade before any of the projects go forward -- the reserves could help the United States make a significant leap towards energy independence.

Getting oil from the shale, if researchers can find a reliable way to do it on a large scale, would be astronomically expensive. It might also require more water than the Colorado River can provide.

A recent study for the state of Colorado estimates that if the oil shale industry takes off in northwest Colorado, the region's energy industry will need at least 15 times as much water as it uses now. In 30 years, the report predicts, the energy industry in the upper Colorado River basin would stop the river's entire flow for nearly six weeks if it used the water all at once.

"It would take every bit of water rights that we currently have plus more," said Scott Ruppe, general manager of Uintah Water Conservancy District in northeastern Utah.

Counties across the Western states are apportioned a limited quota of water rights that can be used for industry, farming, or municipal use, he explained. Using Colorado River water for oil shale means less water for urban growth, agriculture and personal use. It means trading fresh fruit and vegetables – not to mention green lawns -- for energy.

"It just comes down to how needy the nation is for energy," he said. "If energy is short then some of the other concerns might get pushed aside."

These stark choices have driven Congress to begin examining the water problem in the absence of leadership from the White House. One of the bills that has been written would, if passed, direct the Interior Department to undertake the kind of comprehensive inventory of the nation's water quality and supply that critics say is missing.

It will be up to the Obama administration, though, to ultimately decide the nation's priorities. The appointment of Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar to head the Interior Department will inject a unique understanding of western water issues into Washington politics. Salazar is a long-time rancher and a former water attorney.

The new administration could temper some of Bush's decisions by limiting mining claims in sensitive areas, refusing to finalize leases sales that haven't been signed, and rigorously enforcing existing environmental regulations. It also could try to reverse some of the rules the Bush administration has issued to speed development, although that will be difficult.

Obama's greatest opportunity to address the conflict between water and energy may lie not in undoing policies from the past, but in looking to the future.

"The administration has an opportunity to start thinking about water as a national resource," said Nevada's Mulroy. "We have no rear view mirrors anymore."

Abrahm Lustgarten is a former staff writer and contributor for Fortune, and has written for Salon, Esquire, the Washington Post and the New York Times since receiving his master's in journalism from Columbia University in 2003.
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