Blog

Taking a sabbatical!

In Health,

Posted on December 22, 2013
Author: Linda,
Comments: Comments Off on Taking a sabbatical!

Hello, fellow supporters of healthy and earth-friendly food. I’ve decided to take a sabbatical from activism and will not be blogging for some time. Here are a few brief thoughts about the need to balance action and rest.

It can be a bit discouraging to read about all the ways humans are harming the earth and each other, since each of us can do only so much. Yet it’s important to prevent burnout – both for our own sakes, and for the sake of the positive steps we can take in the future if we remain resilient. So here are some ways to refresh and renew ourselves.

I’m going to do at least three things. You could try them too, if you ever get discouraged.

Remember what you have achieved.

Realize how many people and organizations will keep helping while you rest for a while.

Love yourself.

Well, that’s it for now! Blessings for a holiday season and new year.

Linda

It’s healthy to go for nuts

In Food to Try, Health,
Tags: Healthy Habits, Try It

Posted on November 21, 2013
Author: Linda,
Comments: Comments Off on It’s healthy to go for nuts

In today’s New England Journal of Medicine, a team of researchers reports that people who consume nuts more often are less likely to die of certain diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory diseases, and Type II diabetes.

Lest you think that this is another one of those small studies that has been over-interpreted, realize that the researchers studied over 118,000 people. They enrolled them in the study, followed their self-report food intake for years, and searched huge databases to track deaths of study participants.

The authors were careful to say that their study was observational and that they therefore can’t claim they’ve proved that nut consumption caused the reduced risk of death. But their conclusion was stated simply and clearly: “As compared with participants who did not eat nuts, those who consumed nuts seven or more times per week had a 20% lower death rate.”

They point out that some actual clinical trials conducted by other researchers show nut consumption does have beneficial effects on cholesterol levels, hyperglycemia, and insulin resistance, among other factors.

There’s a neat little three-minute animated explanation from the Massachusetts Medical Society that goes along with the study. You can see it by going here and clicking the Video icon named Nuts and Death.

Nuts are awesome! Pine nuts are slightly sweet and add a hint of flavor to rice or quinoa dishes. Walnuts can be ground up and mixed with eggs or tofu, along with spinach and onions, to make a delicious pate that makes a satisfying sandwich. Pecans are perfect for waldorf salad. And that’s just the beginning! So treat yourself to some health and go for nuts.

Saving the tropics in your soup

In Food to Avoid, In the News,
Tags: Avoid, Nature, Take Action

Posted on November 7, 2013
Author: Linda,
Comments: Comments Off on Saving the tropics in your soup

You probably knew that rainforests are in deep trouble, and that our food choices are part of the problem. Palm oil is a major culprit, since in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, forests are being cut down to make room for palm oil plantations. Not only the forests, but creatures that live in them are endangered, including orangutans and rhinos.

Not to mention that the palm oil mill pollutes twice as much water as every unit of palm oil produced..

World Wildlife Fund, in its current newsletter, points out “To make noodles “instant,” manufacturers flash-fry them in palm oil to evenly dry the strands—a process that links instant noodles to environmental damage because the production of palm oil is one of the leading drivers of deforestation.” One more reason to let go of processed foods as much as you possibly can!

There are two eco-labels that might help. WWF supports them, while RAN thinks they’re insufficient. Anyway, here they are. Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO.org) began in 2001 when World Wildlife Fund proposed it, and was formally launched in 2003, based in Switzerland. It’s a pretty complicated consortium of organizations from many countries that sign an agreement to support sustainability in the palm oil supply chain.

Green Palm is a subsidiary of a British oil importer and manufacturer. It has an interesting plan. Enterprises that produce certified sustainable palm oil can register their product with Green Palm. Then it seems they can sell their certificates. Is this like carbon cap and trade credits? Go here and see what you think.

Of course, by reading labels you can also avoid palm oil altogether. This may not be easy, since the stuff is everywhere. According to the Rainforest Action Network it can be found in “ice cream, cookies, crackers, chocolate products, cereals, breakfast bars, cake mixes, doughnuts, potato chips, instant noodles, frozen sweets and meals, baby formula, margarine, and dry and canned soups.” Go here for more info.

Breaking news – recycling goes back thousands of years

In In the News,
Tags: Take Action, Try It

Posted on October 22, 2013
Author: Linda,
Comments: Comments Off on Breaking news – recycling goes back thousands of years

Actually, hundreds of thousands. This month, Israeli archeologists convened a conference called “The Origins of Recycling” to share their knowledge about the history of clever re-use. Dozens of scholars discussed findings that even before we were homo sapiens, we were reusing materials in Spain, North Africa, Italy, and Israel. A cave near Tel Aviv that was used by pre-humans two hundred thousand years ago (and more) yielded flint chips that had been turned into small blades.

Reporter Ariel David writes, “A dry pond in Castel di Guido, near Rome, has yielded bone tools used some 300,000 years ago by Neanderthals who hunted or scavenged elephant carcasses there, said Giovanni Boschian, a geologist from the University of Pisa. ‘We find several levels of reuse and recycling,’ he said. ‘The bones were shattered to extract the marrow, then the fragments were shaped into tools, abandoned, and finally reworked to be used again.’”

This confirms findings reported a year ago. Middens (trash dumps) have been archeologists’ gold mines for decades, as they sort through the remains of past civilizations to discover how people lived. Meanwhile, Americans are throwing away not only food but also tons of other stuff. Don’t you wonder what future explorers will think about our landfills?

Forget the Paleo diet (It’s nonsense, anyway). Embrace your inner Paleo recycler!

Could technology make livestock obsolete?

In Animal Cruelty, Good News, In the News,
Tags: Controversial, News

Posted on October 5, 2013
Author: Linda,
Comments: Comments Off on Could technology make livestock obsolete?

Suppose we could get all the protein and leather-like fabric to satisfy the world’s population – without ranches and slaughterhouses? Sounds like a dream to anyone who is concerned about animals and the environment.

Tofu and TVP satisfies a lot of us BUT you can’t wear them. Enter, stage right, a man named Andras Forgacs, an entrepreneur whose experience in tissue engineering includes making materials for pharmaceutical research and replacing damaged human tissues. (You’re probably seen pictures of the human ears that can be grown in a lab).

In his TED talk, Forgacs outlines the virtues of what he calls a “Humane, sustainable new industry.” A biopsy is used to acquire the initial cells, which are then grown in some sort of medium. (We’d need to know what that medium is made of). Then the “biofabrication” factory would work it into collagen, form sheets, make layers, design it for various qualities, and use less chemicals than in the traditional tanning process. End result? “Cultured leather” made with no waste and, best of all (I hope) no tormented animals.

Forgacs acknowledges that it would be wise to start with leather, as people would be more willing to try it. We could have our experiment without eating it. As an opponent of GMO, I would need some convincing. Forgacs’s description of biofabrication sounds different from GMO – the product is grown in a cell medium, not engineered at the DNA level. At any rate, I share Forgacs’s vision of a world, unlike today, when we do NOT keep and kill 60 billion land animals for meat, dairy, eggs, and leather, as we do now. Given the immense environmental destruction caused by livestock worldwide, he adds, “What’s crazy is what we do today.”

Roundtable on our food system, Wednesday, October 2

In Author Event, In the News,
Tags: Author Event, Try It

Posted on September 29, 2013
Author: Linda,
Comments: Comments Off on Roundtable on our food system, Wednesday, October 2

This Wednesday evening, October 2, an interesting event is taking place in Mountain View. The Silicon Valley Innovation Institute is hosting an evening called Perspectives on Innovations in Food (Consequences or Breakthrough?). As you can tell by the title, controversy will not be avoided. SVII has for some years brought together thought leaders on various topics, with the goal of generating creative solutions.

Panelists include Dr. Ed Bauman, a pioneer in the field of holistic nutrition for over 35 years; executive chef Alan Finkelstein; Kathryn Sucher, a recognized authority on how diet, health, and disease are affected by culture/ethnicity and religion; raw food chef Jillian Love; and myself as moderator.

I hope you can attend! This will be an interactive forum and your input is expressly solicited and welcomed. As the even description says, “Although we seed the discussion with subject matter experts, the audience is also comprised of subject matter experts whose expertise lie in a larger range of topics. And it is within this cross fertilization of intelligent communication that innovation can often occur.”

Hangen Szechuan Restaurant (2nd Floor)

134 Castro St. Mountain View, CA 94041

Appetizers will be provided! (Waiter service will also be available for menu items.)

Pre-Registration Tickets ($20) Use code RIEBEL to get a discount.

More info at http://svii.net/category/events/ Register at https://sept4.eventbrite.com/