How to Prevent Sunburn By Eating the Right Foods | eHow.com
Shared via AddThis
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Going Green this Summer with Backyard Gardening
So I'm reading this fab book called "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle". It's another gem by Barbara Kingsolver. I'd highly recommend it. This time she's moved her family to the East and has taken it upon herself with the help of her family to grow and raise everything they need to eat with the rare exception of things like cranberries. It's wonderfully written and her daughter Camille has some lovely pieces in there as well. This young woman is going to be as good a writer as her popular mom. This book has inspired me do expand my garden this year. My friend John helped by digging out my hardy but very overgrown Rosemary Bush....now I love rosemary..but you can't exactly feed yourself with it. Now I have about 4 feet more of growing space..yeah...! So far the snaps peas are in as our 2 varieties of lettuce, carrots, and beets. I won't even think about planting tomatoes until May. I cheat...I buy larger plants..since we have such a short growing season..last year it held me in good stead. I had loads of nice, ripe tomatoes while my friends were saying theirs were still green. I'm also job hunting as many of you know...I'm really into Obesity Prevention in Kids and sharing your garden with others. There are two places you can go to to share, Urban Land Army and Urban Garden Share..google them and I'm sure they will pop up....I also wrote an article on it which you can find by clicking here http://www.ehow.com/how_4887693_green-sharing-backyard-vegetable-garden.html. Or if you can't click just paste into your web browser....Thanks guys
Sunday, February 22, 2009
How the Obesity Epidemic is Contributing Environmental Degradation
My most recent foray in the work world was as Program Director at the American Diabetes Association. Before working there, even though I’m a health educator, I didn’t pay that close attention to what I was eating. I’m one of the lucky ones who has never had to count calories or go on a diet, except when I was in high school once and decided to count calories for the fun of it and lost weight as a result. OK, go ahead and hate me, but that’s the truth. And since I’m not working a regular job I have more time to work out, so now I’m down 8 lbs from where I was about 2 years ago. But I digress.
As part of my job working for the American Diabetes Association I was asked to sit on a committee that was comprised of city council members, restaurant owners, and two other health care organizations, namely the American Heart Association and the health department. Our task was to figure out how best to eliminate transfats from restaurants and also make menu labeling more apparent to the consumer. The restaurants were there so that we could find a realistic timeline before going in front of the King County Council for a vote on both of these subjects. As we found out the restaurants were already working toward getting rid of trans fats, but they didn’t want anyone dictating to them when and how to do this. They were pretty much out and out opposed to menu labeling beyond what they were already doing because of the cost.
So in my normal course of business I brought this issue up at another meeting I regularly attended. I was told that the restaurants that are moving away from using trans fats are actually using Palm Oil. Not a perfect choice but much better for us than bad old trans fats. What I came to find out at that meeting is that because so many restaurants are converting to Palm Oil, we are rapidly degrading the Palm Trees in other parts of the world and of course impacting the environment negatively.
This my friends is all because we Americans are too lazy to cook our own food (instead of eating the crap at Micki D’s and others of its ilk) and get off of our duffs and go for a walk. It’s also because our towns are now mainly suburbs all designed for the car and not for the walker. We now have an epidemic of obese children glued to their computers sucking down fries by the barrelful. Now does this sound like a vicious circle to you. Because it does to me. If planners were willing to build towns (more like in Europe) where we could live closer to where we work (even walk to work-now there’s a concept like they do in New York-no wonder New Yorkers are thin), we would be less dependent on our cars, thinner, more relaxed, less likely to eat fatty food and protect the environment to boot. No need to replace Palm Oil for Trans fats because there would be no obesity epidemic. End of story.
As part of my job working for the American Diabetes Association I was asked to sit on a committee that was comprised of city council members, restaurant owners, and two other health care organizations, namely the American Heart Association and the health department. Our task was to figure out how best to eliminate transfats from restaurants and also make menu labeling more apparent to the consumer. The restaurants were there so that we could find a realistic timeline before going in front of the King County Council for a vote on both of these subjects. As we found out the restaurants were already working toward getting rid of trans fats, but they didn’t want anyone dictating to them when and how to do this. They were pretty much out and out opposed to menu labeling beyond what they were already doing because of the cost.
So in my normal course of business I brought this issue up at another meeting I regularly attended. I was told that the restaurants that are moving away from using trans fats are actually using Palm Oil. Not a perfect choice but much better for us than bad old trans fats. What I came to find out at that meeting is that because so many restaurants are converting to Palm Oil, we are rapidly degrading the Palm Trees in other parts of the world and of course impacting the environment negatively.
This my friends is all because we Americans are too lazy to cook our own food (instead of eating the crap at Micki D’s and others of its ilk) and get off of our duffs and go for a walk. It’s also because our towns are now mainly suburbs all designed for the car and not for the walker. We now have an epidemic of obese children glued to their computers sucking down fries by the barrelful. Now does this sound like a vicious circle to you. Because it does to me. If planners were willing to build towns (more like in Europe) where we could live closer to where we work (even walk to work-now there’s a concept like they do in New York-no wonder New Yorkers are thin), we would be less dependent on our cars, thinner, more relaxed, less likely to eat fatty food and protect the environment to boot. No need to replace Palm Oil for Trans fats because there would be no obesity epidemic. End of story.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)