March 21, 2013
March 7, 2013
Kraft Mac n' Cheese
The following is taken from a current petition (link: here) regarding the safety of Kraft Mac n' Cheese.
Please take a minute to sign the petition, and remember to choose what your children eat with all the love and care you give them in other areas.
There's a reason that Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is bright orange when it's ready to eat. Kraft uses chemical colorings that serve no purpose for flavoring or nutrition. Those chemicals -- known as Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 -- have been linked by experts to serious health issues like asthma, skin rashes, migraines, and hyperactivity in children.
Please take a minute to sign the petition, and remember to choose what your children eat with all the love and care you give them in other areas.
March 4, 2013
Why you should stop buying palm oil
The baby pygmy elephant above was orphaned. In the picture, it is tying to wake its dead mother.
The forests of Borneo in Indonesia are becoming palm oil plantations at an alarming rate. Besides the dangers of deforestation, these plantations draw in the very rare Borneo pygmy elephant, once thought to be extinct. These gentle eight-foot tall animals like to snack on the palms, but that means the farmers are losing some of their profit - so they kill the elephants. This recent article explains the rising death toll of the endangered animal, of which fewer than 1,500 exist, and the suspicion that these animals were poisoned. The palm plantations bring other threats as well, including a bigger population in the area, which comes with more human/elephant conflict, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Some people even set traps to catch small game, and poachers still operate under the radar. Then there's logging, which is a booming business. Their habitat is shrinking rapidly, leaving them less food and terrain.
Maybe it's because the phrase "an elephant never forgets" describes me perfectly. My husband always says I'm an elephant. I've considered getting tattoos of an elephant or a tiger. Maybe it's because all I can do is share this article with passersby, and that I feel hopeless that I will ever dramatically change the environment or the lives of animals for the better. Regardless of my reasons, I cannot imagine anything more saddening. I would not be able to control myself if I met the person responsible for the deaths of these animals. But what makes me feel worse than looking at the picture above is knowing there is an incredibly small amount of people willing to help in some way.
But, on the off chance you do care, the smallest way you can help is to stop buying products with palm oil (palm anything) without knowing where it came from and how ethical its production was. This consumer list tells us one in every ten grocery store products contains palm oil, but it also tells us how we can determine what products contain palm oil, and what companies they come from.
One Indonesian producer of palm oil, Smart, which Nestle is currently purchasing from, has been accused of rainforest destruction, while a sister company called Asia Pulp & Paper is known to be an extremely irresponsible environmental campaign. Even Unilever, with its Round table on Responsible Palm Oil, is a Greenpeace target. (Click here to find out more about Greenpeace's thoughts on the RSPO and a list of palm oil free brands.) Companies like this are only taking baby steps in the right direction, and by baby steps I mean "putting in the least amount of effort possible." When it comes down to it, I would suggest avoiding palm oil products altogether. Or aim for USDA organic.
A quick google search for "Indonesian deforestation" will provide you with many images of a landscape that does not look habitable for animals, as well as high profile articles on the subject by the BBC. OneGreenPlanet.org also has a very good article about the destruction connected to palm oil.
March 1, 2013
Obesity and Meat
A study published in the International Journal of Obesity recently found that hormones in factory processed meat (as opposed to farm fresh) is a major cause of obesity. The hormones intended for the cows to grow, when ingested will also cause people to grow. The pesticides in food also contribute to obesity - we are exposed to more than ten types of pesticides every day through our food. BPA is one of them, commonly found in soda bottles. BPA is linked to abnormal estrogen functions.
How can you help yourself? If you must eat meat, aim for grass-fed local meat. Buy glass storage containers, do not reheat food in plastic, and buy canned foods and bottled products labeled BPA-free. To reduce your exposure to pesticides, aim for organic vegetables and fruits.
If you are willing to challenge yourself, look through your pantry today to see what is not labeled BPA-free. Beans, canned veggies, canned fruit? What about pop bottles? Are you willing to stop using those products?
How can you help yourself? If you must eat meat, aim for grass-fed local meat. Buy glass storage containers, do not reheat food in plastic, and buy canned foods and bottled products labeled BPA-free. To reduce your exposure to pesticides, aim for organic vegetables and fruits.
If you are willing to challenge yourself, look through your pantry today to see what is not labeled BPA-free. Beans, canned veggies, canned fruit? What about pop bottles? Are you willing to stop using those products?
February 24, 2013
Healthy Challenge
Today, from the minute you wake up until the minute you go to bed, do not have ANY sugar (fructose, dextrose, maltodextrin, etc). Stevia, rice syrup, molasses, maple syrup and agave are acceptable. This will require reading every ingredient label.
February 15, 2013
Thought of the Day
The amount
of cows on planet outnumber people, so if we were to truly care about all the
people not being fed, we could stop eating meat and the food being used for those
animals could go to people. Not to mention the amount of antibiotics used (their cost and harm) and money spent.
February 11, 2013
Adoption Monday
If you cannot adopt, consider fostering, volunteering and donating to a shelter of your choice
February 7, 2013
My Thoughts on Domesticity and Healthy Living
I just read this article titled "Farmers Markets and Home Births are So Progressive, They're Conservative," by Emily Matchar for The Atlantic. I felt the need to blog about this article and the viewpoints it brings up, as it has a lot to do with having a healthy life, and I feel like it applied to me in some way.
This is why the article affected me. Being married, I often think about what I would do if we decided to have kids. What was traditionally a woman's job, raising a child can now be done a number of different ways thanks to gender equality. I could stay home, he could stay home, we could both work and let someone else watch our kid. Water birth, making my own baby food, and homeschooling are all valid options. As a woman, I often think about the balance I'd like to achieve in my home and marriage (how much should I work, what household tasks should I be responsible for, etc). And as a person, I often think about what things would make me happy in life, especially what I can do to make money in an unconventional way. All of this was written about in the article, though it didn't really go in-depth. Obviously, this is a blog about wellness - in the home, in what we eat, in how we treat other living beings. So I felt myself nodding in agreement with some comments in the article, and shaking my head "no" at others.
I will quickly mention that political notes are unnecessary and don't make sense by the end, and there are some contradicting statements (she says the terms "liberal and conservative barely seem to apply," yet goes on to use the word conservatism serveral times), but that is the English major in me speaking, and it isn't very relevant to what I'd like to talk about.
Moving on. I do not see this "DIY Domesticity" as an extremely large phenomenon, nor a proper term. Maybe among rich people in New York or hipsters in Portland, but not here in my world. I literally do not know of anyone that I could email these articles to and say "That's you! With your home made applesauce and cloth diapers and refusal to work a 9-5 job for The Man." Not even retired people. Any stay-at-home moms I know consistently buy packaged food and packaged diapers and send their kids to public school where they eat public school lunch. I've only seen one person, a friend of a friend, who sends their kid(s) to a Montessori school. And I can't say that's because I don't live in a large, progressive city. Because I do. I live in a city where "green restaurants" are the new big thing, farmer's markets and buying local and hand made make you smarter and more awesome. Eco-friendly is slowly blooming here, but a lot of people missed the memo. There aren't enough people here that are really into all the things mentioned in the article. Honestly, I think Pinterest might be the culprit for anyone considering something out-of-the-box, like chickens in the back yard or canning radishes. "Dabbling in all-natural" might be a better phrase to use.
This article applies to me more than anyone I know, even without kids. (But if I did, you know I'd be making their baby food myself, reusing cloth diapers, and sending them to the environmental school.) But I take issue with how generalized the article is. The first paragraph of the article holds a sentence I want to mentally debate in my free time: "...progressives are embracing home and hearth with new vigor under the guise of environmental sustainability, anti-consumerism, and better health." What are you implying? That I have some ulterior motive for being healthier than I was a year ago? What other reasons are there? Maybe I don't read enough and I'm missing some enlightening tidbit about how "breast is best" = "conservative gender norms" and not "healthy baby." Maybe I haven't yet discovered why spending time reading ingredient labels will kill my career.
If you read my first blog post here you'd know that I started caring about what I eat, and wellness in general, after my mom got cancer, and it spiraled from there. My mentality was "anything that can help her get healthy I will do myself." Unhealthy lifestyle = cancer, but healthy lifestyle = healthy family. So the idea that becoming healthier or more DIY (and especially the quote from Elisabeth Badinter) means becoming less feminist, or that keeping my family healthy is a bad thing...well, it gets on my nerves. The older I get, the more I care about stuff like "environmental sustainability" and "anti-consumerism," because the older you get, the more knowledge you gain. And the more you have to spend on these consumer products you just have to have. It seems only natural that I would move from boxed brownie mix to black bean brownies, clay cat litter to pine based ones, and so on. It isn't out of a need to be cool, or a desire to go against what everyone else is doing, or a desire to be more creative. It's simply because I know more now than I used to, and I choose to go the healthier route. When I have a hard time convincing someone to make their own windex, or they make a sour face at my black rice, I can hardly believe this lifestyle would be deemed conservative. It's anything but traditional and conformist. And the smarties I learned everything from (online, in books) are far from preachers, far from turning up their noses at anyone hesitant to jump right in and go full steam ahead.
Let's then address the idea that these lifestyle changes (changes a small percentage of women are actually making - there are no statistics in this article) that are different from the decades past and present, those of canned formula and births in hospitals, not making anything from scratch and working as much as men, are examples of women regressing, so to speak. The woman who has twelve kids in the Midwest that is using Etsy to keep herself occupied while her man makes the moolah is not the example for all women becoming more "domestic." I'll use myself and my ancestry as an example. My mother and father worked an equal amount, gave me the best of everything in moderation, and did what they thought was best in every category, from baby food to college. My mother sewed, my father cleaned cat litter. They spent equal amounts of time with me. But they were far from making my baby food themselves and putting me in cloth diapers. I never went to a holistic doctor or learned how to cook random strange foods like lingonberries. Their parents, however, born in the early 1900's, did quite the opposite. The best of everything, even in moderation, was not something they could afford. Almost everything was home made, but out of necessity, due to finances and what was available. Products they used were not laden with chemicals, food was not highly processed, and the majority of births were still at home - that was their culture in America, but also as 1st and 2nd generation immigrants. Things were not so advanced as they are now, so they knew a lot more - like how to wash clothes with borax and how to catch a wild bird for dinner (my grandmother liked to cook our state bird). And let's not forget, most women were stay at home moms in the early 1900's. A few decades later, thanks to gender equality, my mom was able to have a baby and work, and my parents shared in household chores, raising me, and bills. If the nation had gone through with gender equality and not changed the way food is farmed and sold at roughly the same time period, and had not advanced consumerism, these lifestyle changes women (and men) make now would not be in question. We wouldn't be asking why people are becoming more domestic and if it's making women regress to a state of "The Angel of the Household" again. However, seeing as that did happen, and our nation did start letting doctors decide what's best for babies (as opposed to midwives) and let the meat and dairy industry decide our nutritional needs, isn't it our responsibility as a nation, as a culture, and as individuals to start questioning the way things are and deciding whats best for us? As I see it, our culture is now questioning past mistakes and trying to find a happy medium between the convenient, equal-opportunity, fast-paced yet no-time life we have now and the healthy, more informed life our ancestors had before this age of GMO's, cancer running rampant, and store-bought-everything-under-the-sun. Am I just speaking for myself?
With that in mind, I agree with the statement "the fact that domesticity is so appealing speaks to the failure of [the government and institutions]." Because they really aren't very trustworthy anymore. But is it really domesticity in the way readers are likely to imagine it? "Domestic" is an awful term to use to describe what our culture is moving toward. We're all domestic to start with. It's in our nature. But the examples of housewives in the article are not balanced by examples of why everyone else is jumping on the DIY/all natural/domestic goodness bandwagon. The comments for the article bring up good points about feminism being the right to choose to stay home and the good and bad of being more domestic. And it's good to think about these things. However, I think this movement is more about living a healthy life than it is about traditional gender roles or politics. Men and women, liberals and conservatives alike are considering these changes and modifications to the life they were used to. There's no mention of families in which both the husband and wife are equal participants in this lifestyle change, no mention of husbands and wives who both bring in steady incomes but also tend the garden together, cook fresh meals together, make home made glass cleaner together and are both determined to homeschool with equal responsibility. The title doesn't hint at what it really implies.
There's a link in the article to Michael Pollan's criticism that "feminism killed home cooking," (this is just quoting the last article, as I don't believe that was his sole intention) in his article "Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch," and I think Emily Matchar's article is a subtle reverse statement: "Home cooking killed feminism." While it's true that both parents working will lead to less time in the kitchen (or anywhere else for that matter) there's nothing to say sharing the workload wouldn't make things a little easier, that everything, including home cooking, can get done when both husband and wife put in equal effort. I know my parents did it. There is too much emphasis in Matchar's article on women who stay at home to do the cooking, DIY projects and child rearing, and not enough mention of couples doing the same, of dads doing the same, of single parents doing the same. In my grandmother's day, women had no choice but to cook. Today everyone has the opportunity to either cook, DIY, do yoga, sell crafts on Etsy, be a "home maker" or anything else they want to do, or not. Also, today everyone has resources at their fingertips to inform them of bad ingredients, how-to's and online shops. Let's call it "domesticity made fun."
Pollan blames the decline of home cooking on women working outside the home (partly accurate), food companies cooking for us (correct), and technological advances (also correct). I think it's a mix of companies cooking for us and the choice to be individuals, male and female, that may or may not like to cook. It is not about women getting in or out of thekitchen house, it is about finding the right balance for your family to live healthy and gaining enough knowledge (and even caring enough) to eat healthy. Throw food out of the equation and everyone still has to figure out daily routines like when to exercise, sign their kids up for extracurriculars, do errands, can tomatoes, and do the laundry. So it's bad to generalize or name just one specific group.
Maybe all the eco-friendly, anti-consumerism, back to nature, crafty local businesses and healthy home cooking ventures are actually a sign that our culture is getting smarter and more caring, and maybe there's nothing political or "uncomfortably retro" about it at all.
This is why the article affected me. Being married, I often think about what I would do if we decided to have kids. What was traditionally a woman's job, raising a child can now be done a number of different ways thanks to gender equality. I could stay home, he could stay home, we could both work and let someone else watch our kid. Water birth, making my own baby food, and homeschooling are all valid options. As a woman, I often think about the balance I'd like to achieve in my home and marriage (how much should I work, what household tasks should I be responsible for, etc). And as a person, I often think about what things would make me happy in life, especially what I can do to make money in an unconventional way. All of this was written about in the article, though it didn't really go in-depth. Obviously, this is a blog about wellness - in the home, in what we eat, in how we treat other living beings. So I felt myself nodding in agreement with some comments in the article, and shaking my head "no" at others.
I will quickly mention that political notes are unnecessary and don't make sense by the end, and there are some contradicting statements (she says the terms "liberal and conservative barely seem to apply," yet goes on to use the word conservatism serveral times), but that is the English major in me speaking, and it isn't very relevant to what I'd like to talk about.
Moving on. I do not see this "DIY Domesticity" as an extremely large phenomenon, nor a proper term. Maybe among rich people in New York or hipsters in Portland, but not here in my world. I literally do not know of anyone that I could email these articles to and say "That's you! With your home made applesauce and cloth diapers and refusal to work a 9-5 job for The Man." Not even retired people. Any stay-at-home moms I know consistently buy packaged food and packaged diapers and send their kids to public school where they eat public school lunch. I've only seen one person, a friend of a friend, who sends their kid(s) to a Montessori school. And I can't say that's because I don't live in a large, progressive city. Because I do. I live in a city where "green restaurants" are the new big thing, farmer's markets and buying local and hand made make you smarter and more awesome. Eco-friendly is slowly blooming here, but a lot of people missed the memo. There aren't enough people here that are really into all the things mentioned in the article. Honestly, I think Pinterest might be the culprit for anyone considering something out-of-the-box, like chickens in the back yard or canning radishes. "Dabbling in all-natural" might be a better phrase to use.
This article applies to me more than anyone I know, even without kids. (But if I did, you know I'd be making their baby food myself, reusing cloth diapers, and sending them to the environmental school.) But I take issue with how generalized the article is. The first paragraph of the article holds a sentence I want to mentally debate in my free time: "...progressives are embracing home and hearth with new vigor under the guise of environmental sustainability, anti-consumerism, and better health." What are you implying? That I have some ulterior motive for being healthier than I was a year ago? What other reasons are there? Maybe I don't read enough and I'm missing some enlightening tidbit about how "breast is best" = "conservative gender norms" and not "healthy baby." Maybe I haven't yet discovered why spending time reading ingredient labels will kill my career.
If you read my first blog post here you'd know that I started caring about what I eat, and wellness in general, after my mom got cancer, and it spiraled from there. My mentality was "anything that can help her get healthy I will do myself." Unhealthy lifestyle = cancer, but healthy lifestyle = healthy family. So the idea that becoming healthier or more DIY (and especially the quote from Elisabeth Badinter) means becoming less feminist, or that keeping my family healthy is a bad thing...well, it gets on my nerves. The older I get, the more I care about stuff like "environmental sustainability" and "anti-consumerism," because the older you get, the more knowledge you gain. And the more you have to spend on these consumer products you just have to have. It seems only natural that I would move from boxed brownie mix to black bean brownies, clay cat litter to pine based ones, and so on. It isn't out of a need to be cool, or a desire to go against what everyone else is doing, or a desire to be more creative. It's simply because I know more now than I used to, and I choose to go the healthier route. When I have a hard time convincing someone to make their own windex, or they make a sour face at my black rice, I can hardly believe this lifestyle would be deemed conservative. It's anything but traditional and conformist. And the smarties I learned everything from (online, in books) are far from preachers, far from turning up their noses at anyone hesitant to jump right in and go full steam ahead.
Let's then address the idea that these lifestyle changes (changes a small percentage of women are actually making - there are no statistics in this article) that are different from the decades past and present, those of canned formula and births in hospitals, not making anything from scratch and working as much as men, are examples of women regressing, so to speak. The woman who has twelve kids in the Midwest that is using Etsy to keep herself occupied while her man makes the moolah is not the example for all women becoming more "domestic." I'll use myself and my ancestry as an example. My mother and father worked an equal amount, gave me the best of everything in moderation, and did what they thought was best in every category, from baby food to college. My mother sewed, my father cleaned cat litter. They spent equal amounts of time with me. But they were far from making my baby food themselves and putting me in cloth diapers. I never went to a holistic doctor or learned how to cook random strange foods like lingonberries. Their parents, however, born in the early 1900's, did quite the opposite. The best of everything, even in moderation, was not something they could afford. Almost everything was home made, but out of necessity, due to finances and what was available. Products they used were not laden with chemicals, food was not highly processed, and the majority of births were still at home - that was their culture in America, but also as 1st and 2nd generation immigrants. Things were not so advanced as they are now, so they knew a lot more - like how to wash clothes with borax and how to catch a wild bird for dinner (my grandmother liked to cook our state bird). And let's not forget, most women were stay at home moms in the early 1900's. A few decades later, thanks to gender equality, my mom was able to have a baby and work, and my parents shared in household chores, raising me, and bills. If the nation had gone through with gender equality and not changed the way food is farmed and sold at roughly the same time period, and had not advanced consumerism, these lifestyle changes women (and men) make now would not be in question. We wouldn't be asking why people are becoming more domestic and if it's making women regress to a state of "The Angel of the Household" again. However, seeing as that did happen, and our nation did start letting doctors decide what's best for babies (as opposed to midwives) and let the meat and dairy industry decide our nutritional needs, isn't it our responsibility as a nation, as a culture, and as individuals to start questioning the way things are and deciding whats best for us? As I see it, our culture is now questioning past mistakes and trying to find a happy medium between the convenient, equal-opportunity, fast-paced yet no-time life we have now and the healthy, more informed life our ancestors had before this age of GMO's, cancer running rampant, and store-bought-everything-under-the-sun. Am I just speaking for myself?
With that in mind, I agree with the statement "the fact that domesticity is so appealing speaks to the failure of [the government and institutions]." Because they really aren't very trustworthy anymore. But is it really domesticity in the way readers are likely to imagine it? "Domestic" is an awful term to use to describe what our culture is moving toward. We're all domestic to start with. It's in our nature. But the examples of housewives in the article are not balanced by examples of why everyone else is jumping on the DIY/all natural/domestic goodness bandwagon. The comments for the article bring up good points about feminism being the right to choose to stay home and the good and bad of being more domestic. And it's good to think about these things. However, I think this movement is more about living a healthy life than it is about traditional gender roles or politics. Men and women, liberals and conservatives alike are considering these changes and modifications to the life they were used to. There's no mention of families in which both the husband and wife are equal participants in this lifestyle change, no mention of husbands and wives who both bring in steady incomes but also tend the garden together, cook fresh meals together, make home made glass cleaner together and are both determined to homeschool with equal responsibility. The title doesn't hint at what it really implies.
There's a link in the article to Michael Pollan's criticism that "feminism killed home cooking," (this is just quoting the last article, as I don't believe that was his sole intention) in his article "Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch," and I think Emily Matchar's article is a subtle reverse statement: "Home cooking killed feminism." While it's true that both parents working will lead to less time in the kitchen (or anywhere else for that matter) there's nothing to say sharing the workload wouldn't make things a little easier, that everything, including home cooking, can get done when both husband and wife put in equal effort. I know my parents did it. There is too much emphasis in Matchar's article on women who stay at home to do the cooking, DIY projects and child rearing, and not enough mention of couples doing the same, of dads doing the same, of single parents doing the same. In my grandmother's day, women had no choice but to cook. Today everyone has the opportunity to either cook, DIY, do yoga, sell crafts on Etsy, be a "home maker" or anything else they want to do, or not. Also, today everyone has resources at their fingertips to inform them of bad ingredients, how-to's and online shops. Let's call it "domesticity made fun."
Pollan blames the decline of home cooking on women working outside the home (partly accurate), food companies cooking for us (correct), and technological advances (also correct). I think it's a mix of companies cooking for us and the choice to be individuals, male and female, that may or may not like to cook. It is not about women getting in or out of the
Maybe all the eco-friendly, anti-consumerism, back to nature, crafty local businesses and healthy home cooking ventures are actually a sign that our culture is getting smarter and more caring, and maybe there's nothing political or "uncomfortably retro" about it at all.
February 1, 2013
Electric Cheetah Review
This past week the husband and I ventured out into our city to check out local vegan & vegetarian friendly restaurants. We landed at the Electric Cheetah, which was very well designed, had a great environment, good prices, and great food. The only thing I wasn't happy with was the lack of options. Vegans had about two options on the menu, and vegetarians only had about four options. But, what we got was fantastic, and I will definitely be going back for the polenta fries with their delicious pickled beet ketchup, and the tomato-saffron bisque.
tomato saffron soup
polenta fries
tomato saffron soup
polenta fries
veggie hash, unfortunately covered in a massive amount of cheese
local potatoes all curly-like that tasted like warm potatoe chips
January 27, 2013
The BEST face scrub EVER.
Once you do this the first time you'll be able to see how easy it is to adjust the measurements to your personal preference and add more if you like.
Ingredients:
A dash of organic/natural/local honey
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon organic sugar
Mix ingredients in a jar with lid (a very small jar) and adjust sugar level to you liking of how abrasive a scrub you like/need.
This is by far the best remedy for blackheads and dull, dry skin I've ever come across. You could go buy a face scrub that works as well, but chances are it has harmful or non-eco-friendly ingredients, or you just don't have the money.
Ingredients:
A dash of organic/natural/local honey
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon organic sugar
Mix ingredients in a jar with lid (a very small jar) and adjust sugar level to you liking of how abrasive a scrub you like/need.
This is by far the best remedy for blackheads and dull, dry skin I've ever come across. You could go buy a face scrub that works as well, but chances are it has harmful or non-eco-friendly ingredients, or you just don't have the money.
Why buy pine, corn, wheat or paper cat litter?
Because a) it smells SO. SO. SO. much better, especially while you're cleaning it, and b) it biodegrades. Clay litter never biodegrades, and while it may clump nicely, it's heavier and stinkier and has carcinogens that can effect you and your cat over time. Not good stuff to have in your lungs.
End of story.
End of story.
The Great SOY Debate
Read this and either a) all your questions will be answered, or b) it will prompt you to do your own research instead of believing anything the "experts" tell you.
http://zenhabits.net/soy/
http://zenhabits.net/soy/
January 18, 2013
Vegan Chili and Brownies
It's been a while. I thought I'd share what I've been cooking lately. 1. Vegan black bean brownies. 2. Vegan sweet potato chili. 3. Pine nut couscous. 4. Chickpea blondies with chocolate chips (which I unfortunately didn't snap a picture of). And I have been exploring earth and animal friendly body products, such as Nature's Gate herbal shampoo and conditioner (lovely all around), red clay masks, Yes to Carrots products and many more paraben and SLS free items. If any of you are considering buying cruelty free and earth friendly shampoos, lotions or makeup - do not hesitate - they're really wonderful.
Near East Couscous with pine nuts and basil, available from grocery stores everywhere
Always comes out great, tastes wonderful, and a cheap way to get pine nuts ($2 a box)
And my red clay face mask, which tightens the skin and makes it look refreshed.
It's very fun to put on and makes me feel like I'm at a spa. $5 a jar.
I am going to try a black mud mask soon.
Vegan black bean brownies from Chocolate Covered Katie
Amazing, and did not taste like beans AT ALL.
Near East Couscous with pine nuts and basil, available from grocery stores everywhere
Always comes out great, tastes wonderful, and a cheap way to get pine nuts ($2 a box)
And my red clay face mask, which tightens the skin and makes it look refreshed.
It's very fun to put on and makes me feel like I'm at a spa. $5 a jar.
I am going to try a black mud mask soon.
October 23, 2012
October 22, 2012
Petition Damien Hirst
I've created a petition that asks artist Damien Hirst to stop killing animals for art. Please help by signing.
Petition Damien Hirst
Petition Damien Hirst
October 8, 2012
Movie list to get you started
I highly recommend watching any all of these movies if you need convincing (or reminding) of why you should be vegetarian, or better yet, vegan. Also check out any Youtube videos I've posted.
Peaceable Kingdom
Earthlings
Forks Over Knives
Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead
Food, Inc.
Fast Food Nation
Hungry For Change
Supersize Me
The Witness
Peaceable Kingdom
Earthlings
Forks Over Knives
Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead
Food, Inc.
Fast Food Nation
Hungry For Change
Supersize Me
The Witness
Lobster
I really think more people should be aware of the pain lobsters go through. After reading an article a while back about a man who purchased an 80 year old lobster for a ridiculous price to set it free, I found this article on the 8 cruelest foods today on Yahoo. Worth a read. Here's an excerpt:
These spiny guys can live as old as we do, but thanks to our appetite for lobster rolls, they usually don't. A recent study in the journal Animal Behavior showed that, contrary to previous thinking, lobsters and crab can feel pain and exhibit signs of stress. Lobsters also have a central nervous system, according to other research. But that hasn't persuaded many to stop eating them. Some high-end restaurants even offer live lobster sashimi, where you choose your lobster from a tank and it appears on your plate in seconds, slit down the middle and squirming.
What's being done: Not much, although boiling lobster is illegal in the Italian town Reggio Emilia. Domestically, Whole Foods no longer sells live lobsters. In 2005, the chain conducted an internal study on the crustacean and how it gets to stores. They were persuaded by numerous studies that show lobsters can get stressed, are able to learn, and are aware of their surroundings. Many are held in storage facilities for several months, and because there's no way to minimize that distress, Whole Foods decided to stop carrying them live.
What to eat instead: Nosh sustainable, ethically caught shellfish, though it sounds simpler to find than it is.
October 4, 2012
Reasons to go vegetarian (or better yet, vegan)
I just read this great article and thought I would share some of its finer points. Read the full article here. The helpful hints at the end are worth reading as well.
2. Because if you want to get healthy, you should start with food! Replace cancer-causing, fat, pesticide and hormone-laced meats with cancer-preventing, anti-inflammatory, cholesterol lowering foods like apples, broccoli, blueberries, carrots, flax, garlic, leafy greens, nuts and sweet potatoes.
3. Because vegetarians are about 40% less likely to develop cancer than meat eaters.
4. Because our meat and dairy-centric diet is woefully lacking in health-giving fiber, contained only in plant-based foods. A minimum of 35 grams per day is recommended; the typical American consumes only 12.
5. Because four out of five Americans with cardiovascular disease who switch to a healthy (low-fat, whole foods) vegetarian diet reverse their symptoms completely.
6. The news gets better. Heart and blood-vessel diseases, diabetes, and of course obesity are preventable for 95% of us if we follow a healthy vegan diet, exercise, and manage stress.
7. Because I'll bet you agree with Dean Ornish, one of the researchers who proved statement #4: "I don't understand why asking people to eat a well-balanced vegetarian diet is considered drastic while it is medically conservative to cut people open or put them on powerful cholesterol-lowering drugs."
8. Because humans are the only species that drinks the milk of another species, and that fact alone should give you pause. Think about it for a moment. Isn't it logical that cow's milk is designed to feed baby cows? When ingested by humans, cow's milk is linked to constipation, allergies, obesity, acne, childhood diabetes, and much more. It's chock full of cholesterol (plant foods have none), and likely filled with antibiotics, growth hormones, and pesticides.
9. Because of pink slime. PERIOD.
10. Because 70% of our antibiotics are fed to livestock. Doesn't that scare you...just a little?
11. Because we are going to run out of food if we keep growing most of it to feed animals, who in turn feed far fewer peoplepeople than if we grew the food to feed directly to people. (One can feed 16 to 20 vegetarians with the same amount of natural resources as a single meat eater.)
12. In 2006, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) concluded that worldwide livestock farming generates 18% of the planet's greenhouse gas emissions -- compared with 13% generated by all transportation combined. In 2009, however, WorldWatch Institute reported that the more accurate figure may be as high as 51%. Our diet is cooking our planet.
But here is my favorite point from the article:
18. Because chickens, cows, and pigs aren't fed what they're designed to eat. They're fed what's cheap and what makes them grow incredibly fast. Some of what they eat is rendered animals - the boiled and ground up remains of dead and diseased animals, including roadkill and euthanized pets.
September 16, 2012
Benefits Chart
Just got this in my email and thought I would share it. Hope you enjoy!
diverticulitis
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