Choose Food Wisely- Save the World

Each time you make a choice about what to eat, THINK not only about the direct impact it will have on your body and health...but also on our world. Yes, your choice affects our entire world.

So you may think...just how is this so? Here are a few brief points to ponder:

FAT:
Over consumption of fats will react and "oxidize," turning into compounds that can lead to heart disease, cancer, and other degenerative diseases. Although there are healthy fats, processed food fats otherwise known as "hydrogenated fats" are the worst. If you need one fat to stay away from for the rest of your life- this is the one!

This man-made process takes vegetable oil from a liquid to a semisolid fat and was designed for increasing shelf life and product stability. The trans-fat that is created ("trans" is the pre-fix because of the the "trans" chemical structure) is just as bad, and arguably worse than saturated fat. Choosing foods that use this process sends a statement to big business that we will allow such ingredients to lace our food choices.

BUY LOCAL:
Buying produce that is farmed in California (when you live in NYC) means that you are contributing to fuel pollution and rising fuel costs. Buy produce that is farmed locally. Not flown in on a 747 from across the country- or world! This not only helps our local business, but reduces your carbon footprint.

THINK BEFORE YOU (M)- EAT:
If you eat meat, buy meats that are organically fed, live free-range, are raised without antibiotics and most important- consume the natural diet for their species. Here are a few brief points to keep in mind:

WHAT ARE THEY EATING?: Today's factory cow is fed a diet of grain, and "other things" that a cow is not naturally able to eat. Things like protein substances (sometimes from other animals), corn and soy (two products that receive 80 percent of all herbicides used in the entire United States!) are todays factory cow's feed.

Something else to consider- According to a recent article in US News & World Report: some '40 billion pounds a year of slaughterhouse wastes like blood, bone and viscera, as well as the remains of millions of euthanized cats and dogs passed along by veterinarians and animal shelters, are rendered annually into livestock feed.' If you research this topic, you will find an over-whelming amount of information. This is not propaganda.

OUR WORLD: There are massive amount of waste produced on a factory farm today. You may think that animal waste is good (as manure) for the environment and in the case of the small farm, it is.

But with large farming facilities (where most of our dairy comes from) we are talking about massive amounts of waste - fecal ponds if you will - devastating the surrounding environment. There are cattle lots in California where confinement farming operations create as much waste as a city of 21 million people- all in one location. Imagine what that is doing to the surrounding environment, our lakes, rivers and streams.

Last, the growing problem we have with antibiotic resistant diseases in today's world is directly related to these large farming cattle lots. Cows get sick from not being able to digest the feed and from the poor living conditions (so heavily polluted with fecal matter). Therefore, today's mass-farming methods consist of a daily dose of antibiotics to aid in preventing illness. Due to these heavy doses of antibiotics your steaks and burgers, chicken and hot dogs, are all laced-up with antibiotics. Milk has been noted to contain traces of up to 80 different antibiotics, depending on the farm and location.

If you really want to boggle your mind, start realizing the connection between government backed programs related to such industry practice and how they may connect into many of our global problems. (...corn farming subsidies... crop exportation..terminator seeds...the pharmaceutical industry...the food pyramid...)

For some more information and interesting things to THINK about check out this link:
http://www.sustainabletable.org/getinvolved/tools/

A little Nugget of Information

Developed by the Environmental Working Group, the 'Dirty Dozen' is a list of fruits and vegetables most highly contaminated with pesticide residues. When you are unable to purchase all your produce organically-grown, this list is a great tool to help you minimize your intake of pesticide residues by avoiding those foods highest on the list.

The Environmental Working Group's simulation of consumers eating high and low pesticide diets showed that it is possible to decrease exposure to pesticides by 90% by avoiding those foods that are the most highly contaminated and selecting those that are the least contaminated.

The Dirty Dozen - 12 Most Contaminated Fruits and Vegetables:

Food Pesticide Load scale
1-100 (100 most contaminated, if not Organic)

Peaches 100(highest)
Apples 89
Sweet Bell Peppers 86
Celery 85
Nectarines 84
Strawberries 82
Cherries 75
Pears 65
Grapes (imported) 65

Spinach 60
Lettuce 59
Potatoes 58


The Environmental Working Group also developed a list of the 12 Least Contaminated Fruits and Vegetables:

1-100 (1 least contaminated, if not Organic)

Onions 1(lowest)
Avocados 1
Pineapples 7
Mango 9
Asparagus 11
Sweet Peas 11
Kiwi 14
Bananas 16
Cabbage 17
Broccoli 18
Papaya 21

Contributing Source: George Mateljan WHFoods Weekly
http://whfoods.org/bulletinsignup.php?utm_source=bulletin_click&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=bulletin_email

Wherever you go...there you are

A new day, beckoning us to call upon the lessons learned from days past, and alas try again. You and I share in this life if not only because you are reading this blog, but also in that we share today. Far too often do we take the 'now' for granted. We spent so much of our lives looking forward to 'what will be' and past to 'what was'. Yet, as we well know, the only damn thing we can control is "the now".

Each event that will occur in your life today will require a response from you. Each encounter and event, big or small will begin to shape your mood, your outlook, your schedule, your day, and ultimately your life. It is not any one of these singular events, but how you respond to them that will shape and determine the outcome of your day.

This is your now, do not allow external forces to steal that away from you. You are not in control of what will happen in this day, but you are in complete control of how you will respond.

As each event, choice, meeting, encounter, task, (whatever you face...) challenges into your day, take one moment to remember this: You alone, are in control of your response. Worrying about tomorrow, takes the power from today.

These are your moments, this is your day.
"Wherever you go, there you are" - Jon Kabat-Zin