Want to Avoid a Thirsty Future? Eat Less Meat.

capl@washjeff.edu/Wikimedia Commons

—By Tom Philpott

Every year, Americans eat 200 pounds of meat each—equal to a little more than two Mcdonald's Quarter Pounders, per person, per day. That's about twice the global average; but now the rest of the globe (led by China) is catching up fast.

Except, by 2050, it's highly unlikely that Americans will be able to maintain anything close to current levels of carnivory, or that people in China, India, and other developing nations will be able to enjoy current US-style diets. There are a number of ways to reach this conclusion—for example, meat production is a massive generator of climate-changing gases—but here's one that seems pretty fundamental: There just isn't enough water.

In a new report—which makes bracing reading in this season of widespread drought, severe crop losses, and high food prices—the Stockholm International Water Institute does the math (hat tip to Grist's Philip Bump):

The analysis showed that there will not be enough water available on current croplands to produce food for the expected population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in Western nations.

The researchers found that industrialized nations currently get on average 20 percent of calories from animal protein (meat plus other products like milk and eggs). To produce the grain necessary to maintain that level and take it worldwide by 2050, farmers would need more usable water than the planet is capable of providing.

What level would work, according to the researchers? There will be "just enough water," they conclude, "if the proportion of animal-based foods is limited to 5 percent of total calories." In other words, we non-vegans need to prepare ourselves and our children for radically different diets in the coming decades—eating about a quarter of the meat, eggs, cheese, etc we now do. Rather than relying heavily on animals for protein, we'll have to learn to consume much more of what we now feed animals: legumes and grains.

For me, the good news is that diets rich in beans, grains, and vegetables, supplemented by animal products at the margins, can be quite delicious and healthy. Indeed, high-flavor, low-meat cooking is precisely the philosophy behind my occasional Tom's Kitchen column. And the idea fits with my suspicion that at appropriately low levels, animals play a key role role in sustainable agriculture, for the simple reason that the most ecologically robust farming methods mimic natural systems. Managed carefully, ruminants like cows are capable of transforming grass that we can't digest into highly nutritious meat and milk, while at the same building organic matter in soil—just as bison have down on prairie lands for millennia. Hogs and chickens, kept on a small enough scale, can turn kitchen scraps and garden waste into meat, eggs (in the case of chickens), and powerful fertilizer. As the organic-farming pioneer Albert Howard has pointed out, "In Nature animals and plants lead an interlocked existence." What's not tenable are the vast animal factories that now dominate US livestock production—and increasingly, China's—and which would surely be needed on an even grander scale to provide the world with a US-style diet.

The bad news, though, is that there's little reason to believe we'll wean ourselves from over reliance on animal agriculture in any timely or orderly fashion. It's true that per-capita US meat consumption has dropped since the recession of 2008, but it remains well above global averages. Our meat industry, dominated by a few large companies, is politically powerful, and will resist any organized effort to reduce meat consumption. (See the US Department of Agriculture's recent cave-in to industry pressure against an effort to promote "Meatless Monday" among USDA employees).

And our meat industry is rapidly expanding into developing countries, including China and India, and is all too happy to help satisfy rising demand for meat. All of this means that humanity will likely draw down water resources severely before we're forced to cut way back on meat—causing massive environmental chaos, food price spikes, and hunger for the globe's poor. Here's how the investor Jeremy Grantham recently assessed the situation in The Financial Times:

Sadly, we are easily manipulated by vested interests, we passionately prefer good news to bad, we are more short-sighted than we think we are, and we are all too corruptible. The world is likely to act too slowly to conserve resources, improve farming technologies and discourage meat eating and waste, which accounts for between 30 and 40 per cent of all food from field to mouth. Our behaviour, which unnecessarily pushes up prices, will inadvertently cause malnutrition and outright starvation in poor countries.

That's a gloomy vision, but the fact that it rings true shouldn't drain us of hope. Across the globe, people are working on the ground to create ecologically sensible alternatives to the dominant farming model: diversified organic agriculture is booming in China and India, even as those nations' governments promote industrialization and concentrated-animal feedlot operations (CAFOs); and in Zambia and Malawi, farmers are using innovative cropping practices, not imported fertilizers, to increase yields of crops designed to be eaten directly by people, not animals. If scientists are correct that catastrophic droughts like this summer's are bound to become increasingly common, policy makers worldwide might be forced sooner rather than later to enact policies that encourage those alternatives and ramp down our reliance on cheap meat at all costs.

Are Your Skinny Jeans Starving the World?

John Steven F./Flickr

—By Tom Philpott

The cotton that feeds our appetite for fast fashion is taking up room that could be used for food crops.

Walk into an H&M, Zara, Forever 21, or any other fast-fashion outlet and you'll see it: people throwing bargain-priced jeggings, peacoats, and clingy tank tops into their carts as if they were buying staples at the supermarket. Shoppers with stodgier tastes do the same with $12 capris at Walmart and $20 blazers at Kmart. In 1985, Americans on average bought 31 items of clothing a year. Today, we buy roughly 60—more than one per week. And when we lug home our haul we're not shy about making room in the closet: We throw out 78 pounds (PDF) of textiles per person—five times as much as we did in 1970.

What gives? It isn't like we have more cash to burn—US median incomes have stagnated over the same period that our clothing habit has exploded. What's happened is clothes have gotten cheaper. Starting in the early 1990s, US clothing prices began a steady decline (before picking up a bit during the Great Recession), driven down by cheap imports from Asian clothing factories that were fed a steady supply of ever-cheaper cotton.

As food prices hover near all-time highs and millions go hungry, the biofuel boom has gotten much of the blame. But what about our hunger for cotton? Nearly half our clothes are made of the fluffy fiber, and around 2 percent (PDF) of cropland worldwide is devoted to it. That might not sound like much—but consider that cotton is the thirstiest crop in the world. And it commands fully 16 percent (PDF) of the insecticides consumed each year, more than any other single agricultural product.

China and India grow half of the globe's cotton. Have you heard of the farmer suicide epidemic (PDF) in India? It's largely concentrated among cotton farmers growing for the global market who are squeezed between high prices for seeds and low prices for cotton, according to a 2011 report by New York University's law school.

It's even worse in West Africa, where large amounts of prime farmland are devoted to cotton for export. Why do farmers put up with it? Because it's often their only opportunity to get access to supplies, says Tom Bassett, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign geography professor who studies cotton production in the region. Farmers buy pesticides and fertilizer from the cotton companies on credit before the season starts and use those resources not just on their cotton, but also on their food crops. The system keeps farm families fed but does little for the rest of sub-Saharan Africa's 800 million residents—a quarter of whom are chronically malnourished.

Now, it's impossible to draw a straight line between cotton production and any particular case of malnutrition. But we can question why farmers in places like Africa and South Asia are devoting land, resources, and time to growing fiber for skinny jeans while people in their own region don't have enough to eat. The reason? The cotton market is big business—its gravitational pull is much stronger than that of families who need food.

The eminent agriculture development expert Hans Herren, president of the Millennium Institute, told me that farmers in West Africa could profitably grow cotton in a way that also bolsters food security, but only under dramatically different market conditions. "With proper crop rotations and other low-input sustainable-farming techniques, you could double crop yields and produce plenty of food alongside cotton," he says. But farmers in those regions are set up to sell cotton to cotton traders; getting food from farm to market is more difficult.
Here in the land of disposable fashion, none of that matters much. In the age of Michael Pollan and slow food, more and more people think about where their dinner comes from and how it affects people and ecosystems on the way to their plates. Maybe it's time we did the same for our wardrobes. If we did, we might have an easier time coming around to the idea of "slow fashion."

So what are your options for a guilt-free closet? Vintage and secondhand, of course, are good options, and some major retailers (Patagonia, Eileen Fisher) encourage customers to send back used clothes—then repurpose them or offer them for sale at a steep discount. If thrift stores aren't your thing, many manufacturers (including H&M) now offer some products made from organic cotton, which requires fewer chemicals and a little less water. But most of it is grown in the same regions as conventional cotton—meaning the farmers still get a raw deal. By far, the most effective strategy is to give up the supermarket sweep approach to clothes shopping and instead buy a few durable pieces.

As for me, I'll be thinking twice next time I'm tempted to grab a cheapo item off the rack at a chain store. Come to think of it, I just might splurge on a spendy wool sweater I've been coveting. Considering how long it will last, it might not be so extravagant after all.

Embracing the Deliciousness of Fermented Foods Means Calling Truce in Our War on Bacteria.

Photo Credit: Ari LeVaux

AlterNet / By Ari LeVaux

Letting food sit at room temp and become colonized by airborne microorganisms runs counter to everything we know about food safety.

At a Korean superstore in Las Vegas, I watched an employee whose sole job, it seemed, was organizing a vast array of kimchee. Her domain consisted of thousands of plastic tubs of fermented fish and vegetables in various combinations, usually spicy. She darted about the immense display cases and scrutinized the tubs' arrangement, rearranging their contents like beads on a giant abacus.

My feeling, observing her that day, roughly sums up how I feel about the process of fermentation generally: a mixture of awe and fear. The process is like some potent voodoo that could give you special powers or torture you to death.

Letting food sit at room temperature and become colonized by airborne microorganisms runs counter to everything we're taught about food safety. But without this guided decomposition that we call fermentation there would be no bread, cheese, tequila, or kimchee.

The Art of Fermentation, by Sandor Katz (Chelsea Green), is therapy for my split impulses regarding fermentation. It's a hefty book, with extensive citations, that exhaustively explores the world's fermentation traditions, including vegetables, fruit, meat, dairy, and other foodstuffs. It recounts much of the history of this ancient art, right up to contemporary times, and is rich in practical knowledge that you can start applying immediately.

The book has given me the confidence to play with the process, and the understanding to ferment fruits and vegetables from my garden. I hope to become proficient enough to put away significant quantities of the summer's harvest via fermentation. In other words, I'm into it -- the process and the book. And I'm not the only one. At last check, The Art of Fermentation sits at #14 on the New York Times bestseller list. In the forward, Michael Pollan writes: "Katz's book is the main reason that my kitchen counters and basement floor have lately sprouted an assortment of mason jars, ceramic crocks, jelly jars, bottles, and carboys, the clear ones glowing with unearthly colors."

Anyone who reads this book might just find their own house similarly cluttered. My own fermentation-ware collection is rudimentary compared to Pollan's, but I've already caught myself looking at a beer growler in a new light, and I doubt it will be long till I spot a crock at a yard sale. In my three-week fermentation career I've already learned some important things, like how much more peaceful fermentation is than canning, and how easy it is to make booze that doesn't taste terrible. Too easy, really.

When Louis Pasteur demonstrated that many diseases are caused by living germs, the "war on bacteria," as Katz calls it, was officially on. Many lives were saved by the bacteria-killing process that became known as pasteurization and its many spawn: the countless methods that use heat, pressure, acid, and other means of preserving food by killing all the microorganisms in and around it. In short order, these methods widely replaced fermentation as the preservation method of choice.

While modern canning techniques work by killing, fermentation takes an opposite approach: promoting life. Specifically, the growth of bacteria and yeast that gradually create an alcoholic or acidic environment in which only certain microorganisms can live. "In this environment, Salmonella, E. Coli, Listeria, Costridium, and other food-borne pathogens cannot survive," Katz writes.

The playing field is tilted to favor either lactic acid bacteria like lactobacillus, or certain yeasts, like saccharomyces, to which we owe bread and booze. Katz quotes USDA vegetable fermentation specialist Fred Breidt as saying there's never been a documented case of food poisoning from fermented food. "Risky is not a word I would use to describe vegetable fermentation," he continues. "It is one of the oldest and safest technologies we have." Bacterial contamination on raw vegetables, by contrast, Katz points out, sickens people on a near daily basis.

In the tropics, long-term storage of fermented products is difficult because of the incessantly hot weather. Luckily, food grows year-round in that climate, so storage isn't necessary. Conversely, the places with the shortest growing seasons have the widest window of cool weather during which fermented products can be stored. Katz regularly stores fermented food all the way to spring, when food starts growing again in the hills of Tennessee, where he lives.

Katz refrains as much as possible from giving exact recipes. He instructs with broad strokes rather than micromanagement, teaching the principles behind each step in the process. That said, the book will give you a firm start on any fermentation path you could possibly wish to follow, and in many cases it's the only source you'll need, from making miso to fermenting mashed potatoes.

Embracing fermentation involves a truce in the war on bacteria. Such a peace means accepting that the microbes are basically in charge. In fact, "we" are mostly "them." Of the 3 million different genes identifiable in our bodies, only 30,000 are human genes. The rest are bacterial, representing thousands of species.

Making peace with microbes means understanding where and how and when they can hurt you. The first and foremost rule for novices: avoid fermenting animal products until you know what you're doing. And while this will come as a blow to some, dark green leafy veggies, like kale, can be traumatizingly foul-tasting, if technically non-poisonous, when fermented.

I've always been an old-school pickle-maker of the water-bathing, vinegar-brining, pressure-canning, kill-em-all school of food preservation. As I explore fermentation, it's a relief to leave behind the heavy artillery that canning involves, not to mention the heat of the kitchen. So far I've made some hooch from sun-dried apricots, a batch of barely fermented sun-dried apricot jam that's got a telltale tang to it, and a pint jar of mixed garden veggies: snow peas, baby carrots, garlic flowers and squash blossom buds. You can open a fermenting jar of pickles, unlike vinegar pickles, whenever you want for a snack, and after three days my veggies started to turn acidic. The flavors are strong, new and often weird. But when done right, like at the Korean superstore, fermentation offers a nearly endless myriad of delicacies that I'm looking forward to exploring.

Here's an excerpt from The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz on kraut-chi Basics:
Kraut-chi is a word I made up, a hybrid of sauerkraut and kimchi, the German and Korean words for fermented vegetables that we have adopted into the English language. The English language does not have its own word for fermented vegetables. It would not be inaccurate to describe fermented vegetables as “pickled,” but pickling covers much ground beyond fermentation. Pickles are anything preserved by acidity.

Most contemporary pickles are not fermented at all; instead they rely upon highly acidic vinegar (a product of fermentation), usually heated in order to sterilize vegetables, preserving them by destroying rather than cultivating microorganisms. “For pickles, fermentation was the primary means of preservation until the 1940s, when direct acidification and pasteurization of cucumber pickles was introduced,” writes Fred Breidt of the USDA.

My vegetable ferments are usually concoctions that do not fit any homogeneous traditional ideal of either German sauerkraut or Korean kimchi. But of course, everything I’ve learned about sauerkraut and kimchi reveal that neither of them constitutes a homogeneous tradition. They are highly varied, from regional specialties to family secrets. Nonetheless, certain techniques underlie both (and many other related) traditions, and my practice is a rather free-form application of these basic techniques rather than an attempt to reproduce any particular notion of authenticity.

In a nutshell, the steps I typically follow when I ferment vegetables are:
1 Chop or grate vegetables.
2 Lightly salt the chopped veggies (add more as necessary to taste), and pound or squeeze until moist; alternatively, soak the veggies in a brine solution for a few hours.
3 Pack the vegetables into a jar or other vessel, tightly, so that they are forced below the liquid. Add water, if necessary.
4 Wait, taste frequently, and enjoy!

Of course there is more information and nuance, which the rest of this chapter explores, but really, “Chop, Salt, Pack, Wait” is what most of it amounts to.
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Ari LeVaux writes a syndicated weekly food column, Flash in the Pan.

What Monsanto and Pepsi Don’t Want You to Know About Your Food.

by Emily L.


NOTE: This is a guest blog post from Stacy Malkan, media director for the Yes on 37 California Right to Know Campaign.

Welcome to election season, when big corporations spare no expense trying to get us to vote against our own self interest. Here in California, we’re bracing for a bomb of television commercials designed to convince us that labeling food is scary, weird and expensive.

In just the past week, a parade of corporations have donated nearly $25 million — before Labor Day is even upon us — to try to kill Proposition 37, a historic ballot initiative that would require labeling of genetically engineered foods.

New contributions freshly posted on the Secretary of State website reveal the companies that are forking over huge contributions to, and staking their brand names behind, a front group called “The Coalition Against the Deceptive Food Labeling Scheme,” which claims that Proposition 37 would “ban the sale of groceries” — even though it wouldn’t.

Proposition 37 would require companies to add a few words to existing labels to inform consumers if their food has been genetically engineered. Who could be against giving us accurate information about what’s in our food?

The Pesticide Peddlers: Monsanto leads the pack with $4.2 million and a newly posted honor at the bottom of the opposition website that says, “Major funding by Monsanto…”

Joining Monsanto are the rest of the “Big Six” chemical companies — DuPont, BASF, Bayer, Dow and Syngenta — who have poured a combined $13.5 million into fighting Proposition 37. Why?

These are the guys who make the pesticides and also sell or push the seeds that are genetically engineered to withstand the pesticides, thereby allowing them to … sell more pesticides. You get the picture.

“Rather than reducing the need for hazardous pesticides, herbicide-resistant seeds have driven a massive increase in herbicide use that has been linked to significant environmental and public health concerns,” explains Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, PhD, senior scientist at Pesticide Action Network, in a statement supporting Proposition 37.

“It’s clear that genetically engineered, herbicide-resistant seeds are the growth engines of the pesticide industry’s sales and marketing strategy. These seeds are part of a technology package explicitly designed to facilitate increased, indiscriminate herbicide use and pump up chemical sales,” Dr. Ishii-Eiteman said.
According to a 2009 report by Chuck Benbrook, PhD, chief scientist at the Organic Center, farmers applied 318 million more pounds of pesticides over the first 13 years of commercial GE crop production (1996-2008), as a direct result of planting genetically engineered seeds. “GE crops are pushing pesticide use upward at a rapidly accelerating pace,” Dr. Benbrook wrote in the report.

Corn Syrup Crowd: Not far behind the chemical companies, the big junk food brands — Pepsi, Coke, Nestle, Kellogg — are lining up against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of their consumers who want to know if their food has been genetically engineered. These are the companies that are already providing information about genetic engineering to consumers in 49 other countries, but not in their own country.

Their Washington DC lobby group — the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) — has said that defeating Prop 37 is their “single-highest priority” this year, as Michele Simon reported. Imagine that: the nation’s biggest food companies have no other priority but to keep consumers in the dark about genetic engineering.

PepsiCo leads the Corn Syrup Crowd with $1.7 million in contributions, followed by Nestle and Coke, with $1.2 million each. Other food companies among the top 20 contributors to the No on 37 scare campaign are Conagra Foods ($1 million), Kellogg ($632,500), General Mills ($519,400), Hershey ($395,100), Smuckers ($388,000), Hormel Foods ($374,300), Bimbo Bakeries ($338,300), Ocean Spray Cranberries ($301,500) and Pinnacle Food Group ($266,100).

Look for these corporations and their lobby group to drop millions more in the weeks ahead in an effort to convince voters that adding a little bit of ink to labels will force them to raise the cost of groceries by “hundreds of dollars a year.”

As Ronnie Cummins asks on Alternet, “Why spend millions of dollars to keep ingredients secret — ingredients food manufacturers claim are perfectly safe — instead of spending a fraction of that amount to just list those ingredients on the labels they already put on every food product?”

And on the right side of history is the people’s movement for our right to know what’s in our food. With more than a million people already on board, the Yes on 37 Campaign is working to organize One Million More people to counter the opposition’s millions.

For its part, the Yes on 37 Right to Know campaign has raised about $2.7 million so far, a large portion of which has come from thousands of donors giving small contributions online. Funders also include leading businesses in the natural and sustainable food industry, including Lundberg Family Farms, Amy’s Kitchen, Nature’s Path, Nutiva, Organic Valley, Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps and Dr. Joseph Mercola, who runs one of the largest health websites in the country.

These donors are standing behind the more than 1,000 endorsing organizations and the huge majority of Californians — 69%, according to a recent Pepperdine poll — who support Prop 37 and our right to know what’s in our food.

Can the public interest win out against the deceptive ad campaigns funded by pesticide peddlers and the corn syrup crowd?

In less than 90 days, we’ll know the answer. Now is the time to get involved. To help pass Prop 37, join us at www.CARighttoKnow.org, like us on Facebook and tweet about our right to know what’s in our food.
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Stacy Malkan is media director for the Yes on 37 California Right to Know Campaign. If voters pass Proposition 37 in November, California would be the first state in the U.S. to require labeling of genetically engineered foods. Forty nine other countries already require GE foods to be labeled.

Doped-Up Nation: How America Became a Country of Addicts.

The Fix / By Richard Juman

The external fixes to our internal problems are readily available, and every addiction fuels somebody else's craving—for cash.

We’re a nation of addicts. Would you care to dispute it?

Recent studies confirm an alarming reality: As a country, when it comes to dealing with personal problems, we use an external fix. Whether it's routine disruptions we face at work, the common crises at home, or our children trying to parse the maelstrom of media overload—the fact is that it's increasingly rare that Americans turn to internal or interpersonal resources to establish equilibrium. Instead, our first impulse is to seek out a quick and external source, which becomes both the cause of our problems, and the solution.

The first place people look is the simple dopamine spike. Most people have reliable techniques to make themselves feel better—or, as I like to say, to give themselves a little “dopamine spike.” Dopamine, as you probably know, is the neurotransmitter triggered by “rewarding events.” These pleasurable moments may occur naturally, but they are also the direct result of specific drugs, such as cocaine, methamphetamine or nicotine.

While we may admire the American impulse to applaud hard work, innovation, and daring, the rewards of these labors aren't immediate. We’re an impatient nation; we seek more immediate gratification. We’ve come to accept an approach of “why wait?”, so we grab ahold of whatever it takes to feel better, to keep feeling better, to make it through the day.

In our addicted culture, we go for the artificially-induced dopamine spike—and not just one, but one right after the next. Consider the following: Roughly one in ten Americans is currently an illicit drug user; nearly one quarter of American adults engage in binge drinking, many on a regular basis; and the majority of those with problem drug or alcohol use do not seek treatment for their problems.

Now, if we broaden the criteria that we use in thinking about addiction to include unhealthy coping mechanisms and other “ways-to-get-through-the-day”—we face staggering results. For one, most Americans have lost their ability to eat normally, with two-thirds of the nation’s adults meeting the definition of obese. As another example, approximately one out of every five American women is on an anti-depressant. I recently signed up with a new primary care physician. When she found out that I’m a psychologist, she asked me “Why is every kid in New York on Ritalin, and every adult taking Ambien?”
It’s an excellent question.

How is it that we’ve wrapped ourselves in the fuzzy dopamine blanket of substance misuse, prescription medication, compulsive eating, celebrity worship, compulsive shopping, internet addiction, video gaming, and compulsive sexual behavior?

Here’s one reason: these external fixes are readily available, and every addiction fuels somebody else's craving—for cash. The alcohol industry takes in over $100 billion a year; Big Tobacco earns $35 billion. Gambling, pornography, prostitution, and texting all add fuel to our country's dopamine fire.

The root issue is that direct, undiluted, authentic engagement with the world and others is a challenge, and the strategy of occasional mood alteration that many employ to "take the edge off" can slide into something more dangerous. Others end up in another kind of distorted dependence, finding that it's easier to move your onscreen avatar through the world than to actually navigate it on your own. What about the tragic case of the Korean couple who found it easier to raise a “virtual” baby in a popular internet cafe than to take care of their child who died while they were busy online?

The couple’s three-month old starved to death. She was only fed between sessions of the game. According to police, these parents “indulged themselves in the online game raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby. Here in Dopamine Nation, internet and video game addiction are real concerns.

Those of us who work in the addiction treatment community find our most critical task—helping clients find an authentic path to recovery—more challenging than ever. In part, this is due to a culture that seems engineered to foster dependence on artificially induced means to “feel OK.”

Turn on the TV, and the prevailing wisdom says there’s no reason to suffer discomfort. Moreover, we’re being instructed that continuous synthetic “adjustment” is the norm - in other words, there’s a pill for whatever ails you: ADHD, shyness, erectile dysfunction, fibromyalgia—you name it. Of course, abuse of these drugs is soaring, from anxiety medications to pain pills. But the problem is more insidious.

We’re so addicted to food that we literally have to seek surgical intervention to staple our stomachs in order to control our weight. Technologies allow us to seemingly be everywhere at once, but we’re never quite “right here now.”

These same devices create a state of continuous partial attention. We’re so busy attending to our screens and keys, so dependent on the next little dopamine surge that comes in the form of a text, that we turn our eyes from the road and accidents are increasing in record numbers.

Speaking of cars, picture this. Your vehicle is acting up, so you take it to the service station. You know there’s something wrong because it just doesn’t run the way it used to. You explain the problem to the mechanic, and he lays out your options.

“OK,” he says. “You have a choice. You can put some goop in the engine every day. It’s expensive, you’ll have to do it forever, and it may make the problem worse. Plus, we’ll never know what’s wrong. Or, I can lift the hood and see what’s going on.”

Which option would you choose?

We’re all human, and we like to feel good. Dopamine is naturally generated from any number of physical and emotional sources. The accumulation of externally generated dopamine, however, creates a vicious cycle of relief- seeking that ultimately spirals out of control. For those who are lucky – or smart – it lands patients in our offices where we can finally begin to “lift up the hood”—and actively address the real problems.
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Richard Juman is a licensed clinical psychologist who has worked in the field of addiction for over 25 years, providing direct clinical care, supervision, program development and administration across multiple settings. A specialist in geriatric care and organizational change, he is also the president of the New York State Psychological Association.  

Want Dumber Kids? Feed Them Junk Food.

by Cathryn Wellner

There are more compelling reasons to avoid junk food than a two-point drop in IQ, but a new study from the University of Adelaide in South Australia does show the impact of food on growing minds as well as bodies.

The study, led by Dr. Lisa Smithers, compared dietary patterns of more than 7000 children. Their diets were recorded at six months, 15 months and two years. When they reached the age of eight their IQ’s were tested.

Dr. Smithers says:

We found that children who were breastfed at six months and had a healthy diet regularly including foods such as legumes, cheese, fruit and vegetables at 15 and 24 months, had an IQ up to two points higher by age eight.

Those children who had a diet regularly involving biscuits, chocolate, lollies, soft drinks and chips in the first two years of life had IQs up to two points lower by age eight.

We also found some negative impact on IQ from ready-prepared baby foods given at six months, but some positive associations when given at 24 months.

Earlier studies have already shown an alarming increase in diet-related diseases in children. For example, Type 2 diabetes, traditionally referred to as “adult-onset” diabetes, is being diagnosed in children as young as two. Heart disease and certain cancers are also increasing in younger populations.

The new study doesn’t make excessive claims, and it is only one study. The results show minor effects and need to be verified by further research. However, they are part of a larger picture that should guide our thinking about food. While a couple of IQ points are unlikely to change a child’s future, when added to diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, they form a pattern that should influence what we feed children. As Dr. Smithers says:

While the differences in IQ are not huge, this study provides some of the strongest evidence to date that dietary patterns from six to 24 months have a small but significant effect on IQ at eight years of age,” Dr Smithers says.

It is important that we consider the longer-term impact of the foods we feed our children

How To Make Food Your Medicine.

By - Marcelle Pick, OB-GYN N.P., Co-founder, Women to Women

In the natural health world, we hear this phrase all the time: Use food as your medicine. But how do you actually go about making food your medicine? Are there special meals to cook when you feel sick? Are there foods that help prevent disease? Many women tell me this concept is overwhelming. But it doesn't have to be.

Plant foods have special molecules called phytonutrients that can turn on and off our DNA to help prevent disease as well as heal acute (short-term) sickness. Eating a diet rich in plant foods over time can prevent disease and enhance health. However, foods containing sugar, preservatives, and trans fats can turn on a cascade of inflammatory processes that ultimately lead to disease.

If you make no other health changes in your life, revising the way you eat can absolutely turn your health around. So how do you make food your medicine? Here's my short guide to using the most powerful drug we have.

Start with your plate.
The first thing is to make sure your plate of food is colorful. Bright colors and deep greens tell us that these foods are packed with nutrients and phytochemicals. The next thing you want to do is make sure half of your plate is vegetables. You should be trying to eat eight to 10 servings of vegetables a day. One quarter of the plate can be a lean protein like organic chicken, beef, trout, shrimp, or salmon. The last quarter can be complex carbohydrates, such as brown rice, sweet potatoes, quinoa, beans, or fruit.

Assess your hair, skin, nails, and energy levels.
We tend to separate our outer bodies from what is happening on the inside, but everything in the body is connected. When your nails and hair are weak, this could be a sign that you aren't getting enough nutrients in your diet. Skin problems can be an indicator of thyroid issues, GI problems, or a diet too high in sugar and preservatives. Your energy levels are also a great indicator of your overall health. Fatigue can be a sign of many different imbalances and is not something to chalk up to getting old. For more information, read my article on fatigue.

Pay attention to your family history.
What diseases tend to run in your family? Where do you see your own health vulnerabilities? Some people have trouble with digestion, others feel more at risk for heart and/or cholesterol problems. Diabetes and thyroid imbalances are also very common. As Dr. Mark Hyman writes in his blog on food and medicine, "We are learning from research in the field of nutrigenomics, that food 'talks' to our DNA switching on or off genes that lead to health or disease." So we can potentially change the expression of our genes by changing how we eat.

Here are some common chronic diseases and foods that can help prevent them:

Heart disease
Nuts are a wonderful option for heart health. Most nuts are packed with unsaturated fats, omega-3 fatty acids, fiber, vitamin E, L-arginine (which is helpful for artery structure), and plant sterols to help cholesterol. Resveratrol and alpha lipoic acid are also great supplements to add if you are concerned with heart health. I would recommend discussing the following tests with your doctor as well: fractionated cholesterol reading, high-sensitivity CRP (hs-CRP), fibrinogen level, homocysteine, hemoglobin A1C, fasting two-hour postprandial insulin and glucose levels.

Alzheimer's
The Mediterranean diet can do wonders for your health, especially when it comes to brain (and heart) health. Small (low-mercury) fish, nuts, colorful vegetables, and olive oil are all great choices for brain health. Antioxidants found in blueberries, dark leafy greens, red wine, and chocolate are all helpful as well.

Diabetes
The key to Type 2 diabetes prevention is glycemic control. Be sure to eat all carbohydrates with a good amount of fiber, healthy fat, and/or protein to help control the insulin spike that happens after eating a high-sugar/carbohydrate load. Certain minerals and spices can also help level blood sugar, like chromium and cinnamon.

Hypothyroidism
The best foods for thyroid support typically include iodine and selenium. Sea vegetables and seafood are great options for iodine, while Brazil nuts, mushrooms, and halibut are good sources of selenium. I've written a whole article on eating to support your thyroid with charts of thyroid-friendly foods.

For a great resource on staying well for life, read UltraPrevention by doctors Mark Hyman and Mark Liponis.

Food Is Our Most Powerful Drug
Most of us are conditioned to think that taking a pill out of a bottle will make us feel better. We don't generally think that fresh vegetables and fruit count toward healing. But it's true, food is the most powerful drug we have. Pay attention to what you eat, how it feels in your body, and get to know your healing foods. You will find that food offers much more than calories. It offers your ticket to a long and healthy life.

10 Things You Should Know About Sikhs.

by Judy Molland

Sikhs are not Muslims.

Several reports indicate that Wade Michael Page, the army veteran who is suspected of killing six and injuring three at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, last weekend, was a white supremacist and a “skinhead.”

Though police have not yet named a motive in the attack, all but one of those shot were Sikh adherents. The other was a police officer.

From The Guardian:

Underpinning everything is a sense of frustration, just short of anger, at what Sikhs in Oak Creek and other parts of the US say is the frequent assumption that because of their turbans and beards they are Muslims, with all the weight that carries since 9/11.

Jeji Shergill, 62, said that since 9/11 he has regularly been assumed to be Muslim and that spills over into abuse.

“They compare us to the Muslims and we’re completely different,” he said. “I own a gas station. I am working there. People, they call me Bin Laden. Then, I explain to them, sorry, you are misunderstanding. You are mixing us up with the Muslims. You try to explain about the turban and the beard. They still call you Bin Laden.”

Clearly, Muslims themselves have endured significant unjustified abuse since 9/11, but it makes no sense that people confuse Sikhs for Muslims.

Who are Sikhs? Here are 10 things you should know:
1. Sikhism is the 5th largest religion in the world.
2. Sikhism is a small minority in the United States, where there are roughly 500,000 observers of the religion.
3. There are 25 million Sikhs around the world, most of them in India.
4. Sikhism originated in the 15th century in the Punjab area of South Asia. (North India and Pakistan)
5. There has only been one Sikh U.S. Member of Congress — Dalip Singh Saund, who represented Southern California in the late 1950s and early 60s.
6. Sikhism includes a belief in one god and the goal of leading an exemplary existence: equality and service to others and peace. “Everyone is the same,” says Raghunandan Johar, president of the Guru Nanak Mission of Atlanta. “There is no distinction, no caste system.”
7. Sikhs believe in freedom of religion, community service and inclusiveness.
8. Sikhs do not have clergy.
9. At temples, or gurdwaras, where Sikhs hold services, everyone is welcome.
10. Doing good deeds is important for you to be with God after death. Sikhs believe that if you don’t live a life full of good deeds you will be reborn and repeat the circle of life and death.

And in case you are wondering about turbans, Sikhs are meant to keep hair in its natural unaltered state. Sikhism has a code of conduct all Sikhs are meant to follow. A Sikh is expected to keep all hair intact and the head covered. The rule of dress for every Sikh man is to wear a turban. The Sikh woman may wear a turban or elect instead to wear a kind of traditional headscarf. A woman may also wear a scarf over a turban if she so desires. A Sikh accustomed to wearing a turban feels naked without it. Normally turbans are only removed in the most intimate of circumstances, when bathing the head, or washing the hair.

It’s not clear at this point whether Wade Michael Page targeted the Sikh community mistakenly, believing that they were Muslims.

Clearly, targeting any ethnic group is wrong, but for the Sikh community of Oak Creek, Wisconsin, it will take some convincing that the shootings were not a legacy of 9/11.


Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/10-things-you-should-know-about-sikhs.html#ixzz23LcxNS7W

The True Cost of Hamburgers (Video)

• by TreeHugger
• Written by Brian Merchant

On average, Americans eat three burgers a week. That may sound surprising in statistic form, but it squares pretty evenly with our nation’s fast food infatuation.

It’s also the very first factoid presented in this neat little video, ‘the Hidden Cost of Hamburgers’, from the Center for Investigative Reporting (the same folks who did the great ‘Hidden Cost of Gas’) that seeks to educate viewers about the true cost of our beefy eating habits.





A hamburger may cost you like 99 cents at Wendy’s, but there are a slew of additional costs that those beef pattied buns impose on society at large—environmental impacts of beef production, extra health care costs for obesity-related issues, etc. As such, CIR calculates that every burger costs us an additional $1.51 in hidden costs, which adds up to $72 million in extra costs a year.

The group explains at its website: (via Grist)

We looked at a range of ways beef is produced and came up with an average that is close to how a cow would be raised in Fresno, Calif.: about 1 pound of greenhouse gases per ounce of beef, or about 6½ pounds of greenhouse gases per quarter-pounder. We looked at studies that showed the health costs of treating overweight people and associated illnesses, such as high blood pressure, stroke and diabetes — that’s about 75 cents per burger. Then we looked at how much water it takes to produce a pound of beef — that’s about 50 cents per burger.

We also looked at the price of a ton of carbon — that’s remarkably small for the U.S., less than one-hundredth of a penny. But in the European Union, because it has a functioning carbon market, the price would be about a nickel per burger. Daniel Lopez Dias, the lead economist on the calculations, notes that these figures are conservative and don’t include effects from air and water pollution, effects of low wages that slaughterhouse workers receive and the high risk of injury they face, or general effects of urban sprawl.

The point is, of course, that those costs don’t cut into the fast food companies and industrial-scale ranchers’ profit margins; instead, the public absorbs the true price of hamburgers.

This post was originally published by TreeHugger.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/the-true-cost-of-hamburgers-video.html#ixzz239hgPb5R

English Supermarkets To Start Charging For Plastic Bags?

by Judy Molland


Environmental groups in England are demanding that shoppers pay for their single-use plastic bags.
According to figures from the waste reduction body Wrap, supermarket customers in the UK used almost 8 billion single-use plastic bags in 2011, a 5.4% rise on the 7.6 billion in 2010, with each person using an average of almost 11 a month. This was the second annual rise in a row.

Wrap also points out that in Wales, where a 5p charge was introduced last October, the amount of throwaway bags being taken home has fallen significantly.

England is the only part of the UK which has no plans for a plastic bag charge, and the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), Keep Britain Tidy, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) and Surfers Against Sewage are calling for one to be brought in.

From The Guardian:

Samantha Harding, CPRE “stop the drop” campaign manager, said bag levies had been shown to work in Wales and in Ireland, where plastic bag use fell by 90% following the introduction of a charge.

“A levy is coming to Northern Ireland and Scotland is already consulting on one. Why must the English countryside be the last to benefit from good environmental policies?” she asked.

The organizations say plastic bags end up littering England’s streets, countryside and beaches, while in the sea they can entangle or be swallowed by wildlife.

Over 1 trillion plastic bags are used every year worldwide, or about 1 million plastic bags every minute, but a single plastic bag can take up to 1,000 years to decompose.

Around the world, some nations and cities, recognizing that plastic bags are bad for the earth because they are made from petroleum and don’t decompose, have begun imposing bans on single-use plastic bags. Parts of China, Australia, South Africa, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany have either banned plastic bags outright or introduced a fee for them.

And earlier this year, in the US, the city of Los Angeles approved a ban on plastic bags, joining 48 other California cities, and numerous other American cities that already have plastic bag bans.

Memo to England: time to get going on the fee for single-use plastic bags.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/english-supermarkets-to-start-charging-for-plastic-bags.html#ixzz22OgmNljE

Think Twice Next Time About Touching a Receipt with Your Bare Hands -- Your Unborn Child May Thank You for It.

AlterNet / By Scott Thill

If you're looking to avoid further hormonal freakouts brought on by industrial chemicals then you might want to clean out your wallet.

If you're looking to avoid further hormonal freakouts brought on by the hated Bisphenol A (BPA) -- a frightening endocrine disruptor reportedly found in 96 percent of women but consumed more by their children, then you might want to clean out your wallet. Or perhaps forego shopping receipts altogether until you hear otherwise from conclusive scientific studies -- which could take many years to straggle in.

Two years ago, Canada became the first country to outright declare BPA, a controversially toxic compound for polycarbonate polymers and epoxy resins found in everyday plastics and other products, a toxic substance unsuitable for the First World. More recently, laggards like the European Union, the United States and more have banned it from baby bottles, but not everything else. That includes the thousands of point-of-sale thermal receipts ripped daily from cash registers, gas stations and other places too numerous to count, unless you're a scientist studying the toxicity of BPA or its less-known substitute Bisphenol S (BPS) in those receipts and resins.

It should be by now common knowledge that BPA secretes enough weak estrogen to influence serious developmental and neurological deformities and diseases, such as the congenital defect hypospadias, a freaky misplacement of the urethra now twice as common in newborn boys as before. What is not as well known is how much BPA and BPS is in thermal receipts. In the specific case of BPS, we're in the dark.

"There's not much known about BPS as an endocrine disruptor," Dr. Andrea Gore, a fellow at The Endocrine Society and professor of pharmacology and toxicology at University of Texas at Austin, told AlterNet. "It's being used as a BPA substitute, but it's been introduced into the environment without any biological testing. There are a couple of studies out there suggesting that BPS, similar to BPA, is a weak estrogen. Beyond that, little to nothing is known about its effects in the body."

One recent study, however, has ascertained that people, especially store employees who handle thermal receipts daily, may be absorbing almost 20 times more BPS through their skin than BPA when it was considered safe. Led by Dr. Kurunthachalam Kannan from New York State Department of Health's Wadsworth Center and published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, it analyzed thermal receipts from the U.S., Japan, Korea and Vietnam and found BPS in all of them. Kannan confirmed to AlterNet that there is concern that BPS is no safer than BPA, and that the former's rate of absorption relative to the latter is startling. He found the question of whether endocrine disruptors are not as recognized or regulated as they should be too broad, but found truth in the propositions that public awareness seems limited relative to the threat and that regulation is lagging behind the data made public so far.

"Our work is on the presence and use of a toxic chemical, not about toxicity itself," he told AlterNet. "But certainly it is concerning if a product containing a toxic compound is touched all the time."

Similar studies have echoed Kannan's measured concern, although they have somewhat dispensed with his critical distance. Published in 2010 in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, "Transfer of Bisphenol A From Thermal Paper To the Skin" found that the toxic chemical was indeed transferred to dry fingers, ten times more so if they were wet or greasy. It also found indications that BPA can enter the skin to the point that it can't be washed off, and that people handling thermal paper daily for hours could, depending on the circumstances, encroach upon the margins of tolerable daily intake.

"On the printed side of the paper, BPA is present almost as a pure chemical," the study's co-author Koni Grob, analyst for Switzerland's Official Food Control Authority in Zurich, explained to AlterNet. "Working with such paper means constantly putting fingers into the chemical, which no chemist would ever do. At present uncertainty, as a pregnant woman, I would not accept touching BPA all day long."

Grob also explained that there is a broad debate about the toxicity of thermal receipts, and that the jury is still out on the scientific proof for our levels of exposure. But he warned that it is "most critical" to limit exposure to mothers and their foetusus, and that "it is up to scientists and authorities to resolve this problem. Scaring the public is useless and unfair."

But that is often where the science and common sense part company. Scaring the public, using the pretty solid science on BPA and emergent studies on BPS provided so far by Grob's "scientists and authorities" -- who have historically remained conservative in their assessments of the toxicity of everyday life -- is often what it takes to widen the public and professional dialogue and kickstart greater regulation of what are obviously dangerous chemicals. That they are in things we need -- and more often don't really need, like the majority of thermal receipts which could easily be electronically replaced -- is already a sign that their usage is far too ubiquitous. BPA's major route of exposure is diet, which means it's in our food and water, and in the things in which we store our food and water, together comprising a rather staggering amount of our toxic everyday life.

And the list of things that can go wrong because of too much exposure to BPA is a horror show, starring existential threats like cancer and diabetes to more sensational scares like genital and genetic deformities. On a good day, you probably don't really want to read how endocrine disruptors screw up your mind and body, but you probably should on any given day, and then tell a neighbor. Because science often needs a more primal mover than its own intellectual curiosity: According to Environmental Working Group senior analyst Sonya Lunder, science funded by the BPA industry says everything's fine, while those outside its influence say everything is actually rather scary.

"It is unclear how much BPA-coated receipts contribute to people's total exposure to the ubiquitous plastics chemical," Lunder explained in EWG's 2010 study "Synthetic estrogen BPA coats cash register receipts" co-authored with senior scientist David Andrews and senior vice-president for research Jane Houlihan. "What is certain, however, is that since many retail outlets already use BPA-free paper for their receipts, this is one source of contamination that could easily be eliminated completely."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scott Thill runs the online mag Morphizm.com. His writing has appeared on Salon, XLR8R, All Music Guide, Wired and others.  

Is Your Clothing Laced With Formaldehyde?

by Suzi Parrasch

If you thought the last time you were in contact with formaldehyde was when you dissected a frog in your elementary school science class, think again.

A recent study by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, shows that a broad range of clothing and household products are treated with a resin that releases formaldehyde. The purpose? Think wrinkle-free shirts and chinos, and yes, even wrinkle-free pillowcases, sheets and crib sheets.

Formaldehyde may be all around you

In fact, according to an article in The New York Times, formaldehyde can show up pretty much in any room in your house. Upholstery fabrics, draperies, children’s baseball caps, and personal care products including some shampoos, lotions and make up are all on the list of potential culprits.

But why? “Formaldehyde basically keeps the fabric’s fibers in place after a spin in the washing machine. Without it, the fibers become wrinkled or creases may fade,” The Times article explains.

Formaldehyde in clothing is not a new phenomenon. Manufacturers have added it to clothing and other products for years; it also serves as a preservative and to prevent mildew while clothes and other items transit from factory to store.

“From a consumer perspective, you are very much in the dark in terms of what clothing is treated with,” David Andrews, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization, told The Times. “In many ways, you’re in the hands of the industry and those who are manufacturing our clothing. And we are trusting them to ensure they are using the safest materials and additives.”

No formaldehyde regulations for clothing

“The United States does not regulate formaldehyde levels in clothing, most of which is now made overseas. Nor does any government agency require manufacturers to disclose the use of the chemical on labels,” The Times reports. “So sensitive consumers may have a hard time avoiding it (though washing the clothes before wearing them helps).”

Although the study — which was carried out by the GAO as required by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 — maintains that most consumers will never be affected by exposure to formaldehyde in fabrics, and claims that contact dermatitis (an allergic reaction that can causing itching, redness and blisters) is the worst case scenario, formaldehyde can pose serious health consequences for people who work with it in factories.

Formaldehyde levels on the decline in factories

There has been a decline formaldehyde levels in factories over the last several decades, says The Times “largely as a byproduct of regulations protecting factory workers at risk of inhaling the chemical and improved resins.” After all, formaldehyde is a known carcinogen.

So why would we want it touching our skin? In the very least, manufacturers should clearly label products containing formaldehyde. And “some critics are calling for more studies on a broader range of textiles and clothing chemicals, as well a closer look at the effects of cumulative exposure,” The Times says.

“Given all of the things we buy new that can release formaldehyde in our house, all of those things contribute,” Urvashi Rangan, director of technical policy at Consumers Union told The Times, also noting that the Environmental Protection Agency is currently developing formaldehyde emissions regulations for pressed-wood products. “Over all, minimizing your exposure is a good idea.”

And as for wrinkles, do we really need chemicals to smooth them away? What’s wrong with a good, old-fashioned iron?

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/is-your-clothing-laced-with-formaldehyde.html#ixzz222nhAusX