August 14, 2009 - by Molly Mann
So, President Obama's "cash for clunkers" idea is a huge success. The program (its official name is Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save [CARS], but no one calls it that) has helped drive auto sales up to an annual rate of 11.2 million vehicles from 9.7 million, and has improved the average gas mileage of cars on the road by 9.6 miles per gallon.
The concept is this: the government offers consumers between $3,500 and $4,500 to trade in their gas-guzzling "clunkers" for newer, more fuel-efficient vehicles. The money comes in the form of a credit on the new car payments. The dealers take the old vehicles and replace their engine oils with a sodium silicate solution so that they can never run again and send them to the scrapyard. Junkers have 180 days to sell any parts before shredding the cars.
Programs of this kind were first instituted by individual states in the early 1990s, and several European countries have tried similar car-swapping plans. They work on two fronts: first, by stimulating consumers to go out and by new cars, and second, by getting them to buy cars that will be better for the environment.
I have my concerns about the negative environmental impact of junking all of these old cars. First of all, according to R.L. Polk & Co., which collects automotive data, Americans junked 14 million cars last year and that number is sure to climb. I mean, trash is trash. Do we really need to be encouraged to throw more stuff away in favor of yet another upgrade?
In this case, the answer might be yes. The top three sellers during the cash for clunkers program have been the Ford Focus, Toyota Corolla, and Honda Civic; these are three of the most fuel-efficient cars on the road. Once again, environmentalists must make a deal with the devil; we have to take the benefits of lower emissions over the ill of landfill waste, and trust that the government will see that the disposal of the clunkers is environmentally sound.
After all, it's far easier to trade in a few million cars than to upgrade to a cleaner planet.
August 07, 2009 - by Molly Mann
They don't come in spaceships, but these little green guys will wreak havoc on our island if we let them. Invasive plants are a huge problem around the globe, as international travel becomes more common and plant spores often hitch a ride with travelers and traded goods. Close to home, some of these plants threaten to crowd out native species and upset the delicate balance of our ecosystem.
Where I live now, in Oyster Bay, water chestnut is a huge problem. On July 8, 2009, volunteers pulled up more than 4500 pounds of water chestnut from Mill Pond at the Oyster Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Water chestnut, which is unrelated to the edible Chinese water chestnuts, is native to Europe and Asia. It sets roots at the bottom of a body of water, and forms dense, floating mats on
the water’s surface. These mats restrict light availability to aquatic animals and plants, reduce the oxygen content of the water, and displace native vegetation. Water chestnut can also limit boating, fishing, and swimming, and can injure anyone who steps on the sharp, spiny adult seeds.
Like other invasive species, water chestnut's growth is fast and furious. It was first documented in the United States in Massachusetts in the late 1800s, and has been shown to increase tenfold within one year in some areas. Mill Pond residents first observed water chestnut growth in 2005 and the Wildlife Refuge declared an infestation in June 2008. Fortunately, volunteers are working had to remove the species, but they're working against a plant that can reproduce itself 300 times per year.
Invasive species come to an area accidentally, for the most part. Because such a wide range of plants are available in just about every nursery, people plant these foreign seeds in their yards and the runoff carries them to public lands. Seeds and spores can also hitch rides on the soles of shoes and be transported to different areas. It's much easier to prevent spreading these plants and animals than to try to control them after the fact, since most are incredibly hardy and prolific. Here's what you can do to be part of the solution:
- Familiarize yourself with native species of plants and use only these to grow your garden.
- Never release any animals you buy in a pet store, especially exotic animals.
- Use a reputable, local nursery and talk about where your purchases came from, as they can host hitchhiking invasive bugs.
- Inform others about the dangers of invasive species, and be on the lookout for unfamiliar plants around your community.
- And, of course, volunteer to help remove them!
Non-native species are mostly silent invaders; we don't tend to notice them until they've completely taken over and upset the delicate natural balance of our area. But there is a way to fight back, and we simply can't abstain from doing so.
July 31, 2009 - by Molly Mann
I can't count the number of times someone has confronted me with the conspiracy theory that recycling is actually worse for the environment than simply tossing your trash. This assertion is always followed by a seemingly well-reasoned but actually false argument that excludes any objections from the listener. So I was relieved to find that Adrienne Esposito, the executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, has cleared the air on recycling in this week's "Green Street LI" section of Newsday.
It is absolutely more expensive to throw things away than to recycle them, and that's just counting the cost in dollars (not the impact on the environment). According to Ms. Esposito, it costs about $80 per ton to dispose of garbage and $40 per ton for recyclables. She also points out that recycling creates jobs (a major plus in this economy), and clears the record about the energy required to recycle containers. For those of you who've been led to believe otherwise, it takes 17 times more energy to make a new aluminum can than a recycled one.
So there you have it. There's no excuse for not recycling. It's the best way to help the planet by thinking globally and acting locally. And lucky for you, it's pretty easy. You just sort glass, plastic, and paper from your normal trash and put it out on the curb on days designated by your town. No excuses!
July 24, 2009 - by Molly Mann
The Associated Press reported on Monday that researchers have concretely linked prenatal exposure to air pollution with lower IQ scores in childhood. Does this mean that we're less intelligent than our grandparents (I'm sure some of them would say so), or that our children and grandchildren will be less intelligent, as a whole, than we are?
The study, which was published in the August edition of Pediatrics, examined 249 children of women who wore backpack air monitors for 48 hours during their final months of pregnancy. These women lived in predominantly low-income neighborhoods in New York City, such as northern Manhattan and the South Bronx. All of the mothers were exposed to pollution from vehicle exhaust and factory emissions, which contain the placenta-crossing pollutants polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
Right before the children started school at age five, they all had their IQs tested. The children who were exposed to the most pollution before birth scored four to five points lower, on average, than those who had less prenatal exposure. According to the study's lead author and Director of the Columbia center for Children's Environmental Health, Frederica Perera, that's enough of a difference to affect a chidren's performance in school.
We already know that pollution is bad, both for ourselves and for the planet, but this study gives us hard numbers to show that we are really hurting our children's brains by exposing them to polluting chemicals before theyr'e even born. We live in an amazing, post-industrial economy, in which new technologies surprise us every day with our capabilities. But we must also remember that we need to care for the next generation of humans to run this economy, to protect their brains and hearts so that they may lead us with intelligence and compassion.
July 19, 2009 - by Molly Mann
Cancer.
Every single one of us knows at least one person who has fallen victim to this mostly silent and very deadly disease. And, for most of us, that person is a friend, family member, or partner. For me, it's several extended family members, all four grandparents, and my father.
I call cancer "silent" because we have no definite answer to what causes it, and it often creep up without any symptoms. If caught early, most cancers can be treated as a chronic disease rather than a fatal one, but there's always that lingering anxiety, that constant knowledge that someone you love is carrying an evil, poisonous monster inside of him or her.
From what we do know about cancer, it's at least exacerbated, if not completely caused, by environmental factors. And by environmental factors I mean lifestyle choices - alcohol, cigarettes, diet and exercise level - as well as pollution. According to Aaron Blair, chief of the Occupational Epidemiology branch of the National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, most epidemiologists agree that cancer's cause is 80 to 90 percent environmental.
Americans use more than 100,000 chemicals in
household cleaners, solvents, pesticides, food additives, lawn care,
and other products. Some of these are known carcinogens, but most haven't been tested for any cancer-causing effect. We, as a society, need to be more vigilant about asking questions of the substances we put in and near our bodies. Where do they come from? What are their long and short-term effects on our health? Do their benefits outweight their risks? I ask these questions every day, for my health and for those of the people I love.
July 14, 2009 - by Molly Mann
Odds are, if you're reading this blog (or if you even know what a blog is) you're a tech junkie. Welcome to the club. We Facebook, we Tweet, we text, and we often find our portal to the world is a tiny LCD screen.
Understandably, many are up in arms about this tech revolution, wondering with trepidation what kind of future we can have that is so far removed from our grandparents' pen and paper existences. Researchers are even suggesting that our excessive - in their opinion - reliance on technology will rewire our brains and "impair cognition, spur depression and change neural circuitry in areas of the brain responsible for mood and thought" (Gary Small, director of UCLA's Memory & Aging Research Center, paraphrased by Allan Richter in his article, "Our Rewired Brains," which appeared in the April 2009 issue of Energy Times). They worry that our brains will lose the ability to perform tasks that we have trained computers to do for us, sort of like factory workers being laid off and replaced by machines.
Scientists are also concerned about technology's effect on our emotional health, concluding that computers promote isolation. Richter cites research from the Nielsen Mobile firm that on average, kids get their first cell phone before age 11, and that the typical American teenager sends or receives more than 1700 test messages monthly, while making only 230 calls in the same time period. He interpreted the data to mean that young people aren't connecting on any meaningful basis, only increasing their isolation by avoiding face-to-face contact through texts.
While I understand and appreciate Richter's perspective, as well as those of the experts he cites, I heartily disagree with him. Rather, I disagree with the underlying assumptionof his article, that we could change these things if we found they were really bad. Since some guy in a cave rubbed two sticks together to make fire, the parade of technology has marched steadily onward, and appears to have an infinite range. Human beings tend to take a very solipsistic view of the world, but the harsh reality is that creatures must adapt to their environment, not the other way around. Just like mammals adapted to living on dry land, we, too, will adapt to the changing demands of our world.
We have already, and will continue to use technology to develop social networking sites to build our interpersonal relationships, and software that requires creativity and critical thinking skills on the part of the user. We just don't know what we will accomplish years from now, or what the future will look like, just like our grandparents could never have anticipated the things we do today. And that is its beauty, not its downfall.
July 05, 2009 - by Molly Mann
I've recently become aware of celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder in which an inflammatory reaction to gluten (the protein part of wheat and related grains) damages the villi in the small intestine, the finger-like appendages that absorb nutrition from the foods we eat.
I was floored when my doctor told me (as the result of a bone scan from a stress fracture) that I have osteoporosis. I'm 21! I was even more confused when he considered celiac disease as a potential cause for my severely low calcium, vitamin D, and iron levels, despite my healthy diet. I've know two people with celiac disease, and both had such severe gastrointestinal symptoms that they would have to run off the bathroom within minutes of eating anything containing gluten. I have no such symptoms, so how could I have celiac?
Celiac symptoms vary widely and may be "silent," meaning that the disease causes no obvious outward symptoms, even while causing malnutrition. Roughly 3 million Americans (or 1 in 133) has been diagnosed with celiac because their symptoms are severe enough to merit a blood test for gluten antibodies and biopsy of the small intestine, but many more will not be aware of their disease until they experience complications like malnutrition, osteoporosis, cancer, reproductive problems, thyroid and autoimmune disorders, neurological issues - many autistic children have had success in treating their condition with a gluten-free diet - depression and anxiety, and cirrhosis of the liver.
So why haven't most of us heard of celiac disease? There are several factors at play here: First of all, the medical-pharmaceutical industry is driven by money, just like any other. Drug companies encourage doctors to diagnose conditions for which they have marketable treatments by distributing information and, often, clicky pens. There are no drugs to treat celiac disease - the only treatment is a life-long, completely gluten-free diet - so pharmaceutical companies stand to gain no profits from its diagnosis.
Secondly, they would actually lose money doing so, since most drugs and skin care products use gluten as a filler, making finding safe medications very difficult for people with celiac. Gluten is everywhere these days, which may also account for the rise in diagnosis (four times more common than it was 50 years ago). Agribusiness breeds wheat for higher and higher gluten content, in response to a demand for higher-protein grains. They also use more pesticides, which may cause the body's toxic response to gluten by association with these harmful chemicals.
It seems to me that companies could solve this problem by marketing gluten-free goods, as many have, but that won't happen until there is enough of a demand for such goods, and keeping people from knowing they have celiac puts a damper on that demand.
Awareness is key. Here are several celiac resources to help educate anyone who thinks he/she, or a friend or family member, may have celiac. You can get a simple blood test from your doctor to confirm or deny your suspicions. There are also plenty of companies that make gluten-free foods, medicines, and skin care products.
www.celiac.org
www.celiachandbook.com
www.glutenfreemall.com
www.gfreediet.com
June 28, 2009 - by Molly Mann
If you're friends with me on Facebook, and you've caught one or more of my status updates over the past few days, you know that it's been a really rough week for me. I had an appendectomy on Monday, and let's just say I've seen a lot more hospitals than I want to for a very long time to come. I'm now recuperating and trying to catch up with everything that has happened in the world while I was lying in bed for four days!
What I was able to do in the hospital was think. A lot. About hospitals. More specifically, I was able to observe first-hand this massive industrial complex that we trust to care for our health. There has been a lot of talk in the media and in Washington lately about how to finance national health care, and how much waste plagues our current system. There is a lot of waste: expensive and invasive exams and procedures that may not be necessary, the high price of malpractice insurance (and aversion), and a lack of preventative care that eventually results in poorer health and a higher bill.
During my recent hospital stay, and in all my previous encounters with the health care system, I've noticed a lot of waste on a small scale, as well. Nurses and doctors toss away a pair of latex gloves after every interaction with patients, medical supplies are highly disposable and certainly not biodegradable, tons of paper goes into printing and distributing reports, and thousands of watts of electricity is used to power the machines that keep hospitals and medical offices running. This is not to say that all of this is uncessesary. When I get sick - when I was undergoing and recovering from my operation - I was ever so grateful for the sanitary conditions and ready materials all of this "waste" provides. But I was very aware that I was reaping the benefits of a very un-green situation.
I don't know how cure what ails our nation's health care complex. But I can provide a sound diagnosis: waste. We are spending too much money on an unsustainable system, and that has to change sooner rather than later if we are going to be good conservators of our people's and our planet's health. We need new technologies that may cost more in the short term, but will reduce waste and wasteful practices in the long term, as well as bright minds to develop new modes of organization. Only then will we be truly well, both as individuals and as a nation.
June 20, 2009 - by Molly Mann
A few months ago, I wrote about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in honey bees. But there's another population that is dying out for unknown reasons.
Hibernating bats are dying in caves across the northeastern United States. Most, but not all, of these bats have a white fungus around their noses, resulting in the mystery disease earning the moniker of White-Nose Syndrome (WNS)The bats are also all emaciated, which is highly unusual because bats store up fat because they go into hibernation. The infection will spread throughout a cave of hibernating bats, killing off 75 to 100 percent of that population. Since it first surfaced in caves in Albany, NY in 2006, WNS has killed more than half a million bats.
This may not seem like a big deal to those of us who don't come in regular contact with bats, but they are a vital part of our ecosystem. Bats are the biggest control on nocturnal insects, since they eat these bugs for prey. Without bats, we will either be overrun with nasty and potentially harmful bugs, or need to resort to chemical pesticides to do the job. Aside from the environmental effects of increased pesticide use, farmers will have to spend more money to protect their crops, and that cost will be passed on to the consumer.
Scientists expect the problem of WNS to worsen, since there is such a lack of information on what it is and how to treat it. Right now, conservationists aren't allowing humans to enter caves, lest they spread the disease, but this measure really isn't enough. We need research, money, and attention on this issue.
You can read more about WNS here. And if you want to help, get in touch with your members of Congress about setting aside funds for researching this issue. The bats may be suffering in silence right now, but if they become extinct, you will definitely hear about it.
June 09, 2009 - by Molly Mann
The New York Times reported on Friday that some dairy farmers have begun altering the feed they give their cows in order to reduce the amount of methane production on their farms. Instead of corn, the favorite feed crop of America's dairy industry, these farmers have opted for plants like alfalfa and flaxseed, which "mimic" the kind of food (grass) that cows' stomachs are equipped to digest.
There's an idea: feed cows cow food! Now we're cooking with gas! (Or not, in this case.)
Since the 1950s, most cows in America live on feedlots, where they stand around all day in groups of 150 head or more - often in their own excrement - and are each fed about 20-30 pounds of corn a day. This is by far the most cost-effective way for farmers to do business, since corn is the cheapest and most plentiful crop out there. The price of corn ($2.25 per bushel) is about 50 cents less than growing it, thanks to government subsidies that help farmers unload their surpluses.
That is, corn is cheap feed if you take the cows out of the equation. The problem here is that cows can't digest corn. They're extremely efficient at turning vegetable protein, in the form of grass, into protein that is accessible to humans, but less efficient at processing corn, which is mostly a carbohydrate. Cows can only tolerate feedlots for about six months. And while they're on the feedlot, they require dosing with antibiotics to prevent the infections that come with a generally unhealthy diet.
Corn causes cows to bloat. Well, all food causes cows to bloat, because they digest through a process of rumination, in which the cows basically allow food to ferment in their stomachs in order to break it down and render the nutrients available to them. This gas (methane) is normally expelled through belching. But a diet high in carbohydrates throws off the natural process of rumination and allows gas to collect in the rumen, the part of the cow's body that holds partially digested food. Unless the pressure is relieved by forcing a hose down the cow's esophagus, the gas will continue to inflate the rumen against his lungs and he will suffocate.
Acidosis is another result of a corn diet. Cows don't have as much acid in their stomachs as we do, but corn creates a lot of acidity, basically giving the animal heartburn. Aside from a general discomfort, this illness weakens the cows immune system, leaving him open to infections that require antibiotics, which may, in turn, lead to antibiotic resistance.
Feeding cows corn is unhealthy for us, the consumers, as well. In addition to the risk of antibiotic resistance, meat from corn-fed cows is significantly high in saturated fat and lower in the good kind of fat: omega-3 fatty acids.
Yet with all of these problems, American dairy farmers as a whole still feed their cows tons and tons of corn every year because it is "cheap" to do so. This is simply another area of our lives in which our concept of something's sticker price is divorced from its actual cost in terms of public and environmental health (which are inseparable). These farmers who make the investment to feed cows cow food (grass) are spending a little bit more out of their pockets, but are saving us all much worry over illness, ethics, and the future of our planet.
That is priceless.
June 04, 2009 - by Molly Mann
When my mother was in college in the 1960s, activism was in the air. From Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) to the Peace Corps (which my mom joined from 1965 to 1968), young people felt that there was a need for urgent action, and that the responsibility for that action fell squarely on their shoulders.
Today, however, the nature of activism is different. Not better or worse, but different. We don't - well, most of us don't - chain oursleves to trees or organize sit-ins. Rather, we join Facebook groups and use our power as the largest consumer demographic to assert our principles. In 2001, Month Phan of Newsday coined the perjorative term "slacktivism" for these kinds of protests, especially internet protests. Whether or not such disparagement is deserved, however, it is true that the attitude of protest has changed to one of urgent, individual action, to one of wanting to identify with a movement that someone else will lead.
Of course, the character of activism was slightly different pre-Obama. Every young person I spoke to immediately after the current President's election expressed his or her desire to get involved, to take on this great big country and this troubled world. Whether that spirit will last is yet to be determined, but no one can say that my generation is apathetic.
Rather than lament what today's youth aren't doing, let's look at what they are doing. The consumer power we wield is one of the most powerful tools out there to effect real change. In the June 8, 2009 issue of TIME magazine, Jeremy Caplan profiles "Carrotmobbing," the practice of rewarding businesses with mass purchases if they promise to use the money to become greener. It's a reverse boycott method (as in, carrot rather than stick) that began last spring in San Francisco when consumers helped a local convenience store install more efficient lighting by flooding it with more than $9,200 in business. Since then, Carrotmobs have spread to 10 other cities in the United States, Finland, and France.
No, Carrotmobbers don't have to make any great sacrifice in their activism. They don't have to go on hunger strikes or travel to a developing country to effect change. All they have to do is whip out their credit cards, and shop for products they were going to buy anyway. But it works, and what's more: it has the potential to keep working for a long time.
The virulent activism of the 1960s ended with...well, with the 1960s. The commitment to forestalling or reversing climate change will take much longer than that. Just as our lifestyles need to be sustainable, so do our methods of activism. You can't get people to chain themselves to trees for longer than a few years, or until the fad gets old. But people will keep buying for their entire lives, and to harness that energy in the spirit of activism is real action, in my opinion. The election of President Obama, thanks to his plugged-in grassroots network, showed just how powerful text messages, Facebook, and Twitter could be. We're not your mama's activists, but we sure aren't slackers.
May 28, 2009 - by Molly Mann
Now that President Obama's climate diplomacy team has returned from its second Major Economies Forum on Energy an Climate, I think we can safely agree that the President fully intends to carry through his campaign promises. He is moving full steam ahead to effect better environmental policies and engage with other nations in these efforts. For that reason, I couldn't be more proud to be an American right now.
During the elections, both candidates - all candidates, if you go back to the primaries - promised to do something about this climate change mess, whether they agreed that it was one of our own making or not. We're used to hearing such talk; even the last President Bush, probably the worst leader for the environment next to Ronald Reagan, made campaign promises to act seriously on the environment. But so far, we've been served empty promises from our leaders.
Obama, however, is different. I sensed this unique quality of his - the desire and resolve to keep his word - during his acceptance speech on election night, and again during his inauguration. He acknowledged that ours is a "planet in peril" because we can no longer "consume the world's resources without regard to effect," and that "each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet." He assured us that we would "harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories," and that the best and brightest among us would be solicited for their help.
He also reminded us that "the world has changed, and we must change with it."
Of course, it might all have been politico-speak, phrases honed to appeal to ideals rather than reality. But Obama's actions since being inaugurated have proved that his words are not empty. Whereas George H.W. Bush's administration put up roadblock after roadblock when it came to working with other nations toward solutions for climate change, Todd D. Stern, the State Department special envoy on climate, reports that the Obama administration is making real strides in achieving accord among the nations on this front.
"We’re...talking about actual hard mandatory policy all the way out," Mr. Stern said. "Not just to 2020 but 2025, ‘30, ‘40,
‘50, not simply goals."
The world focus seems to have moved beyond the flashy promises of the Kyoto Protocols, which the Bush administration refused to sign, to more practical measures, with the United States at the fore.
"My watchword, throughout all of the time I’ve been in office, is science and pragmatism," Mr. Stern said. "We need to have an agreement that is consistent with the science but that is also pragmatic so you can actually get it done."
The minutiae of the meeting transcripts are currently being bandied about by environmental scientists and policy wonks, and I'll go into more detail about the actual agreements in future posts, but to me, the most important thing to come of these conferences is change: a change in policy, in action, and in attitude.
May 27, 2009 - by Molly Mann
Yesterday, as I sat in Nassau Coliseum during Adelphi's commencement exercises (I am now a very proud AU alumna!), I thought about the generations of graduates before me, and those who would come after me. I wondered what the world would look like for the young people who will inherit it 30, 40, or 50 years from today.
Wrapped up in those thoughts were musings on a book that someone recently brought to my attention: Richard Louv's No Child Left Inside, in which the author blames new technologies and narrowing school curricula for keeping children from exploring and appreciating the natural environment.
There is certainly merit to Louv's argument. Children are increasingly being kept indoors after school to do piles of homework in preparation for standardized exams, play video games, and watch television. Parents have become, in general, less comfortable with the idea of their children playing outdoors in an unsupervised, unstructured environment. Rises in childhood obesity, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) - the title of which Louv flippantly appropriates for his "nature deficit disorder" - and even global warming undoubtedly have some root in this trend.
But Louv fails to consider what else children are doing. Today's children have a wealth of information and resources at their fingertips. The recent election of President Obama showed us just how powerful those resources can be in building a grassroots movement to effect real change. Not only can you learn about what is happening in any part of the world, you can make something happen in your part of the world and get others to read about it in theirs.
Just as a hypothetical example, if a young person is assigned a school project or develops an interest in wolves, he or she can go online and find no small amount of information about gray wolves, their endangerment and controversial status as an endangered species, as well outrage over the aerial hunting of wolves in Alaska. He or she can join Defenders of Wildlife at the student level and offer his support. Then, he or she can email everyone in his address book or start a Facebook group to spread the word about his cause. With the internet at his fingertips, a child's thirst for knowledge will not go unslaked.
Of course, information can also be misused and young minds need to be carefully guided lest their curiosity lead them astray. The internet is not a substitute parent or teacher. Children still need strong figures to teach them values, perhaps now more than ever. But children are also incredibly resilient, independent, and resourceful. Yes, it may have become difficult over the past few decades for children to find the time and motivation to play outside. But no, their minds and bodies will not stop growing or seeking out a place to make a change in the world.
Tomorrow's graduates will live in a different world than the one I know, but that has always been the case across generations. The information age has allowed my peers and me to seek out - to paraphrase Dr. Scott - opportunities that didn't exist when our parents attended college. I can assure you that my mother and grandmother had no idea what a blog was when they were my age. I cannot begin to dream up the world my children will live in, but I know that it will be wonderfully unique and one of their own making.
May 18, 2009 - by Molly Mann
As I've mentioned before in this blog, I follow Michael Pollan very closely. As far as required reading for anyone interested in living green, I would put every one of his books on my list.
His latest project is to poll NYTimes readers about their rules for eating. One facet of Pollan's argument for a better way of living is that we've separated food consumption from ritual and enjoyment, and that doing so has caused us to lose sight of food as something that sustains us, rather than a mere sop to boredom.
Pollan includes several rules of his own in his most recent book, The Omnivore's Dilemma. Here are a few:
- Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.
- Don't eat anything with more than five ingredients.
- Stay out of the middle of the supermarket. Shop around the perimeter for the foods that are least processed. They're there because they need to be replaced more often and the perimeters allow for easier access for stock boys.
- Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot. That means it's not really food.
- Don't buy your food where you buy your gasoline.
- Pay more, eat less.
And of course: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
All of these rules are about changing the way we engage with the food we eat and giving it a more central position in our lives. Food really is the most important thing - it gives us nutrition and pleasure and draws us closer to others. Every other culture has its set of rituals celebrating food, we need to create our own.
How do you think and feel about food? Do you treat it with respect? What are your food rules?
May 11, 2009 - by Molly Mann
Do you suffer from frequent infections, hormone fluctuations and irregularities, allergies, chemical sensitivities, cognitive problems, and/or fatigue?
The cause might be yeast, the most common type of which is candida albicans, that is living and reproducing in your gastrointestinal and reproductive tracts. Delicious Living magazine offers this yeast evaluation to find out if yeast growth might be the culprit for your discomfort.
As with most things, what's good for your health is good for the environment, too. Candida feeds on sugar, so a yeast-curbing diet is essentially a low carbohydrate diet in which all processed foods are eliminated. This greatly reduced the carbon footprint of your food intake, since you'll be eating food almost straight from the source.
These processed foods include milk (which has a lot of sugar), wheat gluten, alcohol, refined sugar, and caffeine.
The idea of eliminating all of these foods is rather overwhelming, I'll admit. Obviously, this isn't for everyone. It takes a lot of work and planning to ensure you meet your protein and fiber needs with nuts, seeds, legumes, fresh vegetables (especially greens - the chlorophyll is good for digestion), soy, and whole fruit in moderation. I've found that doing so encourages me to find creative ways to make a satisfying and nutritious meal with so few options. Believe it or not, this challenge has led me to eat more variety, since I can't fall back into my old food ruts.
If you think that yeast might be an issue for you, why not try an elimination diet for a while? Two weeks should be long enough to see an effect. It's a great way to get in touch with your body because you're suddenly paying attention to all of these signals (digestion, energy, complexion, metabolism, etc.) that you usually take for granted, and to reduce your carbon footprint. You don't have to stay on it forever if you don't like it, but you just might love it. So far, I do.
