Does guilt work as a motivator to change your life for the better in a longterm way? Both my observation and my experience tell me that, at best, it’s an unnecessary expenditure of precious energy, and at worst, it can lead to bad backlash. Backlash is when you find that you’ve just eaten/drunk/done the very [...]
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I learned this week about a Dentist in Bangor, Maine named Jonathan Shenkin who proposed that people should not be allowed to purchase soda with their taxpayer-funded foodstamps. The roars of indignation that followed his letter online at the Bangor Daily News were quite fascinating. Some people see the proposal as an effort to usurp [...]
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It’s a common refrain that good food is not affordable food, and unfortunately, it’s often true. This is, however, the first time in human history that nutrient-depleted food is cheaper than nutrient-dense food. This is a twisted fact that stems from none other than the industrial revolution. Once machines could process our foods, we started [...]
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If you haven’t read Michael Pollan’s October 9th Open Letter to the Next President in the New York Times, I can’t recommend it more highly. This champion of food writers, a man who has been one of the great heroes of illuminating the unfortunate realities of our food supply through his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma [...]
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In 1944, in the wake of World War II, our government issued an appeal to American citizens to grow their own food. 20 million Americans did it! People who had no experience with gardening planted up their front yards with vegetables and took over derelict urban lots in order to alleviate pressure on our agricultural [...]
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Ireland Rocked
We got back from 2 weeks in Ireland this past weekend. Snapshot of my impressions:
1) Boiled cabbage and carrots; no wonder people think they don’t like vegetables!
2) I had heard that Irish people have a higher incidence of celiac disease. Well, in St. Nicolas’ cathedral in Galway, there was a sign that read “Coeliac [...]
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I’ve lived in parts of the world that didn’t have clear seasons. In Nepal the “seasons” were basically whatever altitude you happened to be at. (high was “winter”, low was “summer”.) Southern California is just disorienting to me with the unrelenting sunshine. Australia was similar. Gum trees are all evergreens, and the odd, confused imported [...]
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Solitude. Do you get enough of it? I have to wrestle with my life to get enough solitude. If you are a mom, and it’s summertime, you are at risk for solitude deficiency. Talk to your spouse and parents about how to get more. :o)
Seriously, summer is fun, but do you know any moms [...]
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What’s Your Dog Eating?
Have you ever noticed that dogs tend to develop growths after a decade or so of eating commercial pet food? My sister’s dog has a couple of growths on his leg that are developing their own personalities and arguing with each other. It’s fascinating in a grotesque sort of way. And did [...]
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I’ve been noodling this around for quite a while and just now feel like writing it down. It’s not a formal business plan so much as a declaration of intention that I’m sending out to the universe. I could write a business plan, but frankly my life-long challenge has been to harness the intensity of [...]
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In 1700, the average American consumed four pounds of sugar a year. Prior to this for all of human history, with few exceptions, there was absolutely no refined cane sugar in the typical human diet. Although people had access honey and maple syrup for thousands of years, it was available in extremely small amounts and [...]
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With regards to food, I am very familiar with the ebbs and flows of what, in retrospect, can be called “progress.” My intimate, decades-long dance with food has allowed me to get to this place where I am right now: A place where I absolutely never feel guilty about what I eat. I have come [...]
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While I really LOVE having my four-wheel drive Subaru during the (seemingly interminable) winter here, I lament the fuel inefficiency when the weather warms up. I get about 23 miles to the gallon. I had a car that got 40 mpg once, but it was no match for the frost heaves in spring (anyone else [...]
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One of the most enjoyable parts of my job is introducing people to food and products they have never encountered before. Most of my favorite things are available locally.
Chocolate- Hands down, the best chocolate there is is LOCAL! It’s called power chocolates. http://www.powerchocolates.com/ In fact, I’m trying to keep my hands off my office stash [...]
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My son turned three in November. Pretty much ever since he started on solid food, he’d had a mild rash, just around his mouth at times. I knew that I if a child is exposed too much to a food he is sensitive to, then it could develop into an allergy, so I had to [...]
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It’s a new year. And “another chance for us to get it right,” says Oprah Winfrey. But change is hard. Our habits seem to be wicked entrenched and they seem to have this infuriating magnetism that pulls us back into the same old patterns when our resolve to eat differently, exercise more, meditate, whatever, [...]
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My blogs are often long and researched, but I’m in the mood to be more bloggish and just write because I have a wild hair about something.
My husband and I just got back from a weekend at Kripalu Center. The food is just awesome and, for me, it’s one of the best parts of the [...]
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In part 1 of this series I interviewed “CC,” a local 69-year-old woman who is quite healthy. There’s nothing really extraordinary about her health, except that despite having a hormone disorder, she’s healthier than many 40-year olds. Well that IS extraordinary, then, isn’t it?
I hope to convey that the really extraordinary thing is that our [...]
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The following is the first of two articles on healthy aging and contains an August 2007 interview with a healthy 69 year old woman from midcoast Maine whom I will call “CC.” I wanted to interview her because of what a role model she is for me. She started addressing health concerns through changing her [...]
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I listened to Marion Nestle– a leading nutrition researcher and author of Food Politics– give a speech that was very compelling. She was tackling the issue of personal responsibility versus collective responsibility when it comes to food choices. This is a sticky topic in the land of the free. Nobody wants the US government telling [...]
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