More Food for Healthy Eating: Kimchi

Sustainable Architecture aka Healthy Homes

This is how homes should be built... Living Homes definitely fit my philosophy of life.

The ironic thing is that, while the houses in the videos are quite expensive, if this was how most homes were built then construction of homes in general would be much more affordable and more people would hopefully be able to own their own places. Not only that but everyone living inside would be healthier for the significant decrease or absence of synthetic chemicals and our healthcare costs (remember, it's all about the money) as a nation would drop significantly because people would suffer less from, among other things, various types of allergies and even cancer. Those FEMA trailers were really very concentrated (sick) examples of what we do to ourselves in real houses over a more protracted period.

Meanwhile, I'm regularly hit with a barrage of chemicals everyday in the form of paint fumes from renovation at work, second hand smoke outside my building and in town, exhaust from cars when I go for a walk, and pesticides in the grass I walk through...just to name a few. It's hard to know sometimes whether it's even safe to breathe.

* I did get the treadmill by the way. Not sure when they will be able to deliver it but I'm finally going to have a Nordictrack C2155. Now I just need some 3/4" plywood to build the table.

Question: If I breathe in more chemicals when I exercise than I do otherwise then is it healthier to go ahead and exercise anyway or stay inside (on my bum) with an air cleaner running?

Healthy Delicious

Eating Happy and Healthy

In the summer, everyone around me seems to be dragging out the ice cream, frozen yogurt, and other calorie-laden cold desserts. Fortunately, I'm one of those people who really doesn't crave ice cream and such to any degree. However, I do like candy and popsicles and the calories in all such food (even 100% fruit juice pops) really adds up. Some ways around this problem is making popsicles from diluted fruit juice or, if like me you really like sour stuff, then make popsicles from lemonade with extra lemon juice. According to the bottle, the organic lemon juice I purchase from Whole Foods has 0 calories so I can drink as much as I like. I used to drink a lot of lemonade but now I'm training myself to drink my water and lemon juice without sugar. I still like it. Another way to satisfy a craving for something cold and sweet is to suck on frozen fruit. Frozen cherries are a great choice. The little one (7 years old now) loves frozen blueberries. And then there are frozen strawberries, peaches, rasberries, and oodles of other choices. Check them out and enjoy the rest of your summer...I'm going to go pour a glass of cold water.

Vegetarians are Sexier

"I am Alicia Silverstone and I am a Vegetarian."


No Fish and Chips for this Brit.


I've met Forest Whitaker. He's not only an amazing actor but a really nice person and a good father...

Adult ADHD

If you like me, have ADHD then you'll appreciate how much harder it is to get information about this than getting information about childhood ADHD. There is a great deal more information now than ever before, books and such, but it was nice nevertheless to find this dated video on the subject.

Posted Feb 19, 2007

ADHD in adults and other important information

Wise Words

I was watching the inspirational speaker, Dr. Wayne Dyer, tonight. A quote from him: "It makes just about as much sense to me to have a smoking section in a restaurant as it does to have a peeing section in a swimming pool."

And from someone he quoted: "Wisdom is knowing I am nothing. Love is knowing I am everything. And in between the two, my life moves."

iReading

I have something over 200 books in one small space...they always surround me but I like it that way. I've always dreamed of having a proper library or of living in a library, getting locked in a library, etc., etc. Anyway, these hundreds of books were more numerous in the past and I had to (painfully) pack some away because of allergies, etc. Books do unfortunately hold a great deal of dust and other allergens (incl. mold if there is enough humidity in the air) because they are made from organic material. Luckily, we live in a digital age and many of those books that I might have bought in a used bookstore, along with all the requisite nostalgia causing mustiness, I now own in electronic form. With a large enough screen and good backlighting, I have found reading text in electronic form to be quite rewarding. Recently, Sony came out with a nice reader just for this purpose. This may be a little reminiscent of those flat pads the crew used to read from on Star Trek: TNG but, even without being a fan of new technology, anything that allows me to carry around an entire library of books in my pocket is a winner with me. Note: I carry about 180 titles on my PDA and have had no difficulty reading from it, even in dimly lit environments.

Hook a Canuck: Courtesy of Michael Moore

I just saw Sicko (finally)! I want to leave this country so bad. Or let us all lead mass demonstrations in the street for healthcare. Else, what's the point? A lot of the time, it seems you tell Americans they are getting screwed and they nod and go back to work. Did everyone else already visit hook-a-canuck.com? Here's the video from the website.

Animal Products in my Wine?

I don't drink alcohol. It's a personal decision that could very well change since I have nothing against drinking in true moderation. However, "Western" culture pushes people to drink "socially" far too much in my opinion and I will only drink alcohol if it is something I personally want to do and if I come to that decision on my own, without pressures.

But we do use wine occasionally for cooking (the alcohol evaporates and leaves only flavor). When we have guests, or just get a hankering for a fancy meal, nothing does it quite like Mushroom and Seitan Bourguignon, Baked Yams with Ginger and Orange, Crown Bread, and Lemon-Garlic Broccoli. I never considered however that there might be animal products in our wine. And while I suppose we were okay since we bought organic wine which seems exempt from these worries, as a vegetarian (a compassionate person) I find the very idea revolting. Well, at about.com (which I dislike, but that's another post), this article talks about just that, what animal products can be found in both wine and beer.


If I'm vegan, can I drink beer and wine?

...if you're a dedicated vegan and are choosing to rid your diet of animal foods, have you thought about what goes into the alcohol you drink? Many beers and wines are refined using a product called isinglass, which comes from fish, or may be filtered with bone char. While it may be easy to spot the worm in a bottle of tequila, determining which beers and wines are strictly vegan is another chore! In general, organic wines are usually vegan, and beers made in Germany, where there are strict laws regarding ingredients [being] vegan-friendly.

They also provide a link for this guide to vegetarian and vegan wines, beers and liquors.

Do You Know What's in Your Shampoo?

I feel like I've hit gold. The website, Skin Deep, just (re)started two months ago(less than) and it rates a gazillion household products based on the safety of the ingredients in them. From toothpaste to babywipes, from deodorant to sunscreen, they seem to have covered most everything. Someone has needed to do this kind of product testing for a long time. Finally here it is and, sadly but not surprisingly, coming not from our regulatory commissioners but from a nonprofit organization, The Enivironmental Working Group. The government is, afterall, clearly more than a little bit influenced by corporate lobbyists. I have pasted below the entire press release for Skin Deep.



*********Toxic Chemicals in Cosmetics:*********
Skin Deep 3.0 Reveals Ingredients in 25,000 Products Site Gives Consumers Brand-by-Brand Safety Ratings for Quarter of all Personal Care Products on market

Washington, DC — Most people think that the ingredients in personal care and cosmetic products are safety tested before they are sold. But there is no such requirement in federal law.

To help consumers make informed decisions about their products, Environmental Working Group (EWG) is re-launching its popular Skin Deep website, the only online source for assessing and comparing the safety of personal care products. Skin Deep, first launched 3 years ago by the EWG, generates more than 1 million unique page visits a month. Skin Deep 3.0 is a dramatic upgrade of the database, both in the number of products assessed and the sophistication of EWG's safety reviews. This newest version evaluates the safety of nearly one-fourth of all personal care products on the market.

Skin Deep fills the information gaps left by an industry that markets thousands of products with ingredients that have not been assessed for safety by either industry or government health experts. By law, the government cannot mandate safety studies of cosmetics products or their ingredients, and only 13 percent of the 10,500 ingredients in personal care products have been reviewed for safety by the cosmetic industry's own review panel. For virtually every product on the market, safety decisions are made behind closed doors, guided by an industry-funded panel, without the benefit of peer-review or independent pre-market safety testing.

"Under federal law, companies can put virtually anything they wish into personal care products, and many of them do. Mercury, lead, and placenta extract — all of these and many other hazardous materials are in products that millions of Americans, including children, use every day," said Jane Houlihan, Vice President of Research at EWG. "Mothers shouldn't have to worry about what is in the baby lotion they use, and now they don't have to. The new Skin Deep database provides information on nearly 25,000 personal care products so people can find out for themselves which products are the best choices for them and their families."

EWG's scientists and programmers built Skin Deep to be a one-of-a-kind resource, coupling our in-house collection of cosmetics and personal care product ingredient listings with more than 50 integrated toxicity and regulatory databases — the largest public, product-safety database in existence.

Consumers can also use Skin Deep to create customized shopping lists — products free of fragrances or carcinogens, for instance — while manufacturers can construct one-of-a-kind safety assessments, rating all their product ingredients at once to aid in reformulation plans to make their products safer.

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EWG is a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C., that uses the power of information to protect human health and the environment. The new database can be found at http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com and is also located from EWG's home page at http://www.ewg.org.

Two Matters

One, I want to say how honored I am at receiving a Thinking Blogger Award/Nomination from 2 Crows the magnificent. I will, of course, do my duty as an award holder and, now that I've looked up meme,...Pay It Forward to five other worthy bloggers. I already have at least one blogger in mind but need 4 more so I'll keep thinking about it. hehe

Two, Water is Heavenly. That's it. Just wanted to let everybody know. Peace.

Don't Diet, Sleep

Here, via 1stParagraph, is a great incentive to get your beauty sleep, so important to your overall health. Hint: Click on the title of this post.

The argument of powerful corporations and governments around the world, against government regulation of their products, is that people should be free to choose what they want to buy or who they want to represent them. However, it is clear from a number of incidents throughout history, long ago and more recently, that people will make (contrary to the premise of neoclassical economics) irrational and self-abusive decisions when presented with convincing arguments to do so. For a sociopolitical/sociopathic example, recall that the National Socialist German Workers Party was elected by popular vote in 1920's Germany and their genocidal policies largely supported or denied by the populace.

In the United States, there has also been a long history of support and denial of inhumane and irrational policies and behavior. It cannot be ignored that the institution of slavery in this country was widely supported and that we continue to laud the "founding fathers" who were direct participants in this system. That people continue to abuse each other and themselves then by smoking, drinking, and otherwise ingesting poisons is not surprising. It is simply a continuation of a history of denial, apathy, and indifference toward others in this country. I very much agree that Scandinavia generally speaking and certainly Sweden in particular has a very different cultural understanding of the importance of health for everyone. Rather than assuming for example that people ought to be able to make completely rational purchasing decisions on their own in the face of a barage of corporate marketing from an early age, Sweden (and now Britain?) has banned the marketing of products to young children. The idea being that government should be the way that society regulates itself, looks out for those members who cannot look out for themselves in one way or another...children being a key demographic that needs protection from a lot of things, including corporate influences trying to "build consumer bases" for products harmful to health (long or short-term).