At a loss of what to cook/prepare for dinner tonight? You know its cheaper to cook at home even if you do buy organic food, but its SO tempting to buy take-out. Do you want to eat something that is nutritious, well balanceed, low in calories, delicious and not too stressing on the environment or the workers that process the food?( meat packers work often under horrid conditions) Don't have all the ingredients in the recipe you saw in a magazine you just lost? NOT TO WORRY..
Making dinner is fun, cheaper than eating out and you get to control the amount and quality. Be sure to make enough for leftovers and you won't be tempted to go out to eat for lunch the next day, another huge savings.
You can do this vegan, ( no cheese, no fish as well as no meat) because that way you avoid the costliest ingredients to your budget, your planet and your organs.
Be prepared to mix and match foods and try out the new flavors.
Eat a fresh salad each night and add canned fruits, unsalted nuts, and shop for the in season vegies that make each night's salad unique. Top with craisins, raisins and my favorite immune system building dressing
1 cup Nasoya brand Nayonaise
2 tblsp Dijon Mustard
1 Tblsp Maple syrup
2 cloves shredded garlic
1 tsp shredded fresh organic ginger
lemon pepper, turmeric to taste, about 5 shakes
Add 1/2 cup water to desired consistency
You can use this same recipe in a thicker consistency and put over cooked vegetables
For a fun and easy soup Tomato Based soup
Empty spaghetti sauce into sauce pan from a jar, add 1 can fire roasted Organic tomatoes ( by Muir Glen) add vegies you have on hand and put half in salad, half in soup. Try red cabbage, green peppers, onions, mushrooms. Put in Quinoa ( high protein grain) about 1/2 cup. Add Turmeric, pepper, to taste. Balance with 3 Tblsps maple syrup, add water for proper consistancy.
For main entree experiment with various vegetable protein items
I'm quite fond of Naked Quorn Cutlets which are mushroom based and do have egg whites in them to warn those who might be concerned.
Anyway, put defrosted quorn cutlets in a oven safe pan, pour over your favorite salsa and top with mushrooms and grated almond 'cheese' it takes about 10 minutes and its delicious.
More recipes to come
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Recommend Plant Based Subsittute
In the last post, I neglected to recommend an alternative to fish for getting one's Omega 3's. Ground organic flaxseed is a terrific way to do this AND it add's fiber to one's diet and helps to prevent intestinal problems. Add two tablespoons to one's cereal each morning.
FIsh: Its all about the numbers
The following is from the world reknown environmental scientist and researcher, Lester Brown.
It is a perspective that does not stick very well in our culture, to use a term from Malcom Gladwell's book, for we are still recommending that Americans increase their consumption of fish for their Omega 3 healthy oils. Recommendations from health gurus focus only on our lack of Omega 3's NOT on where the supply will come from in a world with relentless human population growth. To be healthy on this planet we MUST consider the source of our food and food supplements. While it may be true that we are Omega 3 deficient and this is causing health problems, the recommendation of eating more fish needs to consider the state of those fish. Fish are not available in endless supply. Even the very rich cannot buy the food that is no longer there, because of overharvesting.
Once we understand this we can all commit to three things: Working to humanely stabilize and and reduce our population, eatinga plant based diet, living with a smaller carbon footprint.
After World War II, accelerating population growth and steadily rising incomes drove the demand for seafood upward at a record pace. At the same time, advances in fishing technologies, including huge refrigerated processing ships that enabled trawlers to exploit distant oceans, enabled fishers to respond to the growing world demand. In response, the oceanic fish catch climbed from 19 million tons in 1950 to its historic high of 93 million tons in 1997. This fivefold growth--more than double that of population--raised the wild seafood supply per person worldwide from 7 kilograms (15.4 pounds) in 1950 to a peak of 17 kilograms in 1988. Since then, it has fallen to 14 kilograms.
As population grows and as modern food marketing systems give more people access to these products, seafood consumption is growing. Indeed, the human appetite for seafood is outgrowing the sustainable yield of oceanic fisheries. Today 75 percent of fisheries are being fished at or beyond their sustainable capacity. As a result, many are in decline and some have collapsed.
It is a perspective that does not stick very well in our culture, to use a term from Malcom Gladwell's book, for we are still recommending that Americans increase their consumption of fish for their Omega 3 healthy oils. Recommendations from health gurus focus only on our lack of Omega 3's NOT on where the supply will come from in a world with relentless human population growth. To be healthy on this planet we MUST consider the source of our food and food supplements. While it may be true that we are Omega 3 deficient and this is causing health problems, the recommendation of eating more fish needs to consider the state of those fish. Fish are not available in endless supply. Even the very rich cannot buy the food that is no longer there, because of overharvesting.
Once we understand this we can all commit to three things: Working to humanely stabilize and and reduce our population, eatinga plant based diet, living with a smaller carbon footprint.
After World War II, accelerating population growth and steadily rising incomes drove the demand for seafood upward at a record pace. At the same time, advances in fishing technologies, including huge refrigerated processing ships that enabled trawlers to exploit distant oceans, enabled fishers to respond to the growing world demand. In response, the oceanic fish catch climbed from 19 million tons in 1950 to its historic high of 93 million tons in 1997. This fivefold growth--more than double that of population--raised the wild seafood supply per person worldwide from 7 kilograms (15.4 pounds) in 1950 to a peak of 17 kilograms in 1988. Since then, it has fallen to 14 kilograms.
As population grows and as modern food marketing systems give more people access to these products, seafood consumption is growing. Indeed, the human appetite for seafood is outgrowing the sustainable yield of oceanic fisheries. Today 75 percent of fisheries are being fished at or beyond their sustainable capacity. As a result, many are in decline and some have collapsed.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
In Loving Memory
This blog is dedicated in loving memory to friend and colleague Kathy Kinzing who died last week from a recurrance of bone cancer. As the director of Eco-Education, Kathy built up an organization of environmental educators who went into classrooms to change the world. Kathy was a passionate about the health and well being of this fragile planet of ours and now we are all going to have to try harder without her devoted energy. Condolenses to all of her family and friends.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Humanely Addressing Overpopulation
OVERPOPULATION
Address it humanely, because the option isn't
The Dec. 7 "'Our Hungry Planet' / The real issue is the growing population" failed in a monumental way. It did not explain how to address the problem humanely. Simply put:
• Universal education of all 6.7 billion of us that we are depleting vital resources faster than the sustainable rate. Therefore, it is important to lower birth rates to reach a balance with our resources.
• Universal availability of family planning (not abortion) so couples have only as many children as they want.
Briefly, those are the humane measures needed. Are there inhumane measures? You bet! And here they are: decreasing supplies of food and water leading to more famines, droughts, diseases, plagues, suffering, misery and starvation; more disputes over borders and resources leading to more wars, genocides, destruction and death.
We have spoken before thousands of Minnesotans about the world population growth catastrophe and the need to humanely stabilize our numbers. We have yet to find a single person who thinks that the inhumane course would be better than the humane one. And we doubt we ever will.
DAVID PAXSON, PRESIDENT, AND Carolyn VandenDolder, research fellow, World Population Balance, Minneapolis
Address it humanely, because the option isn't
The Dec. 7 "'Our Hungry Planet' / The real issue is the growing population" failed in a monumental way. It did not explain how to address the problem humanely. Simply put:
• Universal education of all 6.7 billion of us that we are depleting vital resources faster than the sustainable rate. Therefore, it is important to lower birth rates to reach a balance with our resources.
• Universal availability of family planning (not abortion) so couples have only as many children as they want.
Briefly, those are the humane measures needed. Are there inhumane measures? You bet! And here they are: decreasing supplies of food and water leading to more famines, droughts, diseases, plagues, suffering, misery and starvation; more disputes over borders and resources leading to more wars, genocides, destruction and death.
We have spoken before thousands of Minnesotans about the world population growth catastrophe and the need to humanely stabilize our numbers. We have yet to find a single person who thinks that the inhumane course would be better than the humane one. And we doubt we ever will.
DAVID PAXSON, PRESIDENT, AND Carolyn VandenDolder, research fellow, World Population Balance, Minneapolis
The Great Big Green Lie
The Big Green Lie
Why Global Climate Change cannot be resolved without considering our numbers!
By Dr. Karen I. Shragg
Nearly the entire Global Climate Change movement is delivering a message that is ultimately a GREAT BIG GREEN LIE. Yes the planet is warming due to human activity. That’s the truth. The lie that is being perpetuated is that speaker after speaker and book after book about this issue leave out stabilizing and humanely reducing human population growth as a critical part of the solution to this critical issue.
The lie can be summarized in the way that the current anti-carbon messages have portrayed the ideal green citizen. This model citizen takes public transportation to work, drives a hybrid car on weekends to the organic farmers market and to the thrift store to buy used clothing. They use greener light bulbs, install bamboo flooring and energy saving appliances and use battery operated lawn mowers. Once and a great while this model citizen even gets to eat a vegan diet to lower their carbon footprint with greater effect than changing their mode of transportation.
I am one of those who can be found with my energy saving refrigerator full of organic tofu, tempeh and organic hemp butter. I love attending the ever more popular Living Green Expo here in Minnesota so that I can buy my rechargeable batteries and take them home in my cloth bag. But even as I leave my co-op, my favorite expo and the thrift store, I feel like screaming, BUT WHAT ABOUT OUR NUMBERS???
The message that almost all speakers on Global Climate Change give is that going green with a focus on green technology and behavior changes will accomplish ENOUGH. This is a lie It is not that we should stop trying to come up with ways to lower our consumption of our huge ecological footprint, it is that the numbers side of the equation is even more critical. The fact that it is fueling our rapid consumption is being woefully ignored to the point, I would argue, of out and out lying.
The US increase in greenhouse gas emissions mirrors our increase in population growth, 13% in a ten year period between 1990-2000.* How many even realize that we added 100 million people to the United States since 1970? (Much of this is due to immigration policies fueled by overpopulation in other countries. The immigration issue is another very difficult one to address in ways that are not rooted in discrimination, but the alternative is to create a future where a multitude of problems will be so much more difficult to address.)
Using an example of a child who is now three years old, when they are senior citizens in the year 2075, if our current rate of growth in the USA continues as it is today, guess how many people will be living here? If you guessed ONE HALF BILLION you would be right. We already know what more crowded looks like. We already know the consequences. Is that what we want for our country?
Does pounding away at these numbers help create a population perspective? Does knowing that we are growing by 365 per hour in the US net gain as a part of 9,000 per hour global net gain help? It’s very important to know these numbers and use them in our talks, but too many people do not get the very basic concept that our planet has limits to the way it can sustain people.
Getting people to understand basic ecological principles has been the assumed goal of our profession, yet by all indications the general public doesn’t get it, or is afraid to get it. That is very disheartening after decades of environmental education efforts. It is even more disturbing when the so-called experts don’t get it either, because they are the ones who have become the gurus on this topic. They are the ones who have the ear of the public and the microphones of the media right now.
They do talk about the fact that we are running out of our main sources of energy, oil, gas and coal. They know that water is in limited supply. Yet they somehow are able to look this issue squarely in the eyes and offer solutions without discussing the part about how our rapidly growing numbers are the reason we are using up our resources so rapidly.
When I hear from these experts talk about how we can do this, how we can beat the worst of climate change disasters if only we invest in green technologies and install conservation measures, that I feel it’s time to hide the razor blades. Their reluctance may be based in denial or because the solutions seem at first blush to be too politically incorrect to address. Several countries have already found creative and humane ways to encourage lower birth rates demonstrating that addressing this issue is neither or inhumane.
I asked the convener of one of these green conferences whether we he would rather live on a planet of 2 billion (which is the estimate of how many of us could live at a European life style) or 9 billion our projected numbers in 2050. Instead of responding with what I thought was the only sane answer, he said that if they were living sustainably, 9 billion would be just fine. My eyes crossed with the thought of where the water would come from, where the wildlife would live, where the food would be grown.
My obvious swoon provoked a lecture from this well-intentioned truly lovely tree hugging person that I was living inside the box, and that technology would make the Earth able to accommodate all 9 billion of us. I slumped down into my recycled fiber chair and felt as if a hybrid bus driven by a hemp-clothed global warming expert had just run over me.
*
Why Global Climate Change cannot be resolved without considering our numbers!
By Dr. Karen I. Shragg
Nearly the entire Global Climate Change movement is delivering a message that is ultimately a GREAT BIG GREEN LIE. Yes the planet is warming due to human activity. That’s the truth. The lie that is being perpetuated is that speaker after speaker and book after book about this issue leave out stabilizing and humanely reducing human population growth as a critical part of the solution to this critical issue.
The lie can be summarized in the way that the current anti-carbon messages have portrayed the ideal green citizen. This model citizen takes public transportation to work, drives a hybrid car on weekends to the organic farmers market and to the thrift store to buy used clothing. They use greener light bulbs, install bamboo flooring and energy saving appliances and use battery operated lawn mowers. Once and a great while this model citizen even gets to eat a vegan diet to lower their carbon footprint with greater effect than changing their mode of transportation.
I am one of those who can be found with my energy saving refrigerator full of organic tofu, tempeh and organic hemp butter. I love attending the ever more popular Living Green Expo here in Minnesota so that I can buy my rechargeable batteries and take them home in my cloth bag. But even as I leave my co-op, my favorite expo and the thrift store, I feel like screaming, BUT WHAT ABOUT OUR NUMBERS???
The message that almost all speakers on Global Climate Change give is that going green with a focus on green technology and behavior changes will accomplish ENOUGH. This is a lie It is not that we should stop trying to come up with ways to lower our consumption of our huge ecological footprint, it is that the numbers side of the equation is even more critical. The fact that it is fueling our rapid consumption is being woefully ignored to the point, I would argue, of out and out lying.
The US increase in greenhouse gas emissions mirrors our increase in population growth, 13% in a ten year period between 1990-2000.* How many even realize that we added 100 million people to the United States since 1970? (Much of this is due to immigration policies fueled by overpopulation in other countries. The immigration issue is another very difficult one to address in ways that are not rooted in discrimination, but the alternative is to create a future where a multitude of problems will be so much more difficult to address.)
Using an example of a child who is now three years old, when they are senior citizens in the year 2075, if our current rate of growth in the USA continues as it is today, guess how many people will be living here? If you guessed ONE HALF BILLION you would be right. We already know what more crowded looks like. We already know the consequences. Is that what we want for our country?
Does pounding away at these numbers help create a population perspective? Does knowing that we are growing by 365 per hour in the US net gain as a part of 9,000 per hour global net gain help? It’s very important to know these numbers and use them in our talks, but too many people do not get the very basic concept that our planet has limits to the way it can sustain people.
Getting people to understand basic ecological principles has been the assumed goal of our profession, yet by all indications the general public doesn’t get it, or is afraid to get it. That is very disheartening after decades of environmental education efforts. It is even more disturbing when the so-called experts don’t get it either, because they are the ones who have become the gurus on this topic. They are the ones who have the ear of the public and the microphones of the media right now.
They do talk about the fact that we are running out of our main sources of energy, oil, gas and coal. They know that water is in limited supply. Yet they somehow are able to look this issue squarely in the eyes and offer solutions without discussing the part about how our rapidly growing numbers are the reason we are using up our resources so rapidly.
When I hear from these experts talk about how we can do this, how we can beat the worst of climate change disasters if only we invest in green technologies and install conservation measures, that I feel it’s time to hide the razor blades. Their reluctance may be based in denial or because the solutions seem at first blush to be too politically incorrect to address. Several countries have already found creative and humane ways to encourage lower birth rates demonstrating that addressing this issue is neither or inhumane.
I asked the convener of one of these green conferences whether we he would rather live on a planet of 2 billion (which is the estimate of how many of us could live at a European life style) or 9 billion our projected numbers in 2050. Instead of responding with what I thought was the only sane answer, he said that if they were living sustainably, 9 billion would be just fine. My eyes crossed with the thought of where the water would come from, where the wildlife would live, where the food would be grown.
My obvious swoon provoked a lecture from this well-intentioned truly lovely tree hugging person that I was living inside the box, and that technology would make the Earth able to accommodate all 9 billion of us. I slumped down into my recycled fiber chair and felt as if a hybrid bus driven by a hemp-clothed global warming expert had just run over me.
*
Nature Inspired poems
Feel free to spread these around to those who could use
some inspiration.. let me know how they are received if you will
thanks
Shine Like the Moon
By Karen I. Shragg
Shine like the moon
Be there even when you’re not
Reflect the light of others
Illuminate the darkness
Go through phases
Beginning with new
Ending with full
Mark time in predictable cycles
Bringing order to the chaos
Remind the world of its magic
Create only transparent shadows
That disappear with the dawn
Make tidal-like changes
With no obvious effort
Bring people together
Who marvel at the light you emit
The beauty you emanate
The beacon that you are.
Bloom Like a Cactus
By
Karen I. Shragg
Dazzle the world
With rare and unexpected beauty
Be worthy of being selected
To grace a picture postcard
Be colorful
And full of color
Absorb each drop of sunshine
Take advantage of every rainfall
Cause delight in anticipation of your presence
Radiating the kind of beauty
That makes people want to come back for more
Grow even in hostile places
Be truly present in every moment
You are here
Remembering that your splendor
Will cycle into the future
In the seeds you left behind.
some inspiration.. let me know how they are received if you will
thanks
Shine Like the Moon
By Karen I. Shragg
Shine like the moon
Be there even when you’re not
Reflect the light of others
Illuminate the darkness
Go through phases
Beginning with new
Ending with full
Mark time in predictable cycles
Bringing order to the chaos
Remind the world of its magic
Create only transparent shadows
That disappear with the dawn
Make tidal-like changes
With no obvious effort
Bring people together
Who marvel at the light you emit
The beauty you emanate
The beacon that you are.
Bloom Like a Cactus
By
Karen I. Shragg
Dazzle the world
With rare and unexpected beauty
Be worthy of being selected
To grace a picture postcard
Be colorful
And full of color
Absorb each drop of sunshine
Take advantage of every rainfall
Cause delight in anticipation of your presence
Radiating the kind of beauty
That makes people want to come back for more
Grow even in hostile places
Be truly present in every moment
You are here
Remembering that your splendor
Will cycle into the future
In the seeds you left behind.
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