BiG TeA PaRtY

TODAY’S UPDATE:

Vegetarian Winter Soup
Recipe by VaLerie K

I had a winter cold recently, and was craving something home-made and healthy, so I decided to create a vegetarian chicken soup.  It turned out so well, I’m gonna share.

I started with a wonderfully tasty faux meat product called Quorn, then my main vegetable was asparagus, which I chose because it was in my fridge and I didn’t want to leave the house (I had a cold, remember?), but as it turned out, asparagus was a great choice for helping to combat the common cold… [to find out why and to get your hands on the recipe, click HERE]

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MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DOTHE FIENDS DO JAPAN, Part 3 - Shibu & Monkey Park
We’re having a great time but we’re super exhausted. First, can’t sleep. Second, grueling schedule.

We hiked up the mountain and thru this valley to get to the monkey park, or as they say here “Paradise of the Monkeys”.

The place was beyond my wildest expectations. I had a most wonderful time with the monkeys and the greatest time taking photos. And, getting MY photo taken, as I was wearing a great outfit.  [MORE..]

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Last Minute Gift Giving:

by VaLerie K

More and more people are giving (or asking for) the gift of a donation to charity for Chanukah, Kwanzaa and Christmas these days, eschewing the materialist mandate to buy more stuff.  Besides choosing national or international charities, consider picking something local.  Here’s some reasons why:

1. Seeing results first hand - rather than getting a newsletter from afar, the recipients of your gift can physically go and see the charity their gift is supporting, and feel a greater connection to why the gift is important.

2. Education - people can learn directly, such as getting a gift donation to a wildlife preserve, and then taking the kids to go see the animals and learn from the nature center.  [READ MORE]

Late in the day the rain ended and some cosplay (costume play) kids came out in their Elvis / rock and roll gear. They toted a giant amp on a handtruck and danced in a circle to songs like Rock Around the Clock with Japanese lyrics. Every now and again one kid would break out and do a solo with lots of splits and pointy-toe moves. Pompadour hair dos, tight leather pants for the boys.  The lone girl wore a gray poodle skirt.  [READ MORE!]

How does a sustainable living advocate such as myself justify traveling halfway around the world for an adventure? I didn’t drive a car for an entire year to offset the carbon footprint of flying to Japan. Okay, my friends are laughing right now because they know I don’t even have a car (or drivers license). The Fiends ride their bikes to work, to the supermarket, to the party. Day after day, year after year, our carbon footprint is the size of a baby’s foot (we have no air conditioner either).

Here’s an illustrated itinerary so you can follow along:

First Stop: TOKYO – Dec. 13-15 (Sat.-Mon.)

We’ll be staying in the Shinjuku neighborhood, the neon lit Tokyo you’ve seen in the movies. It’s the fast lane for sure, home to the world’s largest subway station. Shinjuku Station has over 50 exits!!! We’re supposed to get out at the Takadanobaba exit and turn right. Yeah, those are the kind of directions we’ve got. Will Allen and I ever find our way to the place we’re staying? (more)

Fresh greens go sci-fi, join irradiated foods team

While irradiation will knock down bacteria such as Salmonella and E. coli to very low levels, typically it doesn’t kill all bacteria in an irradiated food product. If any bacteria survive, there is the danger that they could multiply again under the right conditions.

In addition, irradiation at the levels used on food doesn’t always kill the spores of certain bacteria such as C. botulinum, nor does it always adversely affect bacterial toxins, toxic proteins and some viruses. While this new technology may have great health implications, it can be used as a mask for good hygiene practices by cleaning up a process at the end of the line rather than at its root causes. [FULL ARTICLE]

In a few days, your Thanksgiving leftovers may be competing for space in your fridge, but when it starts to look half-empty again, you can avoid wasting energy by being aware of an energy-saving tip that is so simple I can’t believe I never thought of it myself…Your refrigerator uses energy to keep the space inside it cool. If there is not much in there, then it’s busy cooling empty space. The energy saving tip? If you keep your fridge as full as possible at all times, it will have less work to do because food items once cooled stay cold better than air does.So whenever you buy food items that say “refrigerate after opening”, like juice, spaghetti sauce, salad dressing, a jar of pickles, etc etc, why not put them directly in the fridge? Why take up cabinet or pantry space when you could be saving energy with these jars and bottles before you even open them?This is such a great energy saver, that one website even recommends refrigerating containers of water to fill up empty space. In between food-shopping trips, you could fill jugs or pitchers with drinking water, or even tap water that you will use to water plants or something later on. [For more refrigerator energy-saving tips, CLICK HERE]

Tobacco: An Inconvenient Weed

World Health Organization cites a 21st -century ‘catastrophe’ if nations don’t act to prevent smoking.

Accept the Great American Smokeout Challenge NOW!

Quitting smoking isn’t easy, but it can be done. To have the best chance of quitting successfully, you need to know what you’re up against, what your options are, and where to go for help.

Check the American Cancer Associations site and get the info on:

*Reasons to Quit
*Guide to Quitting Smoking
*Plan Your Quit Day

Yeah, smoking cigarettes is really uncool. You should stop. I’m a super cool person, so I know.

And for crying out loud if you’re a teen DON’T START SMOKING. It’s just stupid to start.

Read on for more information and to see how YOUR smoking will have a negative effect on us all (and I’m not talking second hand smoke. Although that sucks too.)

Love, Elizabeth Fiend (click here for more info on: what smoking cigarettes does to your body, why smoking is bad for society, and to get to the American Cancer Assoc. tips on quitting)

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GENETIC ENGINEERING (Genetic Modification, GM or GMO). A primer written and illustrated by Elizabeth Fiend

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LARGE PUBLIC ARTS PROJECT – MULTI MEDIA, MULTI WORKS – GRANTS. CALL FOR ARTISTS! Hear ye hear ye…..

Love, Elizabeth Fiend

(complete information about grant)

SUSTAINABILITY, CONSUMER POWER, ENVIRONMENT: Informative blog focuses on how your buying power can affect one of the most polluting industries around. by VaLerie K

When to trust the latest medical news. Every day in the news we hear or read about exciting advancements in the field of health and medicine. It’s overwhelming. How can the average person sort through all these studies to know which ones are likely to provide accurate health information? Even persuasive and exciting hypotheses need lots of supporting evidence. Supporting evidence can include laboratory studies, observational studies and clinical trials. But to get to a real and definite conclusion you have to spend a lot of money and study a large group of actual people over a long period of time. Mostly, this doesn’t happen. So check out the factors I’ve listed below before you jump head on into something that might be a fad rather than a medical truth. - Who were the participants in the study? In order for a study to be reliable the study must be comparing groups that are the same – that is the same except for one thing, the thing being studied. - Look at the number of participants in the study. The larger the group studied, the more reliable the conclusions. - Randomized clinical trials are considered to be the best. The study participants are divided into groups by the statistical equivalent of a coin toss. So put it all together and you get large, randomized, clinical studies. Once they are done, the evidence they produce is hard to argue with. Love, Elizabeth Fiend (Click for more.)

Technology: DEBUNKING URBAN MYTHS IN THE AGE OF EMAIL

You know those email forwards you get that warn you about health hazards, give you tips for avoiding getting kidnapped or mugged, show you puppies that need adoption right now or they’ll be killed, inform you of six ways to save gas by the way you pump it, tell you about a missing little girl whom you might save by forwarding? The iterations are endless, but the common thread is the directive to send the email to as many people as possible ASAP, because the message is so critical there isn’t time for analysis, it could save lives or save people from ruin (or whatever the claimed benefit is).

It’s so seductive, the desire to do good, and with so little effort, it almost seems silly not to. Why not send on messages that could possibly help someone somewhere? Well, I’ll tell you why not - the pervasive anxiety of our times does not need any help from you! (Or me, I must confess I’ve forwarded a hoax or two.)

Most forwarded emails from anonymous sources that urge us to pass them along RIGHT NOW are EMAIL HOAXES - emails containing either false, misleading, or outdated information that get forwarded from person to person, often being altered as they go in whisper-down-the-alley style. Some of them circulate for years.

[To read full article with tips and references, CLICK HERE]

I’m quoted in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer in an article about a new environmental action called The PB&J Campaign, an Internet-based effort that advocates making one of your daily meals non-animal-based.
“Elizabeth Fiend, a Philadelphia-based writer, health and environmental activist and all-around green-living guru, sizes up the PB&J Campaign’s approach: “Because I’m aware of this crazy fear Americans have of vegetarians and because I know it’s very difficult to be a vegetarian or vegan, I’m a vegetable-pusher, not a vegetarian who berates others for eating meat,” so the “flexitarian” approach - cutting back but not eliminating animal-based foods - can work. For herself, Fiend prefers peanut butter on whole-grain bread with hot sauce, but like anything else, lunch is an individual pursuit.”

It’s great article and project even though they left out the part where I said “Animals know fear and feel pain which is the reason I don’t like to eat them.”

Check out my Adult Peanut Butter Sandwich recipe and read the complete article by Amy Z Quinn. >>> Love, Elizabeth Fiend

HUMAN RIGHTS, GLOBAL HEALTH, ENVIRONMENT: Work Together Or Face ‘Disastrous Consequences’ For Health In Africa, Experts Warn ScienceDaily –Faced with the prospect of more variable and changing climates increasing Africa’s already intolerable disease burden, scientists must begin to reach out to colleagues in other fields and to the people they want to help if they hope to avert an expected “continental disaster,” according to leading climate, health, and information technology experts, who met in Nairobi last week

Climate change will further increase the already high variability of Africa’s climate, fostering the emergence, resurgence and spread of infectious diseases. “A warmer world will generally be a sicker world,” said Prof. Onesmo ole-MoiYoi, a Tanzania medical, veterinary and vector expert. “We scientists need to adopt a new way of working, one that makes African communities bearing the burden of disease part of the solution rather than part of the problem.” The separate fields of human health, animal health, climate, vectors and environment must come together to avert a “continental disaster,” according to leading experts who attended the meeting. [presented by VaLerie K .. to read more CLICK HERE]

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Fortified Foods: Super or Stupid?

by Elizabeth Fiend

The Nu Food Phad. Orange juice laced with anchovies, fish genes in ice cream, cheese that kills intestinal parasites, laboratory extracted elements of green tea in your ginger ale, bacteria from yogurt hidden in salsa. Welcome to the supermarket of the 21st century. Not the 21st century to come, I mean today, this is your food store now. Fortified foods aka functional foods are the newest adventure in eating. The fancy name for fortified foods is nutraceuticals. Say that out loud, it’s kind of nauseating. A combo of nutrition and pharmaceutical, this name is trying to convince us that food is medicine. Tropicana now offers an orange juice to stop bone loss and another one to prevent acid reflux. But if you drink OJ for breakfast every day, how do you know how much of the ‘medicine’ you’re getting? And couldn’t this add up to be a pretty caloric way to deliver your dose? (Full article written by Elizabeth Fiend)

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GLOBAL WARMING, ANIMAL RIGHTS, VEGETARIANISM: People should have one meat-free day a week if they want to make a personal and effective sacrifice that would help tackle climate change, the world’s leading authority on global warming says. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which last year earned a joint share of the Nobel Peace Prize, said that people should then go on to reduce their meat consumption even further. His comments are the most controversial advice yet provided by the panel on how individuals can help tackle global warning. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation has estimated that meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. These are generated during the production of animal feeds, for example, while ruminants, particularly cows, emit methane, which is 23 times more effective as a global warming agent than carbon dioxide. The agency has also warned that meat consumption is set to double by the middle of the century. ‘In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity,’ said Pachauri. ‘Give up meat for one day [a week] initially, and decrease it from there,’ said the Indian economist, who is a vegetarian. Article posted by: Elizabeth Fiend (full article)