BiG TeA PaRtY Sustainable Living

WARM PEAR SALAD with GORGONZOLA and WALNUTS

BY ELIZABETH FIEND
Serves 4 as lunch or main course, 6 as a side salad
Time: 20 minutes

Category: Vegetarian Recipe

This salad is all about contrasts.
The pears are served warm, making this a great dish to serve on a chilly, rainy day. The sharp cheese, crunchy nuts and creamy honey-lime dressing each stimulate different taste buds providing satisfaction and a feeling of fullness. I’ve divided up one serving between the cheese and nuts so even thought you’ll be eating cheese AND nuts (both contain fat) you will be getting just the right amount of fat and protein.

There’s an optional fun part in this recipe for the kids too. Instill in them a love for vegetables by having them cut the cucumber slices into stars with cookie cutter.

Salad Ingredients:
½ pound spring salad mix
¼ head endive – tear off and discard ends; break into bite size pieces
1 cucumber (see below for treatment)
1/8 lb gorgonzola cheese – break into pieces
3 pears (any kind) - cut into slices
½ cup walnuts – break into pieces

Dressing Ingredients:
1 tablespoon honey
3 tablespoons lime juice
Blend above with a spoon or small whisk until honey is dissolved, than add:
½ cup buttermilk (or 3/8 cup soy milk plus 1/8 cup lemon juice)
2 stalks scallions diced
1/4 teaspoon salt
pepper to taste

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Each year that today’s scanners are used, 14,500 deaths could result, researchers say. When healthy people are exposed to the radiation, the imaging may create more problems than it solves.

Source: LA Times      Written By Thomas H. Maugh II

Posted by: Elizabeth Fiend

Widespread overuse of CT scans and variations in radiation doses caused by different machines — operated by technicians following an array of procedures — are subjecting patients to high radiation doses that will ultimately lead to tens of thousands of new cancer cases and deaths, researchers reported today.

Several recent studies have suggested that patients have been unnecessarily exposed to radiation from CTs or have received excessive amounts, but two new studies published Tuesday in the Archives of Internal Medicine are the first to quantify the extent of exposure and the related risks.

Each year that current scanners are used, researchers reported, 14,500 deaths could result.

In one study, researchers from UC San Francisco found that the same imaging procedure performed at different institutions — or even on different machines at the same hospital — can yield a 13-fold difference in radiation dose, potentially exposing some patients to inordinately high risk.

While a normal CT scan of the chest is the equivalent of about 100 chest X-rays, the team found that some scanners were giving the equivalent of 440 conventional X-rays. The absolute risk may be small for any single patient, but the sheer number of CT scans — more than 70 million per year, 23 times the number in 1980 — will produce a sharp increase in cancers and deaths, experts said.

“The articles in this issue make clear that there is far more radiation from medical CT scans than has been recognized previously,” Dr. Rita F. Redberg of UC San Francisco, editor of the journal, wrote in an editorial accompanying the reports. Even many otherwise healthy patients are being subjected to the radiation, she said, because emergency rooms are often sending patients to the CT scanner before they see a doctor.

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Concerned about Toxins: Check Your Credit Card Receipts

Some — but not all — cash-register and credit-card receipts can be rich sources of exposure to the problematic plastic, BPA, a hormone-mimicking pollutant.

Source:  Science News Written   Written By Janet Raloff    Posted by Elizabeth Fiend

While working at Polaroid Corp. for more than a decade, John C. Warner learned about the chemistry behind some carbonless copy papers (now used for most credit card receipts) and the thermal imaging papers that are spit out by most modern cash registers. Both relied on bisphenol-A.

Manufacturers would coat a powdery layer of this BPA onto one side of a piece of paper together with an invisible ink, he says. “Later, when you applied pressure or heat, they would merge together and you’d get color.”

At the time, back in the ‘90s, he thought little about the technology other than it was clever. But when BPA exploded into the news, about a decade ago, Warner began to develop some doubts.

Research was demonstrating that this estrogen-mimicking chemical was leaching out of polycarbonate plastics, out of the resins used to line most food cans and out of dental sealants. In the womb, this chemical could disrupt the normal development of a rodent’s gonads — or evoke changes that predisposed animals to later develop cancer.

Warner recalls that these reports piqued his curiosity about whether the color-changing papers that were increasingly proliferating throughout urban commerce still used BPA.

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I like a breakfast that is pretty light, but ideally packed with nutrients and this one definitely fits the bill.  In my world it has superceded steel-cut oatmeal with dried fruit, and flax waffles with almond butter and black-strap molasses to become top of my list of best breakfasts.

You really have to have a blender or a food processor for this (or I guess a lot of patience and upper arm strength).  I start with whatever fruit I have on hand, though bananas make a really good base because of texture so I try to keep a couple around when I’m in the smoothie mode.  Cut up whatever fruits you want to use, toss in the food processor, and now comes the spinach. 

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Source: New York Times    Written By WILLIAM NEUMAN

An example of technological advancements that add up to no advancement at all — no good for people, no good for the cows.   Posted by Elizabeth Fiend

HANFORD, Calif. — Three years ago, a technological breakthrough gave dairy farmers the chance to bend a basic rule of nature: no longer would their cows have to give birth to equal numbers of female and male offspring. Instead, using a high-technology method to sort the sperm of dairy bulls, they could produce mostly female calves to be raised into profitable milk producers.

Now the first cows bred with that technology, tens of thousands of them, are entering milking herds across the country — and the timing could hardly be worse.

The dairy industry is in crisis, with prices so low that farmers are selling their milk below production cost. The industry is struggling to cut output. And yet the wave of excess cows is about to start dumping milk into a market that does not need it.

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Thanksgiving -Recipe for Disaster

Your Hostile Projectiles are No Match for

My Invisible Force Field

by Elizabeth Fiend

This is my Thanksgiving column. As a vegetarian you probably expect me to write an article on the horrors of eating turkey — antibiotics, hormones, inhumane factory farming. As an anarchist you may think I’m going to rail against the hypocrisy behind the meaning of the day — the slaughter of Native Americans by the white man, the taking over of someone else’s land. Or perhaps you’re hoping for some vegetarian recipes. In that case you shoulda tuned into my NPR Vegetarian Thanksgiving interview last year. Instead I’m going to talk about how to use the science of proxemics to get you through the massacre at your own families dinner table.

Face it, most of us don’t have a picture perfect, greeting card kind of family. Chances are, this Thanksgiving weekend someone’s going to irritate you. In my opinion, a lot of fighting, arguing, grumpiness around the holidays originates from the fact that we wonder how we could possibly be related to these people. Er, I mean we’re all too close.

Close in propinquity and proximity. We don’t have our normal personal space. This is made even worse because it’s always freaking raining on Thanksgiving and you can’t escape outside for that much needed break.

Proxemics is the study of personal space and people’s perception of it. The term proxemics was first used by Edward T. Hall in 1963 in his book The Hidden Dimension. He stated that we all have an invisible force field around our bodies and it’s important for our mental health to preserve our own comfort zone. Proxemics involves all our senses. It’s not just someone standing too close to you, it could also be Aunt Rhubarb’s obtrusive perfume or Uncle Pill’s loud cell phone talking.

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A SUPER QUICK and easy sandwich with a surprisingly sophisticated taste. Good quality bread and the right hot sauce make all the difference.

Preparation Time: 2 seconds

Category: Vegan / Vegetarian Recipe

Some guy made this sandwich for me while I was on tour with my band More Fiends in the Netherlands. I thought the idea was ridiculous until I tasted it — a peanut butter sandwich with hot sauce!?!? I say “some guy” because, frankly it’s all a blur. I think I was crashing in his apartment (hey don’t get funny, the whole band was there). But as for the “guy” himself, sorry dude, I can’t remember anything but the sandwich.

Later on I realized the idea for the sandwich is borrowed from the flavors of spicy peanut sauce and a Dutch guy would make this sandwich because of the Netherlands connection to Indonesia. [The later having been a colony of the former.]

For the bread, I like to use a hearty whole wheat with oats and seeds. My favorite brand of hot sauce, available from an Asian supermarket, is made by Huy Fong and called Sriracha. Its got a rooster on the bottle and a green lid. Sriracha is made from sun-ripened chilies which are ground into a smooth paste along with garlic. It is the absolutely best, most versatile hot sauce I’ve ever tasted.

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Methyl Iodide - A Terrible Strawberry Pesticide from Arista LifeSciences Corporation

Do We REALLY Have to Choose Between Ozone Layer Depletion and Cancer?   by VaLerie K

Love those strawberries that come from that world leader in health - California? 

Then you need to know about this.

On September 25, 2009, the U.S. EPA publicly agreed to reopen its decision on methyl iodide, a highly toxic pesticide that has been used on strawberries, among other crops, in California (by far the leading producer of US-grown strawberries) for the past couple of years.

Before methyl iodide hit the scene in late 2007, the pesticide of choice was methyl bromide, but it needed to be phased out because of its proven ozone-depleting qualities.  So what did Tokyo-based Arysta LifeScience Corporation provide to strawberry farmers instead?  Methyl idodide, a chemical that, while it does not seem to harm the ozone layer, reliably causes cancer in lab experiments.

That’s right, researchers use methyl iodide to induce cancer in animals so they can study the disease.

Thanks to continued pressure from health and farmworker rights groups, the EPA is reassessing its prior decision to allow the use of methyl iodide in California.  This decision is being made NOW, and you can have an impact.  At the end of the article are links to action websites where you can add your voice or help fight this prime example of corporate greed over human lives.

Farmers And Environmentalists Fighting Off Toxic Pesticide From California Fields  by Dolores M. Bernal, NEWS JUNKIE POST
Oct 6, 2009

Environmentalists and labor groups have joined forces to stop a new cancer-causing pesticide from being used in crops across California. The pesticide, commonly known as “MIDAS Soil Fumigant,” uses methyl iodide as its key ingredient. Methyl iodide is extremely great at killing bugs, but also at killing animals and humans — causing cancer and harm to the nervous system to those exposed to it for long periods of time: migrant farm workers and their families.

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