BiG TeA PaRtY Sustainable Living

Color-Coding, Rearranging Food Products Improves Healthy Choices

Source: Science Daily.com

Posted by: Elizabeth Fiend

A simple program involving color-coded food labeling and adjusting the way food items are positioned in display cases was successful in encouraging more healthful food choices in a large hospital cafeteria. The report from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers will appear in the March American Journal of Public Health and has received early online release.

“We found that labeling all foods and beverages with a simple red, yellow and green color scheme to indicate their relative healthiness led patrons to purchase more of the healthy and fewer of the unhealthy items,” says Anne Thorndike, MD, MPH, of the MGH division of General Medicine, who led the study. “We also found that moving items around to make the healthy items more convenient and visible led to further improvement in the nutritional quality of items purchased.”

The study authors note that most current point-of-purchase efforts to encourage more healthful food choices focus on labeling the calorie content of food, which will soon be required for many restaurants and food service vendors as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. However, calorie information is only useful if people read and comprehend it — which requires understanding their own calorie needs, accurately estimating serving sizes, and having enough time to consider and act on the information provided. Studies by psychologists and behavioral economists also have noted that individuals tend to maintain their typical behavior patterns and are more motivated by actions with immediate, rather than long-term rewards.

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We’re Eating Less Meat. Why?

Source New York Times     Written By MARK BITTMAN     Posted by Elizabeth Fiend

Americans eat more meat than any other population in the world; about one-sixth of the total, though we’re less than one-twentieth of the population.

But that’s changing.

Until recently, almost everyone considered their dinner plate naked without a big old hunk of meat on it. (You remember “Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner,” of course. How could you forget?) And we could afford it: our production methods and the denial of their true costs have kept meat cheap beyond all credibility. (American hamburger is arguably the cheapest convenience food there is.) This, in part, is why we spend a smaller percentage of our money on food than any other country, and much of that goes toward the roughly half-pound of meat each of us eats, on average, every day.

But that’s changing, and considering the fairly steady climb in meat consumption over the last half-century, you might say the numbers are plummeting. The department of agriculture projects that our meat and poultry consumption will fall again this year, to about 12.2 percent less in 2012 than it was in 2007. Beef consumption has been in decline for about 20 years; the drop in chicken is even more dramatic, over the last five years or so; pork also has been steadily slipping for about five years.

Holy cow. What’s up?

It’s easy enough to round up the usual suspects, which is what a story in the Daily Livestock Report did last month. It blames the decline on growing exports, which make less meat available for Americans to buy. It blames it on ethanol, which has caused feed costs to rise, production to drop and prices to go up so producers can cover their increasing costs. It blames drought. It doesn’t blame recession, which is surprising, because that’s a factor also.

All of which makes some sense. The report then goes on to blame the federal government for “wag[ing] war on meat protein consumption” over the last 30-40 years.

Is this like the war on drugs? The war in Afghanistan? The war against cancer? Because what I see here is:

a history of subsidies for the corn and soy that’s fed to livestock
a nearly free pass on environmental degradation and animal abuse
an unwillingness to meaningfully limit the use of antibiotics in animal feed
a failure to curb the stifling power that corporate meatpackers wield over smaller ranchers
and what amounts to a refusal — despite the advice of real, disinterested experts, true scientists in fact —  to unequivocally tell American consumers that they should be eating less meat

Or is the occasional environmental protection regulation and whisper that unlimited meat at every meal might not be ideal the equivalent of war? Is the U.S.D.A. buying $40 million worth of chicken products to reduce the surplus and raise retail prices the equivalent of war? Read the rest of this entry »

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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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Happy New Year

from all of us at

BiG TeA PaRtY

Love, VaLerie Keller and Elizabeth Fiend

EAT MORE VEGETABLES IN 2012

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Are Animal Rights Activists Terrorists?
Activists challenge a federal law that defines a broad range of actions against the animal industry as “terrorism.”

Source: Mother Jones    Written By Kate Sheppard     Posted by: Elizabeth Fiend

In 2006, Congress quietly passed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, a sweeping new law that classified many forms of animal rights campaigning as terrorism. Now the law’s critics have taken to the courts to try to kill it. In a case filed last week, five activists argue that AETA violates their rights by criminalizing constitutionally protected actions.

AETA, which replaced an earlier, weaker law called the Animal Enterprise Protection Act (AEPA), prohibits anything done “for the purpose of damaging or interfering with the operations of an animal enterprise” or that “causes the loss of any real or personal property.” (The earlier version of the law only covered “physical disruption” to operations.) The law also prohibits “economic damage” to an enterprise, which includes loss of profits and pressure put on any investors or other companies that do business with the animal enterprise. Even the definition of “animal enterprise” is so broad that it could be construed as covering any institution that has a cafeteria selling meat or cheese products, argues Rachel Meeropol, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is backing the plaintiffs in the case filed against Attorney General Eric Holder.

“Basically, the law is saying if you cause an animal enterprise to lose profits, then you’ve committed a terrorist act,” Meeropol says. “The whole point of many protests is to cause a business to lose profits, to convince the public that a certain company doesn’t deserve to be patronized.”

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CHRISTMAS TREES, NAUGHTY OR NICE?

Written By Elizabeth Fiend

Christmas causes cancer. You knew it would come to this sooner or later.

Okay, OK, Christmas doesn’t cause cancer, but Christmas trees might, and I’ll get to how both real and fake ones might lead to cancer. But the real point of this column is: If you have a real tree, don’t throw it in the trash! Recycle your tree. Recycle your tree. Recycle your tree.

First, which is kinder to the planet — a real Christmas tree or a fake one?

FAKE TREES: No Vinyl, That’s Final pretty much says it all.

Fake trees are made from PVC (polyvinyl chloride). It’s bad stuff. These faux trees are made from nonrenewable sources and are petroleum based — and, uh, we’re running out of oil, have you heard? PVC is also considered one of the most environmentally damaging plastics on the market.

PVC is a plastic that keeps on giving. The trail of destruction begins in production, where dioxin, dichloride, ethylene and vinyl chloride are all generated by the making of PVC. These chemicals pollute neighborhoods around PVC factories — many of which are located in China, where there is the added factor of no environmental controls, and poor and unregulated (read: unsafe) conditions for factory workers handling hazardous chemicals.

Lead: not just for toys!

Lead is used to stabilize PVC products, to make them more rigid — like your child’s brain will be if she inhales any dust from your lovely faux tree that might happen to settle on her lead-painted toys as they lay wrapped under the Christmas tree. You’ll actually see a warning label on fake Christmas trees that warns you not to inhale or eat any of the tree (kinda funny if it wasn’t so sad). And hey, don’t forget the lead on the strings of PVC-coated holiday lights! They have warnings too.

The chemicals used to make PVC, and the added lead, have been linked to neurological, reproductive, liver and kidney damage, and yes, cancer. And they’re not just bad for you, they’re toxic to the environment, too!

Although these faux trees can last for centuries, they rarely become family heirlooms passed down thorough the generations. Statistics show most people discard their tree after only about nine years. That means the last 291 years of your fake tree’s life is spent slowly leaching out nasty stuff in a landfill.

Option Two: A live tree.

There is the trendy, greenish option of buying a live tree, complete with root ball and all. The plan is after enjoying the tree indoors as your Christmas tree you plant the tree outside. And presto you have a new tree, producing life-giving oxygen — a beautiful and elegant solution to the real-or-fake dilemma.

Problem is, January’s not the time of year to plant trees. This activity is most successfully done in the fall or spring. Plus the tree you get for Christmas might not be suited to your locale. So in reality, this scheme which sounds so good is mostly doomed to failure and is just a ‘feel good’ kind of solution. That is, until you’re constantly aware of your ex-Xmas tree that now sits dead and brown along your driveway, and then you feel pretty crappy.

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Walmart steers its campaign cash to politicians who are far from green.

Source: Grist    Written by: by Stacy Mitchell     Posted by: Elizabeth Fiend

Over the last decade, Walmart has emerged as one of the country’s largest funders of political campaigns. Its dollars skew heavily in favor of candidates who routinely vote against the environment.

Walmart’s largest donations have gone to some of the nation’s most powerful climate-change deniers. Since 2005, Walmart’s PAC has given $25,000 to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio (“the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical”); $30,000 to Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. (“there isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth”); and $29,500 to Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark. (“you can look back at some of the previous times when there was no industrialization, you had these different ages, ice ages, and things warming”).

In 2006, Walmart made headlines when its vice president for corporate strategy and sustainability, Andrew Ruben, told a congressional committee that the company “would accept a well-designed mandatory cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases.” Other major U.S. companies had spoken favorably of cap-and-trade, but Walmart made a bigger splash. Not only was it America’s second-largest corporation; it also had deep roots in the country’s coal-burning heartland.

But even as Ruben was delivering his testimony, Walmart’s political action committee (PAC) was funneling a river of campaign cash into the coffers of lawmakers who would ensure that the U.S. did absolutely nothing to curb its greenhouse gas emissions. During the 2007-2008 election cycle, 80 percent of Senate campaign contributions that came from Walmart’s PAC and large donors employed by the company went to senators who helped block the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill, according to data on political giving published by the Center for Responsive Politics. (When the bill arrived on the floor in 2008, it came up 12 votes shy of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.)

Over the last decade, Walmart has emerged as one of the country’s largest funders of political campaigns. Its dollars skew heavily in favor of candidates who routinely vote against the environment. Since the company launched its sustainability campaign in 2005, 40 percent of the $3.9 million it has given to members of Congress went to those who have lifetime scores of 20 or less on the League of Conservation Voters’ National Environmental Scorecard — meaning they vote against the environment 80-100 percent of the time. Another 19 percent went to those who vote against the environment 50-79 percent of the time.

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Dangerous BPA Lurks in Canned Food

High levels of a dangerous chemical, BPA, are being found in the urine and blood of people who eat canned food. BPA is used as an epoxy to line cans. As of now there’s only one brand of canned foods, Eden, that doesn’t contain this hormone-mimicking, possibly cancer causing chemical.

See two articles below, the first about the dangerous of canned foods the second from the company Eden detailing how they’ve solved the BPA problem. Posted By Elizabeth Fiend

Source: My Health Daily News.com and Eden Foods

Soaring BPA Levels Found in People Who Eat Canned Foods

Eating canned food every day may raise the levels of the compound bisphenol A (BPA) in a person’s urine more than previously suspected, a new study suggests.

People who ate a serving of canned soup every day for five days had BPA levels of 20.8 micrograms per liter of urine, whereas people who instead ate fresh soup had levels of 1.1 micrograms per liter, according to the study. BPA is found in many canned foods — it is a byproduct of the chemicals used to prevent corrosion.

When the researchers looked at the rise in BPA levels seen in the average participant who ate canned soup compared with those who ate fresh soup, they found a 1,221 percent jump.

“To see an increase in this magnitude was quite surprising,” said study leader Karin Michels, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health.

The levels of BPA seen in the study participants “are among the most extreme reported in a nonoccupational setting,” the researchers wrote in their study. In the general population, levels have been found to be around 1 to 2 micrograms per liter, Michels said.

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Portion Control and Weight Loss

A Guide to Get You Through the Holidays

Source: WebMD                                 Posted by: Elizabeth Fiend

One of the key ways to lose weight and maintain a healthy weight is through portion control. Research has shown that Americans often underestimate how many calories they are consuming each day by as much as 25%.

What Is a Serving Size?

Use the list below to gain a perspective on how much food a recommended serving size really is; it may be much smaller than you realize.

According to the USDA, one serving equals:

one slice of whole-grain bread
1/2 cup of cooked rice or pasta
1/2 cup of mashed potatoes
three to four small crackers
one small pancake or waffle
two medium-sized cookies
1/2 cup cooked vegetables
1 cup (four leaves) lettuce
one small baked potato
3/4 cup vegetable juice
one medium apple
1/2 grapefruit or mango
1/2 cup berries
1 cup yogurt or milk
1 1/2 ounces of cheddar cheese
one chicken breast
one medium pork chop
1/4 pound hamburger patty

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Leeway presents an exhibition in conjunction with Philadelphia Open Studio Tours 2011

and BIG TEA PARTY ARTIST TALK with ELIZABETH FIEND

ARTIST TALK: Wed. Nov. 9th, 6-8pm: Elizabeth Fiend, Anula Shetty, and Michelle Myers –FREE

AT: Leeway Foundation, 1315 Walnut Street, Suite 832, Philly

ELIZABETH FIEND: GONZO HEALTH and ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST
Elizabeth is an educator, filmmaker, author, musician and artist. She currently specializes in film making, writing and motivational speaking and aspires to be an agent of social change who uses artistic expression combined with extensive research and reliable information to improve the health of individuals, the community and the planet. Elizabeth conceives, writes, produces and hosts how-to videos that encourage people to use their own imagination, skill and energy to advance not only their lives but the community around them and ultimately the planet. Elizabeth’s goal is to promote a sustainable living trinity – good health, environmentalism and community activism, a practical, rewarding lifestyle where ones actions won’t have a negative effect on future generations.
Click here for more on Elizabeth

COME MEET and  TALK with this  INTERESTING WOMAN!

Facebook event info click here

The Leeway Foundation supports women and transgender artists who create social change. Our fall exhibit, Tongue-in-Cheek, features works by ten artists—the majority of whom are previous recipients of Leeway grant and award programs—exploring playful, whimsical images and concepts through diverse mediums such as painting, photography, screenprinting, puppetry and video.

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