Land – Our Relationship to the Ground upon which we stand
In Growing Potential – Wealthy Investors snap up farmland amid rising food prices Bernard Condon writing for the Associated Press notes that a Tulsa software executive snapped up 430 acres of Michigan cornfields for $4 million and a California insurance executive purchased 156 acres in Iowa, overbidding the farmer who had rented the land for 20 years. The farmer’s maximum bid was $1.1 million. A former Goldman Sachs executive has been reported buying arable land in Africa, competing with Chinese investors seeking to profit from coming food shortages. Investors are free to invest in farmland; however they are removed from the land – its texture, smell. They do not experience the land’s response to hoe or disc harrow. They rarely experience the excitement...
A Modern Myth: The Paleolithic Diet
“You’ll be proud of me! I am on the paleo-diet,” reported Ed, a former staff member. “I eat 25% meat – no dairy- and all the rest greens. No grains. You know, there were no grains then!” Ed came back to Mendocino to say hello and check in. He had recently adopted the paleo-diet and I had no idea why he thought I would be proud of this unless it was because he no longer ate dairy products. I had recommended he quit eating dairy for allergies and for animals. (Read about the philosophies and practices of the dairy industry. When I read them I became vegan.) The Paleolithic diet also includes mushrooms, nuts, and fruit; but not grains, legumes, dairy products, processed oils, and condiments such as salt and sugar. Underlying this theory of diet is the...
Violence – and diet…..
Yesterday, November 17th, a friend as well as a former employee called from across the continent. We talked for quite a while. During the conversation, he mentioned that he believed that I hadn’t been happy with him when he last lived and worked here because he wasn’t vegan. He told me that it takes some time to “digest” the information regarding the health effects of a vegan diet vis-à-vis the animal based American diet. He said that I had time to understand all of this but he hadn’t had enough time. He was wrong. First, I wasn’t disappointed that he had not become vegan. I knew that he didn’t understand. Second I hadn’t become vegan for physical health at all. I told him that it was a simple change: Twenty-four...
Dining on the Road – Three Thai restaurants to note: Arun’s, Chicago; Sokhothai, Winnipeg, MB; & Siam Thai, Billings, MT
We are vegan and are no longer challenged to find decent restaurants on the road with the explosion of Asian restaurants- particularly, Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese. With the exception of East Indian restaurants, most other ethnic restaurants are animal based. Just twenty years ago, there were Chinese restaurants that did not serve “bean curd” – tofu. A note on reviewing: Rarely do we discover restaurants worth reviewing. We are not interested in punishing restaurants, hotels, activities, etc. by writing bad reviews. That’s too easy – in fact I used to negatively criticize just because it made me feel better about myself – that I was able to find something wrong with some aspect of some business, event. I felt...
On Blogging: What’s really important?
Whatever I write here is of little consequence when considering the Iranian people’s use of blogs, Twitter, Face Book to help let the rest of us know what is going on in their country. The Daily Show has recently reported on Iran – remarkably portraying Iranian’s awareness of the rest of the world and their compelling passion for American ideals. Barak Obama’s carefully crafted comments seem to me gauged to help shield pro-Democratic, pro-western, and particularly pro-American Iranians as targets of the Mullahs’ anger about the protests to the irregular election. Lately my blogs have concerned the lives of our animals. I haven’t dealt with issues concerning the environment, health, and well being that dominate the newsletter we...
Newsweek’s David Noonan is Vegan (for now): Or avoiding being a vulture or hyena
To avoid disease and middle age weight gain, David Noonan adopted the 28 day program in The Engine 2 Diet: The Texas Firefighter’s 28-Day Save-Your-Life Plan That Lowers Cholesterol and Burns Away the Pounds. The diet was developed by Rip Esselstyn to help his fellow firefighter adopt a vegan whole foods diet. Esselstyn has been vegan for more than 20 years and is an athlete and son of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, of the Cleveland Clinic, who has long advocated vegan diets for prevention of disease. (Check out Rip Esselstyn’s web site http://www.theengine2diet.com/) Eating a vegan whole foods diet is a credible way to avoid weight gain and disease. Noonan’s conversion is hopeful and perhaps he can affect other people. But this happy development may...
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