Protecting Heros Against Stress
Nightmare or Challenge?
Protecting Heros Against Stress
By Eve Plews
Licensed Nutrition Counselor
(Originally published in Sarasota’s Natural Awakenings magazine June, 2009)
The male archetype of hunter, warrior, breadwinner, permeates our expectation of a man. We want our heroes, bold, strong and fearless. Yet with the events current in the world, even maintaining the image of control is a daunting task. The male body requires superior support to maintain stability. Ongoing adaptive efforts of the body to maintain homeostasis (stability) without proper sleep and nourishment deplete physical and emotional resources over time. This physiological wear and tear in response to stressors is called the ‘allostatic’ load. It ages us faster, makes us grumpier and puts us at risk of triggering many disease processes. The good news is we can do something about it. Today.
Start with sleep. The prideful boast, “I only need 5 hours a night” is bravado unjustified. The Journal of the American Medical Association released a profound study in 2008 relating objectively measured sleep and the 5 year incidence of Coronary Artery Calcification. One more hour of sleep per night reduced the odds of calcification by 33%. H e l l o – a behavior, not a drug, that reduces the risk of Coronary disease by one third should be on the front page of every paper every day! GET TO BED EARLIER! One more TV show or computer game does not give you any benefit equal to reducing Coronary Artery Calcification by one third. That’s big news. BIG.
Sleep boosts immunity, aids digestion and enhances the body’s ability to grow and repair. Healthy sleep maximizes the hormone melatonin, one of the most powerful brain antioxidants known. To get the maximum benefit you must sleep in a completely dark room. Sleep in a quality, padded eye mask every night (which may take some getting used to) but the payoff is better quality sleep, more true rest. It results in a HUGE impact on your health. Turn off night lights. If sight impaired people can manage to find their way to the bathroom in the dark, you probably can to. Even one candlepower of light (i.e. clock radio, LED’s on TV, etc.) reduces the amount of melatonin you produce. A major sleep study showed that if you shine a flashlight on someone’s feet when they’re sleeping, their melatonin levels drop! Using supplemental melatonin of .5mg to 1mg thirty minutes before bed will help you get to sleep. A dose of 1.2-2mg time–released melatonin taken right at bedtime will help you stay asleep.
The most dangerous over the counter sleep meds include Benadryl and Tylenol PM, or anything containing diphenhydramine, which blocks H1 (histamine) receptors. This stops the brain from making acetylcholine, a most important memory compound.
Obvious, simple strategies to enhance sleep are often 
overlooked. Stop caffeine before sundown. Keep away from the computer and Steven King novels for an hour before bed. Dim the lights and relax instead. Bright light is not conclusive to evoking a melatonin cascade. Cop shows and chase scenes do not enhance sleep. No matter how tough tomorrow may be great sleep tonight will make it easier.
Food is information. Food tells your cells how to behave. Messages are positive, neutral or negative. One of our greatest daily stressors is not the traffic or Wall Street or our mother-in-law, it is what and how much we eat. Excess of saturated and trans-fats in fried food, baked goods and too much meat is a major physical stressor, as is processed and chemically laden food. Pure filtered water (STOP with the bottles already) and organic food alone reduce the trend for poor cell signaling that lead to obesity, diabetes and just plain feeling lousy. Choosing better quality food is a choice for a better quality life.
Adaptogens increase the body’s resistance to stress, anxiety and fatigue. They allow the body to increase endurance to stress and resistance to mental and physical stressors. The best of the nutrients to support the adrenal glands (masters of stress control) include the herbs Rhodiola rosea, Eleutherococcos (formerly known as Siberian ginseng) and the Indian herb ashwaganda along with B5 and B6. These herbs are adaptogens. All adaptogens are nontoxic, and normalize physiology. Eleutherococcus is more tonifying than true ginseng (Panax). It reduces the stress hormone cortisol, and improves both mental and physical performance. Along with Reishi mushrooms and licorice (not candy) these top stress modifiers are safe to use over long periods of time while you adjust your schedule to include more exercise and quiet time to balance the excesses in your life.
Exercise gets rid of stress chemicals in the body faster than any herb, sedative or cocktail. Exercise pumps up endorphins, those feel good neuro-transmitters. Movement lowers blood pressure and improves our self esteem. The day’s dilemmas lose their strangle hold during a brisk walk, a fast paced game or swimming laps in the pool. The left side of the brain which controls logical thought yields during exercise, and the creative right side of the brain awakens. Meditation in movement is the effect of physical activity
Men appear to have an especially hard time admitting that stress is negatively effecting their lives. Our expectation is that they should just “tough it out.” But awareness is the first step on the road of change. If we can’t admit we don’t like the results we’re getting or how we feel, it’s impossible to formulate a strategy to alter it. Admission of stress is not weakness, its willingness. Even the simple willingness to get to bed earlier and take some adaptogenic herbs to help you lighten the load is a step toward peace. Because a peaceful body is the desire of most (after all, we just want to be happy,) intentional action to reduce stressors will benefit you and your relationships. What the world needs now are more peaceful men, comfortable in their own skin to be our true heros.
Growing Green
Growing Green
By Eve Plews
Licensed Nutrition Counselor
(Originally published in Sarasota’s Natural Awakenings magazine April, 2009)
Growing green businesses and supporting local and organic produce go hand in hand. There is no single way humans interact more with the planet than through agriculture. We grow things- food- all over the world. A focus on reducing the toxic damage we’ve done to our home world must include changes in farming practices. There is a direct connection between business, our dinner and the Earth and now that the reality of the interconnectedness of all life becomes ever so much more apparent, we must marry good business to good stewardship of the land.
Every dollar you spend for food is a vote for the kind of world you wish to live in. There is power in choice. Every person who eats an all local diet 
saves the greenhouse gas equivalent of driving 1,000 less miles each year, according to Environmental Science and Technology, March 2009. But eating a vegetarian diet even 1 day per week equals driving 1160 fewer miles each year. If President Obama led the country in enacting “Meatless Mondays” at the White House as author Michael Pollan suggested, he would echo the same action used in World War I as a conservation effort. Eliminating meat only one night a week would be equivalent to taking over 30 million cars off the road for a year.
Think globally, act locally is not just a cute slogan but in fact supports your neighbors’ business. It is a village concept, not protectionism. As each locale reduces its need to import food, carbon footprints are reduced. This allows funds used for gasoline dependent transport to be redirected toward the new renewable energy systems, from wind to solar, as demand for oil based delivery of food is lessened.
Most success in farming is measured by crop yield per acre. Mainstream economies have until just recently ignored the value of the natural world. Biodiversity was not considered a component of value. Yet the new look at old ways allows a view that agricultural economies and organic farming encompass the entire range of food growing effects from social costs to unintended consequences like polluted rivers and top soil losses. Just maximizing efficiency or yield is no longer the only measure of success in farming.
When we see the USDA authorized Certification of Organic places like Worden Farm shifting their cultivation tractor to an electric motor from a gasoline engine, we see the deeper commitment to the greater good by owners of such farms. Their micro-irrigation and other water conservation projects improve environmental quality for the neighboring Babcock/Webb wildlife management area. Even the tributary of the Peace River, Shell Creek, a short mile away is enhanced by responsible farming practices
The 21- year Swiss study on organic farms found an average 20% lower yield than conventional farms. Yet there were 97% less pesticides used, 50% less energy expended plus long term benefits of the build up of soil, organic matter and greater diversity of all manner of life from soil bacteria to worms to birds. Organic farms show more biological activity and biomas, both signs of soil health. Biomas and earthworms are higher by a factor of 1.3 to 3.2 in organic versus conventional plots, plus organically managed plots contain higher levels of beneficial bacteria and fungi which aid plants in absorbing soil nutrients. Another benefit to planet and plants is more spiders and beetles that feed on plant pests.
Organic rotations trade off higher seed expense and machinery expenses from mechanical pest management but have no pesticide or fertilizer costs, the results are substantially lower per acre costs than conventional rotations of corn and soybeans: $198v/s$136 per acre for organics. Conventional farming is $33-48 per acre higher for crops like corn, soybeans and oats. Organic farms are more profitable to the farmer and to the land, especially in drought performance as exists not only in the West but in Florida today.
The United States is fourth in the world in total organic acreage farmed after Australia, China and Argentina. North America, as a continent holds 7% of organic acreage compared to Europe’s 24%. Global demand for organic products continues to rise with a doubling of sales from 2000- 2006 (latest year statistics available) to over $40 billion dollars. Pity that the leaders in the growth of organic food are snacks and beverages – but hey- it’s a start. Total US sales now are expected to surpass $25 billion in 2008. This is green business at its best!!!
If you only buy the MOST pesticide contaminated species of fruits and vegetables from organic sources you triple the benefits; 1) to your body, 2) to organic farmers, 3) to reduce demand of toxic food. The Organic Center of Boulder, Colorado lists the 2008 rankings for the highest risk produce as:
Domestic Fruit: cranberries, nectarines, peaches, strawberries, pears
Domestic Vegetables: green beans, bell peppers, celery, cucumber, potatoes
Imported Fruit: grapes, nectarines, peaches, pears, strawberries
Imported Vegetables: bell pepper, lettuce, cucumber, celery, tomatoes
Health-promoting flavinoids and antioxidants nearly doubled in organic tomatoes versus conventionally grown tomatoes. Plus, the longer the fields were organically managed, the greater the increase in nutrition premiums. If you don’t buy any other organic foods, consider trading the conventionally grown species above for organics. Your body and the planet will thank you and you’ll support the arena of business that “grows green” in the most literal way.
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Ode To Strawberries
ODE TO STRAWBERRIES
By Eve Plews
Licenesed Nutrition Counselor
(Originally published in Sarasota's Natural Awakenings magazine March, 2009)
Strawberries with sugar and cream. Strawberry Mousse. Strawberry Martini. Strawberry Shortcake. Strawberry Jam. Strawberry Smoothie. Strawberries, just popped in your mouth - but only if you wash it first. 
These beautiful, succulent pockets of red deliciousness are in full season. The sun works its’ magic with water and soil to produce one of the top ten antioxidant rich fruits. A bounty of cancer preventative nutrients enriches each juicy globe. From the well known vitamin C (richer in strawberries than in an orange) to the more obscure phenols,strawberries deliver potent anti-aging compounds.
Ellagic acid is not a household word yet. Like raspberries, cranberries, apples and grapes, strawberries are rich in ellagic acid. Expect future botanists to continue breeding the strawberry cultivars with the highest content of ellagitannins to help lower cancer rates. A study of over 1000 elderly people showed those eating the most strawberries were 3 times less likely to develop cancer than those eating few or no strawberries.
Fiber is often a catch all word that fails to acknowledge unique qualities of specific fibers like lignans and pectins. The insoluble fiber, lignan, so well respected in flax seeds, acts to remove harmful estrogens from the bowel. This insoluble component gives the berry structural rigidity. The soluble fiber, pectin, forms the “mortar” to hold the explosion of taste and delight housed in each yummy bite. Soluble fibers turn into a beneficial gel in the gut to keep harmful compounds away from the delicate gut wall. With less than 45 calories in a cup, succulent berries are covered in 200 or more teeny tiny black seeds rich with omega-3 fatty acids to quench inflammation. Coupled with manganese, potassium, iodine and folate, there are few healthier foods – as long as you know about the pesticide risks.
Yes, every happy piece of news about this ruby-red fruit is shadowed by its sixth place on the current list of the most pesticide contaminated produce. Bummer. After peaches, apples and nectarines, strawberries consistently end up on the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) list of highest pesticide residues found in fruits and vegetables. And yes, they are washed before they are tested. This is a special pity as they are so beloved by kids. Kids have little bodies that are more easily influenced by toxic compounds. It is all the more reason to feed kids as much organic foods as possible.
Insecticides were found in 38% of Florida berries tested and 93% had residues of fungicides, notably CAPTAN. Pesticides are toxic by design. Even tiny doses are toxic to tiny bodies like unborn fetuses and small children. Hormone systems are even more sensitive than the nervous system. Critical moments in fetal development can be affected by these hormone changing chemical compounds known to be both neurotoxic and carcinogenic. In 2007, when the EPA approved methyl iodide to replace the 15 million pounds of methyl bromide that had been used annually for decades as a soil fumigant, protest abounded from the scientific community. Fifty four scientists, including five Nobel laureates in chemistry, sounded the
alarm to the EPA director that “pregnant women and their fetuses, children, elderly farmworkers and those living near application sites are at serious risk.” These fumigants are potentially the most dangerous pesticides because their toxic gas evaporates from the soil only to drift into adjacent neighborhoods. Even though “legally allowable levels” are used, there are 371 pesticides approved by the FDA and EPA for use on strawberries. YIKES! So what’s a strawberry lover to do? Buy organic: fresh or frozen. Thoroughly soak and rinse, multiple times, berries that are not organically grown. Remember, they don’t just poison bugs, they poison people and soil and waterways.
The argument that organic is too expensive does not take into account the “real cost” of pesticide usage. The indirect cost of pesticide laden produce is in the taxpayer’s burden to clean up the polluted site and adjoining waterways or to replace eroded soil from poor farming practices. Buying organic continues to demonstrate an increase in demand and allows for more of the 30,000 acres used in California alone to shift to organic practices. Every dollar spent at the grocer is a vote for how you want your food raised as well as how you want to care for the planet. Since 88% of all strawberries come from California, every acre converted for strawberries counts.
Thank the first Americans for the idea of putting crushed strawberries baked into bread for the inspiration for strawberry shortcake. The Chinese thought of early morning bowl of these red delights as a hangover cure. The French thought strawberries were an aphrodisiac and gave honeymooners a soup made with sour cream, borage, powdered sugar and strawberries. It is said, if you split and eat a double strawberry, it causes you to fall in love with the partner enjoying the other half. So enjoy a chocolate covered morsel of scrumptious mouth party – just make it organic. And recall the quote from one Dr. Boteler who said, “Doubtless, God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God did.”
New Year's Revolution
New Year’s Revolution
By Eve Prang Plews
Licensed Nutrition COunselor
(Originally published in Sarasota's Natural Awakenings magazine January, 2009)
We awaken New Year’s morning with the sense of beginning that can only come once a year. Your determination to make a real shift in your behaviors, your life, is strong and reinforced by centuries of declaration that “Now it the time to change.” Yet all too often the resolution is “all about me” of course, it’s all about you. But more and more, we realize that there is no “me” independent of “we,” that personal actions affect every one around us and even affects this great big planet that daily becomes ever so smaller. Perhaps this year, our focus on resolution can shift to changes that have a larger effect, a revolutionary global result from our effort. It’s worth a try.
The most frequent habits cited for New Year’s are to stop smoking, lose weight and change spending habits. This year is different. New awareness of the web of life has been instilled in many and reinforced in the pioneers who have attended to the foundational belief that we are all in this together. So let’s look at 9 resolutions for 2009 with new eyes, in the dawn of this New Year.
- Stop buying plastic water bottles. Period. A solid carbon filter will give you purer water than many brands available at $3-$14 a gallon. It doesn’t take long to pay for even the best of filters. A stainless water bottle will prevent the estrogen like compounds in plastic from leaching into your water even if you leave the container in a hot car. Plastic takes LOTS of petroleum to produce and ship, contains toxins that bind to fat in your body (the brain is high in fat) and kills millions of seabirds and wildlife everyday world-wide. Just say “NO”.
- Buy organic even if it is only the dirty dozen- The most pesticide contaminated species include: spinach, green peppers, strawberries, apples, peaches, pears, nectarines, raspberries, celery, potatoes, cherries and imported grapes. Changing shopping habits to avoid the above species will reduce your exposure to nervous system and brain harming pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. Any reduction in exposure is a good reduction for your health. The safest NON-organics are pineapple, papaya, kiwi, mango and banana plus asparagus, avocado broccoli, cauliflower, corn, onion and peas.
- Reduce total meat consumption from all 4 legged sources. Livestock contribute 18% to total greenhouse gas and that contributes that to global heating. Less demand = less livestock = less carbon foot print / hoof print. Not everyone needs to (or wants to) be a vegetarian. But if we even reduced our portion size to 3-4 oz v/s 5-8oz, it would make a huge difference in demand. Plus you’d get health benefits from more veggies, grains, and beans that fill the plate.
- Choose eco-friendly seafood. Fisheries the world over have been over harvested. The most mercury toxic fish, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) include shark, swordfish, tilefish, blue fin and yellow fin tuna. That means don’t eat them at all. None. Zero. Mercury is neuro-toxic, especially to children. Atlantic farmed salmon is often high in other toxins like PCB’s. The most over fished species include orange roughy, monkfish, Chilean sea bass and grouper. Sadly, we need to choose fishes that have a better eco profile and let these troubled species recover. Perhaps in a few years we can enjoy them again after the fisheries restock themselves. Eco-best fish are Rainbow trout, Arctic char, Wild salmon, albacore tuna and Pacific sardines.
- Add more beans to your choices. Becoming a part-time vegetarian is easy. Since beans contain the greatest amount of protein of all plants, using them in soups, burgers, dips and spreads reduces costs, adds fiber and lowers your carbon footprint. Beans bind to heavy metals to carry them out of the body - Yea! Even sprinkling a handful of canned beans onto your salad or into your pasta gives health benefits. There are a huge variety of bean species to try, from meatless chili to hummus on a celery stick, lentil burgers to split pea soup, beans are a big bonus for health.
- Cook at home more often. Now, that’s not just eat at home with take-out and pizza, it is cook at home. Developing the habit of an hour every Sunday to make a bean or veggie soup, a pot of brown rice, a novelty salad like slaw or carrot, bake a sweet potato or two plus roast a chicken or a turkey breast. This will give you staples to make quick dinners for days. If you don’t know how to cook, make 2009 the year to learn. There are endless recipes and information online. This is the greatest gift to yourself ever.
- Try new foods this year. Variety is a major key to health. Each food has a unique collection of nutrients. If you always eat the same foods, you always get the same assortment of nutrients. Be adventurous. You may find a new favorite food or dish. Vow to at least try new tastes, new recipes and new spices. Do you eat jicima or kale? Well, why not?
- Share your resources with others less fortunate. It may be money or it may be time. Many of your neighbors need a hand-up in these unsettled economic times. Even $5 helps the All Faith’s Food Bank serve a meal to 4 people. One of every nine people in rich Sarasota County is asking All Faiths Food Bank for help and 40% are under 17 years old.
- Remember gratitude alters brain function. According to research done in 2006 published in Behavior Research and Therapy, the positive emotion of thankfulness or appreciation actually decreases depression. People who experience gratitude more frequently tend to be happier, more helpful and forgiving. Truly appreciate life and you’ll find you have more of it. These Nine behaviors serve both yourself and others. The temper of the country is evoking the cry for change. You can change your future by changing your choices. Begin now.
Healthy for the Holidays
Healthy for the Holidays
By Eve Prang Plews
Licensed Nutrition Counselor
(Originally published in Sarasota's Natural Awakenings magazine November, 2008)
Yet all too many folks will use the five weeks of the season from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day to gorge themselves with all manner of treats, only to regret it come scale time on January 2. Why spend 47 weeks trying to undo the damage of excess in a 35 day holiday season? How can we stay committed to health and still enjoy the special goodies abundant through December? Like all good projects, start with a strategy.
One major key to success in any healthy food choice is to eat a lot of vegetables - and then eat 
some more. Eating less meat, which contains no fiber and often all-too-much saturated fat, is better for person and planet. Plus, less meat cuts your costs. The Earth simply can’t support the sheer volume of dinner fare from four legged animals. It requires thousands of acres of Amazon rainforest land to grow the soybeans cows and pigs eat. So, replacing some of the animal meats on the plate with more grains, beans and veggies reduces cost, reduces disease, and spares the land.
A bowl of veggie soup or a lovely mixed salad is a great way to prepare for any festive party. The craziness of going all day without a proper meal only to dive face first into the chip and dip, cheese tray, and the like is reckless. If you know tonight’s event will be filled with hummus and veggie trays – no worry, but that’s rarely the case. Nearly every party has too much fat and protein in the hors d’oeurves collection. It’s the veggies that are missing. So have them before you leave home.
Drink a full glass of water before leaving for any soiree. Alternate alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks to allow your liver the hour it takes to process each cocktail, 12 oz. beer, or 5 oz. glass of wine. Safety is the first rule. The body pays little attention to calories consumed as liquids. After all, we evolved drinking only water. Zero calorie water at that.
Consider your most festive meal, often on Christmas Day. Yum, Waldorf salad gives you a healthy start for the day and for this girl, fond memories of Christmas past. A Waldorf salad of apple, celery, almonds or walnuts, a little Swiss or other very sharp cheese dressed with part organic mayo and part plain yogurt is a great way to start the happy day. Remember the rule with fruit: “eat it alone or leave it alone” is especially directed at those with a tendency toward a gassy belly (you know who you are). But nuts and cheese are the notable exceptions to the rule “eat alone.” Fruit stays in the stomach only long enough to warm to the 98.6° environment before it passes into the small intestine for absorption. Little digestion is required for the already simple structure of fruit. Nuts, seeds, and high fat cheeses (or avocado) actually begin their digestion in the small bowel so there’s no conflict with the fruit. Fermentation is avoided, as is the resulting gas.
Now’s the time to stash some great soups in the freezer for those ever so busy days to come. Think beans first. A lush lentil or simple split pea requires no presoaking of the beans, a real time saver. From dry bean to simmering soup in less than 90 minutes, lentils and split peas win the easiest soup awards for tasty soup. Roll up an extra serving or two in a zip-top bag to stack in the freezer like cord wood. You’ll be thankful on those too full days to have dinner on the table in 20 minutes or less. A piece of whole grain toast or cornbread with steamy soup brimming with beans and their vegetable friends will find you grateful you prepared ahead. Then if your Christmas feast is mid-day, your bean soup can be the simple supper with the obligatory turkey sandwich. But if your Holiday feast is held near sunset, the bowl of beans and a slice of toast will hold you ‘til the celebration meal.
If you’ve had a full and proper meal, desserts will be eaten a little more sparingly. Have them, enjoy them. Just a little less dessert will be easy if you’ve eaten right all day. Remember, you don’t have to eat everything! Just because three pies or cakes are offered doesn’t mean you have to eat a piece of each. Take a piece of your favorite kind of pie or cake home. Then have a little bite of the other choices. Life and dessert are meant to be enjoyed. Just don’t bury yourself under a pile of goodies.
It really isn’t a requirement to overeat at parties and dinners. The suffering later from an overfull belly is miserable and brings on guilt or regret. That’s one present we surely don’t want. You can control your fork. You can believe that five minutes in the mouth is not worth five months on the hip. Maintain health sanity this holiday period. With 37,000 people in this rich Sarasota County not knowing where their food will come from tomorrow, eating a little leaner will allow you to contribute to All Faith’s Food Bank or other feed-the-hungry charities. After all, isn’t that what we’re celebrating? Wishing Goodwill to all and a Healthy New Year.
Frugal Food
Frugal Food
By Eve Prang Plews
Licensed Nutrition Counselor
(Originally published in Sarasota's Natural Awakeings magazine October, 2008)
Okay, enough with the tough news already. What’s true is you still have to eat. So, let’s get real and see where you can cut costs in the kitchen AND still eat healthy. Abandoning your principles for quality eating is not a way to manage tension. You need even more nutritional support for these headline stressing times.
Start with becoming best friends with cabbage. This truly remarkable and highly maligned globe of goodness offers more cancer protective compounds among its family of cruciferous vegetables than any other vegetable family, save onions. Long known for its stable vitamin C content (50 mg per cup), as well as iron, potassium and useful amounts of folate, cabbage in any form – red, green, Savoy, Napa, Chinese or Bok Choy – is a powerhouse of disease fighting, antioxidant nutrients, with the Added bonus of being high in healthful fiber and low in calories (1 cup cooked = 30 calories.)
Coleslaw, long a mainstay, side by side with sandwich or fish dinner, has as many styles as there are grandmothers. Sweet, spicy, gooey, or vinegary there are enough varieties of slaw to meet every palate. One
cabbage or tri-colored with green and red cabbage plus a little carrot, each combo has its own merits. Even the style of chopping varies the finished taste, from grated to fine food processor chopped, from slivers to knife-cut hunks. Slaw can change its costume and show up nearly every day and yet have very different appeal at each meal. Try sweet/sour with equal parts honey, rice vinegar, plain yogurt and good mayonnaise, that’ll keep both fat and calories low. Add caraway seeds for the German style slaw. As a splurge, blue cheese slaw sounds hip with red onion, olive oil, vinegar, sweet pickle, mayo and pepper. Just remember to toss the cabbage with the crumbled blue or gorgonzola cheese first before adding the dressing. It’s no longer a cheap treat but a delectable accompaniment.
The author’s favorite cooked dish is red cabbage with onion, apple, balsamic vinegar and a few drops of stevia or a spoon of brown sugar or molasses, makes a yummy side dish and cost less than a quarter a serving. Since cabbage is among the 12 lowest pesticide containing foods don’t worry about only buying organic. That’s not true for high pesticide residue foods like spinach. At a dollar or less a head this time of year, cabbage can greatly stretch your food budget and grant you major amounts of cancer protection. Don’t forget to grate some onto every salad. It’s cheaper than lettuce and every little saving helps.
A specific antioxidant in cabbage indole-3- carbinol, accelerates the disposal of a harmful form of estrogen that promotes breast cancer. Eating cabbage near daily can reduce or eliminate tender breasts some women have before their cycle. Get rid of the excess estrogen and the tenderness goes away. Men who eat cabbage even once a week had only half the risk of colon cancer as men who ate it only once a month.
It should go without saying that the reduction or better yet the elimination of soda and junk food snacks can greatly reduce food costs as well as benefit health. Same goes for bringing lunch instead of buying it. Stop the insanity of paying near $4.00 a cup for fancy coffee you can make at home for a quarter and take in a thermos.
Of fourteen lunches and dinners each week, shoot for four to be bean based. Bean soup and cornbread, bean burger on whole grain bun or hummus with your Greek salad all reduce costs and improve global warming too! We all need to eat less meat. It’s often the most expensive food category but moreover, the planet cannot continue to support all the methane belching cows and pigs we’re raising. Amazon rain forests get cleared to grow the soybeans to feed livestock.
Canned salmon and light (not white) tuna are fin to fin the cheapest protein source right next to eggs and turkey thighs. Light tuna has less mercury than white and it’s one third less money and all canned salmon is wild not farm raised. Dollar for dollar, eggs offer the most highly digestible protein source. They are not just for breakfast. A crustless vegetable quiche, veggie stuffed omelet or soufflé with whole grain toast is a great evening meal in company with a salad. Turkey thighs are half the cost per pound of bone-in turkey breast and actually have taste unlike the dry white part. They are easy to cook on the grill, bake with a little barbeque sauce or pop in a pot with onions, celery, carrots and potato for a delicious inexpensive meal. Plus the leftovers go into tomorrow’s sandwich or on top of a salad.
Smart shopping starts with smart planning. Don’t fret. Buy in bulk the things you use often, like chicken legs or turkey thighs. Freeze what you don’t need now. Always buy double of what’s on sale of your usual choices. Four bean based meals, two fishes, four poultry plates and two egg dishes leaves room for two meals of the four-legged variety; beef, lamb or pork. Just using this template will cut your food costs yet boost your health and stress management capacity. Remember, foods without ingredient lists always cost less and are better for you. Eat what occurs in nature.
Killin' 'em With Cookies and Other Dangerous Foods
Killin’ ‘em With Cookies
and Other Dangerous Foods
By Eve Prang Plews
Licensed Nutrition Counselor
(Originally published in Sarasota's Natural Awakeings magazine July, 2008)
Parents need a philosophy of food and eating if they are to protect their precious offspring from the harm of the Standard American Diet or SAD. The “Principled Parenting” as taught by
Marlene Resnick in her fabulous guidebook, If They Only Came With Instructions extends to the family dinner table. Parents understand that their role as authority comes from their responsibility to protect and support their children until they’re old enough to take responsibility for themselves. We can only hope.
If there is not a true commitment when the essential decision is made to give kids only the foods that can help them grow the best, most optimal brain and body 
possible, then any food within reach or drive-thru becomes OK. That is tantamount to neglect or in some cases even abuse. The grim health of so many children is the U.S. is evidence that we can – and must – do a better job feeding our kids. It’s really NOT hard once we decide that our hopes for our children are always to see them succeed physically, emotionally and mentally. Don’t we want peaceful children who learn easily, feel good and are happy?
We can’t choose what kids eat but we can decide from which foods they choose. Today too many parents choose convenience above nutrition as the primary criteria of meal time. That means lots of take-out, drive-thru fast food and processed, out-of a-box meals are consumed by children. With fully one-third of children under 16 overweight or obese today, it’s easy to see that convenience has brought us to a dramatic health challenge since we know that it is 80% certain that a child who is fat at the age of 10 will become an obese adult. Yet parents don’t see it. Dr. Matthew Davis, University of Michigan professor says, “…parents of younger kids believe their children will grow out of obesity.” Among parents of extremely overweight or obese children ages 6 – 11 years, 43% said their child was “about the right weight,” 37% responded “slightly overweight.” That’s 80% of parents who can’t even see that their own child is fat.
That is trouble for the emotional future of the kids as literature and prejudice reveals that fat children are the target of ridicule and disgust both by their peers and by the adults in their lives from teachers to parents. Children accept the stereotype and developed prejudice against fat people by preschool age.
According to research studies by University of Vermont psychologist Esther Rothblum, they even preferred to choose a playmate that was missing a limb, on crutches or in a wheelchair over playing with a fat child. By elementary school, children describe fat kids as lazy, sloppy, dirty, stupid and ugly. Those same stereotypes are shared by teachers and counselors in a study of over 200 teachers and 52 mental health professionals.
No one wants their child to be the target of oppression and discrimination. Plus, large adolescents and young adults earn less than their average weight counterparts. The increased frustration and low self-esteem are not worth a donut given as a “reward” by a national chain for every ‘A’ on a report card.
A 12 year old boy in my practice started every day with a sausage and egg muffin on the way to school. (450 calories) He ate 1 slice of meat pizza daily at school. (320 calories) His mother took him for the 10 piece chicken nugget meal after class every day, another 565 calories plus 1390mg of sodium (more than ½ tsp.) Then she’d pick up 2 chicken bacon ranch salads at the same drive-thru for dinner at least three times a week (660 calories.) The other nights they had more delivery pizza or macaroni and cheese out of a box. Since he was such a “good boy” mom rewarded him with his favorite chocolate chip Blizzard every night to the tune of 950 calories. Total calories for the day for a 12 year old: 2945! He weighed 220 pounds at the end of 6th grade, with cholesterol of 280 and high blood pressure. When I challenged his mother about the choices, she said, “Well, at least he eats a salad every day and I’m really too busy to cook.” Not an example of principled parenting.
Young children are exposed to an average of 21 food commercials each day on TV. More than one third feature candy and snacks, 29% for cereal, 10% each for beverages and fast food and none for healthy choices like fruits and vegetables. Parent’s messages about eating well are heard maybe 2-4 times a day. That’s pretty tough competition with 700-1,000 good messages against 7,000-10,000 commercials per year.
Children need food as close to the way it occurs in nature as possible. Chicken occurs in nature; chicken nuggets don’t. Potatoes occur in nature; Pringles don’t. Just remember the more processed the greater risk of problems. Some say “the more processed, the more poisoned.”
Children need fresh fruit, at least one piece of whole fruit – not juice – daily and not just bananas. They need a variety. Frozen berries blended with vanilla yogurt make a great healthy shake and apples with peanut butter – yummm. Watermelon cubes, pineapple spears, fresh berries-lots of choices. Raw vegetables get eaten if served with the classic kid favorite - Ranch Dressing. Blend equal parts of cottage cheese and 
Ranch dressing for a tasty, high protein dip. Keep an easy-open frig container full of carrots, celery, grape tomatoes, snow peas, jicima (sweet & crunchy) plus another of almonds, walnuts or pecans. They will soon become your kids’ favorite.
When parents say ‘my kid won’t eat it,’ sometimes it means they don’t eat it themselves or just don’t take the time to prepare the food and offer it as a healthy choice. Chicken or turkey tenders with a little Bar-B-Que sauce - baked in a 350* oven for 15 minutes, makes a nutritious snack or sandwich filler.
Oxford University showed giving children omega 3 fatty acids, found in fish and nuts, improved brain power 40% and dramatically improved reading and spelling abilities. The study by Dr. Alexandra Richardson of Oxford showed significant improvements in concentration, behavior and coordination and in some cases their reading age level improved by 4 years! Just from one critical nutrient – good fats.
Real fruit Popsicles, dates stuffed with an almond or cream cheese and rolled in coconut or vanilla yogurt sprinkled with granola and toasted coconut can all be alternatives to high calorie, low nutrient, processed desserts. Even sweets can be healthy additions to daily choices.
Stop buying zero nutrition soda, sports drinks filled with neon colors and minuscule amounts of juice. Children need water not drinks that entertain. If you don’t want them to consume poor choices, don’t buy them. There are healthier versions of pizza, nachos, spaghetti and nuggets. However, you have to be the change. You have to commit to health, to give your kids, or grandkids, or the neighbor kids the best built brain and body possible. It takes quality ingredients to create a healthy body. It is worth it, for their future and yours. Invest in children’s health; the payoff is huge and one you’ll never regret.
Day-Glo Vegetables or the Nuclear Lunch
Day-Glo Vegetables or the Nuclear Lunch
By Eve Prang Plews
Licensed Nutrition Counselor
(Originally published in Sarasota's Natural Awakenings magazine September, 2008)
In a month when the greatest attention is on who will lead the country, it’s often quite difficult to get a conversation going about food safety. Yet more people will suffer and some even die from widespread food contamination than any terrorists’ sabotage. Millions more will have their health decline from the reduction in nutrient availability from irradiated foods. Irradiation reduces the vitality of foods.
The potentially deadly bacteria E.coli, contaminated the 1.2 million pounds of meat from Nebraska Beef that was recalled in August. That was one of twelve beef recalls thus far this year due to bacteria contamination, likely from fecal contaminated carcasses that result from speeded-up slaughter and decreased federal inspection. In August fifteen Canadians died from listeria the bacteria that contaminated lunchmeat, like turkey and ham.
Fewer Americans now take for granted that federal departments can protect our food supply. From the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) failures of safety in the food supply have become a lengthy list, from meat to lettuce to chilies.
Food borne disease causes 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths in the U.S. each year according to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention in Atlanta. The belly blues are no laughing matter.
But this is a challenge that must be put into perspective. The “cure” maybe worse than the actual reality of food borne pathogens and the illness they create. You just can’t sterilize the world or all its food. “Strategic shopping” can help you avoid foods more likely to be bacterially contaminated. You can’t eliminate all risk but you can reduce risk.
On August 21, 2008 the FDA approved zapping fresh spinach and iceberg lettuce to kill E.coli and salmonella: what’s wrong with this picture? Let’s start with learning about radiation. One person receiving one x-ray equals one RAD or radiation absorbed dose. 100,000 RADs equals 1 kilogray or 1 kGr It takes 140 – 160 RADs to kill salmonella. Yet 100,000 RADs are now permitted to be used on spinach – 700 times the dose required to accomplish the job. HUH!? Well, what will this blast of radioactive cobalt 60 do to your Nuclear Lunch? First off it won’t make the food radioactive. Gamma rays break up the molecular structure of foods to create ‘free radicals’ that in turn create new chemical structures called “radiolytic products.” Examples include formaldehyde and benzene, a known carcinogen. Some new chemicals created within the food are totally unique to the radiation process and have not even been identified, much less tested for toxicity. Plus, irradiation destroys essential vitamins including A, B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, folic acid, C, E and K! A loss of 20 – 80% of these nutrients is expected after irradiation.
The chairperson of the FDA committee in charge of investigative studies, Dr. Marcia van Gemert, testified that all 441 toxicity studies of irradiated foods were flawed. In all instances, since the government considers irradiation a “food additive”, animals given a diet of irradiated food suffered weight loss, miscarriage, kidney and testicular changes and potentially the scariest – chromosome damage. When chromosomes mutate, broken strands recombine in ways that don’t occur in nature. YIKES!!! White blood cells associated with leukemia developed in 80% of Indian children fed irradiated wheat. Fortunately, the blood cells renormalized when the wheat was discontinued. The risks to future health cannot be underestimated. The risks to future health cannot be underestimated. NO! That was not a typo. The risks to future health cannot be underestimated.
Phytonutrients are combat powerhouses of disease fighting medicine. The broccoli compound sulphorophane helps prevent cancer, spinach’s compound lutein protects against macular degeneration, and berries’ anthocyanadins, the blue and purple pigment, protect brains from Alzheimer’s and hearts from their own disease. But subject these fruits and vegetables to enough radiation to kill 99.9% of the pathogens and you destroy the phytonutrients that grant health benefits. So the law of unintended consequences may actually increase infections and illness while decreasing out-breaks of food-borne bacterial illnesses. Not a very good trade.
Organic foods cannot be irradiated. YEA! That’s your first clue to avoiding unique radiolytic products or URP’s.
What a great acronym, it’ll make you urp alright. The FDA has approved irradiation of seeds for sprouting (like alfalfa and beans,) eggs in the shell, beef, poultry, pork, herbs, teas, spices, wheat and wheat flour as far back as 1986. The U.S.D.A. approves irradiation from meat purchases for the National School Lunch Program. “Yippy, it’s irradiated hamburgers for lunch at school today!” Let’s use 27 million children as unknowing guinea pigs to test the safety of these products. Commonly occurring fats exposed to radiation create compound called 2-alkylcyclobutatones or its cuter name 2-ACBs. These chemicals have never been detected in any non-irradiated food. Experiments funded by the European Union determined that 2-ACBs promoted growth of colon tumors in rats and caused genetic damage in human cells. (Remember the part about strand of DNA recombining?) Chicken, eggs and mangos are other foods legalized for radiation where 2-ACBs have been detected.
No labeling for radiation treated food is required at restaurants, delis, take out counters, hotels, airlines, hospitals or schools. No notice is required on spices or herb teas or sprouts grown from irradiated seeds. An irradiated chicken must be marked RADURA but not if it is an ingredient in a packaged food like a pot pie or burrito. Only a whole food sold intact is required to be labeled as irradiated. Any irradiated ingredient is a finished product from spice to flour, from beef to chicken does NOT have to be labeled as an irradiated source in the finished product.
Since literally hundreds of irradiation facilities would need to be built to treat the one billion pounds of spinach and nine billion pounds of lettuce Americans eat each year, the isotope currently used, cobalt 60 would not be available in sufficient quantities. The only isotope available for large scale irradiation is cesium 137 which has a half-life of 30 years and remains dangerous for 600 years! This is a boon for the U.S. Department of Energy which has encouraged food irradiation in order to reduce, in part, the volume of hot nuclear waste elements. We can’t build a dump site fast enough, so we’ll just use the nuclear waste to treat food. Oh, great policy. Now I just can’t wait for the “Consumer training” the irradiation industry sees as the key to citizen acceptance. These “educational” materials include a pro-irradiation video designed to influence public acceptance of food irradiation made with a $39,000 U.S.D.A. grant to Iowa State University. Iowa currently houses the largest facility in the U.S. designed exclusively to irradiate meat. The only other large commercial irradiation facility in the U.S. is nearby in Mulberry, FL, just North of Tampa in Polk County. That facility is Food Technology Service, Inc. (F.T.S.I.)
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) said it best 25 years ago at a 1983 meeting of the House Armed Services Committee, “The utilization of these radioactive materials simply reduces our waste handling problem; we get some of these very hot elements like cesium and strontium out of our waste.” Oh, Goody! So we’ve got a technology that uses radioactive nuclear waste. There are only two major working facilities in the U.S. now and hundreds would be required. Produce could be zapped with the equivalent of 7 ½ to 30 million chest x-rays. This destroys or at the very least greatly reduces nutrient content. Not to mention changing the texture of the delicate leaves.
The irradiation creates toxic by-products that have not been identified much less tested. What testing has been done has been flawed. Accidents have already occurred at irradiation facilities contaminating the environment. Oh, yea, the taxpayers paid to clean it up. U.S. labels do not enable consumers to avoid irradiated foods. NO labeling is required if the irradiated food is an ingredient in something processed. Since irradiation does not kill all bacteria, the survivors are radiation resistant and can multiply just like anti-biotic resistant bacteria have done since penicillin was introduced. (Remember MRSA?) Though it kills most bacteria, it doesn’t destroy the toxins of the bacteria that produce odors so you can tell if food had spoiled.
Old, longer shelf-life products can present as “fresh” food. There are no studies on the effects of feeding irradiated foods to babies and children. Animals fed irradiated foods showed and increase in tumors. Irradiated beef covers up increased fecal contamination caused by poor handling in slaughter houses. Decreased federal inspection of meat and poultry facilities can be justified since the irradiated product was “clean” when it left the packing plant. (We know how honest the meat packing industry has been. Note the summer’s repeated busts at the kosher meat factories where 9,300 criminal charges have been brought against these honest folk.)
It is the failure to acknowledge the inherent danger exposed over the last 22 years that alarms this author. The FDA’s failure to prove safety continues to be revealed not just in regard to radiation but other agents from Bisphenol-A in plastic to oxybenzone in sun screen. The naive belief that “our federal government is protecting us from harm,” is simply an uninformed belief. When you add in the intricate connections to the nuclear industry, the whole irradiation subject really stinks.
Citizen opposition, not government regulation, is the critical factor in keeping irradiated food out of our stomach. Ten years ago a CBS News poll confirmed what was found in two prior surveys, 77% of Americans reject irradiated food. Citizen aversion may be strong but that doesn’t help if you’re eating out at a restaurant tonight where you have no choice about ingredients used. Irradiation poses serious risks. This renewed push for food irradiation should concern us all. Eat organic. Grow some of you r own food. Ask questions. The food you save could save you.
Toxic Tanning
Toxic Tanning
By Eve Prang Plews
Licensed Nutrition Counselor
(Originally published in Sarasota's Natural Awakenings magazine June, 2008)
Oh the fear! At every turn, we’re reminded that something deadly is out there waiting to get us. If it’s not salmonella on the tomatoes, it’s e.coli in the beef. From traffic to terrorists, we are up against a list of dangers faced daily that require our discernment, our ability to choose what is best and safest for us – and for the planet. Who would have thought that suntan lotion could be added to the ever-growing collection of threats to your DNA, fishes and coral reefs? WOW! Right. Suntan lotion we thought was there to protect us from the ravages of photo-aging as well as skin cancers turns out to have an ingredients that may well increase DNA change and thus create more cancers. University of California scientist Dr. Kerry Hanson quoted in Free Radical Biology & Medicine says, the three common SPF filters in sunscreens “can lead to cell damage and cancer. Sunscreen may be doing more harm than good.”
But doesn’t our FDA protect us against bad ingredients in skin care products? Get real. The FDA evaluated the questionable ingredient oxybenzone in 1970 and 1978 and has yet to issue final regulations.
However, Lancet reported back in 1997 that these compounds “absorb UV which breaks two bonds and creates free radicals” in an article entitled, “Sunscreens, Do They Cause Skin Cancer?” University of Zurich’s Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicity, reported in the 2001 Environmental Health Perspectives that oxybenzone “behaves like strong estrogens.”
Ask the feminized fish feeding near the California coastal sewage outputs. University of California Riverside scientists discovered two-thirds of the male Sole and Turbot, three miles off the surfer’s paradise of Huntington Beach, were growing ovary tissue in their testes. Research done by the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project found the sex changes in fish for the first time in the open ocean all along the coast. The U of C scientists found the “exclusively identified” culprit to be oxybenzone in suntan lotion. If a single unregulated ingredient in suntan lotion can change the sex characteristics of a fish, what is it doing to your child that you so lovingly cover with sunscreen to “protect” from sun damage?
One quarter of the sunscreen chemical are being washed off in as little as a 20 minute dip in the salt waters of the world, enough to harm and even kill coral reefs. The collapse of delicate eco systems is already under threat from global warming and the freak weather of the last decade that has already killed off twenty percent of the world’s coral population.
Sunscreens bleach hard corals even in low concentrations according to Dr. Roberto Danovaro, Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona, Italy in “Environmental Health Perspectives.” With over 10 tons of sunscreen UV filters produced yearly, 10 % of it is used by the 78 million tourists visiting the tropics. Even small doses of the compounds acting as UV filters have negative effects on reefs studied in Mexico, Indonesia, Egypt and Thailand. Virus levels in the seawater also increased fifteen times suggesting that sunscreens might stimulate latent viral infections.
The greatest rise in the deadliest of skin cancers, melanoma, occurs where sunscreens have been the most heavily promoted. Queensland, Northern Australia now has more melanoma per capita than any other place on earth according to the American Journal of Public Health. This follows a twenty plus year long campaign by the Australian government to “Slip, Slop, Slap.” Slip on a shirt, Slop on sunscreen and Slap on a hat.” Actually, every one inch of brim on a hat worn regularly in the sun, decreases life long risks of skin cancer by ten percent; now that’s a doable strategy that works and doesn’t change the sex of fish or kill coral.
The false sense of security provided by high SPF sunscreens actually equals higher rates of sunburns, especially in men and teens. Sunburn frequency decrease by 3% for every year over 18. Perhaps older is wiser.
Now it’s known that we really need Vitamin D in much higher doses than previously endorsed. In fact, for optimum D levels, daily supplements of 1,000 – 4,000 iu are likely needed to help prevent sixteen types of cancers, muscle pain, osteoporosis, rickets and more. (See Natural Awakenings May 2008, Vitamin D article, pg 40) You can make sufficient D by exposing your skin to 20-30 minutes of sun daily. But if you live North of Atlanta, that length of exposure only yields D as a benefit from May-September. The rest of the year, the sun is too low on the horizon to provide the UVA your skin uses to manufacture Vitamin D.
There will never be a better sunscreen than clothes and caution. However, clothes made with sun blocking fabric are not worth the extra expense according to Consumer Reports. Shirts and hats, what a concept. Thus far, the most powerful cell membrane protector and radiation neutralizer is the caratenoid red pigment astaxanthin, which is conspicuous in the pink flesh of healthy wild salmon, shrimp, crabs, lobster and carrots. This natural photo-protection molecule is anti-inflammatory as well.
Center for Disease Control in 2007 found ninety-six percent of six to eight year old girls had oxybenzone in their urine. Mount Sinai School of Medicine found women with the highest exposure to the same chemical had low birth weight baby girls. So what happens to the reproductive safety of these little girls twenty years from now? After they have been exposed to a lifetime of estrogen like compounds that can not only alter their future babies’ birth weight but potentially alter the estrogen balance of their sons. YIKES!!
So what to do? 1. Avoid sun exposure from 10 AM to 4 PM. 2. Use clothing, broad brim hats and sunglasses. 3. Get regular dermatological screening especially if you are red headed or blonde, with moles. I am sure if you are, you already know fair skinned blondes and redheads with blue or hazel eyes will only minimally tan with their Type II skin and Type I skin from Celtic background with blue eyes and freckles will NEVER tan. So use your head, albeit covered, to get your healthy, non-toxic tan.
Men and Steak - A Mistake?
MEN AND STEAK – A MISTAKE?
By Eve Plews
Licensed Nutrition Counselor
(Originally published in Sarasota's Natural Awakenings magazine May, 2008)
Men want meat! From the dawn of human history, man has been hard-wired to be a hunter. Success meant survival. As a concentrated protein, meat allowed brains to enlarge and grow more complex wiring. Archeology has demonstrated a direct link between brain enlargement and the finding of bones with carving marks at Neolithic fire pit sites. Meat helped turn humans into thinking machines. Now that same brain needs to re-think the benefits vs. the hazards of meat eating to excess.
No matter how sexist it sounds, men order steak, women order sweets when they want comfort food according to Physiology and Behavior. Indulgent celebrations and business meals always link men and steak, a big, juicy, mouth-watering steak. Now, no blatant food statement can be fair to all the vegan and vegetarian guys reading this. But face facts, a large percentage of men bask in their glory with a bag of charcoal briquettes and a few gallons of lighter fluid. Ahhh, manhood and the manly aroma of petroleum mixed with charred meat. Now that’s a primal combo.
Can men have their red meat and go green at the same time? It appears to be quite a challenge for both planet and person.
The trouble with steak and four-legged meat in general is the amount of saturated fat. Dietary consumption of sat fats is conclusively linked to the three biggest killers in America; cardiovascular disease, cancer and stroke. Nutrition studies measure meat in 100 gram amounts, about 3.5 ounces. A piece of chicken breast of that size has 3.1grams of fat of which only 1gram is saturated. The same small size piece of prime rib contains 30 grams of fat of which 12 grams are saturated! And who ever heard of someone eating 3.5 ounces of prime rib? The usual portion is 10-16 oz. Studies have clearly proven the larger the portion; the more we will eat at a serving. Yes, you can choose a beef cut that doesn’t come with a hospital crash cart. Anything with the words “round” or “loin” is the lowest fat cuts of beef. Eye-of-round, top round, sirloin, tenderloin all have better fat ratios-but is that the answer?
When James Hansen, the grandfather of the global warming theory and Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, researched carbon emissions, he discovered 18% of current earth warming is from livestock. It’s the exhalation by the cows of methane and nitrous oxide that create far more potent damage than carbon dioxide. In fact, methane is 23 times stronger than carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide is 296 times more responsible for warming than CO2! Each cow exhales 634 quarts of methane a day. Multiply that by the billions and billions. No, actually it’s 1,300,000,000 cows and the potential for global heating becomes more real.
Americans average 9-10 servings of red meat per week, more than any other country. We’re destroying tropical forest to grow the 16 pounds of grain and beans in feed used to produce only one pound of meat. It seems so silly when we could just eat the grains and beans ourselves. The 55 sq. feet of tropical biodiversity that produces 165 lbs. of plants gets cut and burned to make one single burger patty. It just doesn’t seem balanced or maintainable as global population growth fuels demand for meat and new found prosperity increases consumption. In the US alone, consumption of meat has grown to 195lbs. per person each year. If I only eat 2 lbs/week and you only eat 1 lb/week, then someone is eating a pound a day, in fact, a lot of people are eating a pound a day.
The Unites States Department of Agriculture prints 
their Dietary Guide for Americans every 5 years. They push people to eat more plant food. Plants should be the “foundation of your meals.” Each day no less that a quart of fruits and vegetables should be consumed, plus beans, whole grains, seeds and nuts. The reason the meat, especially beef, should become a condiment sized portion is its contribution to bowel and prostate cancer among others. Bowel cancers double when people eat red meat twice a day as compared to those who eat it once weekly according to Cancer Research. There is an increase in DNA damage. With 1 million new colon cancer cases per year, Professor Colin Blakemore of the Medical Research Council who did the DNA research was so convinced, he became a vegetarian.
Half of 50 year old men have BPH, benign prostate hypertrophy, and near 90% have BPH by age 70 according to the American Journal of Epidemiology. The nightly frequency of getting up to toilet might be reduced by a diet of more veggies and less saturated fat. A diet high in fat not only increased risk of BPH by 31%, it increased risk of prostate cancers. Daily red meat consumption increased risks 38%! Yet, those men who ate even four servings of veggies a day reduced their risk by just shy of one third.
The planet is demanding new strategies. Every meal you eat has an effect on our body, the environment and every other citizen of the earth, known or unknown. The joy of going to Lone Star Steakhouse for their new 20 oz. T-bone steak with baked potato and lettuce wedge will not only give you 124 grams of fat but a whopping 2,700 calories. Or stop by Burger King to order a Double Whopper with cheese for a 1,150 calorie serving of 33 grams of sat and trans fats. This is not the fast food meal to pick up at the window in your Prius. That is a disconnect - you can’t care about your carbon footprint and forget the role of livestock in the formula.
Yes, there are arguments to be made about lamb, pigs, chicken and even fish. The healthy heart of the matter is we just have to eat less flesh food period. The planet simply cannot continue to support large scale livestock supplies. We need to learn the joy of cooking at home. With over a 5% increase in food costs this last year (and more to come,) reducing the meat portion is imminently practical. More than 5,000 studies have now linked the greatest consumption of plant foods with the lowest rates of 10 cancers and heart disease; America’s two biggest killers. For the most complete overview of the relevance of meat eating to the future of the planet, read Livestock’s Long Shadow by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. In the meantime, consider a salad with a bowl of bean soup and a piece of hearty bread for your next meal. Make your body happy, help your kids live a healthier life and encourage the planet heal; let the cows die of old age.
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