interesting Eco-Info

Courtesy of The Big Green Cookbook

A Planet-friendly bite

Bamboo is a fast-growing, truly renewable resource. In fact, it's one of the fastest growing plants on Earth.

Since it has a uniquely short growth cycle, it can be harvested in less than five years versus the twenty that is typical for many hardwoods. And it doesn't need replanting because of its large root network.

Unfortunately, dairy foods, including cheese, are responsible for some of our greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, every food or beverage category has some impact on the environment. But there's no need to give up cheese. Just enjoy "real" cheese, not the processed stuff. Choose organic, local , or artisanal cheese varieties that are handmade in small batches, whenever possible. And then savour them like fine wine.

Go Local: If you can only find hoisin sauce that's imported or not-so-natural, then make your own "local" preservative-free, hoisin-like sauce with mainly organic ingredients.

Mix together 1/4 cup naturally brewed soy sauce, 2 TBSP. peanut or almond butter, 1TBSP mild foral honey, 1TBSP rice vinegar( preferably brown rice vinegar), 2tsp. sesame oil, and a few drops of your favorite hot pepper sauce.

This sauce goes great on lettuce wraps, soo easy and delicious.

Sautee your choice of ingredients, veggies, chicken, or pork, and fill lettuce leaves with the mixture, squeeze lemon and drizzle with homemade hoisin. Yummm

Use it, don't lose it---#1--have leftover olive juice, add more interest to salad dressings, or use the olive juice to make a dirty--or extra dirty--martini. Then sip while enjoying your appies and salad.

#2--if you don't use all parts of a citrus fruit in a recipe, consider other edible uses.

Zest the peel for added flavour or flair. ( one of my fave pump up the flavour tricks)

After using the juice, remove the rest of pulp and membranes from the peel and freeze in container. Add to breakfast shakes(with assorted berries- pumps up the Vit C + antiox values).

Or add to salad dressings with olive oil salt and pepper, and favorite spices and herbs, and Garlic of course.

Had a nice chat with Barb just now. twas lovely.

As for moi, dark and rainy, sooo ick. Had a break in the rain and got out for a walk Yesterday, was mild and the fresh air smelled great. A touch of sun didn't hurt. Trying to rebuild my physical fitness, so 15 push-ups x 2 daily, and walked for 20 minutes yesterday and came home and napped.

The pleurisy, which is a membrane at the base of the lung is not improving in a proper time frame, sooo another round of those ugh body bashing antibiotics. Yay modern medicine.

Sooo, I am using the reflect and redirect, otherwise known as avoid avoid avoid when it comes to symptoms of depression. Will build slowly on tried and true methods of redirection, The good news is I have it firmly implanted in recent memory cells that these increasingly severe symptoms do not last forever, that like the darkness the Seasonal component of my illness requires a more vigilant use of my coping strategies so they cannot gain to great a foothold on my psyche.

All that mumbo jumbo means is I'm doing my lite therapy and being careful to not dip to far down the mood scale, without employing my methods for surviving.

guess that's it.

bye for now.

M

okayyyyy, here I go.....one small step.....

Food Facts:

The book 'The Gene Smart Diet" I am skimming it now for any pearls of wisdom to absorb.

"Eat less, lose weight, and you'll have less inflammation and fewer biomarkers of aging. Eat more and the opposite occurs" exploring the health choice of calorie restriction. (CR-- calorie restriction) Not Fasting.

CR dramatically reduces c-reactive protein, a biomarker of of inflammation, in humans.

Pros and Cons of Calorie Restriction:

Pros--lowers blood pressure, lovers bad (LDL) cholesterol, lowers triglycerides--raises good (HDL) cholesterol---lowers fasting insulin and glucose levels--- lowers C-reactive protein--slows DNA damage.

Cons---only one-- being hungry---most peoples stomachs are larger and can accommodate more food due to the size of food portions ingested being ever increasing.

Solution----Eat something at least every 2 hours, you will never be hungry and your brain will stop sending signals and your stomach will stop expanding and expecting larger portions.

Mar"s tips: I aways have Walnuts, Almonds, and Dried fruits(careful with these that they don't have added oils or sweeteners, even concentrated apple/grape juice added will increase the empty calories) and a small container of whole grain cereal.

Food choices are so important, make everything you eat count. Save your empty calories for alcohol.

As for moi---my reading choices, reference above gene smart health, are involved. I use reading as a therapy tool. The more complex, the more focus it requires, concentration is difficult to access when my brain chemicals are doing their funky thang.

I have been housebound due to illness, and now torrential rains and biblical flooding. Thanks to the Universe my area has not flooded, only dealing with really dark grey skies and rain, rain rain.

I am doing my light Therapy again, when sick with the pneumonia I actually forgot about it, because spent two full weeks in bed and then daily trips to the living room, and I realized as I was trying to watch T.V. and couldn't focus, and was weeping at long distance phone commercials. It came to me, that one reason I was feeling worse than usual was I Had forgotten to do my light therapy.

So the veil of darkness that had so completely engulfed me again, has begun to allow some lightness of being to slowly emerge. Hence today's effort at blogging.

Have done 13 pushups- and got those little sparkly lites in my vision- so will do 10, 3 times a day, and start to build up some physical stamina. And will do a 20 minute walk ummmmm, tomorrow, uhhh , maybe.

Anyhow that's it for moi.

Flipping the switch to Health--The master health regulators.

A central switchboard for controlling the genes that dictate how long yeast cells live, and how many times they divide.

Actually the switchboard is a biological pathway that the scientists called Sir2 (sir stands for silent information regulator).

Simply put Sir2 senses how many nutrients are available to an organism in its environment. If nutrients are scarce--as they are when we restrict calories--the switchboard lights up and its activity increases. This activity, in turn, has a major impact on how long an organism lives and/or how many times it can reproduce. For the yeast cells, activating the switchboard extended their life span by a whopping 30 to 40%, just like calorie restriction.

"By reducing inflammation, which leads to better cell maintenance, the sirtuins increase life span and overall health."

The entire family of protein switchboards is collectively known as Sirtuins.

It is thought that all seven sirtuins (SIRTs 1 thru 7) deploy in response to the calorie restriction, they sense when the body is running low on nutrients and direct a wide range of metabolic adjustments. So if calorie restriction continues on an extended period, the body gradually reaches a new equilibrium.

For instance---insulin sensitivity improves-- a great thing when you consider that insulin resistance is a step on the path toward diabetes. Oxygen consumption and physical activity increase, and energy use returns to pre-CR levels.

CR provides a turbo boost, too: in animals, we see a marked enhancement of their ability to endure a number of other stressors like heat and alcohol. All of these changes are hallmarks of calorie restriction in mammals.