You’re probably aware that there are a lot of new electric cars coming out. Thanks to California zero-emissions regulations, which have been adopted by several states in the northeast as well as the northwest, many car manufacturers have incentive to create new zero-emission electric cars. Good right? Well . . . If you listen to this interview, which is the first of our 2-part series with our favorite green car dude, John Voelcker, editor of GreenCarReports.com, you begin to separate the real from the marketing hype.
As some of you may know, I’m back to my vegan roots and have been kicking the cheese habit – again (15 days, but who’s counting?). Whether you are a vegan, vegan wannabe, vegetarian or are an omnivore and love delicious food, you might appreciate the power of the mighty cashew and it’s amazing versatility.
Did you know these yummy kidney-shaped nuts are actually the seeds of the cashew apple that grow on the cashew tree? The tree is indigenous to coastal Brazil, but of course made its way to Asia and Africa where they are now also cultivated – thanks to some 16th-century Portuguese explorers. While we don’t eat the cashew apple, it is considered a delicacy in Brazil and in some Caribbean island countries.
Cashews are potent little beasts, sometimes referred to as “nature’s vitamin pill.” They are lower in fat than most nuts, but of the monounsaturated fat, it contains oleic acid, which is the same heart-healthy fat found in olive oil. Cashews are touted to be very heart-healthy, high in antioxidants, good for weight loss, and can help reduce risk of diabetes. Wow. These things are also supposed to help reduce risk of gallstones and according to OrganicCashewNuts.com, the “chemicals in cashew nuts kill gram positive bacteria, a pervasive mouth affliction that causes tooth decay, acne, tuberculosis and leprosy.” Wow x 2! There’s even more information about the health benefits this website about healthy foods.
Until I interviewed the Dark Ranger (aka Kevin Poe), I hadn’t thought much about the seeming disappearance of the stars in the sky. I knew my suburban existence had something to do with not seeing as many stars as I remember as a kid, but I also figured I had romanticized that magical sparkly starry sky of my summer-camp days in the Berkshire mountains of Western Massachusetts. The other time I remember a fabulously star-filled sky was during a honeymoon trip to a pretty remote island – the tiki torches didn’t seem to diminish the twinkling of that night sky much at all.
Kevin (who I kept calling Ken during our first interview – Sorry Ken, I mean Kevin! Public apology #2), is a park ranger in Mt. Zion National Park and has made it somewhat of a life’s mission to help illuminate (cute, right?) us about why we need to start paying attention to light pollution.
Sometimes terms like sky glow, glare, light trespass, light clutter and over-illumination are used to describe excessive night light’s intrusion on a naturally dark sky. Here’s the International Dark Sky Association’s glossary of relevant terms about light pollution page. Also, if you want to see where light clusters around cities and towns are and what they look like from the sky, here’s a great interactive Google ‘night lights’ map that you can search for your own area and see how it looks from the night sky.
Good reasons to be concerned about light pollution:
Waste of Energy – Let’s face it, there is probably a lot of over-illuminating going on, especially here in the US, where we have an obsession with keeping the lights on all night. According to the International Dark Sky Association, we burn up a whopping 22,000 gigawatt-hours of useless light that is pointed up towards the sky! Their math has this at an estimated cost (in terms of money) of $2.2 billion a year. In terms of carbon footprint?
3.6 million tons of coal or 12.9 million barrels of oil is used
to generated this type of lost light
Ecosystems & Wildlife – While light pollution can disrupt elements of the ecosystem in subtle ways that may ultimately have lasting effects, it has a definite and negative impact on nocturnal animals. In general all animals (including humans) have a biological code that follows a circadian rhythm, which is just a inherent natural clock. …read more of 8 Ways to Reduce Light Pollution & Keep the Stars Twinkling here
I never liked meat. Seriously as a kid, I used to gag on all the various meat products my mother tried to get me to eat. It was the late 60s and they all bought into the hype that we needed tons of meat protein to survive and she feared for my existence. I was a healthy kid, but I never did grow more than 5′ tall . . . ?
When I discovered there was such a thing as a vegetarian, I grabbed onto the term with both hands and declared myself. Of course, I was a teenager and at the time it meant a lot of salad and french fries.
It wasn’t till the early 80s when I moved to the Berkshires with my young babies and got involved in the food coop that I began to get a serious education in whole foods nutrition – back then we experimented with raw foods, of course macrobiotics and a variety of interesting ways of being a vegan. I LOVED it!
After my husband’s scary open-heart surgery last year, we dedicated ourselves to going vegan and it has been fun to dust off some of my old recipes and start making cashew yogurt on a regular basis again and get that juicer flowing daily! But, I have to confess here, (pretty much because my husband never reads my posts!) that I cheat every time I eat away from home and him, I am seduced by all the cheese that dangles in front of me. Ok. With that off my chest, I’ll commit to work on that so, if any of you see me eating cheese out in public, you have permission to march up and gently (but quickly in case I have a fork handy) remove it from me and remind me that I want to be a true vegan . . .
And here are some good reasons why I want to be a vegan
I don’t like meat – Instinctively, I always knew this panic about meat protein wasn’t right – at least not for me. I’ve felt quite validated lately as all this new research supporting this is coming out. If you haven’t watched the documentary, Forks Over Knives, this is a good place to start. It features two mainstream doctors that have discovered that a plant-based diet can reverse heart disease and prevent a myriad of other fatal ailments. It wasn’t the first time we had heard of the one, Dr. Esselstyn, as our family doctor highly recommended following his nutritional protocol after my husbands triple-bypass surgery.
I like vegan food – I’m a foodie. I admit it. I love growing, cooking, playing and eating it and I’ve learned and created a mess of simply delicious ways of preparing vegan fare, which is why my husband has shifted so happily away from his meaty ways. But, now it is becoming so vogue, that where there used to be a scant few cookbooks (that were worth testing), there are now thousands and thousands of cookbooks, websites and vegan recipes floating around Pinterest and Food Gawker, that there aren’t enough meals in the day to discover them all! Of course, one of my favorite go-to’s is EatDrinkBetter.com.
It’s good for me AND the planet – Ok, here’s a couple of shocking stats for you: According to the Water Education Foundation, it takes 2,464 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef in California – BUT it only takes 25 gallons of water to produce one pound of wheat. Of course, I’m gluten-free, but I bet most grains and beans use a similarly LESSER amount of water to produce than beef. So, that’s just addressing the issue of water usage to produce beef! I read for a couple of hours on the environmental impact of dairy farms and it is a complicated issue of studies and arguments for and against organic diary farming in terms of reducing the carbon footprint – either way, it is a lot of livestock, water and resources that impact a variety of environmental factors. I highly recommend reading The Organic Center’s extensive report on “A Dairy Farm’s Footprint.” …read more of Confessions of a Vegan Wannabe here
Why Should We Care? by Green Diva Meg These posts explore a myriad of topics relating to green, sustainable and healthy living and offer simple and clear information from the fun and quirky point of view of the Green Divas. Each post provides practical, no nonsense information on What Can We Do to make a difference.
Knoll Farm, Fayston Vermont (aka Farm Camp)
What I did on my eco-summer vacation . . . In 2007, I had the opportunity to stay at Knoll Farm in Vermont for a week with a group of very inspiring environmentalists. My daughter dubbed the adventure “Farm Camp” and it stuck. The forward-thinking Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation thought it would be a good idea for a few of us to go up to Knoll Farm, and while we were being bathed in the beauty of the natural environment of this working farm, our minds might open to solutions to some of the challenges facing our communities in terms of sustainability.
We meditated in a yurt every day and otherwise lived, ate and breathed a natural daily farm life, which had the effect of bringing all of us back in contact with simple priorities. We ate every meal in the barn in the picture above and spent many hours in the tent (under the rainbow) whittling our wooden spoons, while solving the problems of the world. Our discussions about community, sustainability, and all the elements involved in creating these things, evolved throughout the week – a brilliant way of putting us in a fertile (literally) environment where fresh ideas could grow and ripen.
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