Mother Nature Sends a Pink Slip

Destroying Mother Nature by William Orihama

In honour of Mother's Day, here's a little gem of a poem by Marilou Awiakta that deserves a wider audience.

 To: Homo Sapiens
 Re: Termination

    My business is producing life.
    The bottom line is
    you are not cost effective workers.
    Over the millennia, I have repeatedly
    clarified my management goals and objectives.
    Your failure to comply is well documented.

    It stems from your inability to be a team player:
        * you interact badly with co-workers
        * contaminate the workplace
        * sabotaged the machinery
        * hold up production
        * consume profits
    In short, you are a disloyal species.

    Within the last decade
     I have given you three warnings:
        * made the workplace too hot for you
        * shaken up your home office
        * utilized plague to cut back personnel
     Your failure to take appropriate action
      has locked these warnings into the Phase-Out
      mode, which will result in termination

                             No Appeal.

Obesity: Supporting satisfaction instead of surgery

Hot news from down under - a couple of surgeons who perform bariatric (stomach-stapling) operations would like to perform more of them on us, and would like tax money to fund their work. The media is running their advertisement as if it were a public health statement.

I've battled weight problems for my adult life, and I know there is no magic bullet for maintaining a healthy weight. Neither is there a magic scalpel. Cutting open your body to reduce your stomach capacity and all that could mean for your future is not a tenable general treatment.

Battling obesity en masse

New Zealand is, like most developed countries, guilty of more reporting than acting on the growing obesity problem. While this is always a sensitive subject, a recent longterm study showed that while there are obese healthy people, they are much less likely to remain healthy over the years.

So is it true that "Surgery still remains the most capable strategy for inducing robust and long-term weight loss"? May I see the source please? The (US) National Weight Control Registry research does not mention surgery at all in their summary of how most of their participants lost long-term weight.

But I am even more interested that New Zealand's tax money supports industries that support obesity. Fatty cholesterol-rich foods like beef, pork, chicken, eggs, and dairy. "Added-value" processed foods, which take natural raw foods and package them for the highest profit and shelf life instead of fiber and nutrients. Food technology trumps food quality.

Calorie density

Why does this matter? Jeff Novick, RD, MS explains in this article and this video presentation, but in short, calorie density reigns supreme in how much people eat.

Steak doesn't fill you up like oatmeal. Potato chips won't fill you up like potatoes.

Where the money goes

So if we're going to tweak our economic contribution to solve the obesity epidemic, let's not psych everyone into thinking we have to catch up with the Aussies in dangerous life-altering surgery rates.

Let's at least stop being part of the problem, and remove tax funding from those industries harming our national health. Restrict their advertising which often reports positive health benefits or just plain fun...and often arrives in our schools to advertise to our children.

Help make healthy food cheaper, more available, and more acceptable instead.

Secondhand Smarts - community works!

I haven't posted a Secondhand Smarts update for a while, but rest assured I get so many bargains from secondhand shops, TradeMe, etc, that I can hardly keep up.

An extra special nod must go to the bargains I got at last year's school fair. OK, I put in a lot of hours at the White Elephant sale where I got the goodies, but it was a great community event and raised much needed funds for the kids' school. And hundreds of people went away happy with their bargain finds!

Community and charity work can seem thankless at times, but as well as the reality of the help you're providing, you are also making connections that can sometimes reap more tangible rewards. Sometimes you need something and someone else already has exactly what you need. Like these...

Stepping out...

The boy needed some shoes. Look what I found!


Tevas. Good as new. In the right size. For a couple of dollars!

Frozen

Yeah, this attachment!

I love making frozen banana ice cream. It is pretty hard work for the S-blade on the food processor though, and we've heard that juicers and mincers do an even better job on the frozen bananas. I don't want another whole gizmo in my kitchen, but I have idly considered buying the mincer attachment for our mixer.


I almost let this amazing coincidence at the White Elephant Sale pass me by. I'd even shelved this box and moved it around a couple of times. But it wasn't until a customer said "there are bits missing from this" that we both realised it was an attachment, not a standalone machine. Just exactly what I needed for the machine we have at home, and luckily the customer didn't! $5, for an attachment retailing new for £38.


I can confirm that the banana ice cream product from the mincer is far superior - it can take the totally frozen banana chunks without strain and produce a really really cold treat instead of one that melts almost as served.

The icing on the cake

And cookies, and vegan cupcakes for the Vegan Society stall, and...

My sister's a decorating ace with all the equipment, but sometimes there's no chance to go borrowing. There were a couple of icing sets in the sale, and I knew I wanted to go home with one.

This one was pretty and compact, so it won the toss, and at $4 was quite the bargain. Especially when later at home, I found this was a collector tin retailing for $70.

Yes, there were even more bargains we got at the fair, but enough already! Secondhand is totally smart shopping.

Superbugs and deadly silence

In the news today - again - scary deadly superbugs. A new WHO report reiterates that antibiotic overuse has led to antibiotic resistance, and there is now "no escape" from the risk. .

But even with this documented developing threat, this alert avoids mentioning an inconvenient truth to you. The article shares a few handy hints, implying you (yes you) can use antibiotics responsibly.

But despite all of your personal caution, the global animal industry's very model depends on routine (not prescribed) antibiotics.

I cannot say it better than councillor and veteran consumer advocate Sue Kedgley did in her 2013 article:

"There's little point in a nationwide campaign to reduce the amount of antibiotics we humans use if at the same time we turn a blind eye to the massive use of antibiotics in agriculture."

Clean green New Zealand

If like me, you are lucky enough to live in clean green New Zealand, you might think our system is not as bad as the rest of the world. And you are right - Sir Peter Gluckman says so. If only "not as bad" were good enough. 60 per cent of the total amount of antibiotics used in New Zealand are used on farmed animals, and even if they don't end up in the final product that you eat, they don't disappear.

• Experts in New Zealand know we use antibiotics in animal agriculture. They talk a lot about "minimisation" - surely a case of locking the barn door after the superbugs have bolted.
• The full WHO report says it "will also be of interest to the other sectors that are directly involved, including veterinary drug and animal husbandry, agriculture and aquaculture." And was it just in 2011 that we were talking about the last latest WHO report?

These facts need to be part of any antibiotic discussion, anywhere.  And especially in a national news report aimed at you, the consumer, who can vote with your money. You can go vegan. You can boycott any product from animals treated with antibiotics. You can make real change.

Your story and the media - every day is April Fool's Day

Janette Murray-Wakelin, 64, and Alan Murray, 68

You are a committed person with a serious cause that could change the world. You have a strong worldwide group supporting you.

You're in a small minority compared to the mainstream, but you're OK with that, because you have so many great reasons, both emotional and evidential, why you do what you do.

Sharing your story

Then you get approached by the mainstream media, wanting to tell your story in detail. You think it will be a good opportunity to reach a wide audience with the knowledge you have. And then this happens... 

• Raw Vegans in the news

This is exactly the freak treatment I expected to see - because it happened to me on a different topic. (That video is still out there in cyberspace, but I am going to be selfish and use the Raw Vegan video as the illustration instead.)  

Mainstream media is not about balance and reason, but about outraging and then stroking the mainstream to get as much attention as possible - satisfying the advertisers who pay the bills. No genuine critique of current accepted norms will come from this source.

Mainstream treatment of counterculture

In the Raw Vegan video, I see:

• The subjects explain what they are doing, to an interviewer with some pretense at neutrality. Many of their reasons will seem emotional, disjointed, or just plain insufficient.
• Mainstream experts present their opposing opinion, sounding far more credible than the subjects.
• No experts support the subjects' position, leaving the viewers to (falsely) assume that no experts do.
• No groups support the subjects' position, leaving the viewers to (falsely) assume that the subjects do this in isolation or as a fad.
• The subjects have at least one shocking statement as a distancing barrier between them and the viewers (e.g., for the vegan couple "missing out on the grandchild" and for the twins "the self-loathing").
• The viewers are left with the strong feeling that, however interesting the subjects are, they are probably misguided and shouldn't be used as models.

Eerily familiar...

So how does this happen?

Nobody decides to appear publically making themselves and their cause look nutty. You go in thinking at least you will get to tell your story, and that has to be worth the effort.

The interviewers are all friendly, cosy and interested. They talk with you for a long time. You feel heard and acknowledged, because you get to tell them the whole story behind your unusual choices, including all the scientific support and history behind it and the doctors and community groups who recommend it because of the results. 

You feel a sense of accomplishment for how much great information has been recorded. You feel comfortable with them, so you will relax and say personal things and make jokes.

Then for their show, they pick a few short segments which support their bias, especially including any isolated shocking sound bites. Even if the interviewers and camera operators seem totally convinced by you, remember that the story is made by the editing.

They leave out all the boring factual support you told them for why you are choosing a different path. Which simply leaves your face and voice confirming people's biases as they watch the program.

No matter what they say, the mainstream media won't tell your story. They will use you to tell their story.

Forewarned is forearmed

Before I had my experience, I was also warned. But I thought it would be different for me. I hope that others may avoid having the media build them up and let them down.

If you think I'm overly cynical, please check out an even more experienced voice at:

How to do interviews with the mainstream media

While (as for my experience), the converted found some inspiration in seeing their topic on the news, the unconverted found only confirmation of what they already thought.

Remember this when you watch a "freak" show about some other topic you don't know as well.

There are forums to advance your cause. Just don't expect the mainstream media to be one of them.

One Green Planet - Marathon Vegan Couple
Huffington Post - Marathon Vegan Couple 
 

The Moneyless Man - Review

You may already have heard of vegan Mark Boyle, the former businessman who vowed publicly to live totally without money for an entire year.

With my interests, this was a book I had to grab from the Librarian Recommended shelf. You can read about his experience in multiple interviews online, but the book really gets into the details.

The motivation

It sounds crazy to voluntarily give up all the comforts that his money can bring and live apart. Just imagine:

• No grocery stops
• No cafe trips
• No car
• No toilet paper
• None

Why? Mark had become disillusioned with our money system. The first simple role of money is as tokens in a bartering system. But we've left that far behind, and money games now include international currency trading, derivatives, stockholder profits, and more. The more complicated it gets, the fewer people can possibly understand the game and get a living share. 

Mark cites the impact of money on community, security, competion/cooperation and the climate as vital motivations for his drastic change.

The preparation

Going from a money-based society to surviving totally moneyless takes preparation to work well. Others have managed with less, but probably not by choice. Mark set up rules for his challenge:

1. No receiving or spending money
2. "Normality" (eg yes, Mark can eat a meal at a friend's house; no, he can't eat there for 2 weeks straight)
3. "Pay-it-forward" - help others without worrying about the reward
4. Respect - for other people (eg use the toilet when visiting others, not a hole in the backyard)
5. No pre-payment of bills (eg, paying an electricity bill for a year to get through the year)

Mark first discovered the vast difference between living frugally and living moneyless. He had to scrutinise every item he might consume, and he gave himself a small budget to set up his moneyless year.

On the night before his challenge would start, he got a puncture in his bicycle tyre, stranding him far from home and help - I was quite impressed that he solved this in the same DIY way he'd committed to begin the following day.

Shelter  - On Freecycle, Mark was given a decent caravan that was a burden to its owner.

In our world of overconsumption, there is an oversupply of still-useful products that are not in use. Networks like Freecycle help solve this problem.

And he bartered his labour to a farm to get a space to park the caravan.

Sanitation - DIY Composting toilet, solar shower. Drinking water from the farm.

Power - cooking: DIY rocket stove; light: windup torch; heat: DIY woodburner; electricity for laptop and mobile:solar panel (the biggest cash outlay)

Food - foraging, urban foraging (from commercial waste food), growing, and bartering. (Being vegan makes the food requirement that much easier!)

Transport - bicycle and trailer

Communications - mobile phone (incoming calls only) and internet (WiFi on the farm)

Buy Nothing Feast

On top of all of that, Mark successfully organised a free, moneyless feast for about 150 people for his first challenge day, Buy Nothing Day, 2008. (Remember, when things went wrong, he could not just spend his way out of the problem.) The success of the publicity overall meant that Mark spent a lot of his time early that year giving interviews!

Settling into moneyless life

Mark's typical moneyless day has exercise, wild foraging, personal grooming (with no purchased products), meal preparation, and online and farm work. After the day's work and dinner, he might cycle to a meeting and back (36 miles).

The book explains how he handled problems like the oncoming winter, keeping his bike in action, keeping in touch with friends, Christmas, international travel and doing everything the slow way. It also reveals a few facts worth knowing about the wastefulness of the "regular" way of doing things (eg: water usage from a plumbed vs composting toilet).

More challenges

Like any alternative lifestyle, one of the biggest barriers is interacting with the rest of the world. The media interest was fading, and he did his best to keep up with friends, but Mark's romantic relationship did not surive the strain of his challenge.

While Mark's general health was even better than anyone expected, he did have to find a natural remedy for his hay fever. He also had a tiny mouse visitor who became a big problem.

The moneyless community

Mark learned about other people around the world who also lived with little or no money, including Daniel Suelo and Heidemarie Schwermer. Heidemarie started an exchange group (Tauschring) to help people live without money, and Mark started the Freeconomy site.


Summer fun and food

Summer brought more ease to the moneyless life, and Mark describes how much food and fun there is available for free. Developing communities like Freecycle, Couchsurfing, etc, make it all even easier.

Autumn, almost there!

Mark found that the closer he got to the year's end, the less he was worried about ending it. He and some friends had a great wild-food foraging adventure, and Mark himself chose to spend a week in silence - probably a good preparation for the finish line and the renewed media attention.

Finished...?

He celebrated with an even bigger free "feastival" for hundreds of people, and handled media that brought a range of applause, curiosity, and criticism. And he made his decision that he was not going "back" to his regular life.

The book finishes with the lessons Mark wants to pass on from his moneyless year.

Mark chose to live this way for a year, as a statement and personal achievement. Hundreds of thousands of people in the US alone are forced into indefinite homelessness and poverty or zero-income.

Even if you have no urge to live moneyless, this book will open your eyes to the casual overconsumption our society is based upon, alternative choices you could use, and the people and organisations who seek a better way.

Mark's experience would have been quite different without the overabundance of products going to waste each day. However, without all that waste, everyone's lives could be richer.

Live simply so others may simply live. (Source debatable, intention admirable.)

Why we plant grass, kill dandelions and buy kale

I return from our summer travels to a garden invaded by tough shoots of invasive grass as the surrounding lawn tries to take over.

I walk down a street with sweeping square metres of berms planted with grass. Many animals eat grass, but of course they're not allowed here in the city suburbs, and mowing them has become a notable problem.

So what is it with the grass fetish?

History of Green Lawns

This comedy grass discussion with God highlights the insanity: GOD: "Now, let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so it will grow. And when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?" And much more.

The lawn as we know it today developed in Europe - then, as now, a quirk for people with enough money to maintain a purely decorative (nonproductive) stretch of land, with human labour. And apparently, we can also blame the Scots and golf!

Chickweed

It is common to poison dandelions, chickweed, and other "weeds" in the pursuit of a smooth homogeneous expanse of non-edible grass, regardless of the potential risk from the poisons.

Getting your Greens

You can't eat grass. But other dark green leafies are some of the most nutritious edibles around. The produce section of the supermarket is happy to sell you bunches of kale for your dinner. Garden centres carry out a thriving trade in salad green shoots of all varieties (to plant in dedicated gardens, not lawns, of course).

Kale is great (I have some in the garden), but those free pesky dandelion greens from the lawn compare very well with kale. Sure, dandelions have less vitamin C, but they have more iron, etc. And they grow even when you don't want them to!

And if you aren't convinced yet, in the supermarkets you can also buy bags of expensive mesclun salad...which will probably include dandelion greens.

Rethink Lawn Care

There are many alternatives to the traditional grass lawn. But even if you're not ready to dig it out and start again, next time you see a dandelion in your lovely lawn, go get some leaves instead of the weedkiller. And when you see a fluffy dandelion head, remember your childhood, make a wish, and blow.

 

• Edible Weed Photo Gallery
• Edible Weed Tips
• Edible Weeds - What not to do

Not a diet, a lifestyle change!

We've all heard this. So what does it mean?

Diet

Your food choices must change for life (unless you mean to join the yo-yo club). And so your food choices must not only help you lose weight (plant-based diets are great for this) but also be healthy enough to do forever (again, plant-based diets get the tick).

+ Exercise

"You can't exercise off a bad diet" (I certainly spent enough years trying) and "80% diet, 20% exercise" is flooding the internet. Exercise is still a potent health weapon, and a Stanford study showed that changing both food and exercise habits at the same time had the greatest results. The National Weight Loss Registry confirms this.

= Lifestyle Change?

So: food and exercise. That's a lot of important change. Surely that's a lifestyle change?

Yes. And probably, no.

Adopting successful new food and exercise habits, with results you see and feel every day, is highly motivating. Why would you ever go back, when the change is so rewarding? Why indeed. Could it be there was a bigger reason for the bad habits?

Home. Friends. Family. Job. Hobbies. Money. Relationships. Mental health... the wider context for poor choices of all flavours. Fail to address your whole lifestyle and expect to reach the end of the honeymoon with your food/exercise successes. Expect to wonder why you can't do the right things anymore even though you know what they are.

Losing weight does not solve the problem of you working too much, or too little, or hating your job, or feeling unappreciated or lonely, or just plain wanting more from life. And if your coping strategies made you fat before, they can do it again.

The big picture

Losing weight through diet and exercise is hard. But a lifestyle change may be even harder.

Seeking the why of your stresses could lead you into deep waters. Your job, your home, your relationships...and like it or not, you may need professional help and crazy solutions if your familiar DIY approach leads you in ever-increasing circles.

Asking real questions and demanding better answers from yourself is key to a lifestyle change.

GMO - telling it straight?

• GMO Myths and Truths (120 page evidence-based report)
• 10 Myths that GMO companies want you to believe
• 5 GMO Myths Busted
• The Food Industry won't tell you about GMOs

There are always two sides to every story, but the GMO companies can afford to publish their own ads.

In a vegan tomorrow, would vegans be happy?

Bad celebration picture. Fireworks aren't vegan.

Imagine it! Tomorrow - no animal farms torturing animals for profit. No enslaved mother cows and orphaned baby calves. No more animals being skinned alive for their fur. No more male chicks being ground up or smothered in plastic bags. No more reading labels for casein, whey, lard, gelatine...

Think of the vegan celebrations! Vegans worldwide would be so happy...

Maybe. For a little while, anyway.

Making a better world

Vegans would be happy if all the above happened. But it wouldn't be long before other targets arose. Because the only one who shares your exact vision is you. A vegan world, overnight or gradual, might still not grant your wishes.

Would a vegan world still have:

• carnivorous companion animals
• uncontrolled human population growth
• abortion
• pest control
• religion
• political parties
• guns
• nuclear power
• wars
• fake meat
• junk food
• economic divide
• humans being stupid and selfish

etc?

Vegan wars are legendary. Many vegan activists would quickly move on to the next global problem, or argue that the world is not vegan enough yet.

Hypothetical, so who cares?

The world today is imperfect. But a vegan world would still be imperfect, with problems desperately needing solutions. (The house will never be clean, and the world will never be perfect.)

We absolutely, positively need people who work to make the world a better place. Humans are great problem-solvers.

But activist burnout is very real and dangerous to mental health. Every day, a vegan shares anger and despair over the billions of animals suffering right now, or the people responsible. Every day, even more vegans feel but don't share.The knowledge of the problems leads to a feeling of overwhelming responsibility. There is no end to the problems, and one human, or one group, can't encompass the solution.

So today, while we work for a better world, we also must make space every day to celebrate, personally, the good things about this one. If we forget to enjoy this world, how will we remember how to enjoy a better one?

What is one good thing about your world today?

• Preventing Burnout
• Survival Strategies for Activists
• Honesty vs Burnout

Fit Quickies - who wants to get fit fast?

The book looks much nicer than the braces.

Lani Muelrath, I was so pleased to get my copy of Fit Quickies! (Lani and I both did Dr T Colin Campbell's Certificate of Plant-Based Nutrition...)

Introducing Lani and the Fit Quickies

The first two chapters cover the book's promises to you, Lani's history, and how the Fit Quickies were developed. Don't skip this, or you'll miss out on the three pillars of successful Body Transformation:

• Exercise
• Diet
• Mind-set

Yes, this is an exercise how-to book that acknowledges that exercise can only ever be one part of the solution. It also celebrates your actions toward a healthier and more useful body.

This is Lani's special set of isolation exercises drawn from her dance training and conditioning classes, targeted at our least-used muscles.

Exercise

Lani tells us all about why exercise is essential to health. She covers the benefits and SMART goals for getting you on track. Next, a crucial discussion on how much exercise you need: to be healthy and have a strong cardiorespiratory system, strong muscles, and a flexible and coordinated body.  

She also takes a stand on sitting. Your body's health also suffers if you spend a lot of time sitting or lying down, even if you also do exercise on the same day! Are you an active couch potato? She provides some practical solutions for nonexercise activity to get you going.

Lastly, she talks about workout duration. Since we now know that many short workouts is as beneficial as one longer workout, we can now move onto the Fit Quickies.

Top Quickies 1, 2, 3!

Belly, inner thighs, and back of the upper arm. Definitely a familiar list for those of us after more toning.

In all of the Quickies, Lani gives us some background on the muscles involved in the problem area and the benefits of the exercise before setting out exactly how to do it for maximum effect.

I like this because it gives me some hints on how to work these muscles in everyday life even if I'm not doing a Fit Quickie routine. For example, if I'm walking, now I know I can swing my arms back straight and challenge that triceps muscle each time.

And at the end, we learn the perfect stretch for the muscles we just worked.

Fit Quickies Continues

Next, Lani gets to the bottom of, well, your bottom, and then moves on to the exercises all around your body: waist, thighs, upper body, etc.

The gluteal and waist exercises immediately and fondly reminded me of exercises from Callanetics, which I did back in the last millennium (and the exercises still work). The main difference is that with Callanetics, you are encouraged to do all the exercises in a single workout. With Fit Quickies, you can sneak them in here, there, and everywhere.

Fit Quickie Combos

Once she's shown us all the Fit Quickie exercises, there's a short chapter on willpower and how to get it before she suggests some routines of selected Fit Quickies to work particular areas of the body, or fuller workouts.

Nutrition

Fit Quickies are great, but they can't counteract the effects of a poor diet. This chapter outlines Lani's lifelong journey and struggles toward her current success with a whole-foods, plant-based, low-fat diet. We learn what hunger and satisfaction really mean at a physical level, and how we can use that to achieve our health goals.

She shares how she builds her meals, a typical day's menu and a food journal for a day. Then she addresses some common dietary information conflicts, including CARBS!

Getting Mental

She wraps up the story with some finishing chapters on motivation, mind-set, and moving forward. These recommendations are useful for any area of your life.

What I love about this book

The photos

Lani is in the photos demonstrating the exercise positions. And she looks like herself. She's healthy looking and fit, but there's no airbrushed model thing going on. She's a real person. I noticed that, and I love it.

Simplicity

Almost all the exercises need no special equipment. A chair or table, a playground ball, a towel... I'm happy that I already have an exercise ball (when the kids let me have a turn).


Wish List

Just a couple of little things!

The order

It's ordered by the Fit Quickie number, and I'm not already familiar with them. So I often can't find an exercise in the book quickly. The Quickies move all around the body areas.

Say it in pictures

There's a lot of valuable info with each Quickie. But this has ended up with lots of long descriptive paragraphs that I've found hard to study and absorb. I really want to learn these exercises by heart so I can use them whenever I'm at my standing desk or watching a movie or some other inactivity. But I'm still not there with all of them yet.

So I would love for each Quickie to start with a labelled diagram or photo showing as much as possible with short phrases and pointers to the part of the body that's going to be working out.

Learning the moves

Prevention recently consulted Lani on the "10 Most Useless Exercise Machines. Ditch these time wasters for moves that really matter." Fit Quickies is the book with all the moves that really matter.



Lani Muelrath (MA, CGFI, CPBN, FNS)
The Plant-Based Fitness Expert (www.lanimuelrath.com)

Lani is the Best-Selling Author of Fit Quickies:  5 Minute Targeted Body Shaping Workouts with plant-based diet and creator of Lani Muelrath's Plant-Based Blueprint. Lani specializes in helping people who struggle with health, weight and energy levels transform their bodies - and their lives - without going hungry or grueling, excessive exercise.

Lani Muelrath is presenter and celebrity coach for the 21-Day PCRM Vegan Kickstart and VegRun Programs, and fitness adviser for the Dr. John McDougall Health and Medical Center discussion boards.  A guest lecturer in Kinesiology at San Francisco State University, Lani Muelrath is a presenter for the Complete Health Improvement Project (CHIP) and associate professor in Kinesiology at Butte College
. 
Recently featured on ABC TV, CBS TV and Huffington Post, Lani holds a Master's degree and several teaching credentials in Physical Education, and holds multiple fitness certifications including fitness Instructor from the American Council on Exercise, Yoga, and Pilates-based instruction from the PhysicalMind Institute, and over 30 years of experience as health educator and coach.   She is the health and fitness expert for Vegan Mainstream, contributing author for VegWorld Magazine, and Plant-based Fitness and Healthy Living Examiner Examiner.com. She is certified in Plant-Based Nutrition through Cornell University and holds a Fitness Nutrition Specialist Advanced Credential from the National Academy of Sports Medicine.
 
Lani created and starred in her own CBS TV show, "Lani's All-Heart Aerobics." Recipient of the Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Instruction, she regularly speaks and writes about healthy living, plant-based nutrition, weight loss, and fitness. She overcame her own lifetime struggle with weight over more than 15 years ago when she lost 50 pounds, which she has maintained easily with the tools that she uses to coach others to be successful with in weight loss, body shaping, and health.

Vegan Chocolate Crumb Brownies and 3 more frugal bread crust recipes

I love to transform food so it is appealing and doesn't go to waste.  

My family eats lots of bread, but not the ends. (Good luck with this trick to get rid of them. Let me know whether your kids are fooled.)

So we always have annoying frozen bread end collections. Here's how to use them up and enjoy it!

1. We're Bakin' Brownies!

I've totally transformed a brownie recipe so it's vegan, delicious, and uses up heaps of breadcrumbs...

• 2/3 cup nondairy milk
• 2 Tbsp nondairy margarine (opt)
• 1 tsp vanilla (opt)
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 6 cups medium-fine soft bread crumbs (made in food processor, mine were quite chunky)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 3/4 cups brown sugar, packed (or 1 cup + 2Tbsp molasses + 1/8 tsp stevia)
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts or desiccated coconut (opt)
• 1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips (opt)
• 1 mashed ripe banana (opt)
• 1 tsp cinnamon (opt)
• 2 egg (replacer equivalent)

They go quickly - here's one left!

1. Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C) and (if not nonstick) spray a 8-inch square baking pan or similar (I used a round cake pan).
2. Melt nondairy milk and margarine and add sifted cocoa powder and vanilla - stir
3. In large mixing bowl, combine bread crumbs, baking powder, sugar and nuts/optional extras.
4. Stir in cocoa mixture and brown sugar; beat until combined.
5. In separate bowl, prepare egg replacer.
6. Combine with bread mixture until all ingredients are moistened. Add more nondairy milk or water if not moist enough to make smooth sticky batter (bread crumbs are hard to measure exactly).
7. Spread evenly in prepared pan. Bake 30 minutes or until done. Cool completely on wire rack.

Loved by the whole family (the brownies...and me, of course)!

2. Dipping Toasties

These are much quicker than croutons and make soup night a bit more special.

1. Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C)
2. Cut at least 2 bread ends in half for each person eating
3. Spread with your choice of:

• Marmite or other yeast spread
• Vegan margarine or olive oil
• Refried beans
• Salsa
• Vegan cheese
• Hummus
• Herb/seasoned salt sprinkle

Place on oven tray and bake until just barely brown - keep careful watch as the edges can get burned easily

Serve with soup, spread with more goodies like guacomole....yum!

3. Vegan Fruit Pudding

This frugal pudding can be made with practically whatever you've got.
 

4. Vegan Stuffing

This savoury stuffing is great for the festive season or anytime it's chilly.

Ethics vs Health: Crossing the Great Vegan Divide

Photo from Farm Sanctuary

I just got my hands on a copy of The Vegan Sourcebook. It certainly earns its nickname of “The Vegan Bible” – it has a wealth of valuable information, recommendations, and history, and more than a few judgements from on high.

While presenting a vast range of reasons to be vegan, it also repeated how ethics is the strongest motivation and health the weakest, including a very memorable quote from Catherine Nimmo:

If we become vegans because we understand animals and feel great compassion for their sufferings, it is the easiest thing, and proves to be of the greatest benefit for ourselves too; but if we become vegans for health reasons, it seems full of worries based on fear, ignorance, and above all egocentric thinking.

...Read the rest as my guest blog on Josh Latham's My Vegan Cookbook. Trust me, it's worth clicking just to see the cool graphic his twin designed for this post.

I'm still vegan. Cravings, health, and satisfaction

Oh dear. Another high-profile vegan goes public with her vegan failure.  Alex Jamieson is most famous as Morgan Spurlock's vegan girlfriend and inspiration in the iconic movie, Supersize Me.

Ravings on Cravings

I've heard plenty of much less famous people talk about craving animal food "after a while of not having any." But in 17 years without animal foods, I've never had these cravings. When I'm not near animal food, I don't even think about it.

When a smoker craves nicotine, it's a dangerous addiction. When an alcoholic craves just one drink, we recommend medication and support. When someone craves a sugar hit, we don't applaud their instincts and buy them chocolate.

But a craving for animal products is the body asking for what it naturally needs? Let's think again.

I have not yet reached vegan nirvana - I'm not disgusted by all animal products. I still enjoy the smell of cooking meat, eggs, or cheese. However, I have no drive to eat them, perhaps because I am already fully satisfied - not only with my awareness of cruel the animal industry is, but also all the evidence on how unhealthy animal products are for my body.

Even when I was clinically vitamin-B12-deficient and had a series of injections as treatment, I did not feel any craving for animal products with their B12 (and cholesterol, saturated fat, etc). Where were my body's "natural cravings" then?

Vegan Diet Satisfaction

Alex described her long struggles against her cravings. (Hint 1: if you're craving your friends' meat burgers, it might be time to eat with different friends.) But her weapons were apparently green juices and nuts, for extra nutrition. Here's 30BananasADay's reaction to her story.  

For any diet change to work, you must be nourished and satisfied. I stopped eating animals on the recommendations of Dr John McDougall, who supports a very low fat but satisfying starch-based diet with sound medical references and overwhelming clinical success.

The only limitations on starches are if you are trying to lose a lot of weight fast (which clearly, Alex did not need). Could this starch satisfaction be the reason I've never craved animals?

Veganism vs Your Health?

Most people won't stay vegan if they feel bad and only get worse. Of course not.

Alex believed she was an ethical vegan, but she changed because she felt bad and couldn't find the solution. She is not the first. Others complain of unwanted weight gain after going vegan.

Here's a true vegan health crisis story to admire. This woman was not just enduring a few cravings on her high-raw vegan diet, and she persisted until she found a vegan solution.

Given these stories, shouldn't vegans pay more attention to good health as a major and necessary support for the vegan cause? Instead, we hear that it's a nice benefit if it happens, but not the real reason to be vegan. Or worse, that health considerations hinder the vegan cause and damage vegan outreach.

If "veganism is not about health" because of its origins, isn't it time to accept that the vegan health horse has long since bolted and is not going to return quietly to the stable no matter how much we shout? We have to deal.

Let's promote sound vegan health information, instead of just distancing ourselves from the bad...even if only so that ethical vegans don't suffer health crises in public. It's not a good look.

I don't have all the answers, and I'm certainly not perfect. But I am still vegan.

Beauty skin deep? 10 reasons for no makeup

This post is inspired by the popular Pinterest site, Don't Compare Yourself to Celebrities.

"To sell beauty products, advertisers must constantly convince you to fix, update, or conceal something about your natural look. This sends the message that the authentic you is repulsive. Problem is, the "perfection" in ads, catalogs, and movies is mostly computer-generated, always changing, and unrealistic...."

Check this site out; you'll learn a lot.

What I learned

Digital manipulation is insane and indefensible. We are being shown images that are not real, and deep inside our brain is filing away the data. But the photos I found most striking were the very few celebrities who were genuinely au natural - with no makeup.

Heidi Klum	Liv Tyler
Reese Witherspoon	Kerry Washington

They could be anybody on the street. They could be real people. Wow.

You're not stupid. You know Hollywood and the media are not real. But something inside you is probably still surprised to see it. You are constantly being shown images that are not real, and deep inside your brain is filing away the data.

Makeup is performing a low-tech version of the digital crime of airbrushing. It's a great reason to stay away from mass media, but it's been in everyday life for centuries too. We often don't want to accept that we look like that too. We are image-conscious - conscious of what we look like, captured in a media moment.

"fix, update, or conceal something about your natural look" "the authentic you is repulsive" 

• Your skin is not good enough the way you woke up this morning - cover it to make it look smoother.
• Your eyes are not big enough, add some colour to make them look bigger.
• Your eyelashes are not long enough, extend them. 
• Your eyebrows are not dark enough; shape and redraw them
• Your lips are the wrong colour...

Just Good Grooming?

I welcome all comments on this anti-social idea, but one I expect to hear is:

There's nothing wrong with looking a bit better with a bit of makeup - it's just part of good grooming. 

We all understand what we expect to see when a woman is "making an effort" or "is really well-groomed." The image generally includes makeup.

Strangely though, men are able to be well-groomed in daily life by being clean and tidy. Even when their eyes look just the same size as when they had breakfast. When their skin looks like their skin, instead of polished porcelain or smooth brown acorns. When their lips are...lip-coloured. All day. That's what we expect. (Shaving? Good point, related but separate issue.)

It's a complex issue, but in our society, when men wear makeup, they're often considered gay or vain. So since it's not only acceptable, but an improvement, for women to wear makeup to look really good, does that mean being vain is considered part of womanhood?

Makeup challenge

Would you go makeup free for a week?  

If that's too shocking for you and the world, would you go with less each day until you faced the mirror and the world with no makeup, beautiful as you are?

You may have many reasons why not. Here are a few great reasons to do it. 

Why? 

1. Save time
2. Save money and packaging waste
3. Save your skin - let it breathe
4. Save water and avoid chemicals required to clean makeup off daily
5. Save your clothes (and other people's) from makeup stains  
6. Kiss your loved ones without worrying about "your look" 
7. Live life actively - exercise, run and play with the kids - without worrying about "your look" 
8. Set a good example to your daughters, or other people's, about really being happy with yourself as you are. Walk your talk.
9. Set a good example to other women - don't raise the bar artificially on female beauty
10. Help the animals - vegans and vegetarians constantly seek beauty products that don't harm animals, and they regularly find that their favourite brand was lying or has changed their policy.

True beauty habits

With the time (and money) you save on makeup, you could adopt a daily habit that would change your health and your look from within.

1. Make and drink a green smoothie
2. Eat a fresh fruit or vegetable
3. Start some whole-grains cooking for later
4. Do a Fit Quickie or some yoga 
5. Meditate
6. Sit with your family for a few minutes - hug or talk
7. Just be on time instead of stressed and rushed... 

 That's a makeover you can keep.
 
Comfortable in your skin

When you are feeling confident, strong, happy, and engaged with your life, you are beautiful. The rest is just made up.