Archive for category Health

How Transforming Your Meals Can Transform Your Life

Posted by Abby Quillen in Health on March 12, 2013

july farmer's market 041

Recently, I had an aha moment while I was eating a salad for lunch and skimming the newspaper.

I don’t have much time for newspaper reading in this season of life. Of course, we all know it’s not that we don’t have time for things; it’s that we’re not making time for them. But I make time to appear on the non-stop quiz show that is hanging out with my four-year-old: “How do the flowers bloom?” “Why does glass break?” “Why does it get dark at night?” I make time to chase my naked one-year-old around the house with a diaper, to prepare more sandwiches some days than a bustling Subway, and to meet writing deadlines, polish blog posts, and edit a book. So, reading the newspaper doesn’t always rise to the top of my to-do list.

But I grew up in a newsroom. My parents owned or edited newspapers until I was ten and then wrote for them. Newspapers were our bread and butter, and according to my parents (and civics teachers), the foundation of an informed democracy. Thus I’ve always tried to squeeze reading one into any moments of my days when I am sitting. Lately, during those moments, I’m also eating.

But on this day, as I ravenously devoured my salad with our bizarrely sordid City Region section  — Armed man mistakes pregnant wife for an intruder! Mom lets toddler inhale marijuana smoke! Blind rapper robs car! Seriously.  — I realized how ridiculous it was. I was hardly tasting the fresh, organic food that I’d spent good money on and labored to prepare.

Moreover, I was squandering one of life’s greatest pleasures – eating.

More ridiculous still, I meditate for fifteen minutes a day. So I was rushing through my lunch, distracted and multi-tasking, so that I’d have time to sit and pay attention to my breath. It’s like driving across town to run on a treadmill.

So that day I stopped.

Now I just sit and eat. If someone’s eating with me, we converse. If I’m alone, I pay attention to my food. Sometimes I watch the chickens peck around the grass, the squirrels scamper along the fence tops, and the bluebirds flit between the branches.

My meals are incredibly relaxing and pleasurable.

And when lunch is over, I usually find myself scribbling down notes, because it turns out quiet, unhurried lunches are perfect incubators for ideas — for stories, novels, essays, blog posts…

There’s a name for this magic that I’ve discovered: mindful eating.

Full confession: I’ve long been aware of it. I’ve seen half a dozen magazine articles and blog posts about it over the years. I’ve possibly even wolfed down a story about it in the lifestyle section while inhaling my lunch.

But I long resisted actually doing it. Why? I’m a compulsive reader. And the truth is, eating has always seemed, well, a little boring.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way. When I worked in offices, the few people who left their desks for lunch lugged along a book, magazine, or laptop to bury themselves in.

The truth is, being mindful of anything can be deceptively tricky. It takes getting used to. But psychologists say practicing mindful eating can help people form a healthy relationship with food, desire more nutritious meals, and sustain a healthy weight.

And as I can attest, once you get the hang of it, it could become the best part of your day.

Do you practice mindful eating? Have you stumbled upon another small change that made a huge difference in your life? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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Rev Up Your Creativity

Posted by Abby Quillen in Health on January 21, 2013

Photo: John Mallon

Photo: John Mallon

“I’m going to make something every day in 2013,” I announced in December.

When I saw my friends’ responses, I thought perhaps this might be too ambitious an undertaking. However, I’ve really just decided to turn more of my attention to creativity this year.

Why? Well, when I peek back through the years and squint at the more unhappy periods of my life, I detect a common thread: I wasn’t creating much of anything. Maybe I was working overtime at a day job. Maybe I was in a season of editing instead of writing. Maybe I was just uninspired. But a dearth of creativity and a general malaise seem to go together. Which causes which? I’m not sure. But I know that when I’m working on a creative project, I feel more alive.

I know I’m not alone. Matthew Crawford, author of The Case for Working With Your Hands traded his job in a Washington think tank for a career fixing motorcycles, because “knowledge work” made him feel tired and useless. “Seeing a motorcycle about to leave my shop under its own power, several days after arriving in the back of a pickup truck, I don’t feel tired even though I’ve been standing on a concrete floor all day,” Crawford writes. I think we can all relate to that thrill of making or fixing something with our own hands.

In her book Lifting Depression, Dr. Kelly Lambert explains what might cause the burst of happiness creating gives us: “When we knit a sweater, prepare a meal, or simply repair a lamp, we’re actually bathing our brain in ‘feel-good’ chemicals.”

So this year I’m making things.

I’m off to a great start. In the last month, I’ve knitted half of a scarf out of bamboo silk, made kombucha and St. John’s Wort oil for the first time, wrote a handful of poems, brainstormed a new novel, and churned out quite a few drawings. Mostly I’ve had a lot of fun. But I’ve also remembered what makes creativity hard: there’s often a lot of groping around, stumbling, and failing involved.

But I’m going to do it anyway.

Perhaps you’d like to join me in paying more attention to creativity this year? If so, here are five things experts say can help stoke our creative fires:

  • Spend time in nature

A University of Kansas study of a team of hikers found that a four-day backpacking trip boosted the participants’ creativity by 50 percent. You might need to leave your electronic devices in your backpack to reap the benefits. Ruth Ann Atchley, the researcher who conducted the study, suggested the results may have been due to turning off the distractions of modern life as much as the natural setting.

  • Embrace boredom

Researchers at the University of Central Lancashire in Great Britain found that boring jobs encourage creativity. It turns out performing dull tasks lets us to detach from our surroundings and daydream. So committing to creativity might mean committing to some mental downtime.

  • Focus on the process instead of the results (or just dance)

“Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free,” the poet Rumi wrote. In an interview, artist Dana Lynne Andersen said that one of the biggest mistakes beginners make when sitting down to paint is focusing on the end product. To get her students focused instead on the process of being creative, she encourages them to dance. That makes sense, since dancing is a creative process with no real end product. It may be worth a try, and as Rumi points out, there’s really no reason not to dance.

  •   Learn from kids

One afternoon I watched a soccer coach force a group of elementary-aged kids to run laps around the track. They looked like deflated balloons as they trudged along, and it occurred to me that kids should really be coaching us on joyful, exuberant outdoor play. Similarly, young kids are experts in creativity. In a famous 1968 study, George Land found that 98 percent of three- to five-year-olds showed genius levels of creativity on a test developed by NASA. By the time the kids were 15, only 12 percent exhibited divergent thinking. And when the test was given to thousands of 25-year-olds, only two percent showed divergent thinking. So what makes kids such creative geniuses? They ask lots of questions. They marvel at things. They find any excuse to play. It’s a model worth studying.

  • Commit to practicing

All humans are creative. But a lot of us don’t commit to creative work, and perhaps the biggest reason  is that it forces us to confront our own mediocrity. We likely will never compare to the best artists, musicians, novelists, designers, and even home-brewers of the world. Of course, the one way we’ll get better is practice, and Ira Glass offers some wise words about recognizing your creative work sucks and doing it anyway:

For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. … You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

Here’s to a creative 2013!

What are you creating? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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Friendship: The Best Medicine

Posted by Abby Quillen in Health, Parenting on November 5, 2012

Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light. -Helen Keller

It was time for our morning walk, and four-year-old Ezra was dragging. “Wait up,” he called as I strode a few steps ahead of him, toting his little brother.

“Why are you walking so fast?” he moaned a few minutes later.

“Can we turn around?” he asked when he finally trudged to the corner.

I relented and we headed toward home. Maybe Ezra was coming down with a cold or didn’t get enough sleep. I suggested we curl up on the couch and read stories.

Then our three-year-old neighbor came out of her house. Ezra bounded to her, and within moments, they were squealing and running in circles, falling down in the grass, and playing ankle-grabber tag.

Our neighbor’s mom asked if Ezra would like to join their family on a walk to the top of a hill in our neighborhood. “Please, Mama, please, can I go,” Ezra pleaded as he lapped the yard.

I couldn’t imagine Ezra walking a mile and then climbing a steep hill after I’d nearly had to drag him to the corner. But I could hardly say no.

Forty-five minutes later, my neighbors returned and reported that Ezra and his friend had run nearly the entire way to the hill and back.

It was an awe-inspiring lesson in the power of friendship, which Ezra teaches me again and again.

At the mention of one of his friends, Ezra perks up. In the presence of his friends, pain evaporates. Hunger diminishes. Tiredness morphs into boundless energy.

So, a few days after Ezra’s hill climb, I wasn’t surprised to read about a study finding that mice paired with a friend were able to withstand much higher levels of neuropathic pain than those who were socially isolated.

That’s not the only study illuminating the power of friendship. According to a 2009 New York Times article, “a 10-year Australian study found that older people with a large circle of friends were 22 percent less likely to die during the study period than those with fewer friends.” And “Harvard researchers reported that strong social ties could promote brain health as we age.”

The article goes on to list multiple other studies showing that people with strong friendships tend to get fewer colds, have better odds during breast cancer treatment, and be less likely to suffer a fatal heart attack. And it even spells out what was likely happening with Ezra’s sudden hill-climbing prowess:

“researchers studied 34 students at the University of Virginia, taking them to the base of a steep hill and fitting them with a weighted backpack. They were then asked to estimate the steepness of the hill. Some participants stood next to friends during the exercise, while others were alone.

The students who stood with friends gave lower estimates of the steepness of the hill. And the longer the friends had known each other, the less steep the hill appeared.

So next time you’re feeling crummy — or even better, when you’re feeling great — don’t forget to cultivate one of nature’s most powerful healers: your friendships.

Related posts:

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A Simple Solution To Improve Your Health

Posted by Abby Quillen in Health on October 15, 2012

“So here is a simple test to tell if a thing is alive. Put it in salty water. Some things, like babies and crayfish, will do well. They get bigger, stronger and more organized. Others, even “smart” things like iPods and cell phones, laptops, cars and TVs, stop working immediately.” – Dr. Scott Haig

Seventy one percent of the earth is covered with it. By weight our bodies are largely made of it. We spend the first nine months of our lives developing in it. Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that salt water is one of the best natural healers we have.

As colder weather descends, consider harnessing the power of this simple solution to boost your health and well-being. Here are four things it can do for you:

1. Knock out colds

There might not be a cure for the common cold, but gargling with warm salt water is a great way to prevent it. In one randomized study, people who gargled with salt water three times a day had nearly 40 percent fewer upper respiratory tract infections than those who didn’t. And when those gargling got sick, the salt water attenuated their symptoms. I gargle with salt water at the first sign of any respiratory illness, and I’m consistently amazed by the results.

2. Treat Wounds and Skin Conditions

“Putting salt on a wound” may sting, but it  can also heal. Salt water is a great antiseptic. For minor cuts and scrapes, dissolve two teaspoons of salt in a quart of boiled water for a soak.

Bathing or soaking in salt water may also help heal acne, eczema, fungal infections, and other skin conditions.

3. Keep Gums and Teeth Healthy

“A number of my clients decided to start salt water rinsing daily and the results have been phenomenal,” dental hygeniest Kathleen Bernardi writes on her blog. I’ve similarly found daily salt water rinses to be an excellent tonic for my gums and teeth. And in times of distress, salt water is a handy first line of defense. It can heal canker sores, reverse gingivitis, and even ease the pain of a toothache.

4. Help you Sleep Tight

According to Dr. Oz, a salt water bath may be the perfect recipe for restful sleep. Just swap the sea salt for Epsom salt. It contains easily-absorbed magnesium, a mineral that Americans are often deficient in. Magnesium can ease pain, quell anxiety, quash migraines, lower blood pressure, and more. Here’s Dr. Oz’s recipe for an Epsom salt bath:

  • 1 bath full of warm water
  • 1 cup of Epsom salt
  • 1 cup of baking soda

“It is always the simple that produces the marvelous,” the novelist Amelia Barr said. That’s definitely the case with salt water, a simple and humble, but powerful, natural healer.

More about the healing power of salt water:

Related posts:

Do you use salt water to improve your health and well-being? Tell me about it. I love hearing from you.

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Farmers Go Wild

Posted by Abby Quillen in Health, Nature, Social movements on February 10, 2012

Winter Green Farm

My article “Farmers Go Wild” about conservation-based agriculture is in the Winter 2012 issue of YES! Magazine. You can read it here.

It begins:

“Frogs are an indicator species,” Jack Gray explains, leaning over a small, muddy pond to look for tadpoles.

Here on the 170-acre Winter Green Farm, 20 miles west of Eugene, Ore., Gray has raised cattle and grown vegetables and berries for 30 years.

It’s a sunny April day, but water pools in the pastures, evidence of the rains this part of Oregon is known for.

Gray is in his mid-50s and agile from decades of working outside. He built this pond to provide habitat for native amphibians, because bass in another pond were eating the red-legged frogs and Western pond turtles.

Cows graze in a field behind him; wind whispers through a stand of cattails, and two mallards lift off. Gray points out the calls of killdeer, flycatchers, and blackbirds. Up the hill a flock of sheep chomp on long grass. “They’re part of a controlled grazing to try to control reed canary grass, which is an invasive species,” Gray explains. “It tends to smother areas. It makes deserts almost.”

Gray, his wife, Mary Jo, and two other families co-own Winter Green Farm. They are committed to something Jo Ann Baumgartner, director of the Wild Farm Alliance, calls “farming with the wild.”

Winter Green Farm

Winter Green Farm

A2R Farm

A2R Farm

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Rethinking Sunscreen

Posted by Abby Quillen in Health, New Urban Habitat on June 27, 2011

Last summer, I published a post Is Sunscreen Dangerous? summarizing the Environmental Working Group’s concerns about the majority of sunscreens on the market.

The EWG advises that consumers avoid sunscreens with the ingredients retinyl palmitate and oxybenzone and be suspicious of SPF claims exceeding 50. They also warn that many sunscreens only protect against the UVB rays that cause sunburn, not the UVA rays that cause skin cancer, raising the possibility that sunscreen may actually be dangerous, since people are inclined to spend longer in the sun when they’re not burning, thus exposing themselves to more cancer-causing radiation. The EWG has been especially critical of the Food and Drug Administration for failing to finalize sunscreen regulations for three decades.

Well, last week the FDA finally finalized those regulations, announcing that by the summer of 2012, consumers will be able to look for the words “broad spectrum” to determine which sunscreens protect equally against both UVA and UVB rays. In addition, manufacturers will no longer be able to use the misleading terms “waterproof” or “sweat proof”.

However, the EWG is unimpressed by the new rules. “It is clear that FDA caved to industry,” David Andrews, Ph.D, a senior scientist with EWG, announced in a press release on June 14. “FDA’s rule will allow most products on the U.S. market to use the label ‘broad spectrum sunscreen,’ even though some will not offer enough protection to assure Americans they can stay in the sun without suffering skin damage from invisible UVA radiation.”

I have fair skin and I grew up at 7,000 feet elevation in a state that boasts 300 days of sunshine a year. In other words, sunscreen has been my ally over the years. So finding out that all the expensive white goop I slathered on my skin for three decades contained questionable ingredients and may have made me more vulnerable to skin cancer feels a little like discovering a close friend is a pathological liar. It’s a powerful lesson in the importance of skepticism when it comes to health claims, advertising, and medical advice.

“Wear sunscreen,” is perhaps the health mantra my generation has heard the most often (and we’ve heard a lot of them). “The best piece of advice I can give you is to put on sunscreen and wear a hat.” Ted Turner, facing a skin cancer operation, famously told the class of 1994 Georgia State University students.

Three years later, Mary Schmich’s offered similar wisdom to graduates in her Chicago Tribune column: “If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.” The column went viral and was later released as a spoken-word single.

Dermatologists have been universally recommending large quantities of sunscreen applied 20 minutes before any sun exposure, citing a dramatic increase in skin cancer rates in recent years. The majority of them recommend zero unprotected sun exposure. “Ideally if you had no sun exposure, sure that would be the best way to live your life.” dermatologist Jennifer Lucas opined last week on NPR’s On Point With Tom Ashbrook.

If you’re wondering why a dramatic increase of skin cancer would coincide with the explosion of sunscreen use, you’re not alone. Dermatologists speculate about possible reasons, like tanning beds or the hole in the ozone layer.

However, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal, something else may be to blame for the increase in skin cancer rates: dermatologists. The authors of the study point out that while the incidence rate of melanoma is increasing, the death rate has stayed the same. This phenomenon is almost always a sign of over-diagnosis. In other words, screening programs, which test healthy people for cancer, mean that doctors detect and treat more cancer, but it’s often not the kind of cancer that would be dangerous or deadly.

So how can we sort through all the marketing claims, propaganda, gaps in regulation, and conflicting studies (many of them funded by the industries that stand to benefit from them) when it comes to our health?

I’m increasingly convinced that we must be skeptical of all claims (especially those intended to invoke fear), relentlessly seek out independent information and conflicting views, and never discount simple common sense.

Jennifer Lucas’s assertion that in a perfect world we’d never let our skin see the sun seems just as extreme to me as sunbathing or lying in a tanning booth, especially when we keep hearing about widespread vitamin D deficiency, a resurgence of rickets amongst kids in Great Britain, and evidence suggesting that sun exposure may be preventative against breast and colon cancers, childhood asthma, and multiple sclerosis.

As for me, I certainly don’t slather on sunscreen in the cloudy winter months like I used to. I’m a big fan of hats, protective clothing, and shade in the summer. And for those times that I need sunblock, I’m thankful for the EWG’s advocacy and for their rating guide for sunscreens, which lists ingredients and possible hazards associated with them.

Want to read more about this topic?

What do you think? Has the EWG or the FDA’s new rules changed the way you think about sunscreen? How do you sort through conflicting health claims and medical advice?

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7 Ways to Bounce Back From Burnout

Posted by Abby Quillen in Health on May 31, 2011

Photo credit: JVan Sweden

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars…” – Jack Kerouac

I have a great life. I get to spend lots of time with my son and watch him learn and grow, and at the same time, I’m building a writing career. I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to do. And yet sometimes, I feel stuck, tired, frustrated, and overwhelmed. Sometimes I get burnt out … and that’s okay.

I used to imagine that I could always be on top, that I could be one of those people who “burn, burn, burn” as Jack Kerouac wrote. But as the years pass, I’m more accepting of life’s seasons, of natural cycles of dormancy and energy, of the inevitability of falling into ruts.

For me the key is not avoiding burnout (or any other emotion), but learning from it, developing resiliency – bouncing back. That’s why I’ve been accumulating these strategies for inevitable bouts of burnout:

1. Plan a vacation

We can learn something from Europeans when it comes to holiday. They take eight weeks off a year on average and work shorter work weeks than we do, but they keep pace with us when it comes to productivity. This year Switzerland and Sweden ranked first and second in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness rankings, even though both countries require workers to take at least a month of paid leave each year. In fact, the United States is the only developed country that hasn’t realized the value of mandatory paid leave for workers.

In studies vacations have been shown to boost productivity, improve health, brighten the mood, invigorate, and induce feelings of happiness – especially when you are anticipating time off. So next time you’re feeling burnt out, consider arranging a getaway. (Hint: leave your laptop at home.)

2. Power down 

Maybe you’ve seen terms like “secular sabbath”, “digital sabbatical”, and “day of unplugging” bandied about the blogosphere. All basically mean the same thing – taking at least a day off each week, not just from work, but from email, Facebook, twitter, YouTube, etc. I’m an information junky, and I love the Internet as much as anyone I know. But I love my day off from it more. I can’t believe it took me so long to tap into the restorative value of powering down.

Even with a day off each week, when I start feeling burnt out, I usually realize I’m spending too much time online. My antidote? Discipline. I only let myself check email twice a day. I make myself write down everything I want to Google and do it all at once. I establish an electronic sunset, where the computer and gadgets get turned off everyday at six p.m.

It can be a little scary to disconnect, especially when you work at home. But I like what writer Shannon Hayes has to say about it:

“My computer is turned off every morning, once my work day is complete, usually around 9am. At that point, I tune out the rest of the world and tune into my family, home, and farm. Very often the telephone gets turned off, too. So does the radio. … I didn’t always live this way. It was a choice I eventually made about using my time. Voices talking on the radio generated mental interference when trying to interact with people in the room where I was standing. Worse than that, I observed that email correspondence throughout the day, habitual Googling, and a steady-stream of web-updates were having a negative impact on my soul. Fixating on the computer made me an intolerant mother to my kids, had me doing stupid things like boiling over my soup pots, and—even if I was reading great news on the screen—it left me crabby.”

3. Clean and organize

I know, this one’s not as fun as taking a day off or embarking on a getaway, but I swear it works. It’s not just that a clean office and organized files make working easier. When I’m cleaning and organizing, I inevitably find old notes, article and story ideas, plot outlines, etc. that can kick start creativity. Don’t forget to organize and back up computer files too.

4. Turn off the noise

I love podcasts, and I’m a huge fan of public radio – To the Best of Our Knowledge, RadioLab, and This American Life to name a few. I also love listening to music. But when I’m starting to feel burnt out, I turn it all off. I listen to my thoughts. I listen to my husband and my son. I listen to the sounds of the wind and trees. I try to listen to the sounds behind the sounds, “the ragged edge of silence” as John Francis calls it:

In studies noise stress has been linked to impaired cognitive function, the release of stress hormones, and depression. Studies indicate that chronic low-level noise in an office environment impacts workers negatively even when we’re not aware of it. So if you’re suffering from burn out, take an inventory of the volume around you and consider dialing it down.

5. Attend a conference or take a class

I try to attend one workshop, class, or lecture a month, and I always walk away inspired. Last summer I took a class on writing essays, learned a ton, and met a great group of writers, whom I still meet with. This summer I’m planning to attend a three-day conference. For freelance writers and bloggers, excellent classes and conferences abound, many of them flexible and online. They may seem expensive, but in my experience, they pay off many times over.

6. Interview someone

I’ve never interviewed anyone who didn’t inspire me. I feel fortunate that I get to talk to interesting people for my job, but you don’t have to write articles to interview people. You just have to get to know someone and focus on actively listening instead of talking. Most people are eager to talk about themselves and their projects – even to a journalist. It’s a great way to get inspired and meet interesting people … and if you’re so inclined, you can turn it into a published profile or blog post. If you’re in a field unrelated to writing, you might consider interviewing someone whose career inspires you.

7. Connect with nature

Nature gave us a great burnout cure … it’s called nature. Just looking out a window at trees makes workers feel more satisfied with their jobs, helps surgical patients heal faster, and reduces anxiety in highly-stressed kids. Imagine what a walk in a park, mountains, or woods can do for us.

I’d love to hear your ideas. How do you prevent or bounce back from burnout?

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Becoming Carcinogen Abolitionists

Posted by Abby Quillen in Health, Social movements on May 16, 2011

Photo Credit: Angelo González

“I look back on the life of Abraham Lincoln, whose portrait hangs in every schoolroom in Illinois, and marvel that our economy was once dependent on slave labor. Unthinkable. I believe our grandchildren will look back on us and marvel that our economy was once dependent on chemicals that were killing the planet and killing ourselves.” – Sandra Steingraber

A couple of weeks ago, I saw Living Downstream, a documentary based on the life and research of Sandra Steingraber. Steingraber, a biologist and author, was diagnosed with bladder cancer at 20 and believes she is part of a cancer cluster in her hometown in Tazewell County, Illinois, where “three dozen different industries line the river valley and farmers practice chemically intensive agriculture along its floodplains.”

After Steingraber was diagnosed with cancer, her doctors told her it was a fluke. But when she consulted the scientific literature, she discovered that bladder cancer is “considered a quintessential environmental cancer, meaning that we have more evidence for a link between toxic chemical exposures and bladder cancer risk than for almost any other kind of cancer.” For instance scientists had known for decades that certain textile dyes cause bladder cancer in humans. Not only are these dyes still in use, they are present in the groundwater of Steingraber’s hometown.”The disconnect between what we in the scientific community know about carcinogens and what cancer patients are told is huge,” Steingraber says.

In the next thirty years, Steingraber went on to become a cancer survivor, receive her PhD, write several popular books and dozens of articles, and speak all over the world. She became a passionate “carcinogen abolitionist.”

I’ve long admired Steingraber’s writing in Orion, and her message is resonating with me more than ever right now for a variety of reasons. Despite Richard Nixon famously declaring war on cancer in 1971, cancer is on the rise. Recently my sister-in-law and several friends have been diagnosed with cancer in their early forties.

Where I live in Eugene, researchers have identified two cancer clusters – an elevated rate of leukemia around the Baxter creosote factory and elevated numbers of lung cancer cases near the Union Pacific railroad yards. These two neighborhoods have something in common with the Illinois county where Steingraber grew up: they’re populated by low-income people. I’ve known two families who lived near the Baxter plant. Both complained about fumes that kept them awake at night. The Oregon Toxics Alliance was started, because children at a school in the Baxter neighborhood were crying and begging to come inside from recess because of plumes of noxious gases in the air.  I’m convinced that no one, regardless of income, should be forced to breathe toxic chemicals.

Moreover, over the last two years, I’ve embarked on a personal project that’s made me reflect on our society’s reliance on synthetic chemicals. I replaced shampoo, conditioner, cosmetics, bug sprays, and cleaning products with simple, cheap, nontoxic ingredients (baking soda and vinegar, in most cases), eliminating the majority of toxic chemicals from my home. What surprised me the most about the process? The simple ingredients work better.

That’s right, those products I once used, which are loaded with questionable ingredients, are unnecessary. Yet the majority of people continue to use them. The average home contains 62 toxic chemicals. Why? Advertising? Lobbying? They don’t know about the alternatives? Could those things also partly explain the reliance on chemicals by industrial agriculture, forestry, landscape management, etc.? Maybe. For instance we often hear that chemical-intensive farming methods are a necessary evil if we want to feed the ballooning world population. But on the contrary, a U.N. report released in March reveals that by switching to small-scale, sustainable agriculture, we could not only feed the world, we could double food production.

The widespread commercial use of numerous synthetic chemicals is a recent phenomenon culminating after World War II. Babies born in the 1950s were the first generation of newborns exposed to multiple synthetic chemicals in the womb. In other words, it is a grand experiment, one that I’m increasingly convinced is failing.

Steingraber is a powerful advocate for eliminating the chemicals linked to cancer, early puberty, miscarriages, and birth defects. She’s a talented writer and one of the most moving speakers I’ve ever heard. Yet, I’ve noticed that many people have a hard time embracing her message.

When I excitedly told a friend about the showing of Living Downstream and showed him the above trailer, he reacted the way I think many people do. He said, “You’re going to watch that? It looks really depressing.”

Then I posted the movie trailer on Facebook, and someone wrote. “Great, now I have to stop drinking water and breathing.”

I can relate to these sentiments. My generation has been bombarded with environmental fears since we were born. Every nature video and discussion in grade school invariably ended with human-wrought devastation – the diminishing ozone layer, acid rain, rapidly-growing endangered species and extinction lists. By the time I was in high school, the word carcinogen meant little to me. When our teachers and parents lectured us that cigarettes were carcinogens, my friends and I shrugged. What wasn’t a carcinogen – from the water we drank to the sun we depended on for life?

So I understand why many of us might feel environmentally-fatigued and why Steingraber’s call for us to become carcinogen abolitionists could be falling on deaf ears. We tend to want a checklist of things we can do to protect ourselves and our kids from disease – eat organic, exercise, replace our household cleaners, avoid tobacco, breastfeed, eat less animal fat. Steingraber advocates all of the above, but she also makes it clear that we can not do this on our own.

“I am a conscientious parent. I am not a HEPA filter. If organophosphate pesticides are damaging children’s brains at background levels of exposure and above, they should be abolished,” she writes.

She is convinced that we have to join together, we have to speak out, we have to contact our representatives, we have to support organizations like the Oregon Toxics Alliance. We have to unify against some of the most powerful industries in the country and rebuild our society and economy. That’s not an easy message.

Yet I find it hopeful. Remember the eco-problems we kids were bombarded with in the eighties – acid rain, the ozone layer, lead poisoning? We tackled those. The EPA’s Acid Rain Program forced factories and automobiles to reduce emissions, helping to improve the pH of precipitation. Developed countries phased out ozone-depleting substances, and evidence suggests the ozone layer is regenerating. Laws banning the use of lead in house paint and gasoline mean that kids have six times less lead in their bodies than they did 30 years ago. How did we accomplish these environmental successes? By addressing the problems and working together to solve them. I hope Steingraber is right and we can also become carcinogen abolitionists.

I am betting that my children—and the generation of children they are a part of—will, by the time they are my age, consider it unthinkable to allow cancer-causing chemicals, reproductive toxicants, and brain-destroying poisons to freely circulate in our economy. They will find it unthinkable to assume an attitude of silence and willful ignorance about our ecology.

Wishful or not, I am determined to win this bet because my children’s lives are inextricably bound to the abiding ecology of this planet, which is worth everything I could possibly wager. An environmental human rights movement is the vision under which I labor, from which I am not free to desist, and which may, if we all work together, become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Want to learn more about Sandra Steingraber and her work? Check out her website or the following:

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Dandelion Season

Posted by Abby Quillen in Gardening, Health, Herbs, Nature on April 27, 2011

It’s spring again … the perfect time to rerun this post from last March…

It’s spring, which means some people are stocking up on Round Up and Weed-B-Gon to prepare themselves for battle against my favorite flower – the humble dandelion. If you’re not as big a fan as I am of these yellow-headed “weeds”, which grow in lawns and sunny open spaces throughout the world, I know of a great way to get rid of them. Eat them.

Every part of the dandelion is edible – leaves, roots, and flowers. And they are nutritional power-houses. They’re rich in beta-carotene, fiber, potassium, iron, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, B vitamins, and protein.

Over the years, dandelions have been used as cures for countless conditions including:

  • kidney stones
  • acne
  • high blood pressure
  • obesity
  • diarrhea
  • high cholesterol
  • anemia
  • cancer
  • diabetes
  • stomach pain
  • hepatitis

“There is probably no existing condition that would not benefit from regularly consuming dandelions,” Joyce A Wardwell writes in The Herbal Home Remedy Book.

She also says that dandelion is “one herb to allow yourself the full range of freedom to explore,” because it has “no known cautionary drug interactions, cumulative toxic effects, or contraindications for use.”

So why not harvest the dandelions in your yard this spring? And I’m sure your neighbors wouldn’t mind if you uprooted some of theirs too. (But you probably want to avoid harvesting near streets or from lawns where herbicides or fertilizers are used.)

The leaves

Dandelion leaves have more beta-carotene than carrots and more iron and calcium than spinach. The best time to harvest them is early spring, before the flowers appear, because that’s when they’re the least bitter.

How can you eat dandelion leaves?

  • Toss them in salads
  • Steam them
  • Saute them with garlic, onions, and olive oil
  • Infuse them with boiling water to make a tea
  • Dry them to use for tea

The flowers

Dandelion flowers are a rich source of the nutrient lecithin. The best time to harvest them is mid-spring, when they’re usually the most abundant. If you cut off the green base, the flowers aren’t bitter.

How can you eat dandelion flowers?

The roots

Dandelion roots are full of vitamins and minerals. They are also in rich in a substance called inulin, which may help diabetics to regulate blood sugar. Dandelion roots are often used to treat liver disorders. They’re also a safe natural diuretic, because they’re rich in potassium. The best time to harvest dandelion roots is early spring and late fall.

How can you eat dandelion roots?

  • Boil them for 20 minutes to make a tea
  • Chop, dry, and roast them to make a tasty coffee substitute.
  • Add them to soup stock or miso
  • Steam them with other vegetables

As most gardeners know, dandelions are virile (some say pernicious) plants. Why not treat them as allies, rather than enemies, this spring?

Interested in reading more about herbs or home remedies? Check out these posts:

Do you eat dandelions? Do you have a favorite dandelion recipe?

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From Farm to Table

Posted by Abby Quillen in Gardening, Health, Social movements on April 11, 2011

“Where do you get your wheat?” I was about to ask.

My husband and I were out for a rare dinner alone at a nice restaurant, which advertises itself as exclusively local and organic. Next to us, a floor-to-ceiling board announced the night’s specials next to a list of farms where the food was grown.

I had just interviewed a local wheat farmer for an article and heard about a number of farmers in the Valley, who are switching from growing conventional grass seed, long the main crop in this part of the world, to growing organic grains for local markets. I was curious if this restaurant bought its wheat from one of the farmers I’d heard about.

But just as the waiter leaned in, and the question was about to leave my lips, I thought of this spoof of Portland, Oregon from the new show Portlandia, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

It’s true – Oregon is in the midst of a farm-to-table restaurant boom. I’ve been to three restaurants in the last few months with boards listing local farms. One is decorated with a mural of the rolling hills where the restaurant’s produce is grown, and the menu includes photos of the smiling farmers who grow the food.

Of course, farm-to-table restaurants are not new. Alice Waters has been serving up local, organic fare at Chez Pannise in San Francisco for decades. What is new about the locavore restaurants opening in this area is that more and more of them are affordable. One of the restaurants I ate in is a brew-pub and another serves “healthy fast food”, with all dishes under $10.

Moreover, just as the clip of Portlandia suggests, local restaurateurs (as well as grocers and bakers) seem to be forging closer relationships than ever with local farmers – and all parties are coming out ahead.

“It became a heck of a lot more fun to farm,” the wheat farmer I interviewed told me about his farm’s switch to growing food for local markets. “It’s infinitely more rewarding than just growing a product for a guy that you never know.”

We consumers might be the biggest winners. I’m a huge advocate of growing a garden, shopping at farmers’ markets, and cooking from scratch, but the reality is, Americans eat out a lot. In a 2006 survey, the average American family spent 42 percent of their food budget in restaurants.

When restaurants buy from local farms, our meals are more nutritious and taste better, since the food hasn’t made the 1500-mile road trip most produce takes before consumption in the U.S. And just think about all of the pollution and carbon not spewing into our air, and all of the money staying within our communities.

Besides, as a consumer, you can always put down the menu, ask the waiter to save your seats, and go meet the farmer who grew your wheat.

Are farm-to-table restaurants cropping up in your area? What do you think of the trend? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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