Beet juice, beet juice, beet juice...

In what would be part of an onslaught of research supporting natural medications, if only our powers that be allotted equal funding for natural substances instead of nearly all for synthetic pharmaceuticals, it has been scientifically determined that beet juice (from the roots) is able to reliably lower blood pressure within twenty four hours. Not only that, the higher the initial blood pressure, the greater is the decrease in blood pressure effected by the beet juice.

While is has been hypothesized that the nitrate component within the beet juice is the cause of lowered blood pressure (think nitroglycerine tablets), because beets contain far more nutrition than does any prescription med we gain immeasurably by eating (drinking) beets instead of reflexively downing yet another pill. Whenever we can prove that 'our foods are our medicines and our medicines our foods', it takes us one more step toward the understanding that most illness is preventable without the aid of modern allopathic medicine. The latter is great for emergency care and acute illness, but atrocious for chronic ailments and preventive medicine. For these latter categories, which makes up both the vast majority of illness as well as the route to preventing this illness, look to natural (naturopathic) medicine. Your bodymind will thank you...and likely for a long, long time.

Please share this beet juice article with your friends:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100628161123.htm

as well as the initial research published in "Hypertension" magazine, February 2010:

http://hyper.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/51/3/617

'Whatever it takes' to get us to eat, and to overall act, more and more healthfully!

Good news; wait it's not good news?

So the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain has decided to supply customers will bottled water in biodegradable material made from corn.

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/biodegradable-water-bottles-for-u-s-ritz-carlton-hotels.html

This biodegradable bottle will compost back into soil. Unfortunately, there are very few people, and even fewer municipalities, composting these days. Hence, the corn bottle will still take up space in landfills and take years...and years...to break down.

Will biodegradable bottles convince water drinkers that bottled water is now 'green'? Or are these corn bottles merely beautiful stepping stones on the way to water drinkers carrying around their own steel or glass bottles -- and thus avoiding any type of bottle that is tempting throw away after one use?

As usual, we are living in a world in which the easy route in the short term is rarely the correct route in the long term. So, yes, this is a greenwashing decision by Ritz Carlton, in that corn bottles are not a good long term solution to drinking water but they are positive marketing for the hotel chain. However, since corn bottles are perhaps better for the environment than are petro bottles, let's give Ritz-Carlton a star for trying.

One reason that corn bottles may be very unhelpful in the long run is that, just as using corn for biofuel takes food out of circulation for the replacement of a petro product, so does using corn for plastic create the same scenario. Yet we need to decrease petro use AND increase food production for the soon-to-be eight billion earth dwellers -- not decrease BOTH petro and food production. Until Ritz-Carlton and other corporations understand and respond to this basic demographic and ecological fact, their news is merely produced in varying shades of gray...neither good nor bad, but impressive in the manner of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Can the change come soon enough?

If anyone needed a reminder as to why systemic health care change was needed in the US, here comes another study showing the ineffectiveness of the American health care system:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65M0SU20100623

The US comes dead last in the six country study, yet spends almost twice as much per capita as the overall winner, Netherlands. Despite that health care costs are the main reason our budget deficit continues to grow, many feel that the present administration should have pushed for an energy bill first. The 15% of Americans who remain uninsured will probably disagree!

A healthful death

Perhaps we dwell too much upon the short season of this one life and not enough upon the potentially longer season of physical demise leading to what could be much longer lifetimes ahead.

Regarding the end of this particular physical body, consider putting pertinent medical paperwork together that will allow you to avoid undesired medical care. Many hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, and MDs make a lot of money keeping people alive when they no longer choose to be. Without designating another person to have power of attorney over your medical decisions; and without wearing the official orange medical bracelet that tells medical personnel: 'do not resuscitate', you may find yourself suffering in manifold ways as your body tries to die but cannot. This recently published memoir by Katy Butler gives insight into why it is important to begin flexing your figurative muscles with your medical personnel NOW!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/magazine/20pacemaker-t.html?pagewanted=1&th&emc=th

Don't wait until decisions are fraught with emotion. Each visit to your doctor is a meeting between two soul equals exchanging information regarding the health of one soul (and perhaps their relatives). Be kind and respectful, but don't let doctors condescend to you. Call them on it. Firmly demand courteous explanations and the utmost respect. Educate yourself before each visit and refuse to make decisions in your doctor's presence if they seem to be selling you on a treatment protocol that you don't understand or agree with. Insist that doctors show you your laboratory results and that they discuss with you all of the different diagnoses and treatment possibilities that the doctor themselves gathered in this case.

More and more individuals are finding themselves and their relatives at the whim of an impersonal, profiteering system called the 21st century allopathic hospital system. Learn, and stand up for, your own medical rights as those of your families and friends. The time until you begin to use such knowledge may be much closer, and last for much longer, than you presently think!

Imagine!

Imagine if one day your government told you that your $50,000 in savings was only worth $1000? This would be a far worse financial shock than anything the Wall St debacle has cost westerners. But it is exactly what happened to North Koreans last fall, especially devastating since most had no where near $50,000 to start with.

From the NY Times: "It hardly seemed that life could get worse. And then, one Saturday afternoon last November [2009], his sister burst into his apartment in Chongjin with shocking news: the North Korean government had decided to drastically devalue the nation’s currency. The family’s life savings, about $1,560, had been reduced to about $30."

Already teetering on the edge of starvation and desperation, this drastic act by a corrupt regime has probably put the final nail in the coffin for the viability of North Korean as a functional state. For the first time in decades, North Koreans are openly criticizing their government as they continue to seek news from the 'outside world' -- relatively wealthy China across the sea; South Korea, their supposed enemies to the south; and anywhere else where they can replace the triple-speak of their government with anything bordering on objective accuracy. Families are dissolved as members disperse to make whatever money they can in hopes of returning to help the rest. Corruption increases exponentially, as the haves can openly barter with the lives of the have-nots...

It can be difficult for untraveled westerners to understand the daily, abject travails that billions around the world endure -- generation after generation. For myself, reading this article reminds me to remain silent regarding trivial trials and to appreciate the endurance of our species when we undergo such horrors as an impoverished dictatorship.

Imagine! and read:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/asia/10koreans.html?pagewanted=1&th&emc=th

In search of balance

A few blog posts ago I reported on the decades-long abuse of the Niger Delta by Shell Oil. Then a few days ago the NY Times reported that Texaco has been abusing the Amazon Delta in Ecuador since the 1960s. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/05/opinion/05herbert.html?emc=eta1

Bob Herbert writes:

"Texaco came barreling into this delicate ancient landscape in the early 1960s with all the subtlety and grace of an invading army. And when it left in 1992, it left behind, according to the lawsuit, widespread toxic contamination that devastated the livelihoods and traditions of the local people, and took a severe toll on their physical well-being.

A brief filed by the plaintiffs said: “It deliberately dumped many billions of gallons of waste byproduct from oil drilling directly into the rivers and streams of the rainforest covering an area the size of Rhode Island. It gouged more than 900 unlined waste pits out of the jungle floor — pits which to this day leach toxic waste into soils and groundwater. It burned hundreds of millions of cubic feet of gas and waste oil into the atmosphere, poisoning the air and creating ‘black rain’ which inundated the area during tropical thunderstorms."

A libertarian acquaintance of mine insists that if oil companies are left to their own devices they will clean up their own messes because they will not want to "lose customers." Thus he wants our own EPA and other regulatory bodies dissolved. Also, with no more government, there will be (by definition!) no more government corruption. And the aforementioned unsavory destruction of nature can only occur when companies collude with corrupt governments. See the logic? Me neither.

The current version of Homo sapiens doesnt seem to be compassionate enough to leave to a strictly libertarian form of governance, as much as some love to believe. Until we reach an 'age of compassion', it seems that we will have to rely on just enough government to keep us safe and just enough privacy to keep us sane. Events that have occurred in the Niger and Amazon Deltas for fifty years and more show us that balance continues to elude us in devastating ways.

We can use a 'Columbus miracle'...

OK, so computer models and scientists have shown for decades that we are nearing fuel and sustenance shortages, and extremely inconvenient climate change. Now the Great Depression II, the biggest oil spill in world history, and the warmest yearly temperatures in modern history, are reminding us on a daily basis.

What to do? Perhaps anything, with gumption!

When Christopher Columbus approached the Spanish elite to request voyaging funds, the question of the time wasn't whether the world was flat. That is a myth that was dissolved centuries earlier. What was in question at the time was the size of the Earth and the distance to Asia across the Atlantic.

Columbus did his best regarding nautical calculations, but his results were so absurd that the Spanish geographers of the time insisted the Genoan's voyage would be catastrophic. Why? Because Columbus estimated that the distance to Japan would be only 5000km, when in fact it is 20000km! The Spanish may not have known the exact distance either; but they did know that Columbus wasn't even close.

Convincing Queen Isabella notwithstanding, Columbus and his crews sailed west and barely made in to the Carribean before the Spanish geographers predictions started manifesting:

Disease; starvation; mutiny! Thus Columbus was utterly wrong and would have rightly been considered a Custer of his time...had not the Americas been 'miraculously' sitting in the middle of the ocean between Europe and Asia.

Despite his colossal mathematical errors, Columbus is today feted as (one of) the discoverers of the Americas; and he carries one of the most popularly used names of all time: think Columbia University; Columbus, Ohio...The moral of this story?

Perhaps it is to keep seeking a solution and maybe things will work out all right even if all the key players involved are incompetent (BP? MMS?). Sometimes a continent appears in the middle of an ocean; sometimes oil is discovered and fuels an entire century or two; sometimes (cold fusion; tesla free energy; aliens to the rescue) something else happens to 'save our souls' in the nick of time...

Viva Vegan!

Well, it's no surprise to this ex-vegan, but the UN has just reported that the human population needs to eat in a much more vegan manner in order to stave off starvation, fuel wastage, and environmental disaster derived from the foolishness of eating an animal-based diet:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/02/un-report-meat-free-diet

Here is the opening sentence from the article above:

"A global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger, fuel poverty and the worst impacts of climate change, a UN report said today"

Currently I eat a diet that is 99% vegetarian and 90% vegan. Why did I switch from being 100% vegan, including never wearing wool or silk, or eating honey, for example, from 1990-1998? Because I didn't have enough company!

Veganism is far better for human health, for environmental health, for animal kindness, for energy preservation, and for global economics (see above) that is a meat- and dairy-based diet.

Unfortunately, it will likely not be proactive wisdom, but reactive panic, thats changes the way in which humans eat, use energy, and generally engage with planet Earth.

Still, I could scarcely be happier to read that the UN has affirmed what my fellow vegans knew decades ago..

Walk to your vacations whenever possible...

....but if you do travel a long distance, consider flying over driving; and taking the train even better than that.

For all those who love transcontinental travel, pilot Patrick Smith, of askthepilot.com, points out that, "unlike cars, commercial aircraft are remarkably efficient on a fuel-per-passenger basis. Using average capacity and aircraft size, a round-trip journey between New York and London, each passenger is responsible for approximately 110 gallons of fuel. Between New York and Boston it's about 10 gallons -- less than half of what a person would consume if he or she chose to drive."

Furthermore, Smith reports that commercial air travel accounts for only 2%-5% of fossil fuel emissions worldwide.

Why then the frequent complaints from environmentalists concerning air transport and petrol use? Apparently it's the obvious: compare one airplane's fuel use with one automobile's fuel use over the same distance, and the airplane uses many times the fuel that the auto does. Account for the number of passengers that the airplane holds compared with the auto, especially single passenger autos, and the airplane comes out much 'greener'

Interested in which sectors create the most greenhouse gases around the globe, or just how greenhouse gas emissions have changed over the last several decades? See http://timeforchange.org/cause-and-effect-for-global-warming

No things don't look good...let's see how quickly our human race can awaken now that the chips are down!

Nature, Medicine, Politics: The Nigerian Example

To bring extra clarity toward the frequent interaction between nature, medicine, and politics, let's look at the increasing state of oil spill toxicity off the coast of Nigeria. Situated on Africa's west coast, Nigeria has recently slipped from the fifth to the eight leading oil exporter to the United States. The reason for the slip is due to several reasons. The most violent one is that there is currently war between a people's militia and the federal Nigerian government.

This militia is destroying the infrastructure of Shell Oil (of Dutch/British origin), which has been the corporate petroleum-drilling presence in Nigeria since the British discovered oil in Nigeria in the 1950's. The reason that militants are destroying Shell Oil pipelines, etc, is that they have "accused Shell of "being insensitive to the plight of the people of the area by refusing to implement agreements reached with them in various Memorandum of Understanding signed with the people""

In other words, the promises that Shell Oil has made to the people of Nigeria have been broken time and time again. Perhaps the worst of these broken promises has been the one in which Shell Oil has allowed the Niger Delta, from which the oil emits, to become a toxic dump of accumulated and uncleansed spills dating back 60 years.

Explained at length in this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell , these accumulated spills dwarf by perhaps fifty times the amount of oil already released in 44 days worth of BP's ongoing Gulf Coast debacle here in the United States. Whereas in the US our federal government is likely to bring criminal charges upon BP, in Nigeria the federal government, modeled on that of the United States, has instead joined forces with Shell Oil in order to keep profits flowing maximally into their coffers. The families living along the Niger Delta have had many civil rights ignored, their livelihoods lost along with the health of their families and their surrounding natural environments...

Due to politics and profiteering, Shell Oil and the Nigerian Government have greatly damaged that aspect of nature which is the very source of sustenance for untold numbers of families on the Niger Delta. The health of the people, plants and animals in this region has suffered for decades, without adequate medicine -- as there is no adequate medicine if one's water and soil is saturated with oil and other untended toxic pollutants from an unregulated oil industry or any other source. Now, the rage of the citizenry has exploded into civil war, in an ever-worsening scenario for the political, natural, and medicinal status of the Nigerian federal republic.

Almost every story of life can be viewed through the filter of these three lenses. Watch the world through them yourself, and create lenses of your own. There are thousands of lenses through which to view the universe. Nature, Medicine, Politics...are merely three of my own.