Carbon dioxide in the air is pollution. Carbon in the soil is healthy… Anything that is alive is made of carbon, including us.
When we sweep leaves away from our lawns, we’re sweeping away that area’s food. Those leaves, flowers, seeds and natural debris, that are often seen as mess, would normally stay and break down into food for the soil and become food for the plants in that space.
It is often said to rotate crops because one type of plant will eat certain nutrients in that spot and another type of plant would eat other nutrients, letting the depleted nutrients build back up for a while. But naturally, a tomato plant drops its seeds in the same place and grows again. Why? My guess is that a tomato plant would normally die in its spot, make green & brown waste, mix with rain or snow and other fallen leaves, and become its own food next year, replenishing the soil’s nutrients. Without humans taking away their “mess,” they feed themselves. It seems the seeds would ride the wind or in the belly of an animal and end up popping up in new places too, but they’d have peace-of-mind knowing they carry a cycle of food with them where ever they go.
But why do we care about feeding the soil to feed plants? Firstly, because CARBON.
When the soil is depleted, it can’t pull carbon into itself or keep it there. Carbon dioxide in the air is pollution. Carbon in the soil is healthy. It becomes food for the soil’s bacteria. Anything that is alive- plants, animals, soil- is made of carbon, including us. There was a balanced cycle of carbon dying and becoming new life, but we added too much carbon to the atmosphere with fossil fuels and took away the ground’s ability to absorb carbon with our agriculture practices. This combination is creating pollution that is killing the planet that keeps us alive.
Ryland Englehart, co-founder of Kiss the Ground, a non-profit in LA, shares that between carbon extraction via fossil fuels and our agriculture practices, “We’ve moved 880 giga-tons [880,000,000,000 tons] of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which is heating up the planet and destabilizing our climate. Now, the oceans have absorbed a lot of this excess carbon which is resulting in ocean acidification and accelerating a mass extinction of sea life… Where do we put this excess carbon to get this cycle back into balance? The answer is literally… under our feet. It’s the soil.”
When plants photosynthesize, they pull carbon out of the air and turn it into sugars that go into their roots feeding bacterial colonies, mycorrhizal funghi, and aggregates. These creatures increase the root capacity by the thousands, turn the sugars into nutrients for the plant and create an environment that can store carbon for decades. “Plants pump it in and soil stores it. Nature’s living technology is amazing!”
Making our own compost and returning it to the land, pulls more carbon into the ground which helps heal climate change. (More info: watch this Kiss the Ground video.)
Also, putting the missing link back in the cycle by composting creates less landfill trash that would become methane gas.
When compost is added to an edible garden and the soil gets richer, the plants in the healthy, bacteria-rich soil don’t need pesticides or chemical fertilizers. They can be next to plants with disease and not get sick. It’s like our human immune systems: we need good bacteria (probiotics), nutrients and minerals for our organs to fight off disease. When our immune systems are strong, we’re less likely to catch something that would infect a less healthy person. Plants are the same way.
And the same way that we have to continuously eat nutrients to maintain our health, so do the plants. As we keep eating and creating food scraps, plants keep needing the scraps. Their need keeps landfills thinner and eventually, our bellies fuller. All while eliminating the need for hormone-disrupting, pollution-causing chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
Helping the plant’s immune system ends up helping ours too. The garden food ends up having more nutrients for us, tasting better, and ultimately providing healing and prevention for many of our chronic diseases.
Plus plants in healthy soil need less water, which saves water. And people composting on their own land also reduces their city’s need to collect yard waste, saving more resources.
Lastly, if you are able to turn a pile, studies show that being around soil bacteria reduces depression (It’s the probiotics in the soil). And I believe any nature calms us in some way, from being around a lush forest to being around one fruit from one tree, even putting its peel-scraps in a bucket in my kitchen.
Overall, all pieces of the cycle benefit people, soil, plants, animals and the planet.
These are just my reasons though, why do you compost if you do?
I just watched Fed Up, an important, helpful, honest documentary about US obesity, especially in kids. If you have Netflix, you can stream it right now. This very moment. If you aren’t in such a hurry, no worries. I’m totally psyched about it.
The best thing about this movie is that it points out how our weight gain is not our fault. And it explains why.
I remember in the mid 2000’s doing what I thought was right: researching, paying attention and acting on what I learned in regards to food. I wasn’t fad dieting; I was making lifestyle changes. When I learned, later in the decade, that I had been misguided and had wasted years and money on unhealthy foods, I was very angry. Angry at companies for lying to me, at the government for guiding me with unhealthy guidelines that they said were healthy, and angry at myself for not being smart enough to notice.
The ways in which I was misguided were many, but this film focuses on one of them: sugar. I knew I had a “sweet tooth” but I never saw it as a wild, ravenous, over consumption of sugar until I saw an episode of Ellen. Dr. Wayne Dyer was the guest and they talked about how much sugar humans ate years ago versus now. Here Dr. Dyer talks about it in another interview:
19TH CENTURY SUGAR CONSUMPTION
“…In the 19th century… the average amount of sugar consumed by Americans was around 13 grams a day and today its 285 grams. That’s like a 500% increase in the amount of sugar consumed! …If you just get your sugar consumption down to under 15 grams a day… Well, a banana has 11 grams of sugar! An eight ounce glass of orange juice has 35 grams of sugar in it. So it’s a pretty radical shift. Sugar is in everything! If you start looking at what’s on the packaging you’ll see huge amounts of it; in some cases its 100 grams in one serving…
If you get it down below 15 grams a day, or even just below 40 grams a day, you’ll take off between 15–17 pounds, which is about what I wanted to take off. I am not overweight. But I am thicker and I just decided to look at the excuses I have used to stay this way and put this paradigm to work. Sure enough, in less than 30 days I have taken off 17 pounds all the way around the middle. So, you can really make these kinds of shifts.”
At the time I learned this, I was going to a nutritionist who told me I could have raw, organic honey as one of my sugar sources. “Oh, wonderful!” I said. “I already eat that!” The nurse asked, “What do you eat it with?” I said, “…a spoon.” I told her that I had seen this man speak on Ellen and I was aiming to have 20 grams of sugar a day. But I would be fine with myself if I went way over, because even 45 grams was way less than the 285 grams Dr. Dyer was talking about. The nurse gave me a new goal. Instead of telling myself I can have 20 grams of sugar a day, and then standing over the honey jar with a spoon and crazy eyes, just tell myself “I can have less sugar. Just less.” It’s years later and I don’t even buy honey anymore.
SUGAR VS. COCAINE
Now that I look back, I think it may have been so difficult to quit my sugar habit because having a little bit had lead me to wanting more. Brain scans in the movie reveal that sugar is as addictive as cocaine. Rats will choose sugar over cocaine. This makes me feel better. Not for those dear rats, poor things. Sugar Crack Rats. Me and those rats don’t stand a chance; sugar will kick our asses. But it seems now that I don’t buy sugar, I’m not tempted. There is no sugar in the house. And over the years, my cravings finally settled down.
I think my transition, though, was unfair in a horrible and lucky way. I had spinal and foot injuries that resulted in my isolation, plus poordom, plus not having a car during the years that I was hurt, plus not having a TV for seven years, which all means I’m insane. Also those things meant that I really didn’t have to use will power while I was learning about nutrition. If there was no sugar in the house, I couldn’t drive to get some, or walk there, and if I did, I didn’t have money to buy it, and I didn’t totally care because I didn’t have commercials to *remind me that I love Reese’s peanut butter cups. *Reese’s peanut butter cups, I love you and will never forget that. Commercials just make me lustlove you.
“SWEET TOOTH” OR “LA-LA-LA-WHAT-FEELINGS TOOTH?”
Instead of calling a sugar addiction the darling name of “sweet tooth,” it should be called a “sharp-fanged sugar monster.” Even that sounds sort of adorable and mildly… edible? I didn’t have a sweet tooth. I had a set of razor fangs that would leave the sanity of the world behind while devouring a whole pie in the middle of the night alone, or right from under your nose while you are talking to me at a party. Sugar is more important than whatever you are trying to say to me, or my own dignity, or my own sleep. But we give it such a cute name, “sweet tooth.” It’s much harder to tilt my head to one side and smile with chocolate smeared on my face and say, “Aw, sorry, I have a demon monster inside me that is addicted to sugar because I’m scared of my feelings.” It’s way longer to say, first of all.
My sugar monster now only comes out about 25% of the time that it used to. Now I understand not only the connection between sugar and the reward center of the brain, but also the mind, body, spirit connection to my need for comfort food. If I’m distracting myself with a sugar high, I’m running from some feeling my mind thinks is too scary to let me see. If my mind doesn’t know how to deal with it and can’t foresee the exact outcome and that it would be positive, it tells me to look at something sparkly, claps its hands and says, “Look over here! Isn’t this shiny?! OOO- Let’s eat a pizza.” I still fall for it sometimes. Even though I’ve since learned that the crust breaks down in my body as pure sugar, so it’s not just a cheese fix, it’s a sweet fix too! Sugar should be in the CIA. It’s very sneaky.
But I’ve come to be more interested in the idea that I need to become empty before I can fill myself spiritually. Drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, sugar and many other things can make humans feel whole. But unless we empty the places those things fill, we can’t look at the hole they leave in order to fill it with real, lasting contentment. Knowing this, in combination with seeing that the fake fills weren’t helping over time, now makes my shiny pizza monster a little less attractive. (What if that was what I called my vagina? That would be the worst.)
ADVERTISING
I’m proud of Fed Up for being realistic with Americans by truthfully sharing that advertising leads us towards sugar, but that we are expected to act as though advertising doesn’t affect us and take care of ourselves through sheer will power. The advertising clearly affects us and that’s why companies invest in it. And will power against something so addictive, even without the advertising, would obviously be difficult. On top of all that, most of the advertising presents many sugar-filled foods as healthy or diet, fat-free or sugar-free so most of the time we don’t even know to use will power against those foods. Usually we’re told to use our will power for them.
When the film teaches the psychological science behind how we respond to advertising, sugar, and sugar advertising, it lets people feel sane for being confused about why they can’t lose weight. Not only are unhealthy people fighting an uphill battle, they are usually left in the cold feeling like it’s their fault. And when I feel alone and confused, I eat more.
One of my favorite fact nuggets in the film was that when kids were given a snack to eat while they watched a tv show with food commercials vs. the same tv show with non-food commercials, they ate 45% more snack food. I got hungry just when I wrote the word nuggets.
HIGH SCHOOL EXPECTATIONS
I also learned in the movie how much fast food is now offered in America’s schools. Pairing that with how humans are wired to behave with certain food, brings to light that leaving our children alone with unhealthy foods and their own will power is truly neglectful. It seems easy to blame the parents and say they just have to make lunches for their kids. But as long as there are unhealthy options at school, the battle will be lost. I usually brought a lunch to school, but I figured out how to get the good tasting stuff. Trade things or bring a bit of money when I could to buy something. If it’s there, I want it.
Most adults I know are this way. And it’s not because they don’t know better. It’s because humans are designed to look for fat, salt, and sugar because those things used to be scarce. If the office has homemade cookies out for free, and then a birthday party with cake, and then someone brings in chocolates, we usually have a hard time not eating all of those things. Some people don’t like to waste food, some people don’t like to bring the mood down by saying no, some people want to fit in, some people want to be nice to the person who took the time to make cookies, some people are sleepy and need a pick-me-up, some people want to make out with their coworker but they can’t so some sugar is a close second, some people want to punch their boss in the face and going to the break room, they’ll eat whatever is there just to have a moment away. Some people just freaking love the way it all tastes. There are a million reasons why we make choices we know are bad for us. So expecting kids to act more responsibly in the lunch line than we do as adults is not kind or rational.
BUYING YOUR DIABETES
The film also brings up that the government subsidizes ingredients that cause obesity. Which I’d like to take a step further by saying that our tax dollars are really those subsidies, meaning we are really, unwillingly and unknowingly, paying for our own problem.
IT’S WHAT ON THE INSIDE THAT COUNTS
The film also shows that not all fat stores itself on the outside of the body. People eating unhealthy diets can be thin and still be a larger percentage of fat inside that will cause the same chronic diseases as someone who looks obese.
In the same way that what matters is on the inside of us, Fed Up shows that it goes for food too. Calories have been taught to us as math, and that they are equal. If the amount of calories going into your body equal the amount of calories going out, all should be well. At least that is what is usually said. But it is what is on the inside of a calorie that matters. 100 calories of broccoli don’t break down in our bodies the same way 100 calories of brownies do.
I’ve only gone on diets twice in my whole life. Once, for a week in high school, I tried (what I now see as my version of) the Adkins Diet and only ate microwaved cheese and eggs and meat. I had such low energy from this that I couldn’t walk through the halls from class to class. I remember being surprised by this at the time because I thought I was within their guidelines. Why would I think having just microwaved cheese as a third of my diet would be ok?
The other time I dieted was for a random month in college when I learned about calories in vs. calories out. I realized I didn’t have enough calories for my short frame to eat dessert. So I used my dessert-loving brain and figured out a way around it: only eat dessert. At one point, I was just eating whole bags of Reese’s peanut butter cups for dinner. I got bronchitis when my friends all got it and theirs went away with a Z-pak and mine stuck around for months. Because of the wheezing and deep, deep coughing lasting so long, my body got used to the sharp muscle constricting and, after a while, I started projectile vomiting. Which my roommate Hoosty and I thought was hilarious. So we’d laugh, which would get the muscles going again, which in turn would make me wheeze and cough, and projectile vomit. The cycle continued. College was a special time.
That was how I learned all calories are not created equally. You may already know this. If not, instead of trying your own dessert experiment/ torture, you could read this that is one of my favorite articles: Why Calories Don’t Matter by Dr. Mark Hyman, MD. Or you could watch Fed Up. Or it’s just really easy to understand and you probably already got it before I told those ridiculous dieting stories.
When we’re told that our health comes down to calories eaten matching calories burned but so many other relevant parts of the equation are left out, our health is ignored. That only works if you are eating healthy calories and if you know what “healthy” means. And if you have time to burn an unlimited amount of calories.
Obesity is a nation-wide, chronic problem that should be met with compassion and education. The kids in this film break my heart. They are trying so hard, but no one is telling them where to put their energy that will be effective. Their parents are lovingly trying to but no one told their parents how to be healthy either. Hopefully they all watched their own movie though. They are a part of something that will bless so many people, and I hope this is a case where the blessings out do indeed equal the blessings coming back to them.
If you don’t have Netflix, learn more about where to find the movie at http://www.fedupmovie.com. Here is the Fed Up trailer:
FRENCH FRIES TACOS. WITH A SIDE OF FRENCH FRIES. Shane just invented the Tastiest Thing. #MexicanPrimantiBros #FrenchFries
Shane just invented the Tastiest Thing. French Fries Tacos, with a side of French Fries! It’s like Mexican Primanti Bros. And it’s so freaking delicious:
French Fries Tacos
Makes 2 tacos for 2 people. Or 4 tacos for 1 people. Or 3 tacos and one for tomorrow, for one person.
I don’t measure anything or time it really. So trust your instinct and play knowing that you can’t get anything wrong. I mean, I’m sure that’s a possibility, like if you read “bean” as “cat”, but in general, it’ll come out tasty.
For the beans in this recipe (and the photo), we made three crock pots of beans to feed a lot of people. If you only want to make one pot, use 1/3 of everything. But I recommend making a lot of beans for one person, too, because then you can freeze it and have it ready for later. That’s how Dad taught me. These are his beans, by the way, just tweaked with whatever was in Shane’s mom’s kitchen. Which is kind of my Dad’s rule of thumb: use whatever is there or whatever you feel inspired by. Continue reading “Christmas Beans”→
Today we made soup with all of the ingredients left in our fridge. We felt very accomplished because tomorrow we get our box of veggies for the week and this soup allowed us to use all of this week’s food to the very last drop! Nothing went to waste! (Well, nothing ever goes to waste, organic food wise, because scraps or neglected foods go straight into the compost bin. But its nice when the food goes into our belly instead!)
I love the challenge of coming up with a meal with whatever is left in the fridge. It feels like an improv show where your audience is just the refrigerator. And although refrigerators aren’t much for feedback, they are great at suggestions. “Does anyone have a suggestion of what we can eat for dinner tonight?” Here is what our seemingly oafish, but always helpful refrigerator yelled out (You can make the fridge have any voice you want, but mine sounds like The Big Guy Who Works At A Moving Truck Company Who Would Also Help A Grandma Cross The Street):
Veggie Sandwich: brown rice bread and all organic avocado, mushroom, red pepper, tomato, swiss chard, olive oil, raw apple cider vinegar, & non-gmo dill
Grapefruit Hummus & Beet Sandwich: brown rice bread and homemade hummus (organic garbanzo beans, organic olive oil, sea salt, splash of lemon juice, *organic grapefruit juice, tahini, organic garlic clove), non-gmo dill, and (the rest is organic) avocado, tomato, red onion, raw apple cider vinegar, & olive oil
*Please note that we only had one drop of an older lemon in the fridge so we opted to gamble on grapefruit juice… because all the other hummus ingredients were already in the blender and grapefruits were the only citrus in the house. We only squeezed in a little, and still added the old lemon drop. And we couldn’t tell the difference! Guess why, either we: Continue reading “A Pair of Sandwiches”→
There are so many things I’m excited to share on this site! Here a few ideas that I’m eager to write about, as something I can look forward to, and hopefully you will too :)… Continue reading “Stories from Aunt Ruth”→
I had prepped a salad in advance because I’m staying with some friends and it’s easier to eat in a way that makes my body happy if I have veggies ready for salad, or to toss into scrambled eggs, or rice, or whateves. Then I can still hang out with my friends, instead of bringing whole food and chopping the whole time :).
Mama went from 148 lbs to 125 lbs in 3 months eating this way. Her doc also took her off of her mood stabilizefood glorious food r, Zyprexa, as we started the diet. Over the last 3 years, Zyprexa made her gain ALOT of weight and it raised her blood sugar levels to a near-diabetic state. She lost 12.5 lbs the first month of this diet, mostly due to the medicene change. But continues to lose 2-4 lbs per month with the lifestyle change! Her blood sugar and her BMI (Body Mass Index) are in the normal range again!
I had gained a few extra pounds on my trip to Utah and LA. Nana’s cooking is tasty, but not good for the waistline, and Becca eats healthily, but in portions for a calorie-burning yoga instructor, not a motionless spinally-injured me. After eating according to this paper for 2 months, I lost 7 lbs and am back at my high school weight! (Except in high school, it was all muscle, where as today, I’m still weak. But one step at a time…)
*There’s one change we made to the diet, drink your water separately from your meals.
**And since starting my nutrition program at the beginning of August, my diet has changed even more. But I thought this would be a good start for Clara. Food, Glorious Food
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