Spirit Blooms » Nature & Science

The argument for fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains

Barbara — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:02:47 +0000

In an interview at Alternet titled Michael Pollan Debunks Food Myths, author Michael Pollan discusses his new book, In Defense of Food. He talks about why news of the latest scientific nutritional studies is probably not the best source for nutrition information, and how the best eating advice given to Americans in the past five decades is probably the simplest — that fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains are good for us. According to him, we’re likely best off getting back to basics.

Pollan says:

“I’m not a Luddite; I’m not anti-science. I’m fascinated by nutritional science. But I’ve also acquired a healthy skepticism about how much and how little they know. It has only been around for about 175 years. Its history is of one overlooked nutrient after another. As I see it, nutrition science is kind of where surgery was in the year 1650, which is to say very interesting and promising, but do you really want to get on the table yet?” (read article)

Further on, Pollan mentions how the “imitation rule” was eliminated by the FDA, without going through Congress, and how what we eat has in some sense become a political statement. According to Pollan, cooking our own food from scratch may now be a subversive act:

“It’s funny to think of something as domestic as cooking and gardening as subversive, but it is. It is the beginning of taking back control from a system that would much rather do everything for you.” (read article)

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Butterflies

Barbara — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 04:06:36 +0000

This has been a good summer for butterflies in my little corner of the world. I’ve seen a lot more variety this year than in past years, and yesterday I sighted a Western Tiger Swallowtail in a pepper tree in the yard behind ours. It surprised me, and at first glance I thought I was seeing an oriole making like a butterfly, it was so large. I haven’t seen many swallowtails since I was a kid, and then I usually saw darker, smaller ones, maybe the Anise Swallowtail, which looks more familiar to me. I think the most common butterfly of my childhood was the Mourning Cloak, but I rarely see those now.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Global dimming

Barbara — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 03:10:09 +0000

Ever heard of global dimming? Here are some links worth reading:

Contrails And The Dark Side

Dim Sun

Why the Sun seems to be ‘dimming’

Global Warming Could Mean Less Sunshine

One of the most interesting facts about solar dimming/global warming is that an important observation was made when all commercial flights over the US stopped during the days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That pause in flights allowed scientists an opportunity to observe what happened to weather patterns without the contrails from so many aircraft in the atmosphere. I first learned of global dimming in a documentary that aired on PBS’s Nova. Here’s their transcript:

Dimming the Sun

Another documentary aired on UK television last year:

Global Dimming

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Ivory-billed woodpecker extinct after all?

Barbara — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 02:35:58 +0000

The issue of whether it really was an ivory-billed woodpecker that was video-taped back in April 2005 has heated up, with some experts concluding that the bird in the video was a pileated woodpecker after all, and that the ivory-billed is indeed extinct. Still, some searchers say they’ve heard the distinctive knock of the ivory-billed, and Arkies aren’t discouraged. The search goes on. Scroll down, at this article, for some image comparisons.

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Celebrating modern heroes: Sally Vreseis Fox

Barbara — Sat, 09 Jul 2005 22:50:47 +0000

In a world where artificial and chemically processed products are too often valued over natural, it’s important to celebrate the heroes of biodiversity and environmentally friendly farming and manufacturing.

One of my heroes of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries is Sally Vreseis Fox, president of Natural Cotton Colours, Inc. Sally developed a naturally occurring colored cotton, once considered an annoying genetic throwback by modern American cotton farmers, into commercially useful, naturally colored and organically grown cotton fiber.

I first read about Sally during the 1990’s, when she fought an uphill battle, partly because commercial cotton farmers in California resisted her efforts, fearing their fields would be contaminated by her colored cotton. My interest in her cotton has been reinvigorated by a recent search for organic products, as well as a lifelong love of needlework. These two interests have converged in my recent desire to learn handspinning.

Sally encountered the natural deviation in cotton color as a former Peace Corps volunteer with a master of science degree in pest management—who also happened to be a handspinner—when she was hired to develop a pest-resistant strain of cotton. While visiting cotton farms, Sally learned about brown cotton, which American commercial farmers considered of little value, in spite of its natural insect resistance, because of its short staple and resulting unsuitability for commercial textile production. (Staple refers to the length and strength of fibers.)

Sally became fascinated with the naturally occurring color and eventually succeeded in breeding colored cotton with long fibers strong enough for commercial textile mills. The cotton grows in subtle colors, in a range from golden pale brown to reddish brown and avocado green, and the colors tend to deepen with initial laundering, rather than fading as naturally dyed fiber does. The occurence of color in these fibers means they can be used to produce colored textiles without the use of commercial dyes, considerably reducing the harsh chemicals typically required in the production of textiles. Sally holds patents for some of her developments. Two of her Fox Fibre^® strains—Coyote and Buffalo—are naturally fire resistant.

Her organically grown FoxFibre^® cotton is now widely available to handspinners, knitters, weavers, and sewing enthusiasts through Vreseis Ltd., as well as to commercial manufacturers.

Sally doesn’t claim to be the first to realize the value of colored cotton, which has been cultivated in South America, India, Egypt and elsewhere for millenia, both for animal food and handspun fiber. It’s Sally Fox’s persistence in the face of conventional commercial farming practices and pressures, and her care for the environment, that constitutes a heroic story unique in our North American culture of chemically-intense production over natural. She has helped enhance a new culture of organics in our modern world through her creativity, courage and innovation.

More information about Sally Vreseis Fox and organic cotton in general:

Innovative Lives: Colorful Cottons

GOLDEN EAGLE AND CORPORATE VULTURE AWARDS (House of Representatives – August 02, 1996)

Treehugger: Color Grown Cotton

Find Organic Cotton

All Things Organic

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh