More on Health

After posting my Wellness Wednesday feature yesterday, someone commented on this photo that I put up on facebook:

It was a great illustration of how clueless we are when we eat food, especially restaurant food.  We usually have no idea how many calories we're consuming, nor do we know how foods compare to our daily recommended intake, nor do we realize how long our bodies take to burn calories (especially those of us who lead sedentary lives).

I got thinking about the latest restaurant in our community, the Olive Garden, and how excited residents were to have this new chain outlet so close to home.  After perusing the online Olive Garden menu, it reminded me how bad this restaurant is for our community.  Here's an example:

Someone hankering for a classic meal of fettuccine Alfredo will consume a whopping 1220 calories and 75 grams of fat (of which 47 grams are saturated fat) at dinner.  If that same person decided to have dessert as well, the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake will set him or her back 890 calories and 62 grams of fat (36 saturated).  These two items already exceed the daily recommended calories and fat for an entire day for an average-sized women who leads a sedentary life.  According to the University of Maryland Medical Center's online calculator, such a woman should not exceed 53 grams of fat per day.  Just one of these dishes already exceeds that.  According to Livestrong, depending on age and activity level, women should consume between 1600 and 2400 calories per day.  Less active women should consume even fewer calories.  And I haven't even approached the topic of appropriate sodium intake.

So if someone showed restraint and only consumed the entree and the dessert (meaning no appetizer, no salad, no bread, and no calorie-containing beverage), they would likely have consumed more than the calories and fat recommended for that day:  2110 calories and 137 grams of fat.  Breakfast and lunch would have to be skipped to stay somewhat within recommended calorie intake levels.  Of course, individuals don't have clean their plates; doggie bags are always available.  However, how often do we do that?  Most of us push ourselves to eat that last bite because, well, it just takes so good. 

The occasional treat is fine, but I often see people returning again and again to restaurants with meals that have similar calorie counts.  I suggest you go to the Olive Garden's nutrition facts page (or check out any chain restaurant's menu online) to see for yourself how out of whack the calorie and fat contents are for typical American restaurants.  

Wellness Wednesday

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This post is for my readers who are parents of small children.  Many of the conventional laundry detergent manufacturers have come out with single-dose laundry detergent capsules.  According to this story, these capsules can look extremely appetizing to children - they look like candy.  So far this year, 250 cases of children ingesting these products have been reported to poison control centers.  Of course, as someone concerned about our health and the environment, I recommend staying away from most conventional laundry detergents in the first place.  But for those of you who do purchase the products found in most grocery and discount stores, please make sure to keep those convenient single-use packages (and all other chemicals) out of the reach of children.

The Sirens of Consumerism

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I blog quite a bit about living a simple, sustainable life.  But I'm not immune to the lure of consumerism.  In the United States and the rest of the "Western" world, we are constantly bombarded with advertisements and other enticements that are designed to reach the deepest recesses of our minds through psychological manipulation.

I liken the culture of consumerism to the call of the mythic Sirens.  In Greek mythology, the Sirens were creatures with beautiful voices that would lure sailors to their death.  Their songs were irresistible and sailors would risk crashing their ships on the rocks in order to hear them.  Walter Copland Perry, a British writer, concluded that "their song, though irresistibly sweet, was no less sad than sweet, and lapped both body and soul in a fatal lethargy, the forerunner of death and corruption."

Consumerism (and, more specifically, shopping) is akin to the sirens.  I, too, am seduced by the message of the marketeers.  I hear them calling me, telling me I can be more beautiful, more feminine, more glamorous, if only I buy their products.  The flash and glitz catch my eye - there's a new style or color or fabric that is the must-have of the season.   I forget all that I stand for, all the sweatshops and suffering and exploitation behind the product, and how last year's trends are now resting at the bottom of countless landfills.  I grab a handful of hangers and head to the dressing room.  Yes, the marketeers are right.  I must have a new outfit; it will complete me, make me something I'm not...yet.  I head to the cash register, plastic card in hand, already anticipating the thrill of wearing my new clothes.  It's then that I realize, I have fallen into that fatal lethargy, I've crashed on the rocks, and the sirens have won.

Thoughts on Memorial Day

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Today in the United States we are observing Memorial Day, a day to remember the soldiers and sailors who have fallen in the line of duty during wars and other military actions.  These men and women who served our country deserve to be remembered for their sacrifices.

We must also remember what war means on a global scale.  While we in the US see the decorated men and women returning from overseas and mourn over the flag-draped coffins and precisely laid-out tombstones of those who don't return, we don't experience what war means to the rest of the world.

For most of the rest of the world, war means more than the possibility of grown sons and daughters not returning home.  For many in overseas conflicts, it means loosing their homes altogether, being displaced into refugee camps, often for the rest of their lives.  It can mean a destruction of infrastructure that interferes with the ability to have electricity, clean drinking water, or even food.  It can mean having children kidnapped and forced into military service.  It can mean becoming, or witnessing a child become, what is called "collateral damage" which occurs when military weapons miss their target and hit civilians.  This happens more than we realize.  War can mean children surviving the horrors of war but having missing limbs or disfigured faces and/or bodies or experiencing PTSD.  Or, for women, it often means the certainty of being the victim of brutal gang rape (which is used as a weapon of war). 

Although this day was created to honor the men and women who died while serving in the US armed forces, it is often a time when we glorify war.  Rather, as we consider the global consequences of war, we should strive to identify ways of nonviolent conflict resolution and then work to ensure those solutions are put into action.

Quotes for the Day

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"The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions."

~Robert Lynd

"No more wars, no more bloodshed. Peace unto you. Shalom, salaam, forever."

~Menachem Begin

"They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

~Isaiah

"Wars are not acts of God. They are caused by man, by man-made institutions, by the way in which man has organized his society. What man has made, man can change."

~Frederick Moore Vinson

"You don't make peace with friends.  You make it with very unsavory enemies."

~Yitzhak Rabin

"There is no way to peace; peace is the way."

~A. J. Muste

"I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, 'Mother, what was war?'"

~Eve Merriam

"A great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves."

~German proverb

Farm Friday

Unlike when I was a child, deer are not rarities.  On any given day or night, you're likely to see a deer (actually many deer) on our farm.  They're beautiful animals and I love to watch them run and leap over fences.  However, they love most of the vegetables we grow on the farm.  As a result, we have to put up white mesh electric fences around a number of our gardens.  These fences are battery powered and when we first stated using the fences, we would expend one battery per garden per year.  The batteries are rechargeable, but there is a limit to the number of times they can be recharged.  The good news is that my husband discovered these:

Now our batteries are continuously recharged via solar cells, thus considerably extending the life of our batteries.  (Hmmmm...maybe I should have made this a sustainable living post.)  I love how we are able to not only generate power from the sun but are able to reduce the number of batteries that will end up in landfill.

Philanthropy 101

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Many people have big hearts and, when they hear of a need, immediately open their checkbooks to help satisfy it.  However, many others are skeptical of charities, afraid that their hard-earned money will be squandered and not used to help those in need.  I recommend that both groups pause for a moment and investigate the organizations that are asking for money.

Two excellent websites, Charity Navigator and GuideStar, can provide detailed information on how charities use donations.   Charity Navigator rates organizations with stars from one to four.  If the organization you're researching doesn't have four stars, don't give up on it.  There are many reasons why it might not have the highest rating that don't have anything to do with how donations are handled.  GuideStar offers copies of the 990s (the IRS tax return for nonprofit organizations) for hundreds of thousands of nonprofits.  There are other organizations that provide information on charitable institutions; just Google "something like charity watchdog groups." 

If you cannot find the organization you're researching on a watchdog site, contact the organization.  Ask them to send you a copy of their 990 and any other pertinent data.  If they refuse, find another similar organization that will.

Once you have the financials for an organization, look to see what percentage of donations goes to programs and what percentage goes to administrative expenses.  According to CharityWatch (another watchdog organization), at least 60% of funds should go towards programs.  A highly efficient organization will spend 75% or more on programs.  In addition, look to see that it has low fund-raising and administrative costs.  Although it does cost money to run a nonprofit, to pay staff and purchase office space, equipment, and supplies, and to purchase marketing materials, etc. for fundraising, these costs should not be a large percentage of monies spent. When I give, I want to make sure that the money I sent is actually going to help the individuals in need and not to give a big paycheck to the CEO.

I recently learned that organizations such as churches, synagogues, mosques, and other houses of worship are not limited by designated giving.  That is, when someone gives money and specifically states that money is to go to missions or the benevolent fund, a faith organization can actually spend that money any way the pastor, rabbi, or administrative council or board deems fit.  Therefore, if you do not automatically receive a budget for your house of worship, ask that one be provided so you can see how tithes and offerings are spent.

There are many other things you can do when making a decision to support a nonprofit organization.  However, these tips should help point you in the right direction when your heartstrings feel a tug and you want to help.