Life Before Google January 31, 2008

Just a quick note because so much is going on – what with Miachal Pollan on a book tour, the New York Times reporting on the climate impact of eating meat, and Seventh Generation CEO Jerrffey Hollender’s excellent commenatry on the Clorox purchase of Burt’s Bees.
 I am catching up on all these current events and have found some exceptional new blogs. I still remember a time when I was buried in micro-film trying to get this kind of information. But now, POOF! If I can think of it, I can find it in seconds! I will list them below and add them to my blog log so you can reference them any time.

TreeHugger – International environmental reporting:

http://www.treehugger.com/

The Inspired Protagonist – Seventh Generation musings on corporate responsibility:

http://www.inspiredprotagonist.com/ 

GroovyGreen – Eco-living and news in the modern world:

http://www.groovygreen.com/groove/

Remember folks, why on earth would you bother to get a cake if you didn’t plan on eating it too.

Dinner In Ten Minutes – Seriously! January 25, 2008

Ok, so today I broke my own record with “throwing veggies together.” I hate to brag, but when I saw that I could get significant amounts of my daily requirements of Magnesium, potassium, vitamin A and calcium in less than ten minutes I really felt like I should write it down and share.

You see, I’ve been victim of those books – the 10 minute gourmet, vegetarian cuisine in 5 steps, easy-healthy-eating, you get my drift…

So here we are, mid-way into the second week of resolutions – ” I will not choose cooking over exercise, I will not eat instead of run, I promise I’ll go to yoga instead of the stove, I’ll cook only on Mondays”… See, this is what’s so hard for people like me. I LIKE cooking! I come home after a stressful day, and there is something about cooking that melts the day’s tensions away. When I slowly saute carrots in a garlic infused olive oil, and pair it with rosemary roasted pink potatoes, I can take it down a notch. I remember the weekend – meeting my local farmers and talking about what’s in season this week, how the cold snap affected the soil, and won’t it make the carrots fabulous this year…”

None the less, my 30’s are catching up with me. And because I sit in front of a computer most of the day instead of harvesting my own food, my goal this year is to eat as well as always, but still have that time after work to go to the gym. Once again, maybe I am inviting Santa to lunch, but I am ever hopeful. I love new year resolutions. I don’t get too down about about what I don’t accomplish each year, actually. I find it endlessly fascinating that I still have the tenacity to desire re-create myself and try again. I feel as though, even if I am 80, I will still learn how to play the fiddle and learn French. So I think it’s important to remind myself every year of what is still awake…what is still wanting.

A-ha though! The dinner revelation the inspired it all:

Sauteed Asparagus with Broccoli, Brown Rice*, garlic, cashews and Ginger

1 bunch of asparagus

2 teaspoons olive oil

2 handfuls of broccoli florets

1 tablespoon ginger

2-3 garlic cloves

1 teaspoon soy sauce (optional)

1/2 cup halved cashews (optional)

 3 cups cooked brown rice* (The 10 minute dinner title means that the rice is cooked in advance)

In a frying pan saute the asparagus with the olive oil, garlic, and ginger until the asparagus begins to soften. Add the broccoli and cover the pan with a lid to steam the broccoli. Stir and steam until desired level of softness (5-10 minutes). Add soy sauce if desired. Stir in the rice for a fried rice effect, or warm up in a microwave and add later. Serves 3-4 people. Easy add-ins include onion, grated carrot and bell peppers (but you’ll be bumping up closer to 30 minutes with all the extra chopping).

Nutritional Information:

Calories: 730

Fat: 30g (only 6g if you skip the cashews. Though cashews have a lot of micronutrients and the “good” fats)

Carbohydrates: 133g

Protein: 29 g

Fiber: 8.5 g

Sodium: 839 mg (without soy sauce – that # is too depressing. The rice itslef has 700 mg)

Calcium: 267 mg

Iron: 10 mg

Vitamin A: 1,550 iu

Vitamin C: 540 mg

Potassium: 1,725 mg

Interspirituality January 21, 2008

Interspirituality. Hmmmm. Big word. Doesn’t show up on spell-check. Incredibly ambiguous if you do a Google search on it. And yet…and yet is sounds like something enormous. Sounds like something the world might need. Spirituality, and the prefix of “inter”…Latin for “between, or among,” we might be on to something here; and in Santa Barbara we certainly are.

The term “Intersprituality” was first coined by Wayne Teasdale, and while I won’t digress here on the teachings of Brother Teasdale, what I will note is a quote from Mahatma Gandhi that has much in common with what Teasdale was getting at:

“When you go to the heart of your own religion, you go to the heart of all others too.”

This was certainly my experience on my retreat at La Casa de Maria, where I was given the gift of being introduced to the interspiritual community in Santa Barbara. When I showed up at the Spiritual Path’s retreat, I really didn’t know what to expect, nor did I understand fully what drove me there. But what followed was a weekend of celebration, meditation, and calls to action. The objective of the retreat was to bring environmental advocacy groups into dialog with the spiritual leaders from various religious traditions and members from the community to explore the ways in which can work together.

Ed Bastian, founder of Spiritual Paths, lead the retreat. Speakers included Reverend Cynthia Bourgeault, Ph.D, Shaikh Kabir Helminski, Shaikha Camille Helminski, Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Ph.D, and Pravrajika Vrajaprana – faculty from Spiritual Paths. Representatives from environmental groups included Sharyn Main from the Community Environmental Council, Dr. Michael McGinnis, an Environmental Studies professor at UCSB, Don Four Arrows Jacobs; professor of Educational Leadership at the Fielding Graduate University, and Michael Potts from the Rocky Mountain Institute.

I was turned on to something that’s time has come, and I can’t wait to see what’s next. It was one of the most beautiful, remarkable things to not only explore the traditions of all these great faiths, but also see how much we have in common. At the core of all religions is a spiritual essence that unites, and never divides. The sacred contract we have to each other as humans and this planet that sustains us is universal. To understand this, and teach this is truly what can change the world. Namaste and Godspeed to Spiritual Paths – you’ve got great work ahead of you.

Life is Not A Dress Rehersal January 19, 2008

I will live the dream

Born from ideas of the heart.

I will walk the passionate path

With truth and fortitude.

I am creating my world.

My designs create my life.

May 08 be great for you and your loved ones!

Namaste,

Sacred Harvest

New Year’s Smoothie January 10, 2008

A-Ha! No need for Sacred Harvest readers to spend any money on the latest trends in juicing and supper-smoothie books! I feel like a walking multi-vitamin after coming up with this week’s recipe. Here are the ingredients:

New Year’s Smoothie:

          In the Juicer:

Juice 8 medium size carrots

Ginger (about the size of your thumb)

          In the Blender:

2 cups ginger carrot juice

1 cup cranberries

1 cup blueberries

1 cup raspberries

3 cups rainbow chard

4 oz plain yogurt

Water – if necessary to help it puree. Agave syrup if the unsweetened taste is too tart. You can also add your juice of choice or purchase carrot juice, though that will add variables to the below nutritional content.

Don’t be daunted by the two-step process of juicing before blending. You can always make a big batch of carrot ginger juice and store it in mason jars in the freezer. Just take it out the night before to thaw it for your morning smoothie. You can also add beets to the juicing mix. If you are taking any EFA oil mixes they blend nicely into the smoothie. Also, the thought of chard in a smoothie may seem counter-intuitive, but the greens actually take on a sweet-grass taste when pureed raw, (much like wheat grass). Spinach and chard also work as substitutes.

This is truly a meal on the go, as you can see by the below nutritional content. So if you are looking for a healthy way to cleanse after the holidays this smoothie will give your gut a rest while optimizing nutritional intake. Juicing bypasses the digestive process so it’s great way to maximize nutrient absorption if you’re fighting a winter cold, or if you just want to give your digestive system a break after all of the rich holiday foods. Plus, for less than 600 calories while meeting almost the entire daily requirement of so many macro-nutrients, you can’t go wrong by giving this a try.

New Year’s Smoothie Nutrient Content

Calories: 545

Carbohydrates: 100 g

Protein: 18.5 g

Fat: 4 g

Fiber: 13.5 mg

Sodium: 382 mg

Calcium: 428 mg

Iron: 36.5 mg

Vitamin A: 18,000 iu

Vitamin C: 95 mg

Potassium: 2,600 mg

Magnesium: 540 mg

B-Vitamins – Trace Amounts

A Man and His Monkey January 10, 2008

Just for fun I thought I should post this article from the New York Times. I guess I could classify it under “news of the weird.” It’s about a man who travels internationally with a live monkey under his jacket. Maybe it was just me the day I found it, but it was laugh out loud funny to me!

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/07/a-monkey-on-the-loose-at-la-guardia/

Rain January 10, 2008

We waited for the rain like children anticipating a snow day. Clouds began to gather as early as Wednesday, and by Thursday the pregnant silence of the low pressure system had us squirming and giddy for the first drops to come. Every morning for three days I woke up, eager to hear the pitter patter of showers on my roof. Every place I went people were talking about how this storm won’t pass us over, and aren’t we ready for a soaking, and the cliche “a storm’s a comin’ ” was on everyone’s minds. So eager, like beggars, for rain this time around; fears of landslides and a re-enactment of the 2005 slides where ten people died and we were locked in with the 101 and the 54 closed for a week, were over-taken with this longing.

You have to understand, we have been teased several times this season by storms changing course at Conception Point, or dissolving out at sea long before they got anywhere near us. My husband made a new guideline of expectation. He now says he won’t believe the rain will come unless the meteorologists proclaim a 90% chance – and then hopefully the storm will make it here.

Further, it’s possible too that as a reader you are in your 8th week of hunkering down in a deluge of storms, and you think I sound like a lunatic rain-junkie. A fool that lost her way after leaving the clouds of the Northwest, and never learned how to adjust to a maddeningly temperate climate. While that’s true to a degree – I do find all this sun makes me a maniacal over-achiever, but you can’t possibly understand how dire it is to be without rain until you walk with it. Or without it, as the case may be.
When your hikes along canyon streams are oppressively hot in November, and you feel the aching thirst of the land as you trudge up crusty, brown creek-beds that look more like the badlands than the lush central coast landscape. When farmers are talking about how the harvest prospects are unknown for next year, and that we still may face ramifications from the random frosts and fires of the past two years. When you have had only half of your average rainfall in two years – these are the things that make you thirst.

And so we have rain; half as much in 3 days as we got in all of 2007. (3.5 inches this weekend versus 7 inches last year). The mountains are greening, the smell of water-rich soil permeates the air, and the risk of fire signs finally say “low.”