Forgiveness is Good for You

Think of a time when somebody hurt you. Maybe your sister stole your wallet (or your boyfriend), or an uncouth BMW cut you off on the freeway? Now breathe deeply for a few moments; release your frustration. Forgive.

It’s not an easy thing to do, but as Greater Good magazine (Fall 2008) reports, psychologists have found that pardoning those people who dare to conspire against our happiness is good for our mental and physical health. Forgiveness techniques have been studied in the United States, and psychologists have now tested them in the post-conflict country of Sierra Leone, which is recovering from a brutal civil war in which nearly 500,000 people were killed or wounded. The trick is to start small—forgive the friend who stole from you, not the neighbour who killed your brother—and to understand that forgiveness needn’t replace justice.

Random Acts of Greenness

Today is the start of Earth Week. There have been 30 Earth Days until now and look how far we've come. Our awareness of the impact we have on this planet has greatly increased as well as our treatment of it.

Although we have a long way to go and some irreversible damage has already been done, we can be grateful that it has become so much easier to be environmentally friendly than it was 30 years ago. We have many systems in place such as blue boxes, bike paths, wind farms and community gardens that demonstrate the public's desire to be earth friendly.

I compare this time we are in to how a train changes direction; it takes a long time for it to slow to and stop before it can start moving in a different direction. And with a wink to the poor state of the economy, we now have the perfect storm (pun intended) of events taking shape for our green revolution to shift into high gear.

So as we watch the great ice shelves crumble, listen to the predictions of impending environmental disasters and feel the weather changing around us, it may be time to solidify this new “era of less” by taking advantage of this teachable moment and adopting a new lifestyle habit; let's call it Random Acts of Greenness.

So, what exactly is a RAOG. Some of you already participate to a great degree. A RAOG is a simple act that benefits our environment; from recycling water bottles to picking up a piece of garbage off the ground to turning off the lights when you're not at home. If we all increase our green productivity especially in public, this domino effect will continue and grow stronger.

Since Earth Day is less than a week away, how about intensifying our efforts with RAOG so we can start to feel good about our connection to this planet.

Here are some tips on how to green yourself even more this earth week:

1. Do you have a coffee mug yet? How about a stainless steel water bottle to carry around? We really need to stop creating garbage...even if we plan to recycle it. Reduce and Reuse so we have less to recycle.

2. Shop Smart. Buy locally grown foods and products when possible. Instead of arriving home with a million plastic bags from the grocery store, try to put your items all into one, large cloth bag. When shopping for appliances, look for ones that are energy efficient. Stay away from Styrofoam containers. Try to buy items in bulk not only will it help the environment, but it might even save you money.

3. Rinse, Reuse, and Recycle! Just because it's empty doesn't mean it's useless! Save old butter containers or jelly jars for places to put your leftovers stay away from foils and plastic wrap. Try to use washable rags to wipe off your counters and eat dinner with cloth napkins. Recycle everything you possibly can: paper, plastic, cans, glass, metal, etc.

4. Drive only when you have to. Carpool or take public transportation when possible.

5. Read more about environmental topics

6. Ask yourself some simple questions about the products you use and the packaging involved.

7. Educate yourself and others about how important it is to protect our environment. Challenge yourself and friends to do an act of Greenness just once a day. You really can make a difference!

8. Get together with your neighbours and have a community clean-up.

9. Teach the children in your community about the importance of RAOG in order to help them to appreciate and respect the environment.

The New Food Revolution

It's been a long winter not only in the weather department; the amount of bad news over the last half year regarding the global economy has been stifling. Fear not (too much) there is always a bright side and it has to do with food. Not convinced, take a look at Detroit, a city that is dependant on a dying car industry is now being touted as a city of the future as community gardens thrive. Organic food is not the sole criteria for a quality food supply anymore now words such as local and sustainable are also competing for your attention. These articles will get you up to date on where and how the food movement is going.


eating food that's better for you, organic or not

the new food revolution

new york times organic food index

Toward a Less Efficient and More Robust Food System

Here's the last half of a speech given by Tom Philpott in North Carolina about a week ago. I got excited about it for a couple of reasons; he mentions Jane Jacobs, an urban theorist who is one of my favorite people and he has some great thoughts on taking back our food from an industrial to a more community based system. When he talks about their local organizations keep our wonderful Algoma Food Network in mind

read the complete article here

But what if much more of our food dollars stayed within the community—and got cycled through organizations like New River Organic Growers and the Watauga and Ashe County Farmers markets? Here’s a rule of thumb: Communities spend about $1,000 per person on food. About 83,000 people live in our three-county area full time. That means we’re spending something like $83 million every year on food. And that doesn’t even count the money that tourists and second homers spend eating. The great bulk of that money drains out of the community and into the pockets of the people who own Wal-Mart and McDonald’s and Lowes Foods.

Now imagine we had a locally owned slaughterhouse that could process the pastured cows that so many people grow here—and now send off to feedlots in Kansas to fatten on corn. If you can access a nearby slaughterhouse, you make a lot more money selling grass-fed beef to your neighbors than selling cows to the meat industry; wouldn’t that draw more folks in?

And imagine a locally owned dairy processing plant, that could give a decent price to our few remaining dairy farmers. Given the popularity of real milk from grass-fed cows, wouldn’t that be a booming market—and draw more new dairy farmers in? And imagine a community-owned food co-op that could sell all of this stuff at a central place, and maybe a farmer-owned restaurant that could give community members the freshest food possible, while giving farmers a cut of the value that gets added to their produce?

Suddenly, we’d start looking less like Efficient Manchester, relying on outside forces for our economic well-being, and more like Inefficient Birmingham, with a set of thriving, interlocking, highly creative crafts based around food. And we’d eat a lot better, too.

And think how much more robust our economy would be. At a certain point, people stop thinking they need a second home. But they don’t typically decide to stop eating. Because of the natural beauty of our area, we’ll always draw tourists. A vibrant, accessible, delicious local food economy could be a new calling card—and a way to get tourist dollars flowing broadly through the economy, and not siphoned off to a few resorts and lodges.

The question becomes, how do we get there? I know from hard experience that profit margins on farming tend to be relatively low. There’s no way one farmer, or even a group of farmers, can make the investments we need to bolster our food economy. This is a community-scale opportunity that requires community-scale efforts. That means farmers, consumers, elected officials, and landowners working together to harness our assets and overcome our obstacles as a food community. And that is a process that can gain force today.

Eat Right Ontario

One of the tools we have for improving our diet and lifestyle is the internet and there are some great sites out there. Here's one that is close to home with tips on disease prevention, menu planning and seasonal recipes...just to name a few

http://www.eatrightontario.ca/en/default.aspx

Women's Spring Breakthrough