Buying Local Produce

We don’t want to give up fresh healthy produce, especially when summer provides so many wonderful choices, but now we also have the ‘fear factor’ to consider when we shop.

Vegetables we carefully picked and fed our family last night are part of a mass recall today. We can’t remember what country, state or region our vegetables were grown in or transported through. The F.D.A. isn’t sure either. We’re already trying to balance the rising cost of transportation with higher prices for groceries. Now the ‘fear factor’ has moved from our television to our kitchen table.

Locally grown produce should be the solution. Sadly, that’s not always what we find in our local markets, even this time of year. Only our melons, and Mr. Whipple, if you’re old enough to remember him, should complain about feeling squeezed, but today consumers, retailers and growers are feeling bruised from all the squeezing rising prices and uncertain times bring.

Wal-Mart Stores has responded to all our bruises with an amazing new plan. “The world’s largest retailer” has a new title. Wal-Mart has become “the nation’s largest buyer of locally grown fruits and vegetables”. Responding to “academic studies”, Wal-Mart learned they could “save 100,000 gallons of fuel, and cut away 672,000 food miles – the distance produce travels from farm to a customers’ plate”. Famous for “leveraging bulk purchases to keep prices down,” and distributing through shipping centers nation-wide, this change brings them “$1.4 million in annual savings,” and will “also assure customers of a product’s provenance amid mass recalls.”

“Wal-Mart considers locally grown produce anything farmed within a state’s boundaries. Customers will soon see signs, stickers and labels to indicate produce comes from within your state.”

The next time you want the freshest in locally grown fruits and vegetables, head to your nearest Wal-Mart Store. “Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. plans to purchase and sell $400 million of produce grown by local farmers within its state stores this year, an effort the company says will only grow.”

This is a ‘just in time’ solution.

- Nancy

Related Link - http://www.foodsafety.gov/~dms/tomatqa.html

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Weight Loss Shoes?

I was reading the other day about these new shoes that apparently help you lose weight . The idea is that the shoes are designed to build muscle in the legs when you wear them, and the more muscle you have the more calories you burn (which is absolutely true). In the article, Dr. Jeffrey Michaelson, a sports medicine specialist, is quoted as saying "I would love the concept, but I can't tell you there's any real scientific data that would suggest that." Well, duh! They were actually debating the point if shoes could help you lose weight. I couldn’t help but think to myself ‘aren’t any shoes weight loss shoes if you use them to walk in’? I mean, we could take it a step further and debate whether your bare feet help you lose weight? Well of course they do if you use them to move your body more often!

We talk a lot about weight loss scams and gimmicks here , but I couldn’t stop myself from laughing about this one. Now in the defense of said shoes I have to admit that I do think these serve a purpose. Just like with the Fit Flops referenced in the article, these shoes are designed to promote muscle development in the legs and help support the back. Josee (fellow Sensei blogger) has a pair of Fit Flops and absolutely loves them! She asks me every time she wears them if I notice a difference (to which I always respond “Yes, of course!”). Hey…dietitians need motivation and support too!

But the point I’m trying to make here is that whether we’re talking about weight loss shoes, Fit Flops or stiletto heels (which I believe make calves look wonderful by the way) …the only way they’re going to do anything for you is if you get moving in the first place. And if you’re moving, you’re going to burn calories, and that is what’s going to help you lose weight bottom line. So the moral of this story is…wear what you like, but don’t forget to move if you want to lose weight and keep it off!

- Lauren

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Go Cross Campus With Me?

Last Monday I sat in a tiny coffee shop on Yale University’s campus in New Haven. Two students were whispering about meetings for battle plans, maps, weapons and spies. I got up to leave while I still could when the closest guy said “Do you want to go cross campus with me?” I told him I was old enough to be his mother and he was in enough trouble already.

MY MISTAKE! I was being invited to join the hottest trend sweeping college campuses this winter. Go Cross Campus is a strategy game that brings kids out of their rooms, and into each others lives. University students found a way to combine the way their parents and grandparents used to play with the way kids think and connect today. Rather than meeting to play in sports leagues, or being separated by walls and individual habits, an “online war game invented by students” has “hundreds, sometimes thousands of players” uniting, often with faculty, on school campuses.

“This kind of game is a product of how people live and interact today, with the offline aspect as part of the draw.” The game involves ideas best remembered by a previous generation that grew up playing outside with kids from their neighborhood. The rules of play span a gap so many of us are seeking between "one’s tech time and the healthier, more ‘human’ life.” Many of us find it difficult to put aside our solitary habits, techno toys and screens. Go Cross Campus reminds us how to play with friends. “Rather than isolating us in an online world, it enhances our interactions in the real world.”

“Players gather together to elect commanders, recruit other players and discuss strategy and ways of spying on opponents as they formulate battle plans.” The play continues online, “but requires only a few minutes of online play each day.” Go Cross Campus, also known by its’ initials GXC is described as “multiplayer locally social gaming.” This describes the “online connections that are created between players who typically know one another in the real world, harnessing their energy to create really intense and enthusiastic Go Cross Country groups of online gamers, even if you’ve never played a game online before.”

Will GXC catch on? “Next month, Google will bring Go Cross Campus to its New York office, pitting sales departments against engineering groups over a map of the company’s Manhattan campus. One of the most popular offshoot games is called GO Cross Political Bash 08. It pits 2,000 supporters of political candidates against one another over a map of the United States.”

If you’re lucky enough to be invited to GOCROSSCAMPUS say yes!

- Nancy

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ARE YOU AN INFORMATION ADDICT?

Are you an information addict [INFOVORE]? You probably are, but it’s not your fault.

New research from the University of Southern California explored this question and found it’s just one more thing to blame our parents for…well, actually our ancestors for. It seems our “brains are hard-wired…to seek out new information. It generates an increase in brain activity which triggers a chemical reaction which makes us feel good, which causes us to seek even more of it.” WE ARE INFOVORES!

Your brains’ response to new and interesting knowledge was formed at a time when information was scarce and vital to [cave] man’s existence. Lee Gomes, of the Wall Street Journal, explains our lust. “We are programmed for scarcity and can’t dial back when something is abundant”. He says our brains seem to have forged the same bond with food. “Because we never knew when the next…meal…might come along”, we consume food and information like…addicts. We have to. Our brains demand it! WE ARE INFOVORES!

“Technology is playing a trick on us”. It’s really not your fault. So until the day our brains evolve enough to process the fact that fast information and fast food are here to stay…you can’t be blamed.

I love a good excuse. Don’t you?

- Nancy

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Internet Addiction Disorder

We surround ourselves with technology that provides continuous access to a virtual world we’ve created, accessorized, and bookmarked 'Open 24 Hours'. We are “techno-addicts”. The concept of retreat or sanctuary scarcely exists. Our goal is to reach all corners of the earth with full bars of reception. Today’s explorers plant the cell phone tower, not the flag.

Requests to limit the use of PDA’s in public areas like hospitals, highways and school carpool lines, as well as dining rooms and golf course driving ranges where they distract, disrupt and can be dangerous, have not been successful. We’d like to cooperate but we can’t, we are "techno-addicts”.

“I Need a Virtual Break. No, Really” is Mark Bittman’s tale of confession, concession and redemption. His research revealed the term “secular Sabbath” as the first step on the path to a cure as “one of those who has developed the latest in American problems, Internet addiction disorder”.

Sources from the most hooked up places...bloggers, engineers, corporate leaders, and psychologists have begun to discuss the need for some quiet time. “Unplugged” is now the link to Ariel Meadow Stallings of Electrolicious. “Nathan Zeldes, a principal engineer at Intel, where employees read or send 3 million e-mail messages daily” is encouraging “employees to spend a morning a week at work but off-line”.

Redemption won’t come easy. “The awesome burden of staying in touch” has imprisoned us in this addicting world we created and can’t quite shut off. Dr. David Levy said “living a good life requires a kind of balance, a bit of quiet. There are questions about the limits of the brain and the body. You need time to think, to reflect, to be successful and productive”.

“Take a stab at reconnecting to things real rather than virtual”, reacquaint yourself with yourself and this world around you. Try it in little steps. It’s the latest thing to do.

- Nancy

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Improve Fitness Using Your PDA

In their article 'Beeping Your Way to Fitness', the Washington Post reports on a study in The American Journal of Preventative Medicine which found that PDA's "programmed to prod their users to exercise and record their activity, were more effective than paper reminders in motivating middle-aged and older adults".

Over an eight week period it was found that the PDA group worked out an average of three hours more each week than the group who had paper reminders alone. Researchers attributed the success to the "PDA's persistence" in reminding them to exercise and record their activity.

This article also gives a nod to Sensei for offering a similar option through mobile phones, reminding users when it is time to exercise in addition to helping with nutrition goals.

- Lauren

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