Healthy Lifestyle: Part 3

GREEN HOME SHOW #23: Healthy Lifestyle: Part 3 Interview Questions for Audra from KarmaCMS

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Guest Segment – 12:00 Sponsored by: myecoagent.com

Check the Radio Show Segments on GREENandSAVE.com for the interview ANSWERS!

Karmistes: Welcome to Audra

1. KarmaSites.com

   I started in web design when my band needed a website back in the early days of websites, the guy who did my website originally (for free) dropped off the face of the earth, and I couldn't afford to pay anyone
   else. A year or so later I convinced him to start hosting the sites that I was designing for other bands. These other bands were also poor and couldn't afford to pay me to update their site so they would ask if we could build something that would enable them to update their own sites. Through trial and error, and constant feedback from people
   actually using the system it finally evolved last year to the point where we decided to give it a name: KarmaCMS.

   Through KarmaCMS you can build out your *entire* site without knowing squat about HTML or CSS or design or much of anything. Well, you have to know how to read, type, and push buttons. ;-) WE have tons of free designs to choose from that work with KarmaCMS. In fact, you can change them out like changing clothes.

2. Neighborhood Sites

   This is going to be a website where you can go and sign up for your own KarmaCMS enabled site for your own neighborhood that is specifically designed with modules pre-installed so you can get the most use out of the system. You can uninstall or install additional modules and choose any design you want at anytime. By pre-installing modules we've cut out a time consuming (though not technically difficult) step for you to get going right away.

   1. list of modules: car share, truck share, car pool, local team for kids , bicycle club, book club and discussion group,local pot luck supper and get together, Garden share, composting for all, grocery rules or help, information modules on saving energy, local information on all sorts of energy saving appliances, organizations, community sign up for watch,
   2. talk about Content management and support
   3. reducing Neighborhood energy use, carbon footprint ( Pollution ) and promoting community.
   4. How can they contact you....
3. Triumph Over Cancer

   What cancer? Who has cancer??? No... I *had* cancer. OK, seriously though I had a brain tumor removed in December. I had headaches for a long time leading up to the grand mal seizure that landed me in the ER 4:00am one Thursday morning, but who thinks a headache is a tumor? "What's the matter?" "I have a headache (in a german accent)" "Maybe
   it's a tumor!" "IT IS NOT A TUMOR!" Well... mine was ;-)

   It all happened so fast it didn't sink in that it was cancer until the oncologist came in and introduced himself. I had already heard that it was a tumor... but for whatever reason we didn't think of the big "C". Benign brain tumors exist but unlike benign tumors elsewhere in your body ones in the brain are still bad because they cause problems. Anyway... mine's cancerous. It's the "best" of the cancerous ones but it's still cancerous.

   It's been removed. I went through radiation and it caused my hair to partially fall out. Luckily I was able to wear big headbands and no one knew any different. I also didn't have any deficit from the brian surgery and after about 10 days I actually felt mentally sharper. A couple weeks before the seizure I was convinced I was in the early stages of dementia that runs in my family. Cancer DOES NOT run in my family so this was a total shock.

   I was on an oral chemo pill for the last 2 weeks of my radiation. I was unsure about the radiation and even more unsure about the chemo but decided to go through with it. I was supposed to take it for something like 9 cycles after the radiation ended but my radiation oncologist came across some info that made him not so sure about the chemo. That was enough for me to say "no thanks" and stop taking it. The medical oncologist (the guy who actually prescribes the chemo) was pretty
   against me taking it anyway.

   I had no ill effects from the radiation or chemo. I never even felt tired.

   wow what a story....so we are leading into a couple of shows on food and health and how eating healthier is not only good for you but also good for the Planet
   lets talk food to start:

4. Foods

   Since I decided to take the chemo because I wanted to try all avenues, my mother-n-law suggested I try diet therapy as well. Actually, she suggested what Mike had been into years ago that has documented real-life human proof that it slows down the aging process by warding away diseases like cancer. The theory is if you live below your "normal" weight for your body while getting the maximum amount of nutrition you will only have enough calories to keep your body going and not enough left over to feed tumors.

   Though I've always been a healthy eater especially compared to most Americans, I took it a step further and cut out grains and sugar. Mike happily went along and we gave away all of our pasta, rice, bread, sugar, and flour or potato based products. Though we didn't eat much of it anyway I was surprised how much we had. I can only imagine how much
   the average American would have to give away!

   I started substituting for the rice or pasta that we normally would have had with our meals with things like spaghetti squash, cabbage, pepper slivers, etc. I could eat all I wanted as long as it was fruits or vegetables. This started in March and I was 131 pounds. Right now I'm 111 though depending on the day I've even seen 108 lbs. It's important to note that I've never gone hungry. I had a blood sugar problem before (or so I thought) where I would have to eat ever so often. Not anymore.

   Mike's a vegan and has been for 10 years or so. I'm close but I still eat fish once or twice a week, and I have cream in my coffee in the morning. I feel great. I have tons of energy, and especially have more if I get in all 8 glasses of water. Guess what - not only is it good for your body to eat this way, but it's good for the earth too. (This is where you come in with statistics ;-)) Just cutting out red meat, processed white flour based products, and things with corn syrup listed as an ingredient would be a HUGE step forward. I guarantee you'll feel better too.

   Statistics: A detailed 1978 study sponsored by the Departments of Interior and Commerce produced startling figures showing that the value of raw materials consumed to produce food from livestock is greater than the value of all oil, gas, and coal consumed in this country.Expressed another way, one-third of the value of all raw materials consumed for all purposes in the United States is consumed in livestock foods. How can this be?
   The Protein Factory in Reverse: In the United States, hogs are now fed about as much grain as is fed to cattle. All told, each grain-consuming animal "unit" (as the Department of Agriculture calls our livestock) eats almost two and a half tons of grain, soy, and other feeds each year.

   What Do We Get Back?

   For every 16 pounds of grain and soy fed to beef cattle in the United States we only get 1 pound back in meat on our plates. The other 15 pounds are inaccessible to us, either used by the animal to produce energy or to make some part of its own body that we do not eat (like hair or bones) or excreted.

   To give you some basis of comparison, 16 pounds of grain has twenty-one times more calories and eight times more protein—but only three times more fat—than a pound of hamburger.

   Livestock other than cattle are markedly more efficient in converting grain to meat; hogs consume 6, turkeys 4, and chickens 3 pounds of grain and soy to produce 1 pound of meat. Milk production is even more efficient, with less than 1 pound of grain fed for every pint of milk produced. (This is partly because we don't have to grow a new cow every time we milk one.)

   Now let us put these two factors together: the large quantities of humanly edible plants fed to animals and their inefficient conversion into meat for us to eat. Some very startling statistics result. If we exclude dairy cows, the average ratio of all U.S. livestock is 7 pounds of grain and soy fed to produce 1 pound of edible food. Thus, of the 145 million tons of grain and soy fed to our beef cattle, poultry, and hogs in 1979, only 21 million tons were returned to us in meat, poultry and eggs. The rest, about 124 million tons of grain and soybeans, became inaccessible to human consumption. (We also feed considerable quantities of wheat germ, milk products, and fish-meal to livestock, but here I am including only grain and soybeans.) To put this enormous quantity in some perspective, consider that 120 million tons is worth over $20 billion. If cooked, it is the equivalent of 1 cup of grain for every single human being on earth every day for a year

   Enough Water to Float a Destroyer

   "We are in a crisis over our water that is every bit as important and deep as our energy crisis," says Fred Powledge, who has just written the first in-depth book on our national water crisis.
   According to food geographer Georg Borgstrom, to produce a 1-pound steak requires 2,500 gallons of water! The average U.S. diet requires 4,200 gallons of water a day for each person, and of this he estimates animal products account for over 80 percent.

   "The water that goes into a 1,000-pound steer would float a destroyer," Newsweek recently reported. When I sat down with my calculator, I realized that the water used to produce just 10 pounds of steak equals the household consumption of my family for the entire year

   Mining Our Water

   Irrigation to grow food for livestock, including hay, corn, sorghum, and pasture, uses 50 out of every 100 gallons of water "consumed" in the United States. (Some of this production is exported, but not the major share, since close to half of the irrigated land used for livestock is for pasture and hay. Other farm uses—daily irrigation for food crops—add another 35 gallons, so agriculture's total use of water equals 85 out of every 100 gallons consumed. (Water is "consumed" when it doesn't return to of water when present wells have run dry—is not taken into consideration. This no-price, no-plan policy leads to the rapid depletion of our resources, bringing the day closer when alternatives must be found—but at the same time postponing any search for alternatives.

   Now I'm taking it a step further and trying to buy my veggies local first then organic second. It's bonus if I can get organic AND local. Next year we're going to sign up with a CSA and have a garden of our own. I'm composting my left-over veggie stalks and such attempting to enrich our soil for next year's planting season. I'm crossing my fingers! It will be great practice for when the sh*t hits the fan concerning the impending energy crisis :-)

Overall Segment #4 – 9:00

Continue with Audra – 8:00 Sponsored by: Option Insurance Group

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