The Politics of Food

The Politics of Food

FOOD has become the new buzzword for our times, and even more so on November 19, 2008, when Scott M. Stringer, the Borough President of Manhattan, (www.mbpo.org) and the editor of The Go Green East Harlem Cookbook featured on this blog, convened The Politics of Food: A Conference on New York's Next Policy Challenge. This densely packed day, planned as another aspect of NYC Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's environmental initiatives, broadly and brilliantly covered just about all the most pressing aspects of the subject (See agenda below.)

Politics of Food Conference:

New York’s Next Policy Challenge

AGENDA

Registration

8:30 a.m. - 9:15 a.m.

Morning Session

9:15 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.

Welcome

President Lee C. Bollinger

Columbia University

Remarks

Honorable Scott M. Stringer

Manhattan Borough President

H. E. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann

President, United Nations General Assembly

Honorable Michael R. Bloomberg

Mayor, City of New York

Maya Wiley

Director, Center for Social Inclusion

Presentation

Thomas Forster

Faculty, New School Food Studies Program

Breakout Sessions See Page 2 for Locations

10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.

12:15 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. Lunch

Afternoon Session Report from Breakout Sessions

1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.

Moderator

Ester Fuchs

Professor of Public Affairs & Political Science

Columbia University-School of International & Public Affairs

Breakout Sessions

10:45 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.

Alfred Lerner Hall

115th & Broadway

Room Floor

Breakout Session #1

From Field to Market: A Blueprint for Food Distribution Cinema 2nd

in NYC

Breakout Session #2

Finding Healthy Food: Supermarkets, Farmers Markets, 555 5th

CSA’s & Food Deserts

Breakout Session #3

The Importance of Nutrition Education 569 5th

Breakout Session #4

Urban Farming: What Does It Look Like? Broadway 2nd

What Makes It Work?

Breakout Session #5

How Schools, Hospitals, and Other Institutions Satow 5th

Can Serve Healthier Meals

Breakout Session #6 477 4th

Recession’s Consequence for the Food Safety Net 2009

Breakout Session #7 Auditorium 1st

The Urban Food Agenda: Shaping City, State &Federal Policy

With almost no advance publicity, a wide variety of people, totaling about five hundred attendees, showed up in the Roone Arledge auditorium of Lerner Hall at Columbia University. They came to hear the excellent roster of speakers, then break into small focus groups that covered seven different aspects of food and eating, and return to munch down on a pretty healthy brown-bag lunch (sandwich, bag of chips, an apple, bottled water, etc.) that was followed by the final part of the enthusiastically received program, the power-point reports on the individual sessions.

It's December now as I post this and, I have to say, I am still feeling elated over the event. After toiling in the trenches of alternative health these past several decades, it is amazingly gratifying to see healthy food become the cynosure of such a giant spotlight. In speaking to the assembled group, Scott Stringer said, "...you can help us begin the urgent work of creating a highly visible, practical, and innovative food policy for New York that puts our great city at the front of this debate, where it belongs."

Mayor Bloomberg was there, according to Scott Stringer, "because he GETS it." And from how the mayor praised Stringer's initiative in setting up this conference and organizing the Go Green East Harlem project that resulted in the beautifully put together, bilingual Go Green East Harlem Cookbook, that appears to be true. Most people in Scott Stringer's job, the mayor said, are just boosters for their territory, but with Manhattan, it's already so much of a tourist destination, it doesn't really need boosters. So, this borough president decided to look around to see how he could improve the lives of his borough's residents, and one of the many ideas he came up with was to start programs to make people healthier, with a better quality of life. (Goals I share, by the way.)

There were so many stunning statistics flying out from the roster of speakers that it was hard to capture them all, but here are a few highlights.

• · Mayor Bloomberg (www.mikebloomberg.com) said that New York City's life expectancy has become greater than the country's as a whole. New Yorkers do walk a lot, that's true, and we do have a lot less pollution when that Northwest wind comes down from Canada and blows fresh air across our oftimes very windy city, but that statistic he quoted is also helped by his anti-smoking initiative—teenage smoking is down 52 percent in the last five years—and his ban on harmful trans fats.

• · The city, said the mayor, is a leader in food initiatives and the New York City government alone serves 225 million meals a year. With so much power, it is incumbent on the people in charge to find ways to provide healthy food because one of the depressing statistics is that one-quarter of the people in minority neighborhoods are obese. These rates, he told us, are GROWING, not diminishing, and the expected, concomitant rate of poor health—diabetes, heart and circulatory problems, etc.—is also growing in those neighborhoods. Bloomberg is a very good, and funny, speaker and kept all of us focused on his message, which he ended by saying he had to go rename a bridge. (True. Later that morning, he participated in a ceremony renaming the Triborough the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. Great to honor this amazing man cut down way too soon, but I wonder if anyone will ever call it that, or if it will just remain the Triboro the same way Sixth Avenue has kept its original name, resisting its formal Avenue-of-the-Americas appelation for more than sixty years.)

• · Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockman, President of the UN General Assembly talked about the new politics of food coming from the bottom up, not the top down, which had always been the case heretofore. Using such phrases as alternative food policies and the right to food, he said that democratizing food, making a Food Democracy, is what he's aiming to do at the U.N. And he believes that New York City can become a model of sustainable existence with an urban/rural partnership. His statistics included the fact that 1 in 4 children in New York City live in poverty and 1 in 5 city children are hungry and rely on food pantries or soup kitchens for some meals (in two years time, this latter number doubled). He ended his well-received talk about making people healthier by saying, "If you have health, you have hope; If you have hope, you have everything."

• · The stats he quoted were among the original springboards for Scott Stringer's decision to focus on healthier food for the residents under his umbrella. He cited what he referred to as food deserts, where about three million people live with little or no access to supermarkets (according to d'Escoto, New York has lost one-third of its supermarkets in the last five years). In these desert neighborhoods, people are forced to shop for food at drugstores or convenience stores where junk food rules and fresh produce is rare. Part of Scott Stringer's plan is to set up a network of greenmarkets in these areas. East Harlem, chosen as a focus because of its astronomically high asthma and diabetes rates, is just the beginning, he says.

• · Food activist Maya Wiley's turn at the podium really drove home some of the city's food-related problems as she cited the daunting fact that New York City is #1 in the nation's wealth INequality. Food prices are not too high, she says, rather wages are too low, and people must be able to afford food.

• · There are 60,000 people working in food-service industries in New York, according to Ms. Wiley, but supermarket earnings are down 9 percent since 1991. The food economy is so competetive that the profit margin for supermarkets can be as low as 1 percent in some low-income areas, and in recent years, one-third of the city's supermarkets have disappeared, disproportionately in "communities of color." This is because supermarket research analysis sees only problems in these neighborhoods (where they should instead be looking at purchasing power), and that tends to frighten potential supermarket owners away. It shouldn't, she maintains, because there is viability in the poorer neighborhoods—overall, there has been a 54-percent increase in small immigrant-owned businesses, a lot of them in food services.

• · What these communities need, Ms. Wiley maintains, is an infusion of more locally owned small businesses, utilizing farm-to-table strategies to create revenue that will stay in these communities. She believes this progressive development will then shift the perceptions of the money people who will come to see these areas as asset-based opportunities, not deficit-based problems. Communities of color are always ground zero in crises, she says—we are not a color-blind society—but in this crisis, she sees an incredible opportunity to completely transform the way these communities function for the betterment of all.

The seven Breakout Sessions that followed the full morning session split the food topics up into manageable chunks. I attended session #3 on the Importance of Nutrition Education, billed as an important way to improve diet-related behavior, because it seemed a logical extension of my work as an alternative writer/editor.

The four panelists basically provided an overview on the local distribution system, starting with the speaker who gave us the history of agriculture-as-manufacture beginning in 1850 when economists built a four-point plan to create food strictly as a commodity, not as food we eat. This disastrous plan loosened the connection of the farmer to the food and the people who eat the food, and has been responsible for the rise of the agribusiness companies that value price and quantity of food over quality of nutrition— a business model which has, in turn, led to the deteriorating health of so many in its thrall. The good news is that this is now changing as people have come to realize how highly flawed the method is. Steps are being taken to change behavior and remove barriers, using a partnership with the media to get ideas out to the public and build new awarenesses.

The session ended with a discussion period where we were asked to provide answers to a list of questions. One question, for example, asked us to list three to five problems related to nutrition education in NYC. My own answer, "first and foremost, the size and scope of New York City," got correctly written down on the classroom's blackboard, but got incorrectly presented in the full auditorium's power-point presentation after lunch as, "The site and scope..." completely missing the point of what I had said in the session. I groaned. But most of the recaps of the session for the full audience were on target, and there was a huge amount to assimilate as we finished up and went our separate ways, armed with assorted business cards and full of resolve to carry the spirit of the conference into our daily lives.

At the end of our breakout session, I had stopped to talk with one of the participants who was connected with a food bank and I asked him what kind of food they handed out now. Was it still of the welfare-cheese sort, I wanted to know. Discouragingly, he answered that, as a food bank, they relied on donated foods and therefore received their full share of canned goods and similar. Not long afterwards, I spotted a December 10^th NYT article by Katie Zezima, "From Canned Goods to Fresh, Food Banks Adapt to Demand." It discussed how the people who go to a food pantry in Wisconsin, as well as to other food banks around the country, can now choose the food they bring home, they aren't just given a pre-filled bag of groceries. And the article's accompanying photo did show bins full of fresh produce. Another step forward. I wondered how long it would be before the man I had met was doling out mostly fresh vegetables and fruits at his food bank. The fact he attended the conference said to me that he was aware of the problem and understood the need to change how his food bank worked.

Besides the wealth of information disseminated, one of the best things about the conference was the general agreement among all the speakers that this was just the opening salvo in the establishment of a new, healthier relationship to food promoted by the City of New York that would be rippling out from there. Basically, they were laying the groundwork with this conference, defining the challenges and opportunities, and saying to all of us... Stay Tuned... this is only the beginning, you ain't seen nothin' yet. I sure hope so.

One valuable handout in the packet everyone received was a little booklet called Cultivating the Web, High Tech Tools for the Sustainable Food Movement, put out by the Eat Well Guide (www.eatwellguide.org). This compact compendium lists dozens of Resources and quotes author and environmentalist Bill McKibben as saying, among the "most important points of our food system are the new digital tools that allow us to bypass the big advertisers, the mega-chains, the junk peddlers, and instead find all the myriad other people growing, processing, cooking, and eating actual, delicious food."

In the hall just outside the auditorium, there were expo tables given over to food-related organizations, including one, the NY Coalition for Healthy School Food (www.healthyschoolfood.org) that had just sponsored Healthy Foods for Better Living, a very interesting conference I had attended the previous Sunday. It dealt with diet-related diseases, obesity, students ability to learn, and global warming, this last an enlightening discussion by Mia McDonald, the executive director of Brighter Green (www.brightergreen.org) of the strong connection between global warming and our diet/food. One intriguing fact that stayed with me, and that was repeated several days later at the Columbia conference, was that almost one-fifth of the world's greenhouse emissions, come from livestock and dairy, a rate surprisingly higher than the 14 percent attributed to transportation. Livestock operations, she told us, emit 18 percent of total greenhouse gases (GHGs), which is more than the GHGs from all the world’s transportation systems combined, including private vehicles, public transit, and airplanes.

Amie Hamlin, the leader of this Sunday Healthy Food conference, as well as the director of the sponsoring organization, was highly knowledgeable and effective—a good speaker too—and I was delighted to run into her again a few days later at Columbia where she was speaking at the breakout session on how schools can serve healthier meals. If I ever saw a candidate for a book on the subject of healthy school food, it was her, and I even broached the idea to her in an email and in person. She was too busy, she said, to consider it, though she did add that she'd already been approached by several publishers.

As if in tune with the tenor of the times, there have been subsequent articles in the paper about using food to help elevate populations. One intriguing New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof (www.nytimes.com/kristof) on December 9^th, 2008 postulated that cheap iodized salt can actually help raise the world's IQ. He makes the case that cretinism is often a side effect of an iodine deficiency and simply adding iodine to salt can turn that outcome around.

And no sooner had Kristof written about iodized salt than a week later, in his December 11^th column, "Obama's 'Secretary of Food'?" he wrote a pitch-perfect argument for renaming the Secretary of Agriculture post. He said, "A Department of Agriculture made sense 100 years ago when 35 percent of Americans engaged in farming. But today, fewer than 2 percent are farmers. In contrast, 100 percent of Americans eat." The reasons he gave for the shift in emphasis reflect all the arguments we have been hearing, including at the food conference, about how the current thrust of the Department of Agriculture is to support a "bankrupt structure of factory farming... that subsidizes the least healthy calories in the supermarket... squanders energy, exacerbates climate change, and makes Americans unhealthy—all while costing taxpayers billions of dollars."

The word Food, often paired with the adjectives sustainable, local, or green, has, as I said, become the buzzword for these times. The widely admired and quoted author, journalist, and professor, Michael Pollan (www.michaelpollan.com), may have even started the ball rolling when he famously said, "Eat Food. Mostly Plants. Not Too Much." He put his finger on the immediacy of the word food as opposed to the somewhat abstract, somewhat preachy, alternative—nutrition. In our breakout session on nutrition education, in fact, one savvy attendee, a chef and food-pantry specialist, pleaded, "Can we please say food, not nutrition?" and the whole room murmured its approval.

Food websites and blogs have exploded all over the Internet, articles on healthy, sustainable food now appear with regularity in the press and on the tube, so it seems that quality food's time has come. Let's catch the wave and keep the momentum going so people won't have to keep leading debilitated lives due to poor food and lifestyle choices.

Additional Nuggets for Your Consideration

In amongst the many doers I know who are helping people and the planet, there are two—Jacqueline Wales and Wyldon Fishman—that I'd like to single out for mention at this time. In each case, their creative, non-mainstream work merits attention, not the least for their adherence to values I hold dear. They're both good guys, and it is my pleasure to do what I can to bring what they are doing to light.

FearlessFifties.com

Jacqueline Wales, a dear friend of my daughter's who lives in Bali some of the time and New York most of the time, has this wonderfully upbeat website going that you might be interested in checking out (www.fearlessfifties.com).

I also want to pass on the email below that I recently received from Jacqueline. Although her focus is primarily boomers (she's one herself), I think anyone of any age could benefit from a dose of her amazingly (but not cloyingly) positive outlook and advice. Full disclosure here: I recently edited her latest, truly excellent book, The Fearless Factor, due out in 2009.

A Holiday - and beyond - message from Jacqueline Wales:

Are you ready to thrive and prosper in 2009? Are you ready to overcome your limited beliefs about what you are capable of doing with this thing we call life?

Would you like to achieve

· Solutions to challenges you are currently facing?

· Greater satisfaction in reaching your goals?

· Breakthroughs in long-held belief systems, behaviors and limitations that no longer serve you?

Although these are challenging times, this is not a time to pull back. It’s a time to step forward, and develop the Fearless part of you that knows life is full of opportunities, and you can take advantage of them when you know how.

If you are asking the following questions

What would it take for me to…

· Create a healthier lifestyle?

· Communicate my needs to the people who matter most in my life?

· Find satisfaction in my career?

· Look forward to each day with energy and passion?

AND

· What does next year hold for me in this changing economy?

· What do I need to change so I can feel more empowered?

· Am I really using my full potential?

· Where do I see myself in five or ten years?

You’d want to know there is someone to help you sort through these issues, wouldn’t you?

You’d also want to develop a clear plan of action so you can achieve your goals.

I can help you do it.

For over thirty years I’ve been advising women how to get from where you are now to where you want to go, and I can help you formulate the path of least resistance to reach your goals.

So here’s my exceptional offer available only to readers of this email.

1. 7 hours of Coaching by phone over three months (Individual coaching price is $300 per hour)

2. A Complimentary copy of The 10 Healthy Habits of Fun, Fearless People (value $97)

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4. Unlimited email access (Priceless)

The total value of this package is $2,394, BUT For the first 10 people who sign up for this amazing gift the price is $1,380.00. That’s a saving of over $1,000. But wait. There’s more. This is an exceptional opportunity for you to get the help you need at a price you can afford.

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Call me today at (212) 740 7085 or click on this website www.fearlessfifties.com/coaching.php to schedule your first appointment and kick-start your opportunities for expansion in 2009. Remember, you are only limited by what you think, NOT by what you have. Open up your thinking and you open up a world of tremendous possibilities. Don’t waste another day worrying about the future. Taking ACTION is the only way forward.

To Your Success,

Jacqueline

CEO/Founder, Fearless Fifties LLC

Author, The Fearless Factor: Thriving Beyond the Jungle of Life, and When The Crow Sings. International Speaker and Workshop Leader. (212) 740 7085

“Jacqueline is a tour de force in empowering women to face the challenges and opportunities of aging--gracefully, or not. It is only fear itself that we are afraid of, she reminds us. May she continue to break new ground for opening minds and sustaining bodies without fear, to enjoy the hell out of this last exhilarating ascent of our lives.” – Linda Weissinger Lupowitz, virtual staffing specialist, Connect2Pr

New York Solar Energy Society (NYSES)

Wyldon Fishman, a friend since forever, is a wife and mother who has been a leader in many worthwhile groups in the past, but in my opinion, she has hit her stride in this new solar-energy niche she has carved out. An enthusiastic cheerleader for things she believes in, she worked tirelessly, and mostly thanklessly, to establish a viable New York chapter of the American Solar Energy Society. After all the hurdles in her path got cleared in 2007, Wyldon initiated the New York Solar Energy Society (www.nyses.org), investing herself as founder, just as GREEN became the way to go in every aspect of energy and conservation. Now, no self-respecting striver (or any person who has the planet's best interests at heart) wants to be caught without green plans in her or his future.

Having done her homework, when the time came, Wyldon was ready to pounce. She quickly signed up new members, eighty-one at this counting, and forged ahead with plans to make solar energy the must-have get. To that ambitious, and highly desirable, end, she has already held several solar conferences, pulling in outside experts to help make the case. Logically, the first one was about financing energy upgrades to commercial buildings or homes; another dealt with solar matters in general, detailing its many advantages, and outlining how to find, finance, and build a solar system. NYSES visits schools regularly to teach students (and their teachers) about renewable energy and energy efficiency; and they have set up tables with their promos at six Earth Day events in 2008; plus, they have conducted well-received solar tours of energy-efficient structures in and around Kingston, NY.

Future plans include her chapter's participation in a national conference of the American Solar Energy Society to be held in Buffalo, NY in May 2009. NYSES will be providing a full day of public workshops, about thirty in all, to show attendees just what renewable energy is all about.

In the planning stages at this point, the Green Energy Home Living Expo is to be held April 4–5, 2009, at the Westchester County Center in White Plains, NY. Its primary purpose is to educate families and children on alternative energy and new, energy-efficient products. Wyldon and her co-planners want to cast a wide net on this, so if you have any products fitting this description that you'd like to exhibit and demonstrate (or if you just want to know more about solar energy in general), please contact Wyldon Fishman through the NYSES website www.nyses.org. You can also contact Randy, the Expo producer, at 1-917-656-2070 (word has it that he loves to talk about this upcoming show, so he'll be happy to chat with you). So far, the types of products signed up are—and everything here is preceded by the word green—clothing, home-cleaning products, windows... and that's just for starters. Do yourself a favor here: jump in and be a participant in a better future.

As I always say, I'm into solutions, not problems—to me a problem is just an opportunity for a solution—and it strikes me that Wyldon and her NYSES people are taking an opportunity and running with it. So run with them, you'll be glad you did.

Questioning Grapes and Raisins for Dogs

A comment and question on the "My Dish on Diet" posting said:

"Thanks for the beneficial diet info. Re dogs, I just heard that veterinarian offices are posting notices that grapes and raisins (dried grapes) are toxic to dogs. What's that about?"

Several people I contacted took the time and interest to weigh in on the subject.

Paul Loeb and Suzanne Hlavacek, Authors

I first posed this question to Paul and Suzanne, the writers of the piece on dogs posted here recently, and they said this kind of alarm about different foods, such as chocolate or onions, being harmful to dogs popped up on the Internet all the time. They told me, for example, that if onions are cooked, any potentially serious problem for a dog is removed. Good to know. I can remember once giving my dog Rip a birthday treat of a beefsteak and kidney pie laced with onions that I'd cooked just for him from a James Beard recipe. He loved it. Scarfed it all down while we fellow celebrants loved watching him love it. The only problems his eating the onions caused were—for us, because we found ourselves repeatedly fanning the air to brush away the inevitable flatulence that followed, laughing hysterically as we did so—and for Rip, because his vaunted dignity was, temporarily at least, in tatters as a result of our hilarity at his expense.

Here's what Paul and Suzanne wrote in answer to the question:

The first thing we need to emphasize in this and all matters concerning your dog is how important it is to always exercise your own good judgment and common sense.

That said, here's our answer to the question posted on the blog: Will a grape or a raisin kill my dog? (Or, for that matter, what about rice, a potato, carrot, turkey?—the list can go on and on, ad infinitum.)

To investigate this, we contacted two veterinarians with long memories and, like us, neither feel there is undue cause to worry. One of the vets said that from time to time a human foodstuff is labeled bad for a dog and there's a warning, which usually gets forgotten after a while. With grapes, the other vet said, there was sometimes an element in them that could possibly be toxic, but he was not able to say if it was inherent in the grape itself, or was a byproduct of pesticides or similar. In any case, we believe that, if you want to have a dog chase a grape around once in a while before pouncing on it and eating it, or just eat a grape without making it a game, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Our focus is rather on the contents of food processed for the dog market, that bag or can of unfit-for-human-consumption stuff that is certified as 4-D meats by the Food and Drug Administration. Now 4-D is not just another fancy dog-food label, 4-D stands for Dead, Dying, Diseased, or Disabled meats, obviously (we hope) unfit for human consumption. And this includes recalls of 4-D meats tainted with salmonella or E-coli, which all go to the pet food industry to be rendered into dog food.

What, you may ask, is rendering?

Rendering is "the ancient but seldom-discussed practice of boiling down and making feed meal and other products out of slaughterhouse and restaurant scraps, dead farm animals, road kill, and, distasteful as it may seem, cats and dogs euthanized in some animal shelters.

"…Renderers in the United States pick up 100 million pounds of waste material every day—a witch’s brew of feet, heads, stomachs, intestines, hooves, spinal cords, tails, grease, feathers, and bones. Half of every butchered cow and a third of every pig is not consumed by humans. An estimated six million to seven million dogs and cats are killed in animal shelters each year….

"Pet food companies try not to buy meat and bone meal from renderers who grind up cats and dogs,…but there are still a number of small plants that will render anything."

(Sandra Blakeslee. "Fear of Disease Prompts New Look at Rendering." The New York Times, March 11, 1997, C1.)

Then, too, walk into a pet shop and take a look around and you'll see displays of pig’s ears, hooves, treated rawhide skin, bull’s dried testicles, and other appetizing treats available for your best friend’s consumption. How good can these be for dogs? Not very.

Has Alice gone through her looking glass to come out in a world gone to a mad hatter’s tea party? You ask—will a grape, or a raisin, or some other human food kill your dog or cat? No, but pet food might. And please note that pet food is not what we would normally consider food; it is quite truly garbage with a fancy label, and a multi-billion dollar advertising campaign.

We put some of this dietary information in our book, Heart of the Matter (Pocket Books, 2000), and also in Smarter Than You Think (Pocket Books, 1997). It's good information that's still current and relevant today—even more so considering the recent episode of poisoned pet food. For anyone interested in a more complete, in-depth look at commercial pet food, including diets and menus, you can find it in either book, but especially in Heart of the Matter.

One other helpful tip to consider is the weight of your dog. Don’t give a five-pound Maltese five pounds of anything to eat or you’ll probably kill it—this can happen when any dog (or person) eats his or her weight in food. If you decide to put that deadly grape in a box and drop it on the head of your five-pound Maltese, that might kill it too. But eating a couple of grapes or a couple of raisins is not going to kill your pet. Now, go have a glass of wine and relax.

Elizabeth Reneghan, Author

Elizabeth Reheghan, co-author of the wonderful book I had the pleasure of editing, Dr. Earl Mindell's Health and Nutrition for Dogs, Revised and Updated 2^nd Edition, (www.basichealthpub.com) graciously replied that she was never too busy for her "four-legged friends and those who love them." She wrote the following:

"Grapes and raisins can cause kidney failure in dogs. I haven't found anyone who has pinned down the specifics as to the component in grapes that is poisonous to dogs. As with the other foods that are dangerous to dogs, it takes quite a few to cause kidney failure, but I would certainly put them on my list of foods to avoid. I suspect that, as we see a growing number of people feeding whole foods to their dogs, we may find other foods that are toxic. Dogs very often have food allergies too, so you might want to suggest that any time new foods are introduced, they start off with a small amount and watch for any reactions, such as diarrhea, vomiting, itching."

Sylvia Goldfarb, Author

My co-author and friend, Sylvia Goldfarb, whose home is graced by a wonderful labrador, steered me to http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/raisins.asp and suggested going to Ask.com and typing in "Are raisins and grapes toxic to dogs?" She says there's a whole lot of info, including from the ASPCA, which her vet also suggested as a resource. The snopes site links these fruits to an anecdotal report of renal (kidney) failure from 2004 after the dog had eaten mounds of raisins, but says nothing about clinical trials involving grapes and raisins, or why dogs are all of a sudden susceptible to renal disease from them.

Thanks, folks, for your time and your carefully considered responses. Much appreciated.

While on the subject of food, here's something else I want to pass along.

A Tip on Bananas for People

(but dogs will probably like it too)

Like most people, you may throw bananas out when the outer skin turns black, but that would be a mistake. When a banana gets to that stage, some savvy souls get a real treat because, if the fruit inside is still mostly white, even if it's soft, it has a terrifically sweet taste.

Soooo... here's what's good to do with these so-called old bananas: Cut the soft fruit into ¼" rounds, arrange these sliced rounds in circles on a salad-size plate, and FREEZE them.

Result? A burst of flavored cold that, at its sweetest best, tastes like banana ice cream -- Delicioso. It's fun to watch people new to the treat as they tentatively reach for one of the frozen little rounds I proffer, then see their faces light up as they pop it into their mouth and exclaim, "Oh, That's goooood."

Bottom line here: Old bananas = Sweet bananas = Tasty frozen bananas.

My Dish on Diet

Big topic—diet, nutrition, food. After editing so many many books on diets, all of which were convinced their diet dogma was the only valid answer, and most of which I just ended up wanting to throw across the room, I came to an alternative conclusion. For some time now, I've been saying that if I were to write a book on diet, I'd callit Put Down That Fork ... And Move! It would be a short book and it would be all about portion control, eating moderate amounts of a good variety of enjoyable healthy foods ... preferably organic if you can afford them, but whole foods nonetheless, nothing processed ... and exercising to keep the blood moving.

Here I defer to Michael Pollan http://www.michaelpollan.com who writes better on the subject of food than anyone I've come across. I don't have any people heroes (the U.S. Constitution is about the only thing that qualifies as a hero in my book), they tend to fall off pedestals too easily, but if I did, he'd certainly be one. Pollan first showed up on my radar with his bestselling book, The Botany of Desire, and back at the beginning of 2007 he cemented himself in my firmament with his brilliant article on Nutritionism, Unhappy Meals, in the Sunday, January 28, 2007 New York Times Magazine, which he has turned into a book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. His opening words of the article, now transposed to the book's cover and widely quoted everywhere, "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants." said it for me for all time, and I thought, finally, someone who makes sense about food. And the balance of the article proved I was right. It's an idea that, if it ever caught on, could technically put diet books, alternative and not, out of business. In spite of that, or maybe because of that, he deserves a wide audience because his take on intake is so relevant for this time. The no-diet theory's time has come and Michael Pollan brilliantly got the ball rolling on January 28, 2007. Although I risk being accused of arrogance for daring to even think I could be anywhere near his level, I am, for the most part, on his wavelength, and I'm here adding to the rolling ball from my perspective of editing alternative diet books for all these years.

My Personal Plan

My own personal plan is almost irrelevant because it is so specific to my circumstances, but I'll lay it out anyway, just FYI. I was a foodie before there was such a term, when the concept was just taking shape, and I spent my married years trying to fulfill myself as a high-end hostess and home chef. But in spite of the acclaim that came to me, and that I perversely welcomed and denigrated at the same time, it never really took. It defined and confined me in what I then (silly me) considered a low level of creativity, so I backed away years ago and haven't regretted my decision for a moment. Now I work at home and combine my freedom to eat what I want when I want with the inescapable fact that I am not really capable of ingesting only small-to-moderate portions three times a day. I LOVE food, but I can put weight on just looking at it. My biggest problem, in fact, has always been enjoying it far too much and overeating, which is why portion control is important to me.

After decades of diets and yo-yoing weight, it became obvious that dieting didn't work for me in the long run, so in order to balance things out, I had to consciously substitute the concept of developing an eating lifestyle for that of merely dieting. And this revelation has led me to my own unique routine (my lifestyle routine naturally includes daily exercising, but that's a separate topic I'll discuss later on). Of course, there are always variations, even surprises, because the body needs variety. Some, including my co-author and friend Sylvia Goldfarb http://www.doctorsylvia.com/ say that eating the same foods over and over, day after day, can lead to allergic reactions to those foodstuffs. Don't exactly know if that's true or not, but I don 't want to find out the hard way either, with my own body becoming the experimenting scapegoat.

Given that caveat, here's a skeletal rundown of the basics. My day begins with early morning tea infused with organic ginger. I peel the thin skin of the fresh ginger root with the side of a spoon, then slice the ginger into little round pieces, pound each piece with the blunt end of a knife to release the juices, stick the smushed-up pieces in the tea, and eat them after I've drunk the tea. WOW, what a kick that is! It's also a great antidote to the numerous upper respiratory infections I used to contract regularly. My day continues on with two (not three) high-quality, healthy meals—breakfast well after noon, and dinner at night, usually about five to six hours later. I eat what I want, just not too much (your stomach shrinks when you give it a rest) and the two-main-meals format works for me. With my food, I take lots of food supplements (vitamins, minerals, etc.) , but NO prescribed drugs. The upshot of this lifestyle I've adopted is that I continue to be lean, extremely healthy, full of energy, and ready to go, and my lifestyle diet that I've outlined below seems to suit my body to a T.

• Where it's applicable, and when possible and affordable, I use organics and locally grown produce .

• I eat a lot of carbohydrates in the form of wholegrain hot cereals (filling and great for sustained energy) or wholegrain cold cereals and breads, organic long-grain basmati brown rice (its intoxicatingly wonderful cooking fragrance reaches into every corner of the house and even out into the hall of the apartment building I live in), an occasional pasta dish, fresh vegetables, including mesclun salad greens, radishes (a low-calorie way to satisfy my daily crunch quota), tomatoes, a ton of garlic, fresh fruits, including lemons--my favorite flavoring for just about everything--and apple, pomegranate, and acai juices (I love mashed potatoes and pasta, but try to avoid most white or refined carbohydrates, and I definitely avoid processed, boxed foods).

• I eat some protein, mostly grilled free-range chicken or wild salmon, shrimp, and sometimes sushi—if I felt like meat, I'd eat it, but I really never want it, the most I can manage is a Gray's Papaya hot dog or a very occasional cheeseburger—skim milk with cereal, organic fat-free yogurt (plain, lemon, or lime), omega-three organic eggs once a week (sometimes as ingredients in French toast, using incredible wholegrain sourdough bread from San Francisco that's made with grains grown in undepleted, unpolluted soil), low-fat fresh goat cheese, and French gruyère; some fat, mostly from olive oil or the olive spread in my homemade, oil-free, balsamic vinaigrette, but also from the butter I have with my once-a-week eggs, from small amounts of canola oil, and from raw almonds and walnuts, which I eat with almost everything to satisfy my need for/love of crunch.

• Oh, and I can't forget that, especially in colder weather, I eat a lot of soup, freshly made at home or in a specialty store (often chicken-and-vegetable-based, but nothing out of a can).

• With all the above, I use liberal amounts of herbs and spices, fresh and dried.

• As occasional treats, I adore supposedly antioxidant-rich, dark dark chocolate, usually organic (I sometimes have a small square of it accompanied by a crunchy walnut or almond as I drink my daily coffee with milk), Almondina cookies, a muffin when I feel like it, or a power bar—the blood center loves the blood I donate about every 56 days, so I eat one of these and some raisins beforehand to make sure my hemoglobin is high for them

• I mostly avoid junk food (the closest I come are the addictively delicious organic blue corn chips I dip into garlic salsa and munch away on).

• For liquids, in addition to the ginger tea, the diluted organic apple juice I drink with yeast and my morning supplements, my daily cup of skim-milk-heavy coffee, and the skim milk I have with my cereal and drink with my nighttime calcium, I mostly drink lots of filtered water. No sodas to speak of, unless you count a rare diet coke at the movies, or diet ginger ale as a stomach settler after an, also rare, Thanksgiving-sized meal (overeating occurs less and less).

• In summer, I have a passion for my own mix of Haagen Dazs Raspberry Vanilla Frozen Yogurt (or, as I refer to it, FroYo) with fresh whole walnuts, and it takes real discipline to keep the container in the freezer for a long time. But the dessert concoction that never fails to delight me, and that I eat at least three times a week, consists of some sort of fresh cut-up fruit, organic apple juice, fat-free plain and lemon or lime yogurt (half and half), sometimes cinnamon, and walnuts, all of it mixed together in a bowl. Years and years ago, this started out with apples, which led one friend to label it Bobby's apple soup.
  

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A Note about Fat, Fat-Free Yogurt, and Sugar

In general, I don't much like fat, it sometimes makes me gag. I do, however, know that the fat-free craze spawned a gazillion products that made up for the lack of fat by adding more sugar—a lot more sugar—and that is why, years down the road, people were still getting fatter. They were gorging on sugar-laden fat-free products and their caloric intake was enormous. Once again, moderation and portion control could have helped out here.

About sugar: in the past, too much sugar dumped into my system at once has made me dizzy enough to have to sleep at an upward angle... too much sugar, as in demolishing most of the pint of FroYo if I make the mistake of eating out of the container instead of spooning it out in a small bowl. Knowing that pitfall, I do my best to follow my own advice about portion control, though I have to add here that moderation does not come all that easily or naturally to me. It's a challenge, but one I'm winning so far.

I really enjoy small portions of my fat-free yogurt dessert described above, so my ears perked up recently when a friend expounded on the addition of inulin to the organic fat-free yogurt he and I both eat. He seemed offended that an organic product would contain this soluble fiber, adding that it is put only into the fat-free variety (not the low-fat or regular versions) to give it a fuller texture. From what I know of inulin (information I gleaned from editing What's with Fiber, a terrific 2005 book by Gene and Monica Spiller from Basic Health Publications (www.basichealthpub.com), it is a beneficial substance built from fructose that has gained recognition from consumers because it is added to commercial fermented milk products. But my friend has stopped buying this yogurt, claiming it gives him indigestion, and feeling there is something not quite honest about its inclusion in organic yogurt. I don't see it that way. It is certainly not anti-organic, just the opposite, and as with other soluble fibers, its protective action in lowering cholesterol and blood-sugar levels makes it a very healthful addition to the diet. It also acts as a laxative, and I have noticed slightly increased flatulence after eating it, but that's a tradeoff I can live with. Just wanted to clear the air on this in case anyone out there has a similar problem.
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Most doctors, probably nutritionists too, will tell you it's much better for your health to eat smaller portions more frequently throughout the day—to graze if you will. They're probably right, but that doesn't work for me. I know myself, and with that regimen, I'd just end up overeating at grazing time and putting on extra pounds that would weigh me down and slow me up.

Just to be clear: I think the quality of the food I eat is pretty recommendable, but I do not, under any circumstances, want to recommend my unique eating schedule to anyone else. What I can recommend for everyone, however, is for them to unflinchingly examine their own habits and proclivities and come up with a sensible routine that they enjoy, and that really and truly works for them.

I noted with interest a recent Personal Health column by Jane Brody in The New York Times titled: "My Diet Strategy? Controlled Indulgence." It was all about maintaining her optimum weight, partially by allowing herself small portions of daily treats in order not to feel deprived, which she believes leads to overindulgence. Glad to see that a person of her stature is on the enjoy-what-you-eat/moderation bandwagon—with more like her and Michael Pollan balancing out the diet craziness, common sense might just have a shot at prevailing.

That about does it on the subject of diet from me for now. It's time to hear about food from some guest bloggers.

Elizabeth Karaman on Her First Trip to China

My cousin by marriage and my lifelong friend, Elizabeth Karaman, is tall, thin, gorgeous, and looks many years younger than the calendar would have it. Her topic is veganism, the food alternative she practices, beginning with a trip to China that first made her aware of its impact. Her interest in this aspect of nutrition is a natural outgrowth of the investigations into food and health that she has conducted for much of her adult life. Although originally drawn to this way of eating for weight loss, she is no longer a vegan because of a need to lose weight, or even because of some heart problem. Neither condition applies to her, but she does have a lung problem and a compromised immune system, and believes she's better off than would be the case if she didn't take extra measures, such as veganism, yoga, and aerobics, to stay healthy.

How China Changed

My Weight and My Outlook

I always had to be vigilant about my weight. Until 1979, that is, when I toured China with my mother. Before that trip, in order to keep the pounds from increasing, I was forced to resort to restricting calories, portion control, and occasional juice fasts along with colonics in order to detox my body from ice-cream binges. Often, I turned to a low-carbohydrate diet for two or three days to get rid of my bloat. This dehydrating low-carbohydrate route was, however, the most depleting of all the measures I took. By the end of the third day, my brain was fried because it was receiving no fuel and no hydration (low-carbohydrate diets are known for that). More than anything, I resembled an inert mass lying on my living room floor. Even running five miles a day didn't accomplish my weight-loss goal. Progress eluded me and I was starting to get concerned about my escalating overweight—I weighed what I had when I was nine months pregnant.

My mother's invitation to join her on a tour of China saved me. I already knew about the lack of degenerative diseases there, so I was eager to see for myself what they did to help avoid heart and circulation problems, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, and suchlike. But mainly I wanted to see their secrets for super-model thinness. Our tour started in Hong Kong and extended all the way to the remote, arid territories of Northwestern China. Talk about an adventure... few regular tourists went that far West in those early days of Sino-tourism.

My first laboratory-like observation came in Hong Kong, which was populated by skinny muscular men and women of all ages riding their bicycles. Their routine daily activities seemed to me more strenuous than ours, yet their bicycle ride to work was brief and was followed by hours of sitting at their jobs, so I wondered what else they were doing to maintain their perpetual leanness. Back home it was a different story. Americans, who had become more sedentary since the fifties, were gaining weight, even though many did daily workouts. I wanted to know why.

I found the answer during our three-week stay in China. Everyone on our tour, me included, lost ten pounds. With no access to junk food, sweets, dairy products, red meat, or soft drinks, and with a diet of rice, vegetables, tofu, fish, and small portions of animal foods—primarily duck—everybody looked better and got thinner. My mother, who had type 1 diabetes since childhood, ate mounds of rice and vegetables, plus a little duck and fish, but no red meat or dairy products, and this allowed her to substantially reduce her daily insulin, a totally unexpected outcome. Much to her glee, she could devour a once-banned food—rice, a carbohydrate then condemned by the American Diabetes Association. And with no dairy, her perennial sinus infection vanished. Her blood-sugar levels, normally a roller coaster for her, stabilized, and this allowed her to participate fully in all the group's activities—no small source of pleasure to her.

One day towards the end of our tour, I sat outside a museum in Beijing watching tour buses disgorge masses of people from just about every country on earth, each bus labeled with country of origin. Interestingly, a pattern emerged regarding the shapes of their occupants—Europeans, Australians, and Americans were all overweight, parched, and listless. By contrast, the Asian tourists were slim, vibrant-looking, and filled with energy. There it was—my own epidemiological study right in front of me to demonstrate the truth of an emerging scientific theory. All I had to do was observe the pronounced weight fluctuations that defined the different nationalities I was seeing. Those who (assumedly) ate the most animal products, weighed the most. Those who made the centerpiece of their diet rice or other grains, along with lots of vegetables and small amounts of animal foods used only as condiments, were lean.

Previously, scientists had thought that all carbohydrates caused weight gain, while a high-protein diet caused weight loss. But, my observations during this trip demonstrated conclusively to me that the exact opposite was true: Complex carbohydrates were not fattening, but animal food was. This theory has since been verified by many, including Colin Campbell, Ph.D. of Cornell University, and can be accessed at this website: http://nutrition.cornell.edu/ChinaProject/publications.html His exhaustive study of thousands of Chinese in the 1980s reached the conclusion that the less animal food eaten, the less weight gained and the fewer degenerative diseases encountered.

He found that the main reason the Chinese were so thin then (like me, he was there and did his study before the fast-food companies and the newfound wealth altered Chinese diets for the worse), with 20 percent lower body weight than Westerners even though they were eating 30 percent more calories, is because consuming diets high in protein and fat causes the body to store the calories as fat, whereas diets high in complex carbohydrates cause calories to be more easily burned. The amount of daily calories in the Chinese diet was 2641 versus our 1989; their total fat was approximately 14 percent, and ours is anywhere from 34–40 percent; their daily fiber intake was between 33–70 grams versus our intake of 12 grams a day—fiber helps the body in many ways, not the least of which, for me, is how it helps burn calories; their total protein was 64 grams, whereas ours is 91 grams.

Regarding this statistic, 70 percent of our total daily calories come from animal food; in China it was more like 7 percent. Ah, there we are -- the seven-percent solution.

Colin Campbell's colleague, Linda Youngeman, Ph.D., did studies of rats on a low-protein diet and found they all reacted happily to the regimen by riding wildly for hours on their mini-bicycles. Their fur grew thicker, and they lived longer than the control rats who ate the standard American diet (SAD).

Based partially on these findings, that ingesting any amount of animal foods led to disease, Campbell later became a vegan—and so did I. Switching to this type of eating—whole grains at every meal, beans, vegetables, soy products, and occasional dairy-free desserts—helped me lose twenty-five pounds to achieve my optimum weight. And better still, I no longer have to practice portion control, subject myself to endless rounds of vegetable-juice fasts and colonics, or spend hours exercising at the gym. I eat a lot, but am now able to easily maintain my desired weight without having to even think about dieting. And to me this is a win-win situation.

Paul Loeb and Suzanne Hlavacek on Alternative Ways to Care for Pets

Paul Loeb, a highly esteemed dog trainer and friend from way back, and Suzanne Hlavacek, are the authors of Smarter Than You Think (Simon and Schuster Pocket Books, 1997), and The Heart of the Matter (Simon and Schuster Pocket books, 2000). Paul's first book, Paul Loeb's Complete Book of Dog Training (Prentice Hall, 1973) is still being sold and has taken its place on the bookshelves as a much-revered classic. I ran into Paul and Suzie shortly after starting this blog venture and realized they fit the bill perfectly to write about better alternatives to the present day conventional wisdom on how to raise dogs. I had just recently edited the updated revision of Dr. Earl Mindell's Nutrition and Health for Dogs (Basic Health Publications, 2007 www.basichealthpub.com), which focuses on natural preventive-care methods, and as Paul, Suzie, and I stood talking at Broadway and 72nd and they spoke glowingly of Mindell's book, I recognized kindred spirits and asked on the spot if they'd grace this Diet section of my blog with their important and much-needed, common-sense advice. Just like them, I have become increasingly distressed by the proliferation of nonsense surrounding dog and cat care. It's all so alien to the way I successfully raised and lived with my wonderful Welsh Springer Spaniel, Rip, from the late 60s on. He was with us for sixteen terrific years, with no cages, no disgraceful face straps to impair his breathing, and no dry dog food, only wet. This latter was Paul's advice, one of many things he said and did to get Rip started out on the right path when he was the puppy I had just brought over (on my lap on the plane) from England.

Anyone who cares at all about their pet would definitely gain from reading what these two authors have to say.

A Quick, Simple Way

To Solve the Problem of Being Allergic to Your Pet

We came across an article in The New York Times, "Learning to Live With Your Pet (and Breathe, Too)" (Jane E. Brody, May 16, 2006), that provided, not allergy relief, but a bit of comedy relief, although taken altogether it did make us sneeze. Could there be any person in his or her right mind who could possibly follow these recommendations and still have time for a life? Some highlights from the article, interspersed with our comments, follow.

• First and most important is Containment. “Keep the pet out of the bedroom and …off the furniture people use. …Confine the animal to just a few rooms …" Should your pet escape quarantine, then the mop-up campaign begins. Cleaning, cleaning, and more cleaning.

• “Frequent cleaning, of your pet, its quarters, and your home…” Note the distinction between the pet’s quarters and your home, not to be one and the same, evidently.

• “Pet cages… pet cushions, and blankets washed weekly…when handling your pet, place a towel on your lap and wear washable clothing that is cleaned separately from the other laundry. If the pet licks you, wash your skin with soap and water as soon as possible...” When thoroughly cleaning your house still isn’t adequate, douse your pet with stuff.

• Furthermore…“Wash it every week, with a pet allergy-relief solution like Allerpet or AllerFree…” Free plugs for commercial products.

• The cleaning instructions go on and on and on, as it appears the pet is becoming increasingly toxic. Watch out… “Wear a dust mask over your mouth and nose.” And keep cleaning anywhere and everywhere the little toxic creature goes, including your walls and ceilings; and install air filters and Hepa filters as well.

• There is more. “If all else fails and the pet is considered an indispensable family member… (try) daily dosing with antihistamines or a series of desensitization injections to minimize a person’s reactivity.”

We have a simpler solution. Wear a HAZMAT suit and gloves when in the areas roamed by the toxic pets, especially now that they have become more toxic than raw chicken and require the same safe-handling directions. Here, in your own house, you are confronting your own case of a Resident Evil. (No surprise these days when dogs are walked with more face straps than Hannibal Lechter when released from their cages for their airing-out time in the yard or on the street.

Seriously though, we have a less time-consuming solution than all this constant vigilant cleaning and home prison for your pet, either in his special quarters or in a cage, neither of which is a happy solution for the family pet who likes to spend his time hanging out with you. And although we picked on The New York Times, these recommendations are pretty much the standard expert fare offered when discussing pets and allergies.

Time to go back to the basics.

Dogs and cats are not stuffed animals, fake toys to be fed and kept healthy with fake, imitation food. As organic, living, breathing creatures, they need the same good nutrition we need to keep their immune system healthy and working in good order.

If you want to stop being allergic to dogs and cats, our number-one, time-tested solution is to feed them REAL food, fresh cooked food (the kind we eat). That means the real thing, not rendered byproducts from an unidentified source, but real chicken, beef, fish; real rice, pasta, and potatoes; real vegetables—not dried-out processed stuff that in some distant past life once had a vegetable, protein, or carbohydrate origin. Pet foods are our waste products—garbage with a fancy label. Crude protein, fat, and fiber are exactly that—crude, unidentified, crude stuff. When your animal is properly nourished from the inside, you can see, feel, and smell the results on the outside. Fresh food clears up not only allergies but also the bad dog and cat smell (especially pungent on rainy days). You will have less shedding, a richer coat, and a healthy skin, and you will avoid hot spots. The same omega-3 oils that are good for you are also good for your pet. Don’t buy a special doggy oil—salmon, sardines, or any oily fish will do. Or your own omega-3 supplement will work too.

It’s bothersome that the commercial pet food eaten by most pets is never mentioned in connection with allergies or any other health problem, when in the human world we can’t get enough of our obsession with healthy diets and nutrition to help ward off such problems. The New York Times is usually one of the go-to guides for up-to-date good health and nutrition news for humans, so why isn't it for pets as well?

Change your pet’s food to a fresh food diet and you will be amazed at the results. And by the way, there is no need to buy a special doggy shampoo for your pet—whatever shampoo you use will do a good job for him or her as well.

After over fifty-five years of working with dogs and cats, this is a time-tested recipe that works! It's simple and holistic. Fifty-five years ago there were virtually no commercial pet foods, and the family pet ate what the family ate. Allergies of epidemic proportions were rare on both sides. Give nourishing home-cooked meals and enjoy the company of your dog and cat as they rejoin you in a home you all can share. No longer will your dog need to be confined to quarters, but she or he can once again be a free-roaming happy camper.

For those who say they don’t know how to cook: Learn.

For those who say they don’t have time to cook: Make time.

The only way you can be sure of what your pet is eating is when you make it yourself. Both you and your pet will reap the benefits.

Scott Stringer
Borough President of Manhattan

The third guest piece in this section on Diet concerns our terrific Manhattan Borough President, Scott Stringer. He has just published The Go Green East Harlem Cookbook and at his book signing in the end of January, I broached the subject of putting his book on the blog. To my delight, his assistant called the other day to say it's a go and, in fact, here it is. This timely book is his response to the off-the-charts rates for diabetes (and asthma, though that requires environmental action as well) among the people in East Harlem -- a mini step, to be sure, but a good start. It's great to see a politician do something proactive that doesn't involve big pharma and drugs, just good wholesome food.

Here's what Borough President Stringer has to say about this project.

"We conceived Go Green as both a series of steps to improve residents' health in East Harlem and a model for other environmentally neglected neighborhoods. The excitement and ownership that residents feel about the cookbook comes from the sense that we truly can improve our lives through the choices we make—from what we eat to how we advocate for crucial changes like better air quality."

The sad fact about neighborhoods such as East Harlem is that they tend to have more fast food restaurants and bodegas (which, like 7-Eleven-type stores, have little discernible living food in them) than supermarkets or fruit and vegetable stands and markets. The result of this reliance on convenience food is a huge uptick in the numbers of overweight people with diabetes, even down to seven-year-olds, according to Dr. Adam Aponte, a member of the Go Green Steering Committee whose weight-loss advice is featured in this cookbook. "This is a fully preventable tragedy," he says, "and one this cookbook directly takes aim at."

This colorful, richly illustrated, bilingual book features sixty-eight carefully reviewed, healthy recipes, and each is coded with helpful information, such as what is dairy free, sugar free, whole grain, vegetarian, etc. There's a section on setting up a kitchen, and the BP himself, who doesn't cook, contributed tips for choosing healthy takeout—that ritual so earnestly practiced by many of us in New York (even as I write this, the person delivering Chinese food for visiting family has just been ushered in). To put it all in focus, there's even a map of the neighborhood restaurants and organizations that contributed recipes and a group photo of the many planners and organizers on the Steering Committee.

The recipes sound scrumptious and it's nice to know that all the money from the book will be going to a non-profit organization, The Community Fund for Manhattan, that supports public/private partnerships to benefit residents of Manhattan and the City of New York.

But, hey, you can see for yourself what the whole story is, and how to purchase this unique book, by clicking here.

My Route to Enhanced Health, Energy, Happiness, and All the Good Stuff

Hi -- My name is Bobby Waddell, and for the purposes of this blog I am an alternative generalist who is an enthusiastic advocate for things I believe in. And, oh yes, I'm a writer and editor, with a longtime specialty in alternative health, which explains at least part of this blog's title. I live in New York City, and have since the age of nine.

I've been involved in alternative health for decades—personally since the seventies, and professionally since the late eighties. Early in this first decade of the new century (years I guess they refer to as the oughts), I began working with my co-author, Sylvia Goldfarb, on our book, Relieving Pain Naturally, a comprehensive overview of alternative approaches to chronic pain that we published after four years of work. The details of its basic division into 37 chronic pain Conditions and 27 natural Treatments can be found on the book's website http://www.relievingpainnaturally.com, a site that may well be how you found your way to this blog.

But I'm not limiting the blog to drug-free/surgery-free solutions for chronic pain, or even to alternative solutions for across-the-board health problems. There are many things I actively support and a lot of them fall under the rubric alternative. Although my description of myself as an alternative generalist may sound like an oxymoron, one thing I do know is that it's a big enough umbrella to cover all things alternative.

As I go along testing the waters, the topics below are the principal ones I want to explore, making sure to put my emphasis on the positive instead of the negative. After I obligatorily warn of the downhill slide caused by poor lifestyle choices—bad food, excessive drinking, smoking, lack of exercise, etc.—the usual don't's that everyone has heard about ad infinitum, maybe even ad nauseum, I'm going to do my best to stick to the good things you can incorporate into your life. (This might be a good time to state my oft-repeated mantra that, for me, a problem is an opportunity for a solution—I'm into solutions, not problems.)

I will also be asking friends and relatives to weigh in on alternative-type subjects they care about, and I'll be including nuggets of information from authors whose alternative books I've edited, plus snippets of relevant media articles and opinions I've come across and want to ballyhoo. Needless to say, it's all wide open as of now, so here goes my list for the whole alternative thing.

• Alternative approaches to chronic pain (since this is the link, I want to begin here)
• Alternative health in general, including alternative solutions for diseases and later at least one guest discussing one of these alternative therapies
• Diet, including at least one guest, and one expert on nutritious foods for dogs
• Supplements, including insurance coverage (or NOT)
• Exercise, including yoga as one form of fitness
• Physical energy for life
• Environment, including good green ideas and actions, a retro development, and at least one guest
• Sustainable products, clothing, and accessories
• You get the idea, right? ....

Natural Pain Relief and Alternative Healthcare MATTERS (Pun Intended)

Chronic Pain—Beyond the OUCH Kind

If you've got chronic pain and don't want to risk the side effects of drugs, have I got a book for you. As I said at the start of this ongoing thoughts-dispenser I'm setting up, Relieving Pain Naturally is a comprehensive overview of 27 natural, non-invasive Treatments for 37 chronic pain Conditions. Going forward, my role in this space will most probably be to bring your attention to Treatments that have yet to be included in the book. But now, as a way of giving you the whole story of how the book, therefore this blog, came about, I'm going to quote from a speech I gave at my high school reunion in May 2007.

My Personal Pain Story

Two elements came together in my life to form the genesis of this book. The first was a personal pain problem that developed in the 1960s. The full story—what I call a cautionary tale—is that I was thrown from a horse and landed perfectly, flat on my back on the sandy beach out in Jamaica Bay that my friend and I had been galloping along until the horse decided he'd had enough of me. I guess the fall must have softened up my back, because the next week, when I fell down ice skating on Rockefeller Center's very slippery ice after a bibulous pre-Christmas dinner with friends and kids, I felt a sharp shooting pain that started on the right side of my spine just below the hip and traveled down my leg. That pain turned out to be a bulging slipped disc pressing on the sciatic nerve and it required several hospitalizations and traction, but fortunately no surgery.

The second element was a growing interest in alternative ways of dealing with health—and pain—that began flowering a few years later and dovetailed with the need to reduce my pain. About this time, I began thinking in terms of finding my own solutions to problems, and in the early 1970s that quest led me to Hatha Yoga where, after a long period of living with pain, I learned a number of helpful postures, including the spinal twist, that worked perfectly to contain my pain by relieving pressure on the bulging disc at L5 in my spine. For years, this worked as an instant fix and I was able to move on with my life relatively pain-free.

Then, alas, in the 1980s, I did another stupid athletic thing. At my college reunion, I ran a very fast race, coming in second—right behind a much taller, super-athletic woman—which was great, except that, and here comes the stupid part—leading up to this race, I hadn't been running regularly for a long time and didn't do a proper warmup the day of the race, so naturally, my muscles were very stiff. But in those days, the philosophy, no pain, no gain ruled, and it was expected that you just worked through the pain to the other side.

Well, the upshot was that I developed an inflamed plantar's fascia—that's the fibrous connective tissue on the sole, stretching from the front of the heel to the ball of the foot. I limped along with this for months, running only sporadically, until I caved and went to a very busy foot doctor near my job. He was SO busy, in fact—I guess making money to support his fancy wife and cars (he was always talking on the phone about this or that luxury car needing something)—that he really rushed his patients through. He never even bothered to ask if I had any musculoskeletal problems, but just shot me up with some cortisone, wrapped my foot, and told me never to get the bandage wet.

Long story short, standing on one leg in the shower for 6 bandaged weeks totally exacerbated my dormant disc problem and it was all downhill from there on out.

Several therapists later, my plantar's fascia was fine, but my disc was not, and a too-forceful outward rotation of my right hip by another too-busy doctor actually dislocated the hip (I'll never forget the loud cracking noise the adjustment made), leading down the road to the destruction of the cartilage and to bone-on-bone pain.

After visiting five orthopedic surgeons over the next five years, I chose to go with the last one I saw whose sub-specialty was repairing other doctor's mistakes. This justifiably confidant man gave me a cementless hip replacement in the early 1990s that is perfect to this day, enabling me and the long metal pin in my bone to just go on with my life and not look back. The new bionic part fixed the hip pain right up, but due to a combination of ineffective post-op therapy provided by the insurance company and my own neglect of the leg-bend exercises I was supposed to do, my upper-right leg muscles atrophied, and for about a year I listed to the right when I walked.

I finally decided this wouldn't do, so I went to a really good therapist recommended by my surgeon, and he gave me some custom exercises for my specific problem, which I began doing religiously. Yoga was mostly out for the time being—that ban lasted about a year—but, even so, at the same time that I was visiting the exercise therapist and doing his routine there and at home, every morning I was also running very hot water over my upper-right leg muscles in the shower doing a version of the yoga tree posture, right foot upturned on left knee, hands in prayer position over my head for balance, and slowly bobbing up and down on my left leg. In the beginning, I stood there screaming in pain and glad to be out of earshot, but I persevered with my self-developed hydrotherapy-cum-yoga, and in a few weeks, I had my upper leg back in working order and no longer walked listing to the right.

Well, the fallout from that initial neglect is that I now get no grace period—I have to exercise daily or pay the consequences. But this can also be viewed as a GOOD thing, since it gets me down on the floor every day and out walking 4–5 times a week, thereby toning everything up.

Of course, I take my share of responsiblity for the downward spiraling of this saga, but mainly I believe that, given a little care and proper attention by the practitioners involved, this cautionary tale need never have happened.

The What, How, and Setup of the Book

I could go on and on about this, but it's time to move on to the subject I came here to discuss: One aspect of treating the whole body, namely alternative approaches to chronic pain problems, and our comprehensive guide on the subject. I should tell you that back when we started thinking about the subject, pain wasn't written about the way it is now. In just the past few months, I have collected fifteen or so clippings on pain from one paper alone, so you can see that pain is now very much in the public eye.

Before I progress to the book itself, I'll tell you how it came to be written. It's a funny story. Back before the hip operation, one of the surgeons I consulted suggested I start swimming, so I joined a neighborhood pool and stuck with it even after the operation. In the mid-nineties, I was standing at poolside in my bathing suit talking with a man, also in bathing attire. We had been introduced at the front desk and I think I heard the receptionist tell the man I was an editor involved with alternative health books. Since I didn't get this person's name, I was startled when, dripping wet from his laps, as was I, he said to me, "We should do a book together." "Why?" was my rapid-fire response. "Because I'm a pain-management specialist," he shot back. Oh, I thought. Interesting. We've never done a book on pain. (As I said, in the mid-nineties the topic of pain as something to write about was still under the radar.)

So, I took his suggestion to my then boss, who loved moneymaking ideas, but didn't get it about this one. She was definitely underwhelmed, but said she'd pass it by her advisors. They, it seems, were totally focused on publishing a new (to us) vitamin book (that ended up bombing), so they passed on the idea. As I turned to leave her office after getting the negative news, I heard my brain saying, "That's OK, Barbara. I'll take the book and I'll make money.

And several years later, that's just what I did. I got hold of my swimming-pool buddy, Dr. Jeff Perry, who ended up writing the Foreword, and convinced Sylvia Goldfarb (one of our authors—in partnership with a doctor, our company had published several of their books) that we could do very well collaborating on this project. And that's how it all got started, two dripping-wet adults talking shop at the shallow end of an indoor swimming pool on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Guess networking can take place anywhere, can't it?

Before proceeding further, I should explain that Sylvia and I are health writers, not doctors. We both have years of work in the health field, her more as a magazine writer, me mostly as an editor, but we have no medical degrees, although, admirably, Sylvia did go back to school and get a Ph.D. while we were working together. I mention this because neither of us can diagnose or prescribe. That would cause trouble, and no one wants that. What I can do is tell you some therapies and remedies I have personally found helpful, and some that people I know have benefited from. And I can refer you to the relevant sections of our book so you can find out what helps with what condition.

Both Sylvia and I come out of a background of making technical health information easily accessible to general lay readers, so it was important to us that our book be super clear and easy to understand. As we explain in the Introduction, Relieving Pain Naturally is basically a two-part book, divided into Conditions and Treatments. These are preceded by an alphabetically listed Quick Help Chart and are followed by an extensive Resources Section. Each one of the Conditions and Treatments in the book list its own resources, a job that, along with Clinical Studies for every single treatment that can have them (there is, for example, no valid way to do clinical studies on aromatherapy), took me most of one summer to unearth the facts on, and had me saying, someday I know I'll be proud I did all this without a research assistant, but right now—oh boy.

References and a thorough Index follow Resources, and the whole package comes in a two-column format with easy-to read type. Although the book is necessarily an overview, and functions basically as an introduction to all the Conditions and Treatments outlined within its pages, it does contain an enormous amount of useful information nuggets. And I should also point out there is a great deal of original research in the book that will not be found up and down the line—unless we're being quoted, of course.

In keeping with our easy-to-access theme, Sylvia and I cross-referenced between the two parts, briefly outlining the relevant Self-Help Treatments and Assisted Alternative Treatments in each Condition section so the reader can turn to those sections and read about the therapy/remedy in more detail. Then, in each Treatments section, we give a listing of Painful Conditions that Respond Well To whatever Treatment Section is being written about. For example, in the Hydrotherapy section, we list 21 Conditions where this therapy can be useful. Throughout both main sections there are boxes with little factoids of interest, or upbeat case histories of real people that one of us knows or knows about, with only the names changed for the person's protection.

I think the best way to show the books thoroughness and usefulness, however, is to pick an entry and scroll through it. Since our two biggest Conditions sections, Back Pain and Osteoarthritis, are also the most frequently discussed, I'll choose the first, Back Pain, to illustrate the setup for them all.

The entry, like all entries in Conditions, opens with a discussion of the Condition that includes a definition—this is particularly helpful with the lesser known ailments (Trigeminal Neuralgia, aka tic douloureux, comes to mind). Then comes a synopsis of symptoms, common causes, and a paragraph on diagnosing the problem. Before getting on to the alternative treatments, we list the current conventional treatments and then point out the problems with some of these treatments. The next two sections deal with the alternative treatments and are divided into those you can do yourself and those that require specialized training or the aid of a healthcare professional. This particular entry on Back Pain ends with some practical suggestions and a box on an interesting program we learned about.

The template for all the Treatments entries starts with a brief paragraph on just what the particular treatment is about and in the case of one of my favorites, Bee Venom Therapy, what painful conditions it can help. It gives a history of the therapy, discusses how it works, then gives the list I mentioned previously—the painful conditions that respond well to it—and tells what the advantages of the therapy are. It goes on to talk about how it is used—if it were strictly a self-help therapy, it would say how to use it instead. The all-important cautions are listed, followed by clinical studies and, in the Bee Venom entry, three boxes with case histories and an interesting little factoid about a doctor I found who uses it for treating shingles.

This is basically how the book goes. As you might have surmised, we are very proud of our work on it and we think, as people tire more and more of allopathic medicine with its drugs and their too-frequent harmful side effects, Relieving Pain Naturally will find more and more of an audience. Unlike books promoting this or that magic bullet that can fall out of favor, this book contains enough solid information to give it a long long shelf life, with revised editions to be done as needed.

Natural Pain Relief and Alternative Healthcare MATTERS (Continued)

My Overview of Alternative Health in General

One part of my speech in May 2007 included a sumup of my take on alternative medicine. I include it here.

I'd like to spend a little time expounding on my theory about how alternative medicine, that treats the whole body, and focuses on preventing problems in the first place, is the medicine of the twenty-first century—whereas conventional, symptom-oriented allopathic (aka orthodox) medicine that is reactive and palliative, prescribing medications that too often just mask symptoms and are not curative, is the medicine of the twentieth century—the last century.

Now of course, as I say that, I have to add the caveat that if, for example, I'm in an automobile accident and have sustained broken limbs, I don't want anything but trauma and triage medicine in my immediate future. I certainly don't want somebody handing me supplements or offering to massage me as I lie there broken and in pain—I want emergency medicine—STAT! So, in my scenario for the future, there is always going to be a role for mainstream medicine in crisis situations. Where conventional medicine falls down is when it is used for chronic problems and the alternative, complementary wellness approaches get bypassed in its favor.

Mainstream medicine is quite simply NOT helpful for too many people. Back in the late eighties and the nineties, when I was the editor at a direct mail publishing house specializing in alternative health books, I used to tell people that establishment medicine was making us RICH because so many people were turning to us after being let down, or actually mistreated, by the give-em-a pill, shove-em-out-the door approach.

By now, most of you probably understand what is meant by alternative medicine, the non-surgical, non-drug approach that focuses on preventing problems before they happen. When they do happen, as they very well can, this approach treats the body as a whole functioning unit instead of just dividing it into what I think of as segmented carapaces, sending a pill to this division for one thing, and another pill to another segment for something else.

Back when I was still in thrall to conventional medicine, with all its pills, it started occurring to me that, quite possibly, all the pills I was ingesting were meeting up and clashing in my system, and my doctor's assurances that each pill went where it was supposed to go, with no intersecting, did not convince me. The vivid mental picture I conceived, of all the pills going to war in my gut and exploding as they confronted each other, overwhelmed his statements and is probably one of the first, early visualizations that pulled me away from mainstream medicine. Slowly at first, but then picking up speed after I read a book on megavitamin therapy, I began taking more and more vitamins and stopped taking prescription drugs. And I felt better, a lot better, with more energy and fewer illnesses—the colds that used to completely flatten me every winter occurred less frequently and with far less severity.

Then came the musculoskeletal problems that sidelined me. Being, as I've said, a person who considers problems as opportunities for solutions, I was drawn to the idea of finding solutions to my pain problems that worked. If one thing didn't help, I'd try another, and on and on until I hit on something that was effective. This is similar to what a doctor who is a good detective does to get to the root of a problem. Except conventional doctors too often stop investigating when they get to a pill they can prescribe.

Let me just do a sidebar here on the misuse of the word traditional in connection with conventional medical practice. That is not traditional medicine. The true traditional medicine is that medicine practiced worldwide for thousands of years before drugs and expensive testing came to the fore early in the twentieth century, and replaced true traditional medicine, unquestioningly, for a while. Fortunately for human health, however, that trajectory is spluttering, and the thrust is now towards prevention and effective remedies of yore as one allopathic treatment, or one medicine after another, is found wanting and more often than not harmful. This negative reaction is so common, in fact, there's even a Medicare code number for the term iatrogenic, which means doctor-induced illness, and by extension, drug-induced illness.

I'm not just an intellectual proponent of focusing on wellness instead of illness, with its too-frequent, symptom-driven solutions, I'm a real enthusiast—a FAN. I put my money where my mouth is, as it were, and I practice what I preach. One way this manifests is in my being completely drug-free at a time in America when just about everyone is being recruited by the big pharmaceutical companies—big pharma—to line up for their medication. These drug companies are even busy making up new ailments so they can sell more drugs to treat these made-up conditions. I cite as one example the absurd restless leg syndrome, a problem brought to the fore to sell a drug, with the usual, daunting laundry list of side effects intoned in a sugary voice-over, the mildest of which is drowsiness, but which also includes nausea, feeling faint or dizzy, being susceptible to alcohol, or experiencing increased gambling, sexual, or other intense urges. HUH? As in causing excessive risk-taking behavior? That's truly nuts. And the real joke here is, this so-called problem condition can be easily and naturally remedied by exercise and the inexpensive, harmless mineral magnesium. This over-reliance on big pharma's products comes at a time in my own chronological, if not biological, age when many, if not most, of my peers are regularly running to the medicine chest to gulp down their daily dosages from the little pill containers lined up on their shelves.

One of the nice things about not having any medications in my system is not having any residual side effects to deal with—no dry mouth or feeling logy, not quite myself—I'm all there. (I can remember a medication I took back in the old days that had me feeling like I was walking beside myself—not a cozy feeling.)

To round out the focus here, let me reiterate how I firmly believe, barring accidents and trauma medicine, or necessary surgery, that the alternative therapies and remedies, which help prevent illness and treat the whole body, are the path people will ultimately take in the twenty-first century. And the allopathic-medicine mentality that merely masks symptoms and makes stabbing passes at segmented areas of the body will come to be considered last century's failed solution.