Can a vegetarian or vegan diet replace medicine?

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is a nonprofit organization that promotes preventive medicine, conducts clinical research, health and nutrition. PCRM has a paid staff of 35, with a membership of approximately 10,000 physicians and 150,000 supporting members, including dietitians, psychologists, nurses, other science and health professionals, and laypeople.

2013.11 they promote a vegetarian or vegan diet, together with aerobic and weight-bearing exercises and exposure to sufficient sunlight for vitamin D production. It writes that vegetarian diets are low in saturated fat, high in dietary fiber, contain phytochemicals that PCRM argues help prevent cancer, and contain no cholesterol. The organization's nutrition director, Amy Lanou, Ph.D., has criticized the U.S. Department of Agriculture for promoting high-fat, high-calorie products, such as certain brands of cookies and fast-food products.

The PCRM advertising campaign "I'm not lovin' it" is a spoof of the McDonald's advertising slogan "I'm lovin' it" used in an advertising campaign launched in September 2010 that encourages consumers to adopt a vegetarian diet in order to avoid the increased health risks of hypertension, heart attacks, strokes and obesity associated with the consumption of the high levels of dietary fat, cholesterol and sodium in McDonald's menu offerings.

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How much water is needed to produce food?

                                       

How much water is needed to produce food and how much do we waste?
As much as 50% of all food produced in the world ends up as waste every year according to figures from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. But how much water is needed to produce it? Between 500 and 4,000 litres of water are required to produce 1kg of wheat according to a report into food wastage published today.

As much as 2bn tonnes of food are wasted every year - equivalent to 50% of all food produced - according to a report published today by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME). They estimate that 30-50% (1.2-2bn tonnes) of all food produced is "lost before reaching a human stomach". They also blame the "staggering" new figures in its analysis on unnecessarily strict sell-by dates, buy-one-get-one free and Western consumer demand for cosmetically perfect food, along with "poor engineering and agricultural practices", inadequate infrastructure and poor storage facilities.
Major supermarkets have also been blamed for food waste by rejecting crops of edible fruit and vegetables which don't meet their exacting standards for their physical characteristics (such as size and color). Up to 30% of the UK's vegetable crop is never harvested due to this type of practice the report claims.

The publication entitled-Global food: waste not, want not' also aims to highlight the wastage of energy, land and water. Approximately 3.8tn cubic meters of water is used by humans annually with 70% being consumed by the global agriculture sector. The amount of water wasted globally in growing crops that never reach the consumer is estimated at 550bn cubic meters.IME claim that water requirements to meet food demand in 2050 could reach between 10-13.5tn cubic meters per year - about triple the current amount used annually by humans.

Meat production requires a much higher amount of water than vegetables. To produce 1kg of meat requires between 5,000 and 20,000 liters of water whereas to produce 1kg of wheat requires between 500 and 4,000 liters of water. Surprisingly, to produce 1kg of vegetables by hydroponics requires only 1 liter. The future agriculture has emerged up from above water consumption comparison, which is HYDROPONICS.

Food/Qty/Water Liter
Chocolate	1 kg	17,196
Beef	1 kg	15,415
Sheep Meat	1 kg	10,412
Pork	1 kg	5,988
Butter	1 kg	5,553
Chicken meat	1 kg	4,325
Cheese	1 kg	3,178
Olives	1 kg	3,025
Rice	1 kg	2,497
Cotton	1 @ 250g	2,495
Pasta (dry)	1 kg	1,849
Bread	1 kg	1,608
Pizza	1 unit	1,239
Apple	1 kg	822
Banana	1 kg	790
Potatoes	1 kg	287
Milk	1 x 250ml glass	255
Cabbage	1 kg	237
Tomato	1 kg	214
Egg	1 kg	196
Wine	1 x 250ml glass	109
Beer	1 x 250ml glass	74
Tea	1 x 250 ml cup	27
Hydroponics Crop	1 kg	1

The table above shows the typical values for the volume of water required to produce common foodstuffs. Chocolate tops the list with 17,196 liters of water need to produce 1kg of the product. Beef, sheep and pork meat all require high volumes of water for production also. Tea, beer and wine use the least according to the list. Compared to the production of meat, vegetable foodstuffs require considerably less water - 1kg of potatoes for example uses 287 liters of water.

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A "Staying on Track" program guarantee a university place for bushfires students

The University of Western Sydney is offering places to Year 12 students whose HSC preparations were disrupted by recent bushfires.

About 700 students from the Blue Mountains and Lithgow areas will be guaranteed places at the university, with those who lost their home eligible for an additional $2,000 scholarship.
Angelo Kourtis says about 45 current UWS students were affected by the fires and about half of those lost their homes.

"There are over 700 students currently sitting the HSC who live in the Blue Mountains and the Lithgow area, so it's quite a significant number," he said.

"The university was moved by the impact of the fires on our own staff and students, and we paused to think about how this might be affecting students who are currently doing the HSC."

"The stress that students would be feeling around HSC time would have been amplified by this tragedy," he said.

"Not only on them but also their families and the broader community."

Blue Mountains Mayor Mark Greenhill says the move shows the university is investing in the future of young people in the area.

"It's an investment in these young people; it's also a statement from the university that they see themselves as being part of the region and they're determined to stay on that journey with us," he said. The University says the program will include courses on all UWS campuses including arts, nursing, business and teaching.

Besides offering a place in University for bushfire affected students, they need to be educated about the controversy of field burning and history of proposals to ban field burning at least.


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IPCC: Climate change threatens world’s food supply

An international scientific panel has found that climate change will pose sharp risks to the world’s food supply in coming decades, potentially reducing output and sending prices higher in a period when global food demand is expected to soar.

That finding is by far the starkest warning that the United Nations-appointed group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has ever issued regarding the food supply. Its last report, in 2007, was more sanguine, essentially finding that climatic warming and the rising level of carbon dioxide in the air would boost agricultural production across large areas, though that report did cite some risks.

The warning is contained in a draft report that leaked on Friday. The document is not final and not scheduled for release until after an editing session in Yokohama, Japan in March.

Steve Easterbrook recently summarized what we know of the new IPCC conclusions:
             
1. The warming is unequivocal.
2. Humans caused the majority of it.
3. The warming is largely irreversible.
4. Most of the heat is going into the oceans.
5. Current rates of ocean acidification are unprecedented.
6. We have to choose which future we want very soon.
7. To stay below 2°C of warming, the world must become carbon negative.
8. To stay below 2°C of warming, most fossil fuels must stay buried in the ground.
A lot of people think of climate change as abstract, and a lot of people who live nowhere near oceans think it won't impact their lives. It doesn't get more basic than food supply.

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Smoke Or Not Smoke?

 

 

 

Here's something to think about the next time you put a cigarette to your lips: The skin around those lips is going to look older, faster.You're also more likely to get bags under your eyes sooner. And jowls. And more wrinkles around those lips.

Researchers in Ohio studied the physical differences between the faces of nonsmokers and their twins who smoked and found confirmation of a long-held belief: Smoking does indeed age you.

NYC Council gets tough on tobacco, approves raising purchase age to 21.

The photos were divided into two categories.One smoked and the other didn't. The other group was made up of smokers, but in each set, one twin had smoked at least five years longer than the other.

Two doctors and a medical student studied photographs of the twins and assigned scores to their facial features.

In the case of the first group, the judges said the smoking twin appeared older 57% of the time.

"Smoking reduces the collagen formation, results in collagen degradation and reduces the skin circulation," Guyuron said. "Additionally, nicotine reduces the skin thickness. All of these reduce skin elasticity and (cause) premature aging."

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History of Hydroponics and Soil-less Gardening

 

While it's easy to imagine this kind of process being labeled as a bunch of new age science fiction, hydroponics has actually been in use for thousands of years. The famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, are largely believed to have functioned according to hydroponic principles. Built around 600 B.C. in Babylonia, or Mesopotamia, the gardens were situated along the Euphrates River. The area suffered from a dry, arid climate that rarely saw rain, and it's believed that the lush gardens were watered using a chain pull system, which carried water up from the river and allowed it to trickle down to each step or landing of the garden structure.

                                                
During the 10th and 11th centuries, the Aztecs developed a system of floating gardens based on hydroponics. Driven out of their land, they settled at Lake Tenochtitlan. Unable to grow crops on the lake's marshy shore, they built rafts out of reeds and roots. These rafts were topped with a bit of soil from the bottom of the lake, and then floated out to the center of the water. Crops would grow on top of the rafts, their roots reaching through the rafts and down into the water. Marco Polo's writings indicate he witnessed similar floating gardens while visiting China in the late 13th century. Formal research and publications on hydroponics didn't begin until the 17th century. Sir Francis Bacon, a British scientist, philosopher and politician did research on soil-less gardening in the 1620s. His work on the subject was published posthumously in 1627 and sparked an incredible wave of research into hydroponics.

In 1699, another English scientist, John Woodward, performed tests involving spearmint growth in various water solutions. He attempted to grow spearmint plants in rain water, river water and water that had been mixed with soil and then drained. He found that the mint grew faster and produced healthier plants in the water solution that had been mixed with soil. His conclusion was that plants would grow better in less pure water than they would in distilled water. We know today that his results were due to minerals that remained in the water after it had been mixed with the soil.
A Berkeley scientist, William Gericke, promoted the use of hydroponics in commercial agriculture. Using a process he called "aquaculture," he touted the benefits of soil-less gardening by growing massive tomatoes in his home via water and nutrient solutions. After finding that the term "aquaculture" was already being used to describe the study of aquatic organisms, he coined the term "hydroponics," which we still use today.

Two other Berkeley scientists, Dennis Hoagland and Daniel Arnon, later expanded upon Gericke's research. In 1938, they published "The Water Culture Method for Growing Plants without Soil," which is widely considered to be one of the most important texts ever published about hydroponics. Several of the nutrient solutions they developed are still used today. According to a 1938 Time magazine article, one of the first commercial uses of hydroponics occurred during this period based on the research taking place at Berkeley. Tanks of mineralized water were used to grow beans, tomatoes, and vegetables on tiny Wake Island, a small piece of land in the Pacific Ocean. This island was used as a refueling stop for Pan-Am Airways, and the food grown there was used successfully to feed the airline's staff and crew. Similar situations occurred during World War II, as hydroponics was used to grow crops for troops on barren Pacific Islands.
                                  

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10,000 Raingardens



                                        
The purpose of a rain garden is to improve water quality in nearby bodies of water. Rain gardens can cut down on the amount of pollution reaching creeks and streams by up to 30%. Native plants are recommended for rain gardens because they generally do not require fertilizer and are more tolerant of one’s local climate, soil, and water conditions, and attract local wildlife such as native birds. The plants -a selection of wetland edge vegetation, such as wildflowers, sedges, rushes, ferns, shrubs and small trees -take up excess water flowing into the rain garden.
                               

Water filters through soil layers before entering the groundwater system. Root systems enhance infiltration, maintain or even augment soil permeability, provide moisture redistribution, and sustain diverse microbial populations involved in biofiltration. Also, through the process of transpiration, rain garden plants return water vapor to the atmosphere. A more wide-ranging definition covers all the possible elements that can be used to capture, channel, divert, and make the most of the natural rain and snow that falls on a property. The whole garden can become a rain garden, and each component of the whole can become a small-scale rain garden in itself.

Melbourne homes, schools and local government have been congratulated on helping to reach a target of 10,000 Raingardens across the region - and others are being encouraged to follow suit to help protect waterways. The Melbourne Water 10,000 Raingarden Program was launched in 2008 and has since worked with landowners across the Port Phillip and Westernport region to achieve 10,000 raingardens across this area.

                                                              

Raingardens look like a normal garden, only traditionally they are made up of sandy layers to help filter stormwater from hard surfaces such as roofs and roads before it flows into rivers, creeks and ultimately the bay. Raingardens help in two ways:
• removing harmful pollutants from stormwater through layers of sandy soil and plants, preventing them from entering local waterways
• slow down the flow of stormwater to prevent riverbank erosion and destruction of habitat for native animals such as platypus and fish.

General Manager of Waterways, David Ryan, said about 500 billion litres of stormwater a year is washed off residential roofs, driveways and roads into waterways and the bay."Stormwater pollution is one of the biggest threats to Melbourne's 8400km of rivers and creeks, with the problem increasing the more Melbourne grows," Mr Ryan said. "Healthy waterways and abundant wildlife are an important part of maintaining Melbourne's status as one of the world's most liveable cities. 10,000 raingardens will go a long way to protecting local rivers and creeks for everyone to enjoy," he said.
Keysha Milenkovic, Project Leader 10,000 Raingardens, said raingardens were self-watering, easy to maintain and look great in both wet and dry periods. "Raingardens can take many forms and we certainly saw some very creative designs throughout this program which blended well into their surrounds, including raised planter box raingardens and swales," Ms Milenkovic said. "Every raingarden makes a difference and now we have over 10,000 across Melbourne. We congratulate everyone who built a raingarden and was part of this program, and encourage more people to do the same," she said.

                                             
A number of public raingardens can be seen across Melbourne including Federation Square car park, Lambert St Richmond and Edinburgh Gardens North Fitzroy.



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