Building Unity Farm - Fall Hoop House Planting
It's Fall in New England and the weather is turning cold. Nights are in the 30's and days are in the 50's and 60's. All the ferns in the forest are brown and most of the insects are gone. On the farm, the apples are harvested, cider made, mushrooms dried, paddocks/pastures readied for winter, and the pace of harvest-related food preservation projects is slowing down.We now turn our attention to Fall and Winter plantings. Our 48x21 foot hoop house heats to 80 degrees F during the day by trapping solar energy under a 6 millimeter roof of UV resistant plastic sheeting. We use barn fans to ...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - October 24, 2013 Category: Technology Consultants Source Type: blogs
31 Easy Ways to Eat More Plants: Celebrating National Vegetarian Awareness Month
31 Days in October, 31 Healthy Eating Ideas… Coincidence? I think Not!
October is National Vegetarian Awareness Month. It’s a great time to focus on incorporating more plant-based foods into every meal and snack. As part of my relationship with Silk (I’m a #SilkBlogger, one of two RDs on the team), I’m bringing you this post chock full of easy ideas to help you get more good stuff.
Why Aim for More Plants?
Eating more plants is a good choice for your health and the environment. Plants are loaded with beneficial fiber, vitamins, minerals, protein, antioxidants, and other nutrients your body needs to ...
Source: Balanced Health and Nutrition Rebecca Scritchfield's Blog - October 16, 2013 Category: Nutritionists and Food Scientists Authors: rebeccascritchfield Tags: nutrition coconut milk easy recipes eating healthy plant based diet silk soymilk vegetarian Source Type: blogs
Building Unity Farm - Reflections on our First Year as Farmers
While I'm traveling in Asia, my wife Kathy is running the farm, ensuring that all our animals are healthy, our last few harvest duties are done, and our preparations for winter have begun.Before I left, I did everything possible to minimize her tasks. I installed heating panels in the duck house so that she could move the duck babies from the brooder to the outside world. I harvested mushrooms from all our fruiting logs. I added yeast and nutrients to our fermenting apple cider. I secured all our gates, cleaned the barn, and finished moving all our building materials into the hoop house.Think...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - October 11, 2013 Category: Technology Consultants Source Type: blogs
Exercise and Breast Cancer
Recently I was asked to suggest alternative hormone treatment for an obese postmenopausal woman with breast cancer. My advise was to lose weight. Supplemental estrogen in any form is estrogen and carries increased risk for breast cancer patients. Exercise can reduce the risk for developing breast cancer probably by changing the way estrogen is metabolized. Get up and get moving while eating plant based whole foods (mostly vegetables and fruit, especially blueberries, apples with the skin, grapes and grapefruit) and eliminating processed food and most meats, especially red meat. Not as easy as taking a pill but much more ef...
Source: Fixin' Healthcare - October 9, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Source Type: blogs
Politico Distorts Evidence on School Choice
Jason Bedrick
Yesterday, Politico ran a story on school choice programs claiming that American taxpayers “will soon be spending $1 billion a year to help families pay private school tuition — and there’s little evidence that the investment yields academic gains.” In fact, there’s quite a bit of evidence both that school choice works and that it saves money.
On the question of whether school choice results in superior learning, Politico makes the wrong comparisons. For example:
In Milwaukee, just 13 percent of voucher students scored proficient in math and 11 percent made the bar in reading this spr...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 8, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Jason Bedrick Source Type: blogs
Pharmalot... Pharmalittle... The Weekend Nears
And so, another working week is about to come to an end. Not a moment too soon, yes? This is, as you may recall, our signal to daydream about weekend plans. Normally, our agenda is quite modest, but we are feeling somewhat ambitious. We look forward to spending grown-up time with Mrs. Pharmalot, taking the short people to soccer matches and there will also be another installment in our 'Let's-See-Them-Before-They-Die' concert series. But what about you? This is a lovely time of year to find a few apples or pumpkins, or simply venture afar to quiet places where other humans cannot be found. You could stay close to home with...
Source: Pharmalot - October 4, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: esilverman Source Type: blogs
When Food Becomes Weird: From Arsenic to Insects
This study was done by looking at data of 187,000 people. Almost 13,000 of them developed Type 2 diabetes. Of course, this study was conducted by looking at questionnaires that the participants completed. Still, it's interesting. Also, the researchers found that people who drank fruit juice were more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes (we already knew this). Were there flaws in this study? Probably. But the take-home point is that eating whole fruit (not juice) is good for us and, as we've learned, may help protect against one of the most significant health issues we face today.
More next week!
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Source: Diabetes Self-Management - September 30, 2013 Category: Diabetes Authors: Amy Campbell Source Type: blogs
Health Insurance Marketplace Premiums: Policy Considerations And Implications For Payers, Providers, And Patients
The recently released health insurance marketplace premium data answered a number of questions regarding plan choice, affordability and the heterogeneity of choices across the country. The big takeaway is that premiums before tax credits will be at least 16 percent lower than projections from the Congressional Budget Office. This is good news for Americans in states whose exchanges will be primarily run by the federal government who were waiting to find out if the premiums would be affordable.
But as Tim Jost points out in his Health Affairs Blog post, some premiums will be higher than those for plans currently availab...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 26, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Kavita Patel Tags: All Categories Consumers Health Care Costs Health Reform Insurance Policy States Source Type: blogs
Dr. David Nutt on Alcohol
Rebutting industry myths.
A couple of years ago, the European Alcohol Policy Alliance, known as EuroCare, put together a brochure addressing the common messages the liquor industry attempts to drive home through its heavy spending on advertising. The messages are not just designed to sell product, but also to influence alcohol policy at the political level. According to EuroCare, the “industry”—the alcohol and tobacco companies—“has traditionally worked closely together, sharing information and concerns about regulation. They have used similar arguments to defend their products in order to prevent or delay re...
Source: Addiction Inbox - September 25, 2013 Category: Addiction Authors: Dirk Hanson Source Type: blogs
Diabetes living
So, here’s what I’m learning from life with Type 2 Diabetes.
To start with, I found it quite boring to have to be planning what I was going to be eating, all the time. But now that I’ve got in to the habit of it it doesn’t require that much thought at all. I’ve put a jar of cereal bars and packets of dried fruit in the porch so that if I’m going out I can pick something up and put it in my handbag. (Not the dog biscuits.) There are a few failsafes that I know I can eat, and I don’t have to think too hard about, and I always have around anyway. (Peanut butter, crackers, apples, dates.) There is always fish or...
Source: Bah! to cancer - September 24, 2013 Category: Cancer Authors: Stephanie Tags: diabetes Source Type: blogs
Health Care Reform: Five Things to Keep in Mind When Selecting 2014 Coverage
Organizing for Action — the nonprofit offshoot of President Obama's reelection campaign — is running another ad defending the president's health-care law. According to the Washington Post: "The latest ad features a family of three who say they received a $350 rebate last year and are paying $60 less per month for health insurance — all after their insurance company informed them that their premiums would actually be rising by $110 per month." We previously discussed premium rates across the different states in a previous post.
As WedMD reports: Depending on who you talk to, calculating savings is "complicated."
...
Source: Policy and Medicine - September 24, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Some big health plans must think exchanges will succeed
More aggressive drafts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) included a public option that would have set up a government run health plan to compete with private insurers. That got shot down in an effort to broaden the base of support for the law. Although I’m not a fan of government-run businesses, I do think it would have been an interesting experiment to see whether private plans would have sharpened their game in the face of new competition, especially since many areas of the country current lack robust competition among commercial health plans.
While the public option never made it, the ACA’s insurance marketpl...
Source: Health Business Blog - September 24, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: dewe67 Tags: Economics Health plans Policy and politics Source Type: blogs
Building Unity Farm - The Mushroom Harvest Begins
Last night was 39 degrees and we're wrapping up all the projects of summer since fall officially begins this Sunday.We've picked our early apples (Honeycrisp and MacIntosh) and are watching our late apples (Empire) ripen quickly.Our blueberries and raspberries are already preserved.Squash, beans, and root vegetables are picked and sitting in our drying racks.We're finishing the construction of our hoop house for winter vegetables (more about that next week).All our summer babies have been born - 73 guinea fowl in 3 batches. We've moved the 4 week olds into the coop and sold the second batch to a farm near Rhode...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - September 19, 2013 Category: Technology Consultants Source Type: blogs
How Vitamins, Sunshine and Antibiotics Have Changed Things for Your Kids
I grew up eating very different food than my children eat. I’m not just talking about different items on the menu, but an apples-to-apples comparison of the same foods shows a substantial difference in nutrient density.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard my wife say “tomatoes just don’t taste the way they did when I was growing up”. They don’t. And they don’t have as many nutrients, either. The soil our tomatoes (and every other agricultural product) grow in is far less nutrient rich than it was even 30 years ago.
Unless you and your family are getting a solid diet of...
Source: Conversations with Dr Greene - September 19, 2013 Category: Pediatricians Authors: Dr. Alan Greene Tags: Dr. Greene's Blog Antibiotics Nutrition Parenting Top Vitamins & Supplements Source Type: blogs
