#Go Plant a Tree! 5 Odd Facts About Arbor day Today is not a holiday that spawns the excitement of Christmas or even Valentine's day.
But then again there are no gift-giving obligations or impossible restaurant reservations to make. Yes it's Arbor day celebrated nationally on the last Friday in April though some states have their own dates to better coincide with good tree-planting weather.
Read on for five quirky facts about this holiday including its odd roots. 1. The origins of Arbor day
When you think of trees what state jumps to mind? California with its redwoods? Vermont and its sugar maples?
How about Nebraska? Image Gallery: One-of-a-Kind Places On earth Despite (or rather because of) a naturally treeless prairie landscape Nebraska is the birthplace of Arbor day.
The holiday began with journalist Julius Sterling Morton who moved from Detroit to Nebraska in 1854.
At the time the wide open spaces of the west weren't working out so well for pioneers the shadeless prairie was hot in the summer with few windbreaks to keep tilled soil from blowing right into Kansas. The solution?
Plant a tree. Morton rose to become the state secretary and helped establish the first Arbor day on April 10 1872.
More than 1 million trees were planted across the state that day. Arbor day became a national sensation in 1907
when President Theodore Roosevelt issued a proclamation to school children about forestry and the importance of trees. 2. We really do need trees Nebraska may not have been a naturally tree-friendly spot
but Morton's heart was in the right place. The European colonists who came to America instituted massive deforestation from the start.
#Goat Sacrificed for Chicago cubs Curse Forest Preserve police in Cook County Ill. found a grisly discovery this week:
Psychology of the Curse There are countless superstitions involving everything from spilled salt to black cats to nailing horseshoes over doors
for example some professional tennis players eat exactly the same meals and stay in the same rooms at the same hotels following a big win.
Bad carbs aren't. Carbohydrates that come from white bread white rice pastry sugary sodas and other highly processed foods can make you fat.
If you eat a lot of these so-called bad carbs they will increase your risk for disease.
and vegetables keep you healthy by providing you with vitamins minerals fiber and many other nutrients.
That's why a healthy diet should include good carbs. Carbohydrates are the most important source of energy for your body.
and stores any extra sugar for when you need it. Carbohydrates were grouped once into two main categories simple and complex.
Simple carbohydrates included sugars such as fruit sugar (fructose) corn or grape sugar (dextrose or glucose) and table sugar (sucrose.
Complex carbohydrates included everything made of three or more linked sugars. Complex carbohydrates were thought to be the healthiest to eat.
Foods with a high glycemic index like white bread cause rapid spikes in blood sugar. Foods with a low glycemic index like whole oats are digested more slowly causing a lower and gentler change in blood sugar.
Diets rich in foods that have a high glycemic index have been linked to an increased risk for diabetes heart disease obesity age-related macular degeneration infertility and colorectal cancer.
Foods with a low glycemic index help control diabetes and improve weight loss. However other studies have found that the glycemic index has little effect on health or weight.
As a result more research on the glycemic index is needed. You can't base a diet on the glycemic index alone.
Instead use it as a general guide. In the meantime eat foods that have a low glycemic index:
whole grains beans fruit and vegetables. The University of Sydney in Australia maintains an updated searchable database at www. glycemicindex. com that now has almost 1600 entries.
Try a hot cereal like old-fashioned oats or a cold cereal that has a whole grain topping the ingredients list. 2. Use whole grain breads for lunch
or snacks. 3. Bag the potatoes. Instead have brown rice bulgur wheat berries whole wheat pasta or another whole grain with your dinner. 4. Choose whole fruit instead of juice.
An orange has twice as much fiber and half as much sugar as a 12-ounce glass of orange juice. 5. Bring on the beans.
Beans are an excellent source of slowly digested carbohydrates as well as a great source of protein.
If you would like to read more columns you can order a copy of How to be a Healthy Geezer at http://www. healthygeezer. com/.All rights Reserved  2013 by Fred Cicetti r
Consider the eye-opening case of the agribusiness firm Syngenta and its product atrazine a widely used agricultural pesticide on corn sorghum and sugar cane crops.
Tyrone Hayes a biologist at the University of California Berkeley demonstrated a decade ago that atrazine could turn male frogs female publishing his results in prestigious journals such as Nature and the Proceedings of the National Academy
Hayes has remained a prominent vocal critic of atrazine ever since. In an effort to try to undermine Hayes'research the group writes Syngenta hired an investigator to dig up dirt on both Hayes and his wife commissioned a psychological profile of him and even planted trained critics in the audience at his speaking events.
We've seen this movie before most recently in disinformation campaigns by oil and gas companies like Exxonmobil that try to undermine climate science
Scientists Say Yellowstone national park grizzly bears could be removed from the Endangered Species list after a new federal report revealed that the bears are threatened not by the loss of one of their main foods whitebark pine nuts.
which kill trees in the process of laying their eggs under the bark. Climate change has made the high-elevation whitebark pines more accessible to the destructive beetles.
or if the slow down is related to food scarcity. Â Bears rely on four major food sources in the Yellowstone region said David Mattson a visiting senior research scientist
and lecturer at Yale university who studied the grizzlies for more than a decade as a U s. Geological Survey scientist.
Yellowstone bears also eat cutthroat trout meat from elk and bison and a fatty high-elevation insect called the army cutworm moth.
Pine nuts in particular are linked to birth and death rates Mattson said in a press conference organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists an advocacy group for science in public politicy.
Habitat trouble Mattson and Logan further criticized the bear report for downplaying the links between pine nuts and grizzly health.
Nor did the federal scientists expand their study beyond pine nuts Mattson said. Evidence suggests that bears especially females are eating more meat to compensate for the loss of whitebark pine nuts.
Meat provides plenty of calories but it comes with a side of danger. Cubs and yearlings at a kill site are more likely to be killed by wolves
or older bears than are cubs and yearlings snuffling for pine nuts. And meat-eating puts adult bears into closer contact with human hunters and ranchers should they go after livestock. 8 Ways Global Warming is Already Changing the World The result has been an increase both in total number
of bear deaths and in the proportion of bears killed by humans Mattson said. Meanwhile cutthroat trout are in decline because of predation by a nonnative fish.
Whatever happens Yellowstone grizzlies face extraordinary challenges as climate change drives the loss of habitat and food sources.
and a Better Food System for America (Op-Ed) John paul Dejoria co-founded Paul Mitchell in 1980 and helped turn it into the world's largest privately owned salon haircare company.
He went on to co-found the Patrã n Spirits Company John paul Pet & JP Selects.
My brother and I were city kids who learned to appreciate fresh food. To this day I rarely eat junk food
because it simply wasn't a part of my upbringing. More than 50 million Americans live in food insecure households.
When I founded Grow Appalachia in 2009 in partnership with Berea College I was hoping to address the problem of hunger in America
but realized that the issue wasn't simply a lack of food. The way people relate to food the way they purchase it prepare it
and consume it is the real problem. The current food stamp system keeps people dependent on cheap low-nutrient food.
Hunger in Appalachia has been the focus of government intervention for years the very focus of Lyndon B. Johnson's anti-poverty initiative in the 1960s
and people today still are unable to buy their own food. There has to be a better way for Americans to have access to healthy food.
Education is the biggest challenge for the people we're working with in Appalachia and
I believe it's the biggest challenge facing the food insecure across America. Both hunger and obesity exist side by side throughout Appalachia in just about every county.
Today's hunger is perpetuated often by low-nutrient cheap processed food that ultimately results in raised healthcare costs that only contribute to our nation's overall deficit.
Our broken system keeps people dependent on unhealthy sometimes scarce food when we can instead help people to depend on themselves.
and grew their own food. That tradition has been lost as people even in rural areas depend on fast food food banks and gas stations for the majority of the food for their families.
The availability of unhealthy cheap food destabilized the local food system. The relationship with the land and proud tradition of food has disappeared all but.
When in the field with one of our Grow Appalachia gardeners my foundation director ate a bean right off their plant
and congratulated the gardener on the flavor the woman was surprised to see the bean eaten fresh
Grow Appalachia is changing the way people throughout rural Appalachia relate to food. In the past three years thousands of program participants through 25 partner sites in five states have grown more than 574000 pounds of food.
We work with existing social structures 100 year-old missions a domestic violence shelter schools a veteran's organization
and provide the basic tools to help people grow their own food and become their own solution to food insecurity.
These trusted partners provide canning classes gardening workshops and help build high tunnels for more efficient production.
The main goal is to get people as close to their food source and in charge of their own food systems for as long as possible.
Introducing more food to the area solves the basic problem of a supply of high-quality fresh food
but it's not enough to just have more food. People have to be invested in growing their own food saving seeds
and growing organic to keep soil healthy. Individual households have saved about $1000 in grocery bills in a growing season.
A one-acre garden at Jackson County Detention center saved $5000 in food costs in one season and introduced better food
and work experiences to inmates. In the Coffey family garden in Jackson Ky. five generations plant
A huge part of the problem with hunger is not just getting the right food to the poor
Given the right tools they have started businesses and sold canned salsa and honey and squash and eggs at farmer's markets.
We believe the people in Appalachia the people of America can be the answer to food insecurity.
We hope these families will no longer have need a for food stamps. Grow Appalachia is a two-year program that gives people the tools they need to grow their own food for a lifetime.
People often ask why I do what I do or how they can help be a part of it.
or say no to eating endangered seafood. If you can start a small garden in your backyard.
and waterways and help people to have access to fresh food It's all connected. We are connected all.
A Better Food System for America on the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship a premier international platform for accelerating entrepreneurial approaches and innovative solutions to the world's most pressing
#Growing'Green'Economy Sprouts Need for'Green'Credentials (Op-Ed) Robert Reiley is an adjunct professor and course developer at Kaplan University School of Legal Studies
which is a provider of green and environmental career courses and degrees. Reiley has 20 years of experience as an environmental attorney in the government and private sector.
Moreover there are emerging issues to deal with like sustainability climate change genetically modified foods and endocrine disruptors in drinking water.
According to the Green goods and Services Program of the U s. Bureau of Labor Statistics there are about 325 industries that are potential producers of green goods and services and 120000 business establishments
and provide services that benefit the environment or conserve natural resources. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics green goods and services fall into one or more of the following five categories:
Green jobs to be sure are extremely diverse ranging from farmers utility workers equipment vendors and writers to engineers scientists educators foresters lawyers policy analysts consultants animal care givers and recreation workers to name a few.
But the new findings add to growing evidence that the virus likely needs to undergo just a few genetic mutations to gain the ability to spread between people said Dr. Richard Webby a bird flu expert at St jude Children's Research
The researchers called the one H7n9 strain that spread in their study highly transmissible between ferrets.
H7n9 is thought to transmit from birds (in particular chickens) to people. Because the virus does not cause symptoms in chickens it can be harder to spot infected poultry.
The only way we have of reducing human infection and the opportunities of the virus to adapt to humans is to reduce the exposure of people to infected birds.
If you have a virus that s running around that doesn t kill the chickens you have to be actively out there swabbing chickens Webby said.
Finding a dead chicken is much easier than finding a virus. Webby said that human-to-human spread of H7n9 is not inevitable.
#H7n9 Flu Study Hints at How It May Spread in People It's likely that the new H7n9 bird flu virus can spread through the air on a limited basis according to a new study that looked at how the virus spreads in animals.
because efficient spread of the flu in ferrets tends to predict efficient spread in people.
One bit of good news is that H7n9 does not appear to spread between pigs. In the study pigs did not catch H7n9 from each other either through the air or direct contact.
Thanksgiving Turns 150 This Thursday Americans will gather around groaning tables to consume massive amounts of turkey gravy potatoes and stuffing.
Settlers in Jamestown Va. held a thanksgiving meal in 1607. But it was a Yankee who made Thanksgiving into the holiday it is today
she also penned the nursery rhyme Mary Had a Little Lamb. During Hale's long life between 1788 and 1879 many states especially in the north held fall festivals of thanksgiving.
and the livestock needed to be culled before the winter said Andrew Smith a culinary historian with The New School in New york city. 10 Things You Didn't Know About Food At a time
and rhapsodized about turkey as the centerpiece of the meal. Cranberries and pumpkins which are northern crops likewise highlight this holiday's Yankee roots.
Everyone eats certain dishes like whole roast turkey considered too troublesome for everyday cooking today.
A relatively large breakfast a large meal at 2 p m. or so and then an extremely small supper.
so the big meal became supper at dinner Smith said. But holidays in general Thanksgiving in particular retains that initial pattern.
And in the process of starving animals cut off from their human feed are likely to become increasingly desperate and brazen.
and move on as if killing them is as acceptable as drinking a coke or a beer afterwards.
There also would be no tequila the agave plant from which tequila is made depends on the Mexican long-tongued bat to pollinate it.
A high ratio of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids in people's diets has been linked to a higher risk of health problemsâ such asâ heart disease.
Studies have suggested that the healthiest ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 in the diet is about 2. 3. The results are in line with previous research showing that eating grass
A conventional farm that provides their cows with access to grass would reap the same benefit in terms of the quality of the milk Benbrook added. 6 Foods That Are Good for Your Brain Organic farmers are required to follow standards set
These rules include providing access to the outdoors including to pasture for ruminants. Marion Nestle a professor of nutrition and public health at New york University said the results came as no surprise.
One aspect of organic production methods is that cows must be allowed to graze on grass.
what they are supposed to be doing said Nestle who wasn't involved in the new study.
Without refrigeration it would have been difficult to keep meat fresh for long so may have been more efficient for cities to take a communal approach.
or contaminants the researchers said. 5 Key Nutrients Women Need As They Age Such unlisted ingredients may pose health hazards for consumers the researchers said.
and can cause serious side effects such as chronic diarrhea and liver damage. Other products contaminated with walnut leaves wheat soybeans
and rice might pose problems for people with allergies or those seeking gluten-free products said study researcher Steven Newmaster an integrative biology professor and botanical director of the University of Guelph's Biodiversity Institute of Ontario.
A consumer has a right to see all of the plant species used in producing a natural product on the list of ingredients Newmaster said The researchers analyzed 44 herbal products sold in the United states
and unlike drugs they do need not approval by the Food and Drug Administration before they come to market.
For example a 2011 study of 131 herbal tea products found that 33 percent were contaminated. Still the estimates from the new study should be interpreted with caution
Others target military spending or federal boosts to individual industries such as winemakers or fruit-growers.
Another NASA project under fire is a $125000 grant for intergalactic planetary pizza tasting. The goal of this project is to develop shelf-stable palatable 3d printed foods for a mission to Mars
but the researcher behind the project Anjan Contractor hopes that 3d printing technology will eventually help supply food to a rapidly growing population On earth he said in May.
Space Food: What Astronauts Eat Coburn criticizes both projects as well as several other NASA efforts for being focused on a mission to Mars arguing the agency is nowhere near launching such a journey.
But NASA has to take the long view said Michael Halpern the program manager of the Center for Science and Democracy at the science advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists.
considering that beef is a $44 billion-a-year business in the United states according to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
and tend to be the cream of the crop. The situation is similar at the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
#High-Fat Dairy May Lower Breast cancer Survival Breast cancer patients who eat a lot of high-fat dairy foods may be increased at an risk of dying according to a new study.
or full-fat cheese it would be prudent to shift to lower-fat option said study researcher Candyce H. Kroenke a staff scientist at Kaiser permanente in Oakland Calif. Eating more low-fat dairy
Some of the high-fat dairy products the researchers tracked were whole milk ice cream and cheeses and yogurts that were not low-fat or nonfat.
During the study 349 women had their breast cancer recur and 189 died of the disease.
The researchers said their findings show that it was saturated fat from dairy products in particular rather than saturated fat in the diet in general that was linked with breast cancer survival.
Putnam and his team think the wetting of the desert allowed grasslands to expand enabling the Mongols to spread throughout Asia. 10 Surprising Ways Weather Changed History Atop The himalayas Next Putnam
A New History (John Wiley & Sons 2010) that the city s location in the fertile Eurotas valley gave its inhabitants access to an abundance of food something its local rivals did not enjoy.
when they were allowed to join a communal mess and hence become a full citizen of the community.
Each member of the mess was expected to provide a certain amount of foodstuffs. Girls while not trained militarily were expected to train physically. oephysical fitness was considered to be as important for females as it was for males
A Greek naval victory at the Battle of Salamis halted this approach the Persian king Xerxes going home
Yet Halloween is much more than just costumes and candy; in fact the holiday has a rich and interesting history.
and heads during Samhain ceremonies possibly contributing to the familiar tradition of dressing up in costumes.
when spirits of the dead could return to their old haunting grounds. Dressing up as ghosts
Halloween mischief in the United states and Canada consisted of tipping over outhouses unhinging farmer's gates throwing eggs at houses and the like.
and town leaders tried to ply kids with candy encouraging trick -or-treating in costume in exchange for sweets bumping the mischief element from the celebrations of Oct 31 altogether.
Another Halloween ritual involved looking in a mirror at midnight by candlelight for a future husband's face was said to appear (a scary variation of this later became the Bloody mary ritual familiar to many schoolgirls.
How the Thanksgiving Menu Evolved This Thursday (Nov 28) most Americans across the country will sit down with family and friends to share nearly the exact same meal.
At the holiday's inception turkey was a mere part of the meal not a necessary centerpiece.
Mincemeat pie would have made an appearance. And green-bean casserole was undreamed of. Â The story of how modern Thanksgiving came to be is filled with myth commercialization regional influences
and a dash of pragmatism food historians say. Thanksgiving is based on a national myth said food writer Cynthia Bertelsen who blogs at Gherkins & Tomatoes.
A brief history of Thanksgiving First the basics: As you've likely heard the whole Pilgrims
-and-Indians'first Thanksgiving tale is more legend than fact. Yes English colonists and Wampanoag Native americans got together for a harvest festival in 1621.
These harvest celebrations would have set the table groaning with their variety according to Sandy Oliver a food historian
Thanksgiving Recipes from Pilgrims to Pumpkin pie (Clarkson Potter 2005. The turkey a bird that matures for slaughter in the fall would have made an appearance as would chicken pork beef and goose.
Semisavory semisweet foods such as plum pudding would have made up the side dishes. Sidebar: See Menus From the Origin of Thanksgiving Thanksgiving was a good excuse to serve mincemeat pies
which were filled with chopped meat dried fruit and spices Oliver told Livescience. At the time mincemeat was associated strongly with Christmas a holiday spurned by Protestants as too Catholic.
Because of the hostility toward the holiday Protestants broke the mincemeat-Christmas association by eating it on Thanksgiving
instead Oliver said. Â There was no official Thanksgiving holiday until Sarah Josepha Hale a 19th-century writer made it her mission to combine all of the states'harvest festivals under one national umbrella.
Finally in the aftermath of the Civil war then-President Abraham lincoln got on board and Congress established Thanksgiving as a national holiday in 1863 150 years ago.
The turkey takes its place The foundation of Thanksgiving as an official holiday set off a process of myth making.
Even though venison (deer) is the only meat confirmed to have been present at the Pilgrims'harvest feast in 1621 turkey gradually became the centerpiece of the new holiday thanks in part to Hale Bertelsen told Livescience.
In her 1827 novel Northwood A Tale of New england Hale rhapsodizes about the ideal Thanksgiving menu including the turkey at a lordly station at the head of the table.
She also mentions beef pork and mutton (sheep) however not to mention pickles and preserves vegetables custards cheese cake and pies.
In the 19th century the turkey has the additional charm that most Victorians in Yankeeland were positive that the Pilgrims had it too Oliver said.
The Victorians were 200 to 300 years after the first settlement here and they were romanticizing the past pretty energetically.
The turkeys of the 19th century weren't like today's big-breasted Butterballs said Andrew Smith a lecturer on food history at The New School in New york city.
In the last few years Smith said foodies have embraced the past with heirloom turkeys that boast more dark meat than modern farmed birds.
8 Terrific Turkey Facts A parade of sides Like the turkey some Thanksgiving sides were associated with the meal from its official beginning.
Stuffing poultry with bread chunks dates back to Roman times Bertelsen said. Cranberries and pumpkins are both Northeastern crops that are ready in the fall making their inclusion in a fall harvest feast a no-brainer.
Potatoes'place in the meal reflects their general popularity. We like having potatoes at Thanksgiving
because people like having potatoes at every meal Oliver said. Potatoes originated in South america and were taken to Europe by Spanish explorers.
and then immigrated to The americas Smith said White potatoes didn't become a keystone of the American diet until about 1872 Bertelsen said
Cornbread stuffing (or dressing as Southerners call it) hails from the South as do sweet potatoes.
In fact both dishes reflect African american cultural heritage said independent culinary historian Michael Twitty. Sweet potatoes were one of the many root crops that were a staple in the West indies where enslaved Africans were pressed into service on sugarcane plantations Twitty told Livescience.
which to grow food to feed themselves Twitty said. Some of these slaves worked as sugar-boiling men who took harvested sugarcane
and boiled it down into molasses to make rum. These men would take a cast-iron dish of sweet potatoes to the boiling house
and spoon ladles of the molten sugar over the dish. The boiling sugar was so hot it cooked the potatoes as it cooled.
If you think about one of our favorite dishes at Thanksgiving candied yams that started out as food for slaves Twitty said.
Sweet potatoes are called often yams but they're actually different plants.)Cornbread is a Native american food adapted by European Americans
and African americans alike Twitty said. West african meals typically include mushes like couscous or other grains he said.
Cornmeal played that role for enslaved Africans who would mash up day-old cornbread with pepper salt and herbs.
People loved it Twitty said. It came to be part and parcel of the enslaved table and the table of their owners as well.
So it was a clear influence on how we eat. The modernization of Thanksgiving In many ways Thanksgiving remains a throwback to old ways of eating:
Whole roast birds a giant meal at midday instead of a big evening dinner foods cooked from scratch.
But modernization has influenced the holiday meal to some extent. Green-bean casserole usually made with mushroom soup
and fried onions on top was a 20th-century invention. In 1955 a Campbell soup Co. home economist named Dorcas Reilly invented the recipe
which was made with Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup and French's French fried onions.
It caught on. About 50 percent of French fried onions are sold during Thanksgiving Christmas and Easter because of that casserole Oliver said.
Canned cranberry sauce is relatively new on the scene too. In 1912 the Cape cod Cranberry Company started selling canned cranberry sauce under the now-familiar Ocean Spray name Bertelsen said.
Cranberries had long been associated with the holiday but now there was a convenient food that made serving them as easy as wielding a can opener.
Of course various regions have their own spins on Thanksgiving. The South prefers its sweet-potato pie to the pumpkin variety Twitty said
and pecan pie has Southern roots as well. Norwegian Americans make a potato flatbread called lefse which they serve with meatballs Bertelsen said.
The deep-fried turkey is catching on around the country perhaps inspired by Southern ways of cooking.
Avoiding Fried Turkey Disaster (Infographic) I speak as a connoisseur: The deep-fried turkey has a flavor all to its own said Smith.
It remains to be seen how Thanksgiving will evolve next but individual menus are usually open to at least a little bit of change.
As people join new families by marriage they bring their Thanksgiving traditions along with them Oliver said.
It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without fill in the blank she said. That's one of the most interesting things anyone can ask.
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