Photoplankton declining due to Global Warming...

Which means so is Oxygen and Seafood... here is part of an article in Nature... I recommend you go in and read it all.

Cross Posted in Under The LobsterScope and Panhandle Vegan.

clipped from www.nature.com Ocean greenery under warming stress Marine phytoplankton — the vast range of tiny algae species accounting for roughly half of Earth's total photosynthetic biomass — have declined substantially in the world's oceans over the past century, researchers report in Nature1 this week. The findings add to concerns that climate change is dangerously altering marine ecosystems. Phytoplankton are the basis of the entire marine food chain, and have an important role in the global carbon cycle. Through photosynthesis, they produce around half of the oxygen in Earth's atmosphere and drive the 'biological pump' that fixes 100 million tonnes of atmospheric carbon dioxide a day into organic material, which then sinks to the ocean floor when the phytoplankton die, or are grazed and digested. Since 1950 alone, algal biomass decreased by around 40%, probably in response to ocean warming — and the decline has gathered pace in recent years.

Something to think about as the globe warms up...

"The greenhouse gas emissions from factory farms, deforestation, industrial crop production, food processing, and long-distance distribution make the food sector the biggest cause of climate change, responsible for at least a third of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Factory farmed meat, dairy and eggs alone may contribute as much as 51%!

"But we can change food system pollution into food system solutions. A worldwide shift to local, organic food production would drastically reduce food system emissions and turn the world's farmland into a carbon sink to capture and store 40% of global greenhouse gas pollution."

- Excerpt from Organic Consumers Association's "Food Agenda 2020: The Organic Alternative"

The Organic Solution to the Climate Crisis... article HERE.

We ARE what we EAT!

Good Natured - A Green General Store

I meant to get this article up awhile ago - but then I had that week or so with no computer while I waited for my new one to show up. Anyway, better late than never.

Martinsburg, WV, has what is billed as a "Green General Store" where you can by organic groceries, get vitamins and other health products and find lots of other things for cooking, housekeeping and general good living. Like most of the small "health food" stores you find in the general 75-mile radius, they are happy to order for you, especially since they don't have the space that a MOM's or Common Market has, and this one is also a pickup point for one of the Community Farm Programs.

I talked with Jeff, who was running the store while I was there, and asked him about the construction going on in the back of the building (an old Victorianesque house)  and he told me they were building a cafe which would be serving vegetarian and vegan items. Not a bad thing at all.

The thing that caught my attention though was the prices which were not as high as a lot of the real small health food stores in the area. That was a very pleasant surprise... I just wish they had more items.

Good Natured
209 S Raleigh St
Martinsburg, WV 25401
304-262-9978
304-262-9909
http://www.goodnaturedllc.com
Plenty of parking.

Wow! Cucumbers!

Elly just brought in a pile of cucumbers from our teeny backyard garden... enough to make 3 or 4 jars of dill pickles this afternoon.

This is going to be fun.


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The Results:

Farmers Market

Sunday morning in Shepherdstown is Farmers Market time (even though there are smaller FMs in town on two other days, Sunday mornings are what everyone thinks of here when they think of visiting with our local farmers) and Elly and I are getting ready to head down German Street to pick up some goodies.

It's going to be a hot one this morning, but my guess is that it will be crowded. This time of year it usually is... people shopping, some walking dogs, musicians performing... all between 9 AM or so and 1 PM.

The fruits should be starting to come in and local corn should be there this morning. Green onions are on my list, too.

For the most part we get real organics here... plus the farmers who grow organically but who can't afford all the registry costs of being certified as organic (and this number is growing as the economy gets worse.)

We'll follow up with coffee at Mellow Moods Coffee Shop when we're done... see you there!

Surprising medical study on older women and how weight mass effects brain capacity...

clipped from www.usnews.com Body Shape May Affect Mental Acuity Big apples fare better than plump pears Being fat may diminish mental performance, studies find — a problem that worsens with age. But among elderly women, where fat is deposited may matter. To wit: The big apple is sharper than the obese pear. Genetics dictates where people preferentially accumulate body fat. For most it’s around the belly. Among the obese, these apple-shaped individuals tend to run a bigger risk of developing heart disease than do pears — people who deposit most of their excess fat at the hips and thighs. For a host of reasons, physicians had expected that if body shape affected mental performance, apples would again prove the bigger losers. In fact, the opposite appears true, Diana Kerwin of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago and her colleagues report online July 14  in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Among apples, the fatter they were, the higher their mental-acuity score...

Go HERE and read more...

This article is cross posted on Under The LobsterScope.

Shaharazades in Shepherdstown

The first Sunday evening of the month brings a poetry reading competition to Shaharazades Exotic tea Room in Shepherdstown. John Case and I are going to cover it for the Winners And Losers Radio Program on WSHC (where I co-host with him on Friday mornings... 89.7 FM).

Poetry is one of the subjects near and dear to us, and we are going to record some of it. Maybe we'll see some of you there... 6:30 PM and on.

Although not a perfect Vegan eating establishment, there is a lot that is "Vegetarian" on their menu. You can take a look at it HERE.


Shaharazades Exotic Tea Room
141 W. German St.
Shepherdstown, WV 25443

Drop in or call ahead for reservations.
304-876-1000
Hours:
Tuesday-Thursday 11a.m. - 8p.m. (Closed Mondays)
Friday-Saturday 11a.m. - 10p.m.
Sunday 9a.m. - 8p.m.

 

Pickling Day

Today I am experimenting with pickling vegetables. I've been gathering spices and shopping for the baby peppers, tiny carrots, pickling cucumbers, cauliflower florets and the rest of my ingredients all week.

Right now I'm getting ready to boil my pickle jars to ward off botulism (isn't that exciting?) following ancient instructions in our very old copy of The Joy Of Cooking.

I saw someone doing similar stuff on the Food Channel, but I am making my own changes. Sugar, for instance. As a diabetic, I want to avoid sugar, so yesterday I made a tea of stevia leaves in water which I will use instead of sugar. Have to be careful, though, as stevia is much sweeter than sugar (about ten times) so I have to use less.

Once everything is done, the jars will go a few weeks and then they should be ready to eat. I haven't gone into most of the details here... blanching vegetables, layering spices, etc.... but maybe I'll get into that later.

Cross posted at Under The LobsterScope.
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Update:
Well, the three big Ball Jars in the picture at the start of this post display the results of my pickling expedition. It looks like everything came out OK (the lids lost their air bubbles and sucked down when I boiled the jars at the end of the process). Now they are sitting on the kitchen windowsill where, sometime in August, we'll try one.

Sorry for lack of new posts...

They are coming soon.
We have a downtime due to a dead laptop battery, but will be back as soon as Amazon delivers.
- BT from a borrowed machine.