LK's Grab Bag

Tuesday Blog Love:

Apparently one very loyal (and hence, very fit) reader has gone to extra lengths to share her love of Tuesday Tips. Just look how this faithful has displayed her allegiance…. permanently.

OK, maybe it’s not permanent. OK, maybe it’s not even real. OK, maybe it’s manufactured just for fun at Imagechef.com 🙂

Tuesday Health Alert:

Weekly reader Wendy B. reminded me about a lengthy e-mail describing one woman’s journey as she discovered she had Peritoneal Cancer, which, in her case, was essentially Ovarian Cancer. It belongs to the Mesothelioma family of irregular cell growths. The alarming part of this story is that she had a total hysterectomy years before, and at that time her ovaries were healthy and normal. 

NOTE: This is a rare cancer, with the biggest risk factor being exposure to asbestos (even 30-50 years ago). However, others do develop this. It is very difficult to diagnose. If you or someone you know has the following symptoms, doctors may, understandably, be looking for a gastrointestinal cause. It may be up to you, the patient, to remember these symptoms and discuss possible testing for cancer (a CA-125 assay blood test, blood chemistry panel, urinalysis, CT scan, etc.)

• Abdominal bloating and/or pain
  
• Unexplained weight loss or gain
  
• Pelvic “heaviness”
  
• Feeling full even after a light meal
  
• Abnormal bleeding from the vagina
  
• Unexplained back pain
  
• Nausea, diarrhea, constipation and frequent urination
  
• Gas, indigestion, poor appetite

Tuesday Organic Cotton Update:

Sigh….. it has taken me weeks to wrap my head around the following story and to get all the details together. It is tragic and shocking and hopeful… kinda like Slumdog Millionaire. So, keeping in the same vein as that Oscar winner, let’s take a virtual trip to India for the BEST reason I have discovered thus far to buy organic cotton.

I had a conversation a few weeks ago with Lynn Powers, a very interesting woman who presides over Gaiam, an eco-minded lifestyle catalogue. We were chatting about cabbages and kings and safe cosmetics, and we turned briefly to the topic of organic cotton (you may remember the post weeks ago that laid out the reasons why purchasing organic cotton should be a priority for us all). 

Gaiam, Lynn explained, decided a few years ago to commit to a broad range of organic cotton offerings. They established connections directly with the source growers in India, hoping to stimulate conversion from traditional cotton fields to organic ones through their supply and demand chain. Gaiam assumed that a beneficial by-product of this conversion would be improved general health for the field owners and workers resulting from less toxic exposure. 

But the farmers hoped for an additional health benefit that Gaiam would be floored to learn. The farmers expressed hope that the SUICIDE rates would fall in their region. Suicide?? Why?

Here’s what an article from PBS’ website had to say on the topic:

The tragedy unfolds from crop failure. Drought, pests, and spurious pesticides are expensive problems that small farmers don’t have the means to rectify. In recent years, as Heeter finds in the fields of Andhra Pradesh, crop failure can often be traced to Bt cotton, a genetically modified breed that contains a pesticide that naturally occurs in soil rather than plants. Bt technology should, in theory, repel bollworm — cotton’s worst enemy — but some farmers who plant more expensive Bt seeds often wind up worse off than those who don’t. One farmer, Pariki, confides that after he fell into debt, his wife killed herself, leaving him to care for their three small children.

In the last decade, bad seeds, costly pesticides and drought have triggered debt, then suicide for 4,500 farmers in Andhra Pradesh alone, but no one is taking responsibility — not the government, whose policies encouraged cash crops like cotton; not the developers of genetically modified crops; and not the dealers, who insist that farmers don’t follow instructions for their seed. Amazingly, Pariki harbors no grudges. “I’m not angry with anyone because the moneylender has the right to ask for repayment,” he says.

Less expensive, lower-risk organic farming methods are believed to offer solutions for the cotton-growing crisis in India. Without such a change in agriculture policy and practices, thousands more Indian farmers are likely to take their own lives.

Now Gaiam receives reports that the growers they work with  fertilize their fields with manure from their oxen and use pesticide-free growing methods. Overwhelming debt will be far less likely, as crop failure and indebtedness should drop. Suicide rates will hopefully drop as well, not to mention the hazardous risks of chemical exposure. 

And they all lived organically ever after 🙂

To read more about this problem, check these links:

New York Times on Indian Farmer Suicides

BBC News on Indian Farmer Suicides

Indian Government Evaluation on Farmer Suicides

Every Tuesday Matters:

Another installment from the “Every Monday Matters” book of weekly ways to make a difference:

Protect Yourself with Internet Safety

FACTS

• 61.8% of all households have a computer.
• 54.7% of those households have Internet access.
• 9% of identity theft information is obtained online.
• 1 million Internet users believe they have received a phishing e-mail. (Phishing is the act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an effort to steal the user’s personal information.)
• 3.8 days is the average life span of a phishing web site.
• 2 million adult Internet users experience Internet identity fraud annually—5,479 a day.

TAKE ACTION TODAY

• Create a password that has a combination of upper- and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols for unlocking your computer and for accessing websites. Use a different password for each site.
• Never use an automatic log-in feature that saves your user name and password.
• Always log off the Internet or your computer when you’re finished.
• Avoid storing financial information on your computer.
• Find and use anti-virus software and a firewall.
• Do not open e-mails sent to you by strangers.
  • Reduce unwanted commercial email and some SPAM. (Good for five years.)
• Forward spam that is phishing for information to spam@uce.gov and to the company, bank, or organization impersonated in the phishing e-mail.
  • Avoid being scammed (for high school and college students).
  • Quiz your knowledge about wireless security.
  • Know your web terms.
• Order a free credit report every 12 months.
• Do not use a public computer or one at the library. Shared computers may inadvertently help share your credit report information with others. Only access your report online via your own computer.

YOU MATTER

The emotional impact of Internet identity fraud has been found to parallel that of victims of violent crime. Remain cyber-safe by protecting your computer as if it were your wallet. Practice safe surfing. You’ll be glad you did.

Tuesday Brain Game:

The “Stroop Effect”… first, a video breaking down the brain’s function, why the Stroop Effect is so powerful, and how to overcome it (and other ingrained habits like smoking, unwanted eating patterns and other addictions)… then, in the second video, try your hand at overcoming the Stroop Effect.

Tuesday Funny Stuff:

Erectile Malfunction….