Can't do without

Did you know that water is the key to life? Our entire society has been built around this natural resource. Water is the master of all humans and economic development. Today, nearly one billion people lack access to clean water. More than twice that many, 2.5 billion people, don’t have access to a toilet. We take access to safe water for granted. A note from the past: 100 years ago, New York, London and Paris were centers of infectious disease. Child death rates were as high then as they are now in Sub-Saharan Africa. Only 2.53 percent of earth’s water is fresh, and some two-thirds of that is locked up in glaciers and permanent snow cover. Although water is a renewable resource, it is also a finite one. And as cities and slums grow at increasing rates, the situation worsens. Did you know that more people in the world own cell phones than have access to a toilet? We live in an age of material luxury, where high priced merchandise and surplus of food is the reality for many, yet such a large population of the world is lacking even the basic amenities.

The health and economic impacts of today’s global water crisis are staggering.

• More than 3.5 million people die each year from water-related disease; 84 percent are children. Nearly all water related deaths, 98 percent, occur in the developing world.
• Lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills children at a rate equivalent of a jumbo jet crashing every four hours.
• Lack of sanitation is the world’s biggest cause of infection.
• Millions of women and children spend several hours each day collecting water from distant, often polluted sources. This is time not spent working at an income-generating job, caring for family members, or attending school.
• 443 million school days are lost each year due to water-related illness.

PLEASE AID OUR GROWING MOVEMENT BY LIMITING YOUR WATER USAGE TO A NEED TO WASH BASIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the support, 1 People One World

Yohan Callen

Don't get caught!

Eat too much of fast food and junk food it can clog your arteries causing cardiac arrest, heart attack, and high blood pressure; along with many other traumatizing things to your body. Especially for children, it can make them obsessed!

Love, Tierra Walls

Come to the table: change the food, change the future!

HUNGRY FOR CHANGE?

Please join Wellness City Challenge and individuals and organizations throughout our county to learn how we can work together to change the way we feed our families!

What: Come to the Table: Change the Food, Change the Future

Why: To change the food culture in our schools

Who: People who are concerned about what children in our community are eating

Where: Mount Diablo High School, Concord

When: May 7, 2011 9am-3pm (registration begins 8:30am)

• Healthy Breakfast & Lunch will be prepared and served by students from local culinary academies
• World Café Discussions about healthy and sustainable food choices
• Motivational Speakers including Dr. Robert Lustig - UCSF, Dr. Kim Mulvihill – Channel 5, Dr. Joseph Ovick – Superintendent of Schools, Contra Costa County Office of Education, Cindy Gershen – Founder, Wellness City Challenge, and other community leaders

PLEASE BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION BY SUPPORTING THIS EVENT!

Project supporters include Contra Costa County Health Department, Sustainable Contra Costa, The American Heart Association, Brentwood Agricultural Land Trust, Whole Foods Market and a growing list of people in our community who want to see changes in what we feed our children. We invite you all to Come to the Table – by attending the event, by encouraging your school administration and elected officials to attend, or by making a donation/becoming a sponsor in order to support our efforts.

Thank you for helping to create a generation of children who have the desire and knowledge to eat better. They will be the next parents, consumers, educators and political leaders...they are the future!

With Sincere Gratitude,

Wellness City Challenge

on behalf of the children

We are proud to announce

Olympic Swimmer Natalie Couglin will be gracing us with her presence and is endorsing our event. She cares deeply about children's health and is an advocate for change! Come hear what she has to say on Saturday May 7th.




please attend if so!

Thank-you, Tierra Walls

9-1-1 KEEP AWAY

Today I am blogging about food that you need to stay away from. The constant stress of nutrient deficiency, food additives, environmental pollutants, and pesticides will eventually take its toll. People need to know all the results of the various foods they eat. For example, some foods cause premature aging, disease, and other health problems. You see, research shows that modern killer diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer are directly related to your diet and lifestyle.
Here is how you know if your food is considered unhealthy

• if it provides empty calories
  
• if it does not have fiber
• if it takes nutrients from your body and leaves you more nutritionally deficient than before you ate them
• if it causes damage to your body and health in more than one way (ex. causes diabetes and heart problems)
  

Here are some foods that you should stay away from:

• Commercial Breakfast Cereals : many list sugar as one of the first ingredients, along with high fructose corn syrup and plenty of starches
  
• Donuts Donuts are made from refined bleached flour, white sugar, and partially hydrogenated oil (that means that they contain trans-fats) and have artificial flavors and colors.
• Ice Cream and Frozen Desserts Commercially made ice creams and frozen desserts are loaded with sugar and various chemicals to give them flavor and texture.
• Processed and Refined Foods When you take food in its natural state and alter, process, refine, and package it, it loses fiber and a whole lot of nutrients.

• Sausages, Hot Dogs, Cured Meats, and Luncheon Meats Sodium nitrite is a close chemical relative of sodium nitrate. Stay far far away from these unhealthy foods.
  

So if you eat any of these food regularly, I suggest you begin by cutting back slowly to change your diet and change your lifestyle.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxxo
@-----'----
JO-JO

Smigus Dyngus?

Happy wet Monday! Today's holiday was truly reflected by the weather out. Wet Monday, or Smigus Dyngus is the after party to Easter Sunday. In some countries, Catholic's partake in dousing other people with holy water blessed the day before during Easter mass. Here on the home front the holiday is most celebrated on the East coast. This day is also often used to launch the year's political campaign season. I was doing some food research on the holiday and found out that a teacher at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana began celebrating Dyngus Day at the request of South Bend students. They provided free Polish sausage for students for students as well as a free concert. All this talk of free sausage has gotten me all worked up. I researched different ways to prepare sausage and here's what I found:

Bowties with Sausage

Ingredients

4 cups dried large bowties (farfalle) or 3 cups dried medium shell macaroni (8 oz)
12 oz uncooked spicy italian sausage links
2 medium sweet red bell peppers cut into 3/4" pieces
1/2 c. vegetable broth or beef broth.
1/4 tsp. corse ground black pepper
1/4 cup snipped fresh parsley (optional)

Directions

Start to finish this takes under 30 mins!

Cook pasta according to box directions. Drain; return pasta to saucepan. cover and keep warm.

Meanwhile, cut sausage into 1 inch pieces. In a Large skillet cook sausage and sweet peppers over medium-high heat until sausage is browned. drain off fat.

stir the broth and black pepper into skillet. bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, uncovered for 5 minutes. Remove from Heat. Pour over pasta; add parsley. Toss gently to coat. transfer to a warm serving dish.

LOVE this recipe ! I hope you do too!
Comment and tell us how this recipe worked out for you!!!


HAPPY TRAILS! Yohan Callen

Gulf seafood

Oh my goodness! Would you ever suspect that even seafood is bad for you now? One year after the BP oil spill, nearly half of all surveyed restaurant patrons gave unfavorable reviews of seafood from the Gulf. Mark Strassmann reports on the lasting effects oil in the Gulf has had on seafood and the people consuming it. Many restaurant owners won't even buy seafood anymore.

By : Tierra walls

Its Passover!!!!!!!!!!!!

Passover is the Jewish festival in celebration of the Jews' freedom from slavery and flight from Egypt. People celebrate passover differently around the world but there are some basic points. The holiday lasts a total of seven or eight days, and the first night of Passover begins with a ceremonial dinner, called a Seder, where the story of the exodus is told. Food and wine play a huge role in this ceremonial feast, but the exact version of each depends on the regions and families tradition. Here is an explanation of the different ceremonies and traditions upheld during Passover.

1st: Each participant in the Seder drinks four cups of wine throughout the evening, at fixed points, for the four promises of redemption associated with the exodus story.

2nd.There's a strict diet banning leavened bread, or chometz. Chometz is bread made from wheat, oat, spelt, rye, or barley flour that has been in contact with water for more than 18 minutes and therefore had a chance to rise. Before Passover, the house is traditionally cleansed of chometz.

3rd.Fundamental to the Seder table is the Seder plate, which has on it the following items:

* zeroah, a lamb's shankbone symbolizing the ancient Passover sacrifice

* beitzah, a roasted egg symbolizing the temple sacrifice and the continuing cycle of life

* haroset, a paste of fruit and nuts symbolizing the mortar used to build the pyramid of the pharaohs

* mar'or, a bitter herb (like horseradish) to represent the bitterness of slavery

* karpas, a green vegetable (usually parsley) representing spring

* A bowl of salt water to dip the karpas symbolizing the slaves' tears.

Here's a Recipe that reflects our healthy foods standpoint with an homage to traditional Passover

Passover Granola

* 1/2 lb. matzah farfel
* 1/2 cup oil
* 1/2 cup brown sugar
* 1/2 stick butter/margarine
* 1/2 cup water
* 1/2 cup chopped nuts
* 1 tsp. cinnamon
* raisins to taste
* coconut to taste
* dates to taste

Melt butter with oil, water, and brown sugar. Add remaining ingredients. Spread on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes. Turn over occasionally, especially watch to see that raisins don't burn. Store in a tupperware or tin container. Easy to make double batches

Kol Tuv(Be Well in hebrew),

Yohan callen

8 Foods You Should Eat Every Day

Wow! I didn't know that there are specific things on the food period that you should eat consistently through out your day, to remain healthy. Who would ever guess that you should eat spinach, yogurt, walnuts, tomatoes, carrots, black beans and blueberries just to remain healthy. I definitely know I wouldn't think of those things to be the primary foods to eat. Wow! You learn something new everyday.

You should aim for 1 cup fresh spinach or 1/2 cup cooked per day. Aim for 22 mg of lycopene a day, which is about eight red cherry tomatoes or a glass of tomato juice (red watermelon, pink grapefruit, Japanese persimmon, papaya, and guava can also work) You should aim to eat 1/2 cup a day of carrots, 1 cup of fresh blueberries a day, or 1/2 cup frozen or dried (Acai berries, purple grapes, prunes, raisins, strawberries). A daily 1/2-cup serving provides 8 grams of protein and 7.5 grams of fiber. It's also low in calories and free of saturated fat(Peas, lentils, and pinto, kidney, fava, and lima beans). A serving of walnuts--about 1 ounce, or 7 nuts--is good anytime, but especially as a post-workout recovery snack (almonds, peanuts, pistachios, macadamia nuts, and hazelnuts also will work).

By Tierra Walls

Hold the ice!

In case you haven't noticed our population has tripled in the past century. This means those people need a renewable water source. Over the next 50 years the population will upsurge by 50%. This population growth will result in a demand for water and will have tremendous effects on our environment. One out of six people lack access to safe drinking water, in other words, 1.1 billion people, and more than two out of six lack sufficient sanitation (2.6 billion people.) Some 3,900 children die every day from water borne diseases. Water is life and is necessary for all ecosystems. Some ecosystems, for example wetlands, and forests have strong water retention capacities. The industrial age is progressing and population growth causes surfeit production.The amount of water used for industrial and agricultural development has a huge effect on the aquatic ecosystems and its life forms. Mother earths cycle has been disrupted and she cannot regulate herself. Correcting measures still can be taken to avoid a global water crisis. By increasing awareness that our resources are limited and we need to protect quantity and quality. This is how we can obtain safe water globally:

* guarantee the right to water;
* decentralize the responsibility for water;
* develop know-how at the local level;
* increase and improve financing;
* evaluate and monitor water resources.

We need your support to make a difference, One World One People!

Nameste,


Yohan Callen

P.S ,
If you have any suggestions please comment us.

Earth Expo: The Changing Face of Oakland

Today, Frank Ogawa Plaza had different feel than the regular Oakland downtown lunch rush. Over 100 exhibitors had set up shop, demonstrating ways Oaklanders can reduce our energy use, compost our food scraps, conserve water, and even remodel our homes and businesses to become green.
The phrase "go green" has become less and less a trend, and more demonstrative of shift in consciousness here in the Bay Area. Yes, the East Bay has long been setting the trend of organic living, beginning with counter culture of the sixties, continuing with Alice Waters' food revolution in the late 1970's, and the current boom in urban gardening programs. Now, however, it has has become evident to families, businesses, and governments alike, that working to create a sustainable future is necessary. And today, local and national exhibitors proved that changing our environmentally harmful ways can also be cost-effective!

I was lucky to meet with Will Stockard, a watershed program specialist with the Community and Economic Development Agency of the City of Oakland. He shared with me how the pesticides we use on our normal house plants and in our gardens at home end up in the water we drink. Our Water our World is an amazing website that provides consumers information on safe alternative pesticides to use, handling pest problems safely, and TONS of information on dangers of using toxic pesticides and cleaners. Additionally, he told me how the Alameda Countywide Clean Water Program can support families and businesses and schools in preventing storm water run-off and ways to keep our creeks and Bay clean.

Labeled the "Food Loop" the tables and vendors showcasing gardening and organic foods received a lot of attention. Farm Fresh to You shared the lovely produce they had picked just that morning, and ways in which Oakland residents and businesses can have fresh, local organic produce delivered to your door. (It easier than you think, check out their website, and while you are it another great farm Full Belly Farm.) Bay Friendly Gardening and Community Gardening Program were giving away plants and seeds, and information about free gardening classes, many of which take place at Lake Merritt and other convenient East Bay Locations.
Other Highlights were the Oakland Shines Program where you could take a ride on the bicycle generator to learn more about energy demands of common household items. Additionally, StopWaste.org was giving mini-composting classes and demonstrating how we can put our food scraps to good use; Oakland Recycles was giving out tasty strawberries, and when finished, you had the opportunity to compost your scraps and receive a free recycled re-usable shopping bag.
What does it mean to be green? Planting and harvesting our own food? Composting rather than throwing away? Installing solar energy panels in my roof? Today, at Oakland's Earth Expo, I've learned that there are a myriad of ways I can make a different, more conscious footprint on this planet. While I cannot expect to change the planet, or even my habits overnight, its wonderful to see that there are so many supportive and helpful organizations help me on my journey to live sustainably.

By Alexandra Candia

Sailing in the Blue

In case you didn't know in about a month the annual Antigua Sailing Week 2011 begins.Breathtaking sailing and festive entertainment attract competitors from all around the world to the enchanting island of Antigua.Yachts from over 15 different countries are gathering to take part in the final act of the Caribbean regatta season.Regatta is a word that means racing of yachts. This festival is not only about sailing but the food . There are so many species of sea critter , but I'm thinking lobster. This recipe comes from the Bahamian islands

Ingredients:

* Meat from 1 lobster (about 3/4 cup- l cup)
* 1 onion
* 3 oz of butter
* 2 tbsp of curry powder
* 1 tbsp flour
* salt to taste
* 1 cup of milk
* Juice from 1 lemon



Directions

Add the butter to a heavy saucepan over medium and melt. Meanwhile, slice onion in half, and then cross way into thin half moons.Cook for five minutes until semi-translucent. Mix flour, curry, and salt together in a small mixing bowl, then add to fried onions. Stir the flour mix with the onions until onions are nicely coated with a floury paste. Keep stirring over heat for another 2 minutes, until flour JUST begins to brown and bubble. Add milk and let boil for an hour on low heat. Add more milk if the stew becomes too thick. Add cut up lobster meat and lemon and cook another 10 minutes until lobster is heated through. Enjoy with fried plantain slices or finish off the meal with a plate of good tropical fruit!


Feel free to comment on how the recipe worked for you---it always does me justice!!!!!!!!!


Yohan Callen