WellBeing

Describe how you gelt about it at the time. - today's Plinky question: http://www.plinky.com/prompts... - Kol Tregaskes

does having children count? :) - Kim

"Even in the best of economic times, we’ve always had a rather small budget for food. When my husband and I first got married, we were both full-time students working part-time, minimum wage jobs at $4/hour. There were months when I fed both of us for just $15/week! Granted, it wasn’t particularly Real Food, but I mostly mention it to say: I’ve been there, folks. I’ve been dirt poor trying to do the best I can with what I had. I understand the sticker shock that comes from choosing nourishing, real foods. It can be hard to pay $6.50/gallon for grass-fed raw milk when the grocery store milk is $3/gallon less. It feels crazy." - Anna Haro from Bookmarklet

"And, it often makes people give up in frustration before they’ve even begun to incorporate better food choices into their diet. Well, I’m here to tell you it can be done. You may not be able to do it all at once; I know we didn’t. It’s taken us years to get to where we are, and we still make compromises all the time because of budget constraints. So, give yourself a little grace." - Anna Haro

"There are two components to eating Real Food on a budget. One is learning what foods to prioritize sourcing well, and the other is learning how to manage your kitchen properly to stretch those dollars." - Anna Haro

"Working on these points can help you get better quicker. You do not have to use all of these points. Using just one or two of them whenever you have a free hand can be effective." - Anna Haro from Bookmarklet

Look at F. Makes sense that so many people rub /pinch right there when they are frustrated. - Heather Solos

"Meditation is the art of focusing 100% of your attention in one area. The practice comes with a myriad of well-publicized health benefits including increased concentration, decreased anxiety, and a general feeling of happiness. Although a great number of people try meditation at some point in their lives, a small percentage actually stick with it for the long-term. This is unfortunate, and a possible reason is that many beginners do not begin with a mindset needed to make the practice sustainable." - Anna Haro from Bookmarklet

"Skills like memory are the first to go when we're tired. This test assesses your ability to remember how long ago something happened - your 'temporal' memory. If you're tired you won't be as good at remembering when you saw or did something." - Kol Tregaskes from Bookmarklet

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become." - Anna Haro from Bookmarklet

"However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you If you do not act on upon them?" - Anna Haro

"In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true." - Anna Haro

"Planning a trip? Let the Eat Well Guide help you find local, sustainable, and organic food wherever you go." - Anna Haro from Bookmarklet

Handy, for sure. - Christopher Harley

Thanks, Anna! I'll have to check this out. - ha3rvey (needs soup)

"The morning I finally decided to give up using cash, the whole world changed. It was the same day news broke about the banks' misbehaviour in the sub-prime mortgage market, so when I began telling people of my plans, they assumed it was in preparation for some sort of apocalyptic financial meltdown. However, having long viewed credit as a debit against future generations, I was infinitely more worried about what George Monbiot called the "nature crunch". Nature, unfortunately, doesn't do bailouts." - Anna Haro from Bookmarklet

"My eureka moment came during an afternoon's philosophising with a mate. We were chatting about global issues such as sweatshops, environmental destruction, factory farms, animal testing labs, wars over resources, when I realised I was looking at the world the wrong way – like a western doctor looks at a patient, focusing on symptoms more than root causes. Instead, I decided to attempt what I awkwardly term "social homeopathy". - Anna Haro

"I believe the key reason for so many problems in the world today is the fact we no longer have to see directly the repercussions of our actions. The degrees of separation between the consumer and the consumed have increased so much that people are completely unaware of the levels of destruction and suffering involved in the production of the food and other "stuff" we buy. The tool that has enabled this disconnection is money." - Anna Haro

"We all want the secrets to health and vitality. We can buy bottles, creams, and whatever else is advertised to us, but ultimately anything sustainable comes from self-awareness and choices. I recently read the New York Times piece, The Economics of Doing What You Love, by Justin Wolfers. Wolfers outlines analysis of his habit of running and what it has cost him financially. Time spent running vs. potential extra hours at his teaching job, money spent on shoes vs. money saved, and so on. "By my calculations, my 16-week training program comes at an opportunity cost of several thousand dollars. A quicker runner would have a smaller opportunity cost. It's only because I'm both slow and an economist that I fret that the world's cheapest sport is actually incredibly expensive."" - Myrna from Bookmarklet

What foods should you buy organic? It seems like the organic section of the grocery store is expanding, but are organics worth the price? We have young children at home and I always error on the side of buying organic produce. We also get our veggies from an organic farm, see link below, so I rarely buy produce at the store. Once in a while I want an item not provided from our farm, the list below will help to decipher what to buy organically and not organically. The today show recently came out with a list of the foods that you should buy organically, i.e., these foods are not as effected by pesticides, and a list of foods that it's not worth spending the extra money to buy organic. The group of foods that you should buy organically they call "The Dirty Dozen"; these foods still have pesticides even after they are washed. - Myrna from Bookmarklet

"What foods should you buy organic? Are organics worth the price?" Absolutely in any case! Living in Germany, I have been exclusively consuming certified organic products for 30 years! - Reiner Grißhammer

"Just read this great advice from Dr. Vinay Goyal[presently heads the Nuclear Medicine Department and Thyroid clinic at Riddhivinayak Cardiac and Critical Centre, Malad (W)] who gave a lecture this past August 2009 on his visit to Molokai, HI. He spoke on the origin of and precautions for H1N1 (SWINE FLU). Since my personal practice includes gargling with warm water and salt and also using a neti pot whenever I have a 'tickle' in my throat or other signs of upper respiratory infections, I agree with what Dr Goyal suggested. It's just a reminder for me and perhaps you. Because I don't like meds or immunizations in general, I have learned to protect myself and boost my immune system naturally. If you'd like to protect yourself either from the flu, viruses or upper respiratory infections, read below for Dr Goyal's suggestions.Dr Vinay Goyal:" - Myrna from Bookmarklet

Unlike the orthodox mainstream medicine: turmeric is - without any bad side effect - the most efficient home remedy for sore throat! A teaspoon of TURMERIC a day keeps the doctor away! http://www.youtube.com/watch... - Reiner Grißhammer

http://grisshammer.blogspot.com/ Unlike the orthodox mainstream medicine: turmeric is - without any bad side effect - the most efficient home remedy for sore throat! A teaspoon of TURMERIC a day keeps the doctor away! - Reiner Grißhammer

"New treatment offers promise for previously untreatable amblyopia cases. Seven subjects in a recent exercise improved their overall visual acuity as much as 216 percent, researchers say." - Kol Tregaskes from Bookmarklet

"Children whose mothers work are less likely to lead healthy lives than those with "stay at home" mums, a study says. The Institute of Child Health study of more than 12,500 five-year-olds found those with working mothers less active and more likely to eat unhealthy food. Other experts said more work was needed to see if the results applied to other age groups. The study is in the Journal of Epidemiology and Child Health. About 60% of mothers with children aged up to five are estimated to be in work." - Kol Tregaskes from Bookmarklet

Sure, of course. What about dads? Why does no one ever mention stay-at-home dads? Because there are none, that's why. - Giulia B.

I get the feeling they're not being held responsible for much, either. - Giulia B.

"Gandhi never held any official position in government, he had no wealth, the commanded no armies -- but he could mobilize millions. People were willing to serve with him and for him because his life was devoted to serving them. Many of us have come to believe that leadership is the attainment of power. But as long as power dominates our thinking about leadership, we cannot move toward a higher standard of leadership." - Anna Haro from Bookmarklet

"We must place service at the core; for even though power will always be associated with leadership, it has only one legitimate use: service. The ideal of selfless service -- you see everybody as yourself and expect no reward." - Anna Haro

"But if you wait until you can serve without any selfish motive, you may wait forever. Gandhi insisted that the best way to attain the ideal was to start on the journey: "If we all refuse to serve, until we attain perfection, there will be no service. The fact is that perfection is attained through service." - Anna Haro

Macosauros :D - آریـوبرزن

Dear Myrna, I saw your page on googlereader.com. there were so many nice pictures there. but frankly, I have bo enough time to handle an ID there. right now I have no time to manage these two IDs on friendfeed.com and balatarin.com (a Persian Digg like site) :D . but you must be sure that I will be here (in your friendfeed page) to see your beautiful feeds, everey time I can :) - آریـوبرزن

"Depression seems to pose an evolutionary paradox. Research in the US and other countries estimates that between 30 to 50 percent of people have met current psychiatric diagnostic criteria for major depressive disorder sometime in their lives. But the brain plays crucial roles in promoting survival and reproduction, so the pressures of evolution should have left our brains resistant to such high rates of malfunction. Mental disorders should generally be rare — why isn’t depression?" - Anna Haro from Bookmarklet

Every single person on both sides of my family has an IQ over 150. Every person also has at least one mental illness, and there's suicide attempts (and successes) all around. Despite the intelligence, most are not successful (by nearly every sense of the word), though they tend to live past 90. - Thursday Lo :)

"One of my most humiliating memories is during seventh grade. Near the end of the year, we had a sizzling heat wave, something not too common in Berkeley. I was a chubby kid and always had been, never wearing shorts or tank tops and always afraid of my body being judged. My mom had bought me a long skirt, black with big yellow sunflowers (de rigeur for 1998), and in the heat, I decided to throw fear to the wind and wear the skirt to school. There are two ways people guess that this story ends. One has me realizing how freeing the skirt is, feeling beautiful, and discovering something resembling self worth. The other has me shamed in front of my peers, made to feel fat and even more worthless." - Anna Haro from Bookmarklet

I like these little stories, that's awesome. I never wear shorts either, because I'm self conscious, and I'm not even chubby :( (and I agree, that woman is not fat at all) I will dare to be pantsless! - Thursday Lo :)

...to love and to be loved. - Anna Haro from Bookmarklet

I need this painted on my living room wall. - Michelle Martinez

"In Part 1 of this series, I discussed some of the ways that life deals us a bum hand, and some of the ways we can deal with that. In this post, I continue the list, starting with some oddnesses about factors that seem to play as big a role, if not even bigger, as individual merit in determining or life success." - Kol Tregaskes from Bookmarklet

Insight on the obesity epidemic from a Disneyland ride. Quote: "When I last rode the [Small World] ride,  it had just reopened after having been closed for almost a year for renovations.  I asked one of the attendants what had changed, hoping for an de-inane-ation of the ride.  The guy told me it hadn’t changed at all; they had just made the boats a little bigger and deepened the channel.  Then he told me it was because the guests of the park had become so much larger than when the ride went in in the 60s and were causing the boats to bottom out." - Andre P. Siregar from Bookmarklet

"Today, the definition of normal eating is blurry. It’s gotten lost amid buzz words like “diet,” “restriction,” “willpower” and “flat abs.” It’s sandwiched between the sizable stacks of “shoulds”: I should diet. I should abstain from dessert. I should count calories. I should avoid “bad” foods. I should have an invisible stomach, smaller hips and thin thighs." - Anna Haro from Bookmarklet

I have been playing a fun game with food lately - every time I go to the farmer's market, I try to buy something I have never cooked before. Last week it was borlotti beans - they are pink and white and look like candy. Ok, they taste like big white beans, but just shelling them was fun for the color. The week before it was padron peppers, which are succulent and tasty but not hot. Anyway, it's a fun game, and food should really be fun, it is one of few true pleasures of life. - Nadine Schaeffer

"There’s no denying that whole grains are beneficial. And since the natural food craze began in the 1970s, it’s become much easier to get your whole grain fix in everything from cookies to pizza. But what exactly is whole grain and how do you incorporate it into your diet?" - Anna Haro from Bookmarklet

"Supermarket shelves are bursting with products advertised as containing whole grains to promote health, but do they really? In order for something to be whole grain product, the grains in the product have to be intact and unrefined. The whole grain in the product should be the first item on the ingredients list. Manufacturers sometimes use phrases such as “100% wheat” to make a product... more... - Anna Haro

"Bringing mindfulness into the world can be challenging. We can, however, turn the world into a place of practice. Each moment we live is a chance to be mindful and present, never to be repeated again. Developing mindfulness is important to help us live presently in life. Here we look at a few personal and reader tips that have helped us view the Big Blue Room as a place of practice and mindfulness." - Anna Haro from Bookmarklet

"Life’s not fair. Our thought processes are controlled by brains that are not always strictly rational. Social and economic forces beyond our control can toss us like plastic bags in the wind. Physical appearances play as large a role, if not larger, in the way we regard others – and the way others regard us. It’s just not FAIR! With a little thought, I came up with 10 things that just aren’t fair, and some ideas about how to deal with them. I’ve deliberately avoided things having to do directly with race, sex, and other forms of discrimination, hoping instead to focus on more universal unfairnesses. Maybe I’ll come back with a follow-up dealing with those issues at a later date." - Kol Tregaskes from Bookmarklet