Jane Goodall's Harvest for Hope

In her 2005 book subtitled "A Guide for Mindful Eating", Jane Goodall proves she is more than just the chimp lady.

Goodall's lifelong study of chimpanzee behavior naturally led to her concern about their habitat and their dwindling population. The logging trade and the raising of cattle are causing the disappearance of the chimp's forest habitat. The bushmeat trade is causing the chimp's potential extinction. Chimpanzee meat is a delicacy in parts of the world. Imagine browsing in an African market and pawing through severed chimpanzee hands to find your dinner.

Gentle Jane's early chapters start with easy talk about animal diets and differences in human diets around the world. The reader is lulled by a seemingly basic primer on animals and diet. Chapter 2, "A Celebration of Cultures," is a happy chapter indeed.

Then Jane packs her punch.

Our happy, indulgent cultures encourage businesses to pesticide-proof crops with chemicals. As added bonus, we eat the chemicals too. Plus, we get bigger, stronger crop-eating pests. So now, companies like Monsanto, are modifying the DNA of the crops themselves.

Our lifestyles have also brought about the horrors of factory farms, the modern-day replacement of family farms. You don't need to accept that animals have souls, just that they suffer, to recoil at the treatment of the cows, pigs and chickens in these assembly-line hell-houses.

Chickens are crammed together so they can't stretch their wings, starved and denied water when egg production is down. Cows are branded, castrated, wallow in feces. Tailless pigs are shot up with growth hormones and weakened by lack of exercise. Sometimes their tiny legs break trying to carry their own weight off to slaughter.

If you are callous enough to not care about the animals' suffering, you might care that you and your family eat all the hormones and antibiotics the animals are injected with. (We've learned the consequences of too much antibiotics: super-bugs.)

Jane recalls the farms she knew as a child, where animals were loved and roamed free. Crops were rotated so that the soil remains fertile. These farms were compact ecosystems that worked without wearing out the land.

Jane's message: if you are going to eat meat, eat small-farm, local and organic. Better yet, don't eat meat and let people eat the grain that feeds the livestock.

Can you handle that? If not, then you won't know what hit you when the water crisis lurking around the corner appears.

Gimme a Clean Break

My friend West Nelson sent me a link to this Discover Magazine article containing twenty fun historical facts about cleanliness or rather, lack of cleanliness. The most surprising tidbit: toothbrushing wasn't commonplace until World War II.

Once the western world discovers that "cleanliness means health", we of course, take it too far. Read about the guy who died from excessive cleanliness. But even ordinary folk (non-OCD sufferers) take it too far. Experts are attributing increases in childhood asthma and eczema to lack of exposure to germs and bacteria.

Bottom line: wash your hands with normal soap and water, don't touch your face and don't be a freak.

Ladies and Germs

Are you paranoid about germs? No? Read "Talking Dirty" in today's London Times. Now are you paranoid?

The real question: are you paranoid enough?

The article tells you in chilling detail exactly how dirty everything is. Even a relatively easygoing person will find a few good tidbits to dwell on in this article. My favorite fun fact: the filthiest place is the ground floor button in an elevator. Don't ask "can you hit 1 for me please?" in the elevator anymore.

The article claims that women's bathrooms are dirtier than men's. I am skeptical; I have seen men's bathrooms. But I quote: "Women’s toilets were significantly more contaminated than men’s, with the middle cubicle usually the most contaminated of all. Airport toilets were the germiest of all."

"Researchers found that 64 per cent of the time the floor in front of the toilet in a public convenience was contaminated with faecal (English spelling) bacteria." How about 100 milligrams of poop per square inch on the bottom of your purse?

Giving up the Bottle

I have decided to stop buying bottled water.

I don't drink it at home; tap water tastes fine. I don't order it in restaurants--seems pretentious. But I am unusually afraid of being thirsty and lacking access to water. Lack of water in my hands makes me nervous.

I have bottled water (usually Poland Springs) in the car on a road trip. I have a bottle at my desk (but I refill the bottle from the filtered water in the kitchen). I often buy a bottle on my way home from work to drink on the subway. Often. Very often. Almost every day.

I used to feel okay about this, even good about it. I am getting the mandatory eight daily glasses for sure, though I don't count them. Now its not okay, and I get it.

I will dig out a refillable plastic cup/lid with a scratched-up logo from an old beach bag, something I can put in my purse. Its not the branded water I care about; I care about portability. I can deal with a little less convenience, I think.

Tomorrow is Day 1. Let's see how I do.

Bet a Fin on This

If you throw your old cell phones in the trash, they end up in a landfill for the rest of time. But where exactly should you get rid of them?

G. and I still have our last phones sitting around, obsolete for almost two years. Every once in a while, I think I should figure out how to dispose of them responsibly. Now I have found the answer.

Throw away your old cell phones safely and have fun at the same time at the World Championship of Mobile Phone Throwing. The event takes place August 25. And they promise not to test for doping. Only catch, its in Finland.