Simply Getting Involved
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Dear Friends, 
These are hectic, stressful times and while most of us have strong ideas about what needs to be done for things to become better, we are busy trying to get by in our own lives and simply don’t feel we have the time or resources to get involved with the bigger corrective causes. But getting involved is simple. We can in the most profound way become true, fully participating radicals for creating the necessary changes that will eliminate starvation, stop the environmental destruction, and increase bio-diversity. We can do this right in the flow of our daily life as it manifests today. And, I must add that you, as health professionals, can greatly magnify your impact by simply encouraging your patients to do what I am going to suggest that you do more diligently. Here are the three habits to engage with every day, and teach others to do the same:
As we highlighted last week in Forward Thinking, The National Heirloom Exposition was held last weekend in Santa Rosa, California. There were over 10,000 people who attended what was called the First-ever National Heirloom Exposition. It was like an old fashioned fair, only with healthy foods, organic foods, poultry, livestock, 12 chefs demonstrating their cooking methods, 17 different seed companies, 200 vendor booths, and 60 speakers, including luminaries for the cause of organic, local, biodiversity, sustainability and systemic thinking. The Baker Creek Seed Company of San Francisco initiated and coordinated this event. You can call them for tapes of the speakers, etc. Their number is 707.609-5171. So, what is an heirloom? It is a variety of a plant that has been handed down from family to family because the plant has some quality that they wanted to save. It might be the taste or its ability to grow in times of limited rain, or its shelf life. It is all held in the seed or the bulb. And, this is what people from all over the world do, they cherish their seeds. Last week I highlighted four of the Heirloom speakers—Dr. Vandana Shiva, Jeffrey Smith, Alice Waters and Karen Brown. These four and their organizations are definitely on the front edge of the cause for organic, local, biodiversity and the social justice corrections they will bring about. Here are their websites. Vandana Shiva– Navdanya, Dr. Shiva’s website is a movement to protect the diversity and integrity of living resources, especially native seeds. Dr. Shiva is recognized as one of the leaders in the pure food movement, both in her native India and the world over. Tune into her. Jeffrey Smith– International bestselling author of Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette. Jeffrey M. Smith is a widely popular spokesperson on the documented health risks of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and how biotech companies rig research, gag critics, hijack regulators, and spin fantastic unfulfilled promises. His website Institute for Responsible Technology and its Campaign for Healthier Eating in America is designed to achieve the tipping point of consumer rejection of GMOs to force them out of the food supply. Alice Waters– Internationally recognized as an author, activist, humanitarian, and restaurateur. Ms. Waters was one of the first advocates of the ‘eat local’ revolution. Her critically-acclaimed Berkeley, California restaurant, Chez Panisse, which opened its doors in 1971, has always served only organic, local produce, fresh in season or else preserved by natural means, such as root-cellar storage. Ms. Waters has written a number of books, mainly wonderful cookbooks written in collaboration with her chefs, and also The Edible Schoolyard, in which she writes about a project that she began in 1996, consists of a one-acre organic garden at Martin Luther King, Jr., Middle School, in Berkeley. The thriving garden is maintained by the students, who also use the produce in their cooking classes. Karen Brown– I love the title of Karen’s talk at the Heirloom Expo—Help Wanted- 50 Million New Farmers. I haven’t heard her talk yet, but can’t you imagine her point and isn’t that exactly what we need, 50 million new, small scale, locally oriented organic farmers worldwide? Karen is the creative director for the Center for Ecoliteracy. The Center for Ecoliteracy is a leader in creating models of schooling for sustainablitiy. They design strategies for applying ecological and indigenous understanding in K-12 education. And, there is one more link that I put down in Green Facts. Picking any one of these five and consistently tracking with them will transform each of us into the radicals that our world needs us to be. Sincerely yours, Seann Bardell Clinical Note: This week we are highlighting our powerful Organic Freeze Dried Garlic. Antibiotics and many herbal antimicrobials (ie oregano and berberine) are very hard on the good bacteria and through their over use can result in a dysbiotic gut. MICs (Minimum Inhibitory Concentrations) are a numerical representation of the power of a particular antimicrobial to kill or inhibit the growth of a particular bacteria or yeast. The lower the number the stronger the inhibition. For a drug or herb to be effective we look at a range of 30 or less. Garlic’s MIC against lactic acid bacteria (the kind we use in our probiotics) is over 200. That is perfect, for it shows that it doesn’t harms these good bugs. But garlic MIC for yeast like Candida is 7. That is very low, validating that garlic is a very strong anti-fungal. Garlic is also powerful against salmonella, S. aureus, E.coli, Cryptosporidium, Giardia, Herpes and Spirocytes.  The Last Quiz Answer: The tail of this amazing creature, that you see here, is the size of a small aircraft. Its tongue weighs as much as an elephant. Its heart is the size of a car. Some of its blood vessels are so wide that you could swim down them. It is far bigger than even the biggest dinosaur. It weighs over 200 tons. What is it? It is the Blue Whale. It is the biggest animal that has ever lived on our planet. We know that it can cruise at 20 knots, and that it lives primarily on krill. But what is astonishing is that we know very little else about them. Their migration routes are unknown. Their breeding grounds are unknown. It just goes to show how vast the ocean expanses are.
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