Healthy menus and seasonal local produce are rare commodities at fast food restaurants but I predict that they will spawn a new generation of on-the-go citizens demanding a better option than our current Sad Meals from McDonalds that pander to already nutritionally-starved individuals.

“Serve with Love” is Burgerville’s mission statement.  With 39 restaurants in Washington and Oregon and expansion in the process, Burgerville began as a creamery in the 1920s and turned into a fast food local restaurant in 1961 serving fresh seasonal produce.

Burgerville has a special niche by serving all natural burgers, real ice cream shakes, and 100% authentic food free of hormones and harmful additives.  All local dollars earned by Burgerville are kept in local banks.  80% of food products come from 150 to 200 miles of the restaurants.  Burgerville also purchases wind power credits equal to the total energy use in all their restaurants which is equivalent to removing 1,700 cars from the road or planting 2,400 acres of trees.  They also use only trans fat free canola oil which is then recycled and turned into biodiesel.

Why aren’t more fast food restaurants popping up with this same idea?  Last year I read a review in a local paper about a long-time Tacoma resident moving back to the area and opening up Jimmy John’s chain, a fast food “gourmet” sandwich restaurant.  With my interest piqued from the story I headed over to Jimmy John’s where I was quite impressed with how fast they whipped up the sandwich on a line that would have made Henry Ford’s assembly line blush.  One taste of the sandwich made my stomach churn, but insistent that it MUST be good, I finished the whole sandwich and suffered an afternoon stomach ache from my bull-headed quest to find a good fast food restaurant.

The pull to Burgerville is their strong commitment to healthy nutritional food, 100% recycling, wind energy, biodiesel, and if that doesn’t convince you, they provide quite the health benefit package to employees.  Employees pay $15 a month and have no deductible and their benefits include vision and dental.  If an employee has a family, their out-of-pocket cost is $90 a month; if a parent and child, $30.  All salaried employees are given $3,500 a year for educational endeavors and there is a Jack Graves Scholarship Fund of $10,000 for students.

I met Jack Graves, Burgerville’s CFO, and I asked him if he eats his company’s food and if so, does he get sick of it.  He told me he eats at a different Burgerville every single day, 5 days a week, loves the food, and that he has never ever missed work and ran a marathon once with potential plans for more in the future.  When I asked him what he was most proud of, he said that it is knowing Burgerville’s dollars stay in the local community and that many of their suppliers’ children work in their restaurants, and that his company looks at their health coverage for employees as an investment, not as a cost.

Graves believes that Burgerville is a steward to the community, ensuring that their values align with those of families for good nutrition and fair compensation, including ensuring their farming partnerships provide quality care to their employees.  All the small farmers Burgerville works with treats their migrant workers fairly, provides places for their kids in school and provides good homes for the workers.

In the summertime, one can pick up a Blackberry or Strawberry milkshake after finishing up a side dish of Walla Walla Sweet Onion Rings or Sweet Potato Fries.

My personal favorite menu consists of the Spicy Anasazi Bean Burger, Pepper Jack Cheese, Chipotle Mayonnaise, Lettuce and Tomato on a Sesame Seed Bun with sweet potato fries and a chocolate hazelnut milkshake.

Currently, Burgerville is serving a roasted portobello Focaccia sandwich and panko portobello wedges.  They partnered with two Portobello  mushroom growers: Yamhill County Mushrooms, a Food Alliance certified sustainable farm, and family owned Ostrom Mushroom.  The focaccia bread is from Schwartz Brother’s Bakery in Seattle.

The closest Burgerville to Tacoma is in Centralia, Washington, opened in 1976 and offers free wi-fi.  Their address is 818 Harrison Avenue and they open at 7 a.m. and close at 10 p.m. seven days a week.  Every time I drive to Portland, I always stop in for my Anasazi burger and sweet potato fries, washed down with their wondrous Sumatran drip coffee.

We need to educate more people on eating local sustainable food and not contribute to the waste and nutritional deprivation of mainstream fast food restaurant businesses that care not for employees or consumers but rather their stockholders’ financial pockets.  What you eat really is who you are and has a much larger impact than your little world — you impact the life quality of animals, farmers, migrant workers, your local community’s health and finances, healthcare, and pollution contribution, amongst many others.

Burgerville is a solid example of what fast food restaurants could attain to if only consumers demanded it.  Imagine a world of fresh Oregon strawberries and fresh Pierce County rhubarb mixed together in a tasty dessert that is nutritionally satisfying as well as pleasuring the taste buds, made to order at a drive-through window on break from work.  You can, because Burgerville stands as a beam of light to our Pacific Northwest community and growing desire to work with nature rather than against her.

For the next 30 days I am going on a very strong detox cleanse with the added benefit of losing my winter love handles.  For Christmas my mother gave me “The Raw Divas Menu Planner” that outlines a month of menus, weekly shopping list, and detailed recipes.  Made easy for both a busy and lazy person like me, all I have to do is check the menu for the day and whip up my meal.  I admit that this is not a New Year’s Resolution nor a purely health-based rationale — Chris and I are going on our honeymoon in March to Puerto Rico and I don’t want to be caught dead with fluff on my hips as I stroll the beaches.

Currently I am sipping a modified-version of “Green Revolution Smoothie” — modified in the sense that I can never follow a recipe but always have to improve on it.  My version contains a banana, handful of dandelion greens, black dinosaur kale, raw cashews, pineapple juice and a teaspoon of probiotics.

The premise of body cleansing is based on the Ancient Egyptian and Greek idea of autointoxication, where ingested foods can putrefy and produce toxins that harm the body.  A rather large fight rages in the health communities as to whether detox “diets” improve a body’s system or not, but I’d like to point out some common-sense in the fray of fad vs. beneficial detoxing.

So why go on a cleansing detox diet, heralded as Gen X fad of health hippies who care more about sheik hip living than about balancing their checkbook and living in the real world?

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My first thought upon waking up this morning was Plasmodium protozoan Malaria.  Why?  Because I have been studying Microbiology and recently read a fantastic book entitled Invisible Enemies: Stories of Infectious Disease by Jeanette Farrell.  The average person on the street shivers with fear when microbes are mentioned because the tiny microscopic bugs are associated with death and disease, despite scientific knowledge that disease-causing bacteria are a small fraction of the beneficial or non-harming microbes.

Without microbes, we would all be dead.  There might not even be any rain or snow since bacteria assist in their creation.  There definitely would be no plant or animal life, since scientists know that oxygen was originally produced by cyanobacteria.  Without beneficial bacteria hanging out on our skin and mucous membranes, we would have died long ago.  They help us digest our food, synthesize vitamins (E. coli synthesizes vitamin K, niacin, B12, etc.), and occupy niches otherwise empty for pathogenic microbes.  Probiotics, or good bacteria in our guts, help strengthen our immune system, reduce allergies, helps us digest food better, and in new research, probiotics may even be directly related to weight gain or weight loss, depending on one’s intestinal probiotic make-up.  Even more exciting is the new discovery that bacteria are passed on from mother to child and may be as much of a factor in obesity as genetics.

Our entire ecosystem depends on microbes — specifically, soil microbes that are responsible for decomposition of organic matter into reusable food sources.  Bacteria, fungi, and protozoa (all microbes) release enzymes that drive the life-giving carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur cycles in soil that facilitates organic matter turnover into nutrient-rich soil for plants.  Microbes make or break healthy soil by affecting its structure or even soil’s ability to hold water for plants.

These microbes—bacteria, fungi, and protozoa—release enzymes that drive the important carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur cycles in soil and facilitate turnover of organic matter, making nutrients available to plants.

Microbes affect soil structure by breaking down needed nutrients and retaining moisture for plants.  By monitoring microbes in the soil we can watch for early warning signs of nutrient and moisture depletion that affect plant growth.  Using pesticides and other chemicals to kill pathogenic microbes also kill beneficial microbes, causing a lose-lose situation for microbes, soil, and plants. Farming practices may disrupt the soil ecosystem and decrease the effectiveness of microbe communities, such as tilling the soil that disrupts their life cycle in soil.

Recently my soon-to-be-wedded-hubs smacked a bumper sticker on my car that stated “Admit it, Tacoma.  You are beautiful.”  This now sits above my “I Heart Tagro” bumper sticker.  Tagro, short for Tacoma Grow, has won three Environmental Protection Agency Awards and three sewage/biosolids awards since 1995.  We are nationally-known for our beautiful Tacoma sewage-turned-potting soil.  All-natural TAGRO products are made from pasteurized waste-water byproducts called biosolids, sawdust and other gardening elements.  Research at Washington State University and the University of Washington show that plants using TAGRO grow taller, greener, and produce more than plants grown in commercial or chemical products.  Since Pierce County has had septic waste issues in the not-so-distant past, TAGRO is a welcomed relief to unite friendly environment products with solid waste disposal.  Tacoma is on the forefront of the the recycling sewage movement into usable soil additives, and I can only hope that this venture spreads elsewhere in the country.

The cost of TAGRO is $8 per truckload (U-haul) if a Tacoma resident and $10 per truckload if a Pierce County resident.  Truly, those prices are unbeatable.  If you are looking for a small amount of potting soil, there is a free pile at the TAGRO facility or for a small fee, in individually-packed bags.

TAGRO builds up soil nutrients, fosters healthy microbial growth, and produces beautiful plants.  Soil microbes love good organic fertilizers.  Texas Scientists have discovered that microbes release nutrients from fertilizers at an impressive rate, unlocking those nutrients at the precise time strawberry plants need them the most.

When humans are long gone, microbes will still be around, accomplishing their important tasks.  We can be destroyed by them or choose to utilize them properly, replacing our foolish misconception that we are Nature’s Overlords to rather work in conjunction with the invisible world to unify humankind with our rightful place as a part (not the whole) of nature.

In the City of Tacoma Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan, entitled “Food and Water”, it is the City of Tacoma’s policy that “citizens are advised to be prepared to be on their own for 7-10 days following a disaster.”  Who has enough food and water to last 7-10 days (besides the Mormons)?

What would happen if our grocery stores ran out of food and we were cut off from Sysco’s delivery system?  What would the city of Tacoma do if, due to natural or man-made disasters, we could no longer obtain enough food or clean water for our area?  Ding Dongs and Ho Hos may last millennia, but there are only so many to go around in Tacoma circles.

Our system hangs on thin threads if such an event were to occur.  We depend on our grocery stores for our food, not on our gardens.  Adding to the problem is that each state specializes in certain commodities, thereby limiting the critical nature of diversifying produce.  In our region, we could find blueberries and other fruits in the Skagit valley, rhubarb, corn, beets, and a few other veggies in Puyallup, apples in Olympia, Wilcox chickens from the Graham area, but seriously, there is just not enough local food to take care of our local people, and in the event of a serious disaster, we would have no way to obtain those goods anyway.

What would happen if a disaster happened in our region?  A tsunami, earthquake, or Rainier rupturing?  While the City of Tacoma may have a plan, have they ever put the full plan to use to see if the Chain of Command holds up and works smoothly?

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the urgency to find family members became a frantic cat-and-mouse game for many people as evacuation and subsequent relocation efforts took place.  Children ended up in different cities from their parents.  Not only finding lost loved ones, but basic survival needs were left out of the picture, and people died because of inept plans by the city, county, State, and nation.  Is Tacoma ready for such an event?  I hope so.  Are you?

Tacoma’s Emergency Plan encourages people to make a family disaster kit that is ready to grab and go in the event of a disaster.  Above all, the essentials should include water, food, medications, and a journal that lists contact information, meet-up location, and out of state relatives’ information.

Disaster Kit Checklist

Tacoma’s Emergency Disaster Guide encourages each person to have a kit containing these items available for use (and provides a  more detailed list than what I post below):

Water: Store a minimum of one gallon per person per day (for drinking, food preparation and personal hygiene).  Store enough for one week.

Food and Food Preparation: Store non-perishable foods, avoiding foods that will make you thirsty. Store enough for one week.  Include all food preparation items, such as can openers, cooking camp stove, utensils, etc.

First Aid: Purchase a commercial first aid kit or assemble your own, and ensure that medications, bandages, neosporin for cuts, alcohol swabs, and sanitation towelettes are included.

Sanitation and Personal Hygiene: include such things as bleach, personal toothbrushes, toilet paper, covered container to use as a toilet, trash bags, etc.

Sleeping and Clothing Supplies: complete change of clothes for each person, warm blankets and sleeping pads, etc.

Shelter, Communication, Tools and Other Supplies: small fire extinguisher, wrench to turn off all gas and other utilities in house, NOAA “all hazards” radio; batteries, utility knife, whistle, rope, broom, and of course, the all-inclusive high quality duct tape.

Essential Family Identification and Documentation: Store in a waterproof, portable container.  (Much of this should be part of your Family Communication Plan.) Include traveler’s checks or cash, etc. and copies of personal identification: birth, marriage, and passport IDs work well.

Disaster preparedness for people with special needs can be found on page 14 of the Disaster Guide.

If you are notified that an event is imminent within 24 hours, it is time to put your preparedness plans into action — make sure your disaster kit is handy, move animals to high ground, fill your car’s gas tank, be prepared to evacuate, check for family and neighbors with special needs to see if they need assistance; if evaculation is required, pick two places to  meet if your family is separated, preferably a location a safe distance outside your neighborhood, and ensure all members have a check-in person to call outside the area in case of separation, and leave a note in the house of your location and contact information.

If time permits, turn off all utilities at the main power switch and close off the main gas valve.  Move all valuables to upper floors or higher elevation, fill bathtubs, sinks, and plastic soda bottles with clean water after first disinfecting containers; bring outdoor possessions such as grills, inside.

In Pierce County, there are approximately 4,000 locations identified as potential emergency shelters which will be announced on the radio and by City Personnel.

In Pierce County, neighbors have formed Neighborhood Emergency Teams with the help of Pierce County Emergency Management.  Pierce County Neighborhood Emergency Teams, or PC-NET, offers training for communication, first aid, damage assessment, safety and security, light search and rescue, shelter and special needs, and crime prevention, plus overall coordination of these teams.

For more information call Pierce County Emergency Management at 253-798-6595, or go online to www.piercecountywa.org/prepare; and also print off these two pdf checklists (press ctrl and click on the link to open):

72 Hour Kit Checklist
Disaster Supplies List

To get additional copies of Pierce County’s Disaster Guide, call 253-798-2725 or print a copy from the website: www.piercecountywa.org/flood

Water Storage Tips:
www.pep-c.org/storagetips/

This past October was the first ever Pierce County Emergency Preparedness Day, and sadly, I never heard about it in time to attend.  Worse, the next training session isn’t until October 9, 2010, so a full year from now!  I believe it is the duty of Tacoma and Pierce County to host trainings every few months and raise more public awareness about disaster preparedness.

In the meantime, check out the links, and think about preparing yourself in the event of a disaster.

This past Sunday Historic Tacoma, a private non-profit organization, dedicated to Tacoma’s architectural legacy through education and advocacy, hosted a tour entitled “Sacred Spaces” of Tacoma’s churches and temples.  These architectural melange represents a colossal torrent of faith and resources within our neighborhoods.

St. Luke’s Memorial Episcopal Church, modeled after an English country church, was my first stop, where I learned that due to increasing land values and growing congregations, many churches were forced to develop in the outskirts of downtown, or even move their original church site to a new location, which is what St. Luke’s did.  Originally built on 602 Broadway with funds from Charles Wright, our Northern Pacific Railroad magnate, the church was under utilized and underfunded in the 1920s, and by 1934 destruction plans were underway to use the site for new homes.  The potential demolition of St. Luke’s vitalized Tacomans to accomplish the city’s first preservation effort to save St. Luke.  Each stone was carefully marked, then moved, one block at a time, to North Grove Street, surrounded by tranquil houses and a quiet neighborhood.  A Portland Oregon Architect, Joseph Sherwin, was responsible for the church’s design, as well as our first Pierce County Courthouse and the original Central School.

At the door Chris Van Vechten and I were greeted and directed to the transept where two teenagers greeted us and described the traditional Gothic style and history of St. Luke’s.  Most Gothic churches are in the cruciform plan, a Latin cross, with a long nave marking the long slender body (the aisle with seats on either side) and a transverse arm called the transept and beyond that, an extension that houses the altar and choir.  In St. Luke’s, the nave houses beautiful clerestory windows, stained glass depicting different aspects of Christ’s life.

Secretly, I have always wanted to gong a church bell — to swing like Tarzan and make the Old Lady’s head turn with distaste at my frantic upswing.  St. Luke’s provided me with a chance to half-way meet the mark, and while nobody was looking, I quietly pulled a rope and a loud sound erupted from the bell, lighting Van Vechten’s wild eyes up.  I was unceremoniously and loudly shushed by him and the Elder below, due to the choir solemnly singing their liturgies.  Gleefully I turned away, and as I slowly climbed down the stairs I looked longingly at that bell tower.

Our next stop was Northwest Baptist Seminary which was originally the home of John and Anna Weyerhaeuser, built in 1923 in the Tudor revival estate design.  The seminary has spectacular views of Brown’s Point, Vashon Island, the Olympic Peninsula, Mount Rainier, and even SeaTac’s control tower.  After the Weyerhaeuser’s death, the Dominican sisters of Marymount acquired the buildings and turned it into a Catholic junior College for women.  Of course, reading the Seminary’s “history” section of their website says nothing about the building history, but rather why they moved from Southern California to Tacoma: “Northwest Baptist Seminary was established at a time when modernism had overtaken many Baptist theological schools where pastors were trained.  Bible-believing Baptists were protesting, but as  long as they were dependent upon institutions whose faculty members did not believe the Word of God to produce their pastoral leadership, the spiritual darkness would only get worse.”

While I do not know the in’s and out’s of Christians pulling the wool over other Christians like common heathens do, I do know the Tudor house is astoundingly beautiful.  Secret doors, in plain sight, are disguised by blending in with the panel wooden walls.  Heavy chimneys and decorative timbering gives this mini-mansion a Medieval flavor.  The name Tudor suggests it was built in the 1500s during the Tudor Dynasty in England, but of course this Weyerhaeuser re-invention was not, but rather features beautifully patterned brick and is combined with striking decorative timbers.

My next stop was First Church of Christ, Scientist on Division Avenue.  Knowing nothing of their faith but thinking they must indeed be uniquely crazy, I was enthralled with every aspect of the structure, the people, and their ideas.  After listening in on a mini-history of the place, I picked up a free copy of “The Christian Science Journal” which loudly booms “100th Anniversary of The Christian Science Monitor” on its front cover.   The Church of Christ, Scientist headquarter website says that a Mary Baker Eddy first “discovered” Christian Science, and that they are  a “universal, practical system of spiritual, prayer-based Christian healing, available and accessible to everyone.”

The land on which the current edifice stands was donated by Hugh Ferguson, who gave it in gratitude for the healing of his wife by the Christian Scientists.  In 1911 the current church was built at a cost of $45,000. The Christian Scientists have a fascinating history of constructing interesting and revolutionary ecclesiastical designs, built to engage and entice people inside. The cream-colored building was built on a pyramidal plot, which forced the design to be built in the Greek Revival style, declared “one of Tacoma’s finest showplaces.”  The cream-colored building with its ionic capitals atop fluted pillars at the entrance and blue-green copper dome is a well-known Tacoma landmark, and owes its design to Frederick Heath, one of Tacoma’s most prominent architects.

Heath was appointed to the position of school architect in 1902 and is responsible for redesigning the luxurious hotel that was burned to the ground in 1898, which was then turned into Stadium High School in 1906.  He is the “Father of the Stadium” as he also designed the bowl next to the high school.  His architectural firm was responsible for over 600 projects in the Northwest and in Tacoma, and include sites such as St. Patrick’s, First Lutheran, First Baptist, and of course First Church of Christian Scientist.

My last stop was at Urban Grace (originally First Baptist Church), 902 Market Street, also designed by Frederick Heath and finished around 1923.  While my favorite structure was St. Luke’s Episcopal, my favorite person was Sugar Ray, who was my tour guide at Urban Grace.  Ray, a member since the early inception of the church, showed me his cradle roll picture of 1925’s class.  A cute baby and now a fun young-in-heart man, he guided me by my elbow around the three stories of Urban Grace’s past history and current future, recalling the time his young son blurted out a funny prayer in one room, and his father conducting Elder meetings in another, and the story of the church splintering into factions, with one group tromping off to Fircrest to start their own Baptist branch.  The church’s Financiers thought it wouldn’t last long in downtown Tacoma, so as part of the loan deal, the church was required to be built for a backup plan: a theatre.  Born in the same era as the Rialto and Pantages theatres just down the street, Urban Grace has an auditorium that seats 1,250 and a banquet hall with a stage.  The seating in the sanctuary has Opera chairs rather than pews, and a double layer-seating for better viewing.  The subdued Gothic Revival-styled structure has glazed terracotta facing over the typical Gothic Revival cut stone on the outside.

Urban Grace serves not only as a church, but as a building dedicated to nonprofit work.  I met a young woman who was a graduate of the Palmer Scholarship fund, which helps send low-income minority students to school and also provide mentorships and counseling where needed.  I also met a representative of MLK Ballet, also housed in Urban Grace’s facility, which is a tuition-free dance program committed to quality education, dance facilities, and professional instructors.

As Historic Tacoma points out, Tacoma’s religious  buildings represent a substantial investment by the community and for the community.  The $550,000 spent to build First Presbyterian in 1924 would be more than 83 million dollars in 2009’s currency.  These churches are a significant landmark of the past.  While many, such as the 6th Avenue Baptist Church, are closing doors and shutting down, many still continue strong and have learned to cope with our culture’s current contempt of religion, such as Urban Grace’s partnerships with multiple nonprofits that work well with Urban Grace’s mission.  since 1968 protestant memberships have declined by 22% and yet the same needs for food, clothing banks, pre-schools, daycare, and meeting spaces have continued into our time, with churches learning to take whatever they can get to work within their communities.

Touring four of Tacoma’s churches gave me a sense of pride in the place I call home, and a deeper sense of the people who live here.  At St. Luke’s I viewed the crypt, filled with the ashes of previous church members, and wondered at their histories, tied indefinitely with the church’s stones, pews, and potluck halls.  Pat Harrington, a local fictional author, explained the significance of the crypt’s dove carving, and I couldn’t help but ponder the people of Tacoma, both dead and alive.

I suppose that was the point of the tour — to appreciate the past and to grasp the significance of the people through the work they left behind.

Joining Historic Tacoma is currently on my to-do list. Memberships are $30, and I am positive it will be worth every cent spent.

Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/1784586023/

In a Facebook update, a friend recently wrote that aborted fetal parts are used in vaccinations.  Appalled and angry that wrong information is being strewn about the town, I decided to check out the hype of vaccinations, and discovered quite a brew of ingredients that a responsible and conscientious person would not know without a little bit of research.

What I found is astoundingly disturbing, at best.

Millions of doses of vaccinations are administered to children in our nation each year.  To ensure that vaccines are potent, “sterile, and safe” requires chemical additives, which are added to inactivate a virus or bacteria and stabilize the vaccine, which preserves the vaccine and prevents it from losing its potency over time.  The Center for Disease Control claims that the amount of chemical additives in vaccines is very small, and that only trace amounts of thimerosal, which is mercury, are in vaccines.

The CDC lists these common ingredients in almost all vaccines:

Aluminum gels or salts of aluminum which are added as adjuvants to help the vaccine stimulate a better response to the vaccine. Adjuvants help promote an earlier, more potent response, and more persistent immune response to the vaccine.

The Vaccine Education Center at Philadelphia’s Children Hospital admits that even a small quantity of aluminum in food, water, or vaccines that is not eliminated by the kidneys begins to accumulate in the body, settling in the bones, some in the lungs and some in the brain.  By the time children become adults, they will have accumulated between 50 and 100 milligrams of aluminum, and yet they stick by the standard that aluminum in vaccines is just not harmful enough to allow a person to be perturbed by the idea.

Dr. Robert Sears, author of The Vaccine Book, quotes the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) who published a policy statement in 1996, “Aluminum Toxicity in Infants and Children,” which stated:

1. Aluminum can cause neurological harm.
2. A study from 30 years ago showed that human adults increase their urine excretion of aluminum when exposed to higher levels of the metal, which suggests that adults can clear out excess aluminum.
3. Adults taking aluminum-containing antacids don’t build up high levels of aluminum in their bodies.
4. Reports of infants with healthy kidneys show elevated blood levels of aluminum from taking antacids.
5. People with kidney disease who build up bloodstream levels of aluminum greater than 100 mcg per liter are at risk of toxicity.
6. The toxic threshold of aluminum in the bloodstream may be lower than 100 mcg per liter.
7. The buildup of aluminum in tissues has been seen even in patients with healthy kidneys who receive IV solutions containing aluminum over extended periods.

Whether the FDA is right or not in that the small amount of aluminum won’t cause too much harm, we still know that aluminum = bad, so why shoot up with it?

• Antibiotics which are added to some vaccines to prevent the growth of germs (bacteria) during production and storage of the vaccine.

• Egg protein is found in influenza and yellow fever vaccines, which are prepared using chicken eggs. Ordinarily, persons who are able to eat eggs or egg products safely can receive these vaccines.

• Formaldehyde is used to inactivate bacterial products for toxoid vaccines, (these are vaccines that use an inactive bacterial toxin to produce immunity). It is also used to kill unwanted viruses and bacteria that might contaminate the vaccine during production.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) states that formaldehyde is “a colorless, pungent-smelling gas; an important hazardous air pollutant. High concentrations may trigger attacks in people with asthma.”  The National Cancer Institute states that “formaldehyde is commonly used as an industrial fungicide, germicide, and disinfectant, and as a preservative in mortuaries and medical laboratories” and that it has been classified as a carcinogen (cancer-causing substance).  Research shows that exposure to formaldehyde can cause cancer of the nasal sinuses, nasopharynx, brain, and possibly leukemia.

• Monosodium glutamate (MSG) are used as stabilizers in a few vaccines to help the vaccine remain unchanged when the vaccine is exposed to heat, light, acidity, or humidity.  MSG is most commonly obtained via fermentation of carbohydrates, using a bacterial or yeast species from genera such as Microbacterium.  Many groups believe MSG is extremely harmful, but thus far the FDA has said that in minimal amounts found in food, it has little to no side effects.  A little research shows that thousands of people are wary by MSG, and typical websites such as www.truthinlabeling.org dumps a laundry list of common MSG side effects: obesity, irritable bowl syndrome, depression, frequent urination, swelling of the vagina, joint pain, fast heart rate (tachycardia) . . .  The Natural Health Information Center also reports MSG to be a group of chemicals known as ‘excitotoxins” that interfere with brain chemistry and are implicated in neurological diseases, such as brain cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, Fibromyalgia, and hyperactivity (ADHD), to name a few.  MSG, they claim, can overexcite brain cells to the point of cell death.

• Thimerosal is a mercury-containing preservative that is added to vials of vaccine that contain more than one dose to prevent contamination and growth of potentially harmful bacteria.

According to Natural News, companies offer multi-dose units of vaccinations which effectively lower the cost of vaccinations — while it lowers the cost, it also means that preservatives must be added to kill contaminants that may get into the vaccine while the lid is off the container — preservatives such as thimersal, a fancy name for mercury.  Thimerosal’s main use is as an antiseptic and antifungal agent, preventing terrible bacterial infections such as Staphlococcus, which, in one case in a 1928 incident killed 12 children inoculated with a diptheria vaccine that lacked the mercury preservative.

The Department of Defense classifies mercury as a hazardous material that could cause death if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Studies indicate that mercury tends to accumulate in the brains of primates and other animals after they are injected with vaccines. Mercury poisoning has been linked to cardiovascular disease, autism, seizures, mental retardation, hyperactivity, dyslexia and many other nervous system conditions. That’s why the FDA rigorously limits exposure to mercury in foods and drugs. Some common sources of mercury include dental amalgam fillings, various vaccines and certain fish contaminated by polluted ocean waters.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) admits that there is a “theoretical potential for neurotoxicity” of Thimerosal and that there had previously been an increase of thimerosal containing vaccines that had been added to the infant immunization schedule, which is why, in recent years, “Thimerosal has been removed from or reduced to trace amounts in all vaccines routinely recommended for children 6 years of age and younger, with the exception of inactivated influenza vaccine.”

No wonder a wave of angry moms are standing up and saying Wait Just One Minute to having their baby given multiple vaccinations all at once.  We have blindly obliged the vaccination profession too long, and believed the CDC’s soothing remarks that mercury levels are too low to cause noticable harm, that aluminum is mostly peed out anyway and that you get more aluminum from soy proteins, or that mercury is more common in fish, so what’s the big deal?

Cancer, autism, ADHD, Down’s Syndrome, and other adverse issues are on the rise, and yet we have no one point of reference to gain our “AHA, this is what is causing the uprising of neurological effects.”  Rather, we see an increase in healthcare problems and perhaps can coorelate that to adverse toxic overloading in our environment.  From the cream we apply to keep our faces supple to the chemicals put in our sheets to keep them flame retardant, all these toxins must be taken into effect together.

Dr. Blaylock, a neurosurgeon, recently wrote a report entitled “Vaccinations: The Hidden Dangers”  where he states that modern science tends to only look for one central cause of a problem rather than explore synergic toxicity of many agents (two toxins acting on the body together are more dangerous when working in combined efforts).  This tunnel-vision approach is by far the worst approach to a true scientific exploration of our world, and is a narrow view that must be discarded in the Age of Chemicals.

So should we rush out to boycott all vaccinations, including the Swine Flu vaccine?  Certainly not. If nothing else, history has shown us that we must find a way to deter pandemics, such as the Bubonic Plague or the 1918 Spanish Flu.  The Spanish Flu spread to nearly every part of the world, targeting healthy young adults, killing 50 to 100 million people.  As my Microbiology prof once said, perhaps it is a sacrifice we must make, that a few will be laid on the altar to save the masses.

Perhaps there is an alternative to aluminum, MSG, mercury, and the like that will soon be discovered.  Whatever the case is, people need to become educated on what is contained in vaccines and know what is being shot into their systems before yielding to the Soothsayers of our era.  There are ways to limit adverse effects, such as delaying an infant’s vaccinations or giving the common child vaccinations over a longer time period rather than all at once so the toxins don’t all hit the body’s system at once.  Do some research before undergoing vaccination, and also take a look at the ingredients in the vaccine at the CDC’s website: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/additives.htm

imagine at http://www.flickr.com/photos/alvi2047/3483848619

Environmentalists blather and quake in their hemp clothing as new research done by Canadian scientists are now able to reduce cattle-produced methane gas by 25%.  When I read the title heading in Science Daily’s May 09 issue, I couldn’t help but be solidly impressed.  How have researchers figured this out?  By compiling an extensive database of methane production values measured on cattle to formulate equations to predict how much methane a cow would emit based on its diet.  Researchers then genetically select cattle that inherently produce less methane.  Next stop?  Genetically selecting humans that produce less excretions.

In 2006, researchers officially quantified greenhouse gas emissions, stating that livestock is a bigger problem than a car emissions.  The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization showed that livestock generates 18% more greenhouse gas than modes of gas transportation.

Worse, cattle are a large factor in enhancing drought situations by stripping the land, exposing the soil to the wind, and with no grass or shrubs with roots to hold the soil down, the soil is blown away or becomes nutrient-depleted.  Along with this soil deficiency comes water degradation.

When I lived in Oklahoma, there was this beautiful road sign that said “Keep our Land Grand” and next to that was a sign in the shape of Arkansas and Oklahoma’s trash being thrown into it.  A legal battle has ensued between the two states, with Oklahoma accusing Arkansas of dumping chicken, turkey, and cattle pooh into watersheds that then dump into Oklahoma streams and rivers, posing a huge health hazard to drinking water and recreational settings.

In Arizona, a long drought period has decimated the lands, further increased by the cattle industry.  The impact of grazing, drought, erosion, and fire are directly correlated to each other, and Dr. Robert Kattnig at the University of Arizona states that it takes upwards of two years or more to “recover” the land from cattle destruction.

In 2007, Washington State Beef Industry Statistics show that the sale of cattle was approximately $724,533,000 with an impact of $2.17 billion on the state’s economy.  There are approximately 11,700 cattle ranchers and 760 dairy farmers, and approximately 1.09 million cattle in Washington, of which 243,000 were dairy cows.  Total beef production was 848,710,000 pounds, whereas the entire United States produced 26.5 billion pounds of beef.  The “Total Use Mandate” of Washington allows for cattle to graze on public lands, further increasing the expanse and production of Washington cattle.

My teenage years were spent on a beef cattle ranch in the northeast corner of Oklahoma (plus a short and financially devastating stint with Emu ranching that ended with us turning all 200 of them loose–locals still say they see one every once in a while, providing them with a good dinner that evening).  My brothers and I were in charge of taking care of the cattle, all the way from bottle feeding, branding, castrating, to labor and delivery.  My favorite Christmas occurred when Dad gave us a wrapped box full of rocks, only to find out it was a treasure hunt that ended at the far end of the ranch with cows tied around 3 of our very own cattle.  My job was to get a bull calf into the head gate, then one brother would brand it, and my dad would finish the job by castrating it, turning it into a fine steer with a glorious ending at the local slaughter house.

This past Saturday in Tacoma was stunningly beautiful; I felt like I walked out of my house and into a magical fairytale of childhood imaginings.  The trees were glowing with their vibrant blooming colors, ornamental bushes flamed their colors proudly, and I drove past block after block, slowly staring at people’s decadent lawns, sprayed with nature’s color.  This coming Saturday, May 16, is filled with forums to get you out gardening in our local Tacoma area.

Community Gardens apparently are the new cool rage in Tacoma.  This Saturday alone, there are four events going on that you need to check out:

Square Foot Garden Demonstration, May 16 in Puyallup:

Bill Rigsby, a Pierce County Master Gardener, will be demonstrating how to construct a squarefoot garden space May 16, 2009 starting 10 a.m. at the Puyallup Community Garden.

Square foot gardening is a new innovative way to garden efficiently while using less space, less water, yet producing more growth. The demonstration is designed to benefit both beginners and experienced gardeners.
The demonstration will be held at the Puyallup Community Garden located at Brown’s Park, 1111 19th Ave SW, Puyallup, WA and will begin at 10:00 A.M. Saturday, May 16. The demonstration is FREE.

READ THE BOOK. TASTE THE RECIPES.
Saturday, May 16 @ 11 a.m.
Proctor Farmers’ Market
North 27th Street @ Proctor
Join us at the wonderful Proctor Farmers’ Market as local chefs cook and share recipes from Barabara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle!”

CONTAINER GARDENING: A ‘get your hands dirty’ workshop.
Saturday, May 16 @ 11 a.m.  |   Swasey Library
Saturday, May 16 @ 3 p.m..  |  Kobetich Library
Free, but advanced registration required. Telephone 253.591-5666 or register online with our website’s online calendar.
Container gardening allows you to enjoy vegetables and herbs in areas where a traditional garden is awkward or impossible. Even with limited space in an urban apartment, you can grow fruits, vegetables and herbs just about anywhere.. Join us and make your own salad garden to take home with you. We will provide everything you need. Sponsored by TAGRO & GrowLocalTacoma.com

A BACKYARD VEGETABLE GARDEN PRIMER
Saturday, May 16, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Olympic Room, Main Library
What is more local than your own backyard? Join us and learn the nuts and bolts (or seedlings and worms) of creating your own organic raised-bed backyard vegetable garden. We will discuss site preparation, bed building, dirt, watering, plant choices, seasonal gardening, and lots more. You will leave with a ‘what to do when’ list that will get your gardening adventure off to a great start. Sponsored by Washington State University’s Cooperative Extension and the Pierce Conservation District.

In these economic hard times, growing a garden is a smart thing; second to financial savings is growing local and organic for environmental purposes.  Check out this Saturday’s gardening events to grow green, and get your hands a little bit dirty.

Thomas Jefferson said that “the greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add an useful plant to its culture; especially a bread grain. Next in value to bread, is oil.”  Native Plant Societies are horrified by this idea: that a non-native plant should be introduced to a new area for it to take hold and integrate; which is exactly what I heard at Tacoma’s Nature Center (located at Snake Lake), hosted by the Washington Native Plant Society.

I’ve been dubious about nativist plant people–xenophobic plant Nazis–why do we feel that we have to constantly and consistently tweak what nature does best?  When we view ourselves as caretakers rather than a part of nature, we mess life up more often than not.

Many biologists are behind the native plant movement, despite knowing that natural selection and adaptation is geared toward chaos and evolution, and is a normal biological process of life.  Just as bees pollinate, humans transport new plants to new communities = natural.  Natural selection is seen best when new plant species take over and kill off so-called “native” plants; but how did those “native” plants arrive?  Pollination from other species?  Wind pollination?  Evolution?  God?  Luck?  The Fairy Godmother?  Also, why don’t environmentalists consider the possibility of hybrid zones where the native and non-natives breed, which is a  natural way of allelle microevolution?

The speaker for the April 8, 2009 meeting was Dr. Sarah Reichard from the University of Washington.  Her title for the night was “The Threat of Invasive Species to Washington’s Native Flora” and drew a decent sized crowd, with many individuals hosting their own “clean up of invasive species day”, which took up over 30 minutes of time just to list each group that was throwing their own blackberry-pulling party–which makes me sad the big tangled mess of blackberries that produce those huge sweet fruits are considered invasive!  Why?  Because the “native” blackberries are tiny … “pathetic” might be the right term, and don’t fit well in my crazy famous peach blackberry cobbler.

The definition Dr. Reichard proposed of invasive non-native plants was that they “spread into wilderness or managed ecosystems, develop self-sustaining populations, and become dominant or disruptive to those ecosystems”, thereby changing the makeup of an ecosystem.

I admit to being impressed to this group’s extreme dedication to pulling up blackberries and English ivy in Pierce County.  They were clearly dedicated to gardening like they preach, planting no outside invasive species, which naturally knocks out a large proportion of flowers, trees, bushes, and other plants.

There are five major impacts that the Washington Native Plant Society, along with Dr. Reichard, sees as serious threats to native plants and ecosystems.  A huge distinction is made between non-native plants, and non-native invasive plants.

First, invasive non-native plants compete against native plants for food, water, light, pollinators, seed dispersions.  An example of this is purple loosestrife, native to Great Britain and across central and southern Europe to Russia, Japan, China, southeast Asia and northern India.  It is an exquisitely beautiful flower that grows from four to ten feet high and produce magenta-colored flower spikes throughout much of the summer; however, it is a high ecological threat across all states except Florida, including our own state of Washington.  It adapts to wetlands so quickly that it obliterates native grasses, sedges, and other flowering plants that would naturally provide better nutrition for wildlife.  Not only does it reduce nutrition for other wildlife, it forms such a dense stand that it restricts waterfowl from hanging out in its beautiful blossoms.  Dr. Reichard stated that bees prefer to pollinate purple loosestrife over other native flowers, which naturally propagates the loosestrife at the expensive of letting native flowers die, perpetuating the problem.

Not only does competition for resources occur, but some plants, such as Scotch Broom, alters the chemical content of soil making it not viable for other plants to reside in it.  Remember those big y

ellow bushes that bloom in early spring and take your breath away as you view field after field of it?  Yup, highly invasive Scotch Broom which hails from the Mediterranean areas of Europe, introduced in 1850 by Captain

Walter Grant who thought it pretty enough to plant at his farm on Vancouver Island.  One of Dr. Reichard’s graduate students worked on this particular plant, and found that Scotch Broom is a n

itrogen fixture, so it pours nitrogen into the soil and decreases the pH levels; even if the plant was removed, the soil is altered and native species cannot grow back as before.

A third impact of non-native invasive plants is that natural native plants evolve to withstand fires, such as the Cedar tree–remember all our summer fires around the nation?  Fire frequency and intensity is increased with invasive species that have not developed a resistance, but rather have propagated to a high extent that they provide a solid source of fuel.

The fourth impact of invasive species is that there is a large change in nutrient flow.  For example, knotweed, a plant of Japanese origin, replaces cottonwood, willows, and other trees and does not produce leaf litter for decomposition, which is vital to the undergrowth of forest nutrition.  Knotwood seems to be the number one problem of invasive species in Washington state because it tolerates a high variety of adverse conditions; it is found in the riparian zones (right on the edge of water) where it survives severe floods and drought.  It is hard to remove since the roots have long runners that extend deep into the ground. Unfortunately, the most effective way of killing it, as Dr. Reichard pointed out, is through the use of chemicals–never a favorite choice of conservationists.

The last important impact is the rising rate of plant extinction in the United States.  The number one reason for their extinction is the destruction of their habitat (such as by human “intervention”/development or cattle), and the second biggest reason for extinction is due to non-native species pillaging and plundering.

How are these invasive plants reaching our shores?  Through the $69 billion horticulture industry that blossoms yearly.  I blame the nurseries.  They like to nurse too much.  I also blame Seattle University and former President, Philip Eaton, who, since 1922 performed the “Ivy Ceremony” where he handed out a sprig of ivy for graduates to form a rope of connectivity, and upon the completion of the ceremony, the graduates were encouraged to take the invasive English Ivy home and plant it as a secret operative to destroy all that is good and beautiful in native plant species (or so we postulate).

I thought these xenophobic plant nazis were kooky, but by the end I had my very own copy of “Garden Wise: Non-Invasive Plants for Your Garden” in hand, along with Pierce County’s Noxious Weed Control Board’s business card to call Beki Shoemaker, Program Manager, any time I might think I spy an invasive weed (253-798-7263 is the number to call).

I now know that invasive plants cause huge ecologically lasting problems, and that I need to get out on one of those volunteer kook-digs to root up my beloved blackberries.  The Pacific Northwest Invasive Plant Council also exists for suckers like me to join as members, or the Washington Native Plant Society also has membership/volunteer/get your butt out and do something/learning possibilities.

I admit it.  I’m a sucker for positive change and for being convinced into a new way of living and thinking.  I think what did it for me was when Dr. Reichard said that there are so many NON-NATIVE yet NON-INVASIVE plants to grow.  In my notebook, I copied a participant’s quote that they “aren’t against non-natives, just invasives” and next to the quote, I wrote, “Ha!  Didn’t know.”

Now I do.

A Jack Handey Saturday Night Live quote puts it best: “I’d rather be rich than stupid.”

Sometimes, I wonder if being stupid wouldn’t also be helpful at this point in the game.  Alas, I am neither rich nor stupid, just partly naive.

Last fall I lost my job, and since I was already feeling the pressure of jumping into a higher paying bracket but seeing no options opening up with a degree in History, the same day I was laid off I enrolled at Tacoma Community College, an ethnically diverse campus with mostly a single-degree focus: nursing.

Nursing is something I vowed to never get near nor even discuss as a career possibility, but as the field becomes more open, and the pay scale is jumping high, I cannot help but look as a real opportunity.  My brother’s friend earns $56 an hour in Hawaii as a nurse.  I lust after that kind of pay.

On the first day of my evolutionary ecology class, we formed a circle and practically held hands as a support group while listing off our majors.  I was one of two that listed Doctor of Physical Therapy as an intended goal.  The rest were either nursing or pharmacology.  A few of the older students (yes, older than me) had lost their jobs as well, and figured that since billboards and job hiring ads around Tacoma are begging for nurses, they might as well bite the bullet and jump right into Microbiology and the Anatomy and Physiology sequence.

One of my best friends, Kenneth, lives in Portland and is going to be graduating as a certified “Murse” this coming June; one of the few Male Nurses that was attracted to the field before the economic bust of October, 2008.  Since then, a growing population of males are enrolling at community colleges around the United States, such as my very own brother and 54-year-old father, who both have business degrees and were, at one time or anther, decently successful in the business world.  My dad competes with 18-year-old kids, studying twice as hard to learn the same material, but is focused to get the next two years out of his life so he can obtain the Aztec City of Gold that a nursing degree promises.  Heroism comes in varying packages, and while nursing might be my second choice, according to my brother “it takes a nurse hero to wipe ass” — and who doesn’t want to be a hero?

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I wonder, if everyone is going into nursing, will there be a glut of nurses within the next five years?  Tacoma Community College’s enrollment office told me most laid-off people are enrolling here as nurses–what happens when there are too many of them?  Kenneth already knows the answer, because in Portland, with the highest unemployment in the Union, nurses aren’t finding jobs in the metropolitan burbs.

I have only been out of college a few short years, but already I feel the “Sluggish Brain Syndrome” and early-onset of old age dementia flushing throughout my system.  What was once an easy all-nighter of frantic working due to a high level of procrastination is now a methodical listing of “to-dos” in an organized calendar book and an early bedtime of 10 p.m. in order to get up for that 7:30 a.m. outdoor biology lab of identifying the flora and fauna of Tacoma.  It hurts going back to school, but I also feel my brain being sharpened as I force her to recall, remember, and retain new scientific notations that have never previously stuck around for more than five minutes (remember, I was a history major, for gods’ sake!).

I glow with jealous fervor whenever I hear of other successful friends who still have jobs and are financially bringing in anything over the national poverty level.  Even my boyfriend, who is trapped in a scholastic sweat shop of grading standardized tests of middle school children, has a paycheck for the next three weeks.  Yesterday he told me some young boy gave a big middle finger to standardized testing by writing one short paragraph, stating his friends were honest lenient hearts, and he hoped the grader of that essay would be a lenient heart as well, and he had nothing more to say.  My advice to this particular child?  Good job on trying to stay in middle school for as long as possible!  I admire you!  I wish I could take afternoon naps and have mom’s snacks after school, and go to soccer practice with my girlfriends!  Lucky!

By the time I am done with a DPT degree (assuming I get accepted into the program next fall) I will be 30 years old, and will have missed a historically established prime age of wage earnings from my 20s to my 30s.  I question the future of my retirement funds, which as of now, has been halved since last year, leaving me nothing but a small pittance of saved Christmas and birthday money from by-gone years–perhaps I should have spent it on a new car instead of investing my hoarded goods.  How many other young 20s are out there in a similar predicament, and what will our retirement futures be?  Even if I wanted to settle down with the white picket fence and really get into the breast-suckling scene of kiddies, I don’t have the financial resources to do so.  After Obama won the election, many people went on a procreating binge–I wonder how they feel now, five months later?  “Oh, shit!  We’re pregnant!” has got to be hitting their psyches right about now.  This isn’t the booming 90s.  This is the slumping of the twenty-first century, with Obama feeling smug on reminding us that he wasn’t the one who got us into the mess.  Will the population growth slow-down in developed countries and see the rise of alcohol consumption peak at pre-prohibition era standards?

My parents’ phrase, “I told you so!” clangs in my ears.  Yes, I should have gotten a more practical degree, or at the minimum, a teaching certificate to accompany my history degree.  My impracticality kept my head in the clouds until my bank account screamed expletives at me, pulling me back to the reality of stereotypical brunt jokes that ring true: “What do you call a history major?  A burger flipper.”  I never smile anymore when someone says that to me.  In my brain, I am giving them the middle finger.

All I know is, I feel grateful to be in school and not home banging my head against the wall.  Something has to force me out of bed every day at 7 a.m.  and if a solid steady paycheck is the golden ticket to lure me onwards, so be it.  It is tough going back to school, but if my experiences have taught me anything, it’s that life itself is tough, but worth it.  I’m too curious about what’s around the next corner to stay in bed forever.  Now is the perfect opportunity to get an internship or volunteer for Parks Recreation Day on April 18th, or attend a noxious weed seminar at Snake Lake, or plant a garden with other community members and write for The Melon.  Or, become a nurse.