Water…essential for life

Posted on 02/14/2011 by J. Morris Hicks

Planet Earth - Abundant Water?

While watching the movie HOME last week, I heard a fact that I’d never before; that is, the volume of water on our planet has been constant for billions of years. All generations of humans and creatures have drunk the same water. The volume never changes, but how it is used changes all the time. The key to life on Earth is a fragile harmony that nature constantly seeks to maintain.

Looking at our planet from outer space, water takes up most of the view prompting us to think that we’d never run out of water. But in the last century, humankind has seriously disrupted that fragile harmony and now, we’re experiencing water shortages and pollution all around the world.

Here’s a few facts related to our impending crisis…you can decide what to do with them:

  1. More people using more water per person.  There were less than one billion on the planet just 300 years ago; now there are seven billion.
  2. It takes 100 liters of water to produce one kilo of potatoes…it takes 13,000 liters of water to produce one kilo of beef.
  3. More meat consumption.  The world is now raising 60 billion animals per year for our dinner tables.  That number is going up rapidly as the developing world mimics the unhealthy, destructive, water-guzzling and unsustainable western diet.
  4. Mountains of MANURE. In just the U.S., the solid waste produced by animals we eat each year is 1.37 billion tons — a staggering amount, much of which pollutes our rivers, streams and oceans.
  5. Even with no population growth, we would need to raise 300 billion animals per year if the entire world shifted to our incredibly wasteful diet-style.
  6. More and more fertilizer and pesticides used in the meat production process add to the ever worsening water pollution problem.
  7. The world population is still growing rapidly…adding another 197,000 people every single day — equal to the population of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
  8. The amount of water required to produce ten pounds of beef is enough fresh water to provide for ALL of the household needs of a family of four for a full year.

At what point do the intelligent and responsible citizens of the planet recognize the “blinding flash of the obvious here and realize that the bizarre picture described above simply cannot continue much longer?  When do we stop to consider what we are leaving for our own great-grandchildren and all future generations?

Born in mid-century, most of the mess in which we find ourselves was generated on my watch.  As the movie HOME reported, humankind in just the last 50 years has disrupted the fragile of harmony more on this planet than all of the previous generations of humans since our species emerged some 200,000 years ago.

That is sobering, sad, and scary — and it makes me embarrassed to be a part of the human race that has run roughshod across our beautiful planet for my entire life. And I have been a part of that problem. Now, I have dedicated the rest of my life to being part of the solution.  How about you?

Click here to view HOME, the most powerful movie I have ever seen (90 minutes – free on YouTube). They simply describe how the miracle of our planet began and the extent of the damage that humankind has inflicted of late.  They do a great job of presenting the “big picture” facts about the problem.  It’s up to you what you do with those facts.  Happy Valentine’s Day!

If you like what you see here, you may wish to join our periodic mailing list. Also, for help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4-Leaf page. From the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

If you’d like to order our book on Amazon,  visit our BookStore now.

—J. Morris Hicks…blogging daily at HealthyEatingHealthyWorld.com

PS: Occasionally an unauthorized ad may appear beneath a blog post. It is controlled by WordPress (a totally free hosting service). I do not approve or personally benefit whatsoever from any ad that might ever appear on this site. I apologize and urge you to please disregard. 

Majestic American Falls at Niagara – The fragile harmony of our planet is being shattered by our species at an alarming rate — and the unnatural way that we are eating is a huge part of the problem.
Posted in Sustainability, Water Pollution & Usage | Leave a comment

Sailors Super Lunch; single men can eat healthy too…

Posted on 02/13/2011 by J. Morris Hicks

My "go-to" 4-Leaf meal for lunch or dinner at home

People often ask me how I can possibly eat the way I do — day in and day out. Like anything else, I have found that it actually becomes quite pleasurable once you get into the habit.

Speaking of learning new habits, I can tell you one thing, it’s a lot easier to learn how to prepare a few plant-strong, healthy meals like this one than it is for an old guy to learn how to move from PC to a Mac after 17 years.  But trust me, both of those challenging transitions are among the most rewarding changes I have ever made in my life.

As with my mid-morning Sailors Daily Oatmeal, I don’t have lunch until I get real hungry. Lately, that has been averaging between 2 and 3 pm, and that’s when I enjoy what I call my…

Sailors Super Lunch Recipe created by J. Morris Hicks of Stonington, CT (works for lunch or dinner)

Sailors Super Lunch

This is a quick, easy, healthy and delicious lunch (or dinner) featuring almost 100% of its calories from whole plants. From the time I walk into the kitchen, this cooked meal can be ready to eat just like this in roughly five or six minutes.

One of the staples of this meal is a mixture of grains and legumes that I prepare in advance on a weekly basis. With a one-serving portion of these calorie-dense starches always ready to go, I can easily whip up a complete meal within minutes. In addition to this key item, I also include generous portions of things like broccoli, spinach, eggplant, mushrooms, carrots, tomato, cucumber, olive and avocado.

This delicious meal contains between 400 and 500 calories, is 100% plant-based and derives less than 20% of its calories from fat. And I can prepare the entire meal in five minutes. Clean up takes less than one minute; and, for a single guy, that’s important.

Preparation

  1. Pre-cook up to five days of a mixture of legumes and grain. My favorite mixture is black beans, red beans, brown rice and wild rice. Cook both rices together at the same time in a rice cooker. Soak both beans overnight and cook them together on simmer for about 90 minutes.
  2. Package the above in small plastic containers, each with enough for one serving.
  3. Fill a large salad bowl with a mixture of raw spinach & kale, squeeze some lime juice on top. Cook in microwave for 30 seconds. Put a half pita (Joseph’s brand) on top and cook for another 30 seconds.
  4. While spinach cooks, cut and assemble the broccoli, the eggplant, and mushrooms on a dinner plate.
  5. I like to cut up the broccoli, eggplant and mushrooms into small bite-size pieces (See photo above).
  6. Sprinkle some low sodium seasonings on top and microwave for 2 minutes.
  7. While that’s cooking, spread a little hummus inside the half pita; then stuff it with the spinach, kale, olives and sliced avocado.
  8. Add raw tomatoes, raw carrots and raw olives and other raw items to garnish the plate.

That’s it; I then put my meal on a tray like the one pictured above and carry it to a place of beauty inside my cozy cottage or outside on the private brick garden behind my home. If someone is joining me, I just add one more plate and the whole process takes about 7 minutes; that’s because I only have one microwave oven. (Worried about microwave cooking, see my blog featuring Dr. Greger.)

Nutritional Information

Only plant foods contain fiber; my My Super Lunch contains 29 grams. Although "experts" recommend 25 g. per day, on a 4-Leaf diet, you will average well over 60 grams.

This simple, delicious and healthy meal:

  • Delivers about 400 to 500 calories depending on serving sizes; less than 400 mg of sodium.
  • Derives 100% of the calories from plants; over 80% are whole plants — in nature’s package.
  • Derives less than 20% of the total calories from fat. To reduce this percentage, simply ease up on the avocado, hummus and olives.
  • Delivers 29 grams of fiber…more than many people get from whole plants in a week.
  • Costs less than $5 per meal.

This is a good example of what we call a true “4-Leaf” meal; that is, it derives well over 80% of its calories from whole plants and far less than 20% of its calories from fat.  It also has a variety of foods including fruit, vegetables, legumes and grains; and includes a decent amount of the super-nutritious vegetables like spinach and broccoli.

A meal like this, coupled with my Sailors Daily Oatmeal in the AM, enables me to post a pretty snappy half-time score at by 3 PM each day:  Over 50 grams of fiber, about 1,000 calories, with only 10 to 12% from fat — over 90% of the calories from whole plants and less than 15% of the calories from fat.

It may sound boring to you, but I eat almost the same breakfast and lunch every day. I simply wait until I am really hungry; then enjoy this great meal.  Today (1-3-11), I had this “lunch” at 3 PM. Don’t get me wrong, I also enjoy variety, and I get plenty of that when I go out every night.

J. Morris Hicks, the "big picture guy"

As for variety, the Tarahumara Indians in Mexico live a very long, vibrantly healthy life and consume almost nothing but corn, beans and squash.  That’s it. They also suffer none of our common killer diseases, can run 100 miles at a time and almost never get sick. While these Indians have minimal variety and maximum health; our obsession with a great “variety” of the wrong foods is literally killing us.

Now that I am waiting until I get real hungry before eating each meal, I have been having my lunch meal later in the afternoon — and it has become my main meal of the day. Likewise, I find that I am eating a lighter dinner than I did in the past — back when I would eat a big, heavy meal and then go to bed shortly thereafter. Not good.

If you like what you see here, you may wish to join our periodic mailing list. Also, for help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4-Leaf page. From the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

If you’d like to order our book on Amazon,  visit our BookStore now.

—J. Morris Hicks…blogging daily at HealthyEatingHealthyWorld.com

PS: Occasionally an unauthorized ad may appear beneath a blog post. It is controlled by WordPress (a totally free hosting service). I do not approve or personally benefit whatsoever from any ad that might ever appear on this site. I apologize and urge you to please disregard. 

Posted in 4Leaf for Life, Recipes & meals | 4 Comments

“Sustainability arrives in China” (I don’t think so)

Posted on 02/12/2011 by J. Morris Hicks

That was the description of a recent article in Time Magazine, dated Feb. 14.  The article was lauding the eco-friendly development in Shanghai that could be a model for China. They are now working to re-deploy the vast World Expo site as it creates a unique opportunity to design new areas to live, work and play with ecological sustainability in mind.

Noble efforts indeed; as the article says, “One of the cardinal tenets of sustainable urban development is that density is a good thing.  It generates economies of scale in public transportation, smart grids and other environmentally friendly infrastructure.”  Good things certainly — but not NEARLY enough.  Efforts like these all over the world are more like cosmetic window-dressing as the entire “big picture” problem is simply not being addressed.

What problem?  In China?  How about population growth, more people driving cars and more people eating the incredibly wasteful and unsustainable western diet?  In a 11-22-10 Time article called “The New Gas Guzzler,” it pointed out that China overtook the U.S. in 2009 to become the world’s largest energy user even though its per-capita energy consumption is currently only 1/5 that of the U.S.  But that’s changing..with the IEA projecting that China’s automobile use will increase tenfold by 2035 and that its total energy demand will be DOUBLE that of the U.S. by then.

DOUBLE?  The energy demand in the U.S. is projected to remain level during the next 25 years, while China’s will double.  In other words, China will add new demand equal to the total USA consumption today.

The author using renewable wind energy off the coast of Newport, Rhode Island

BOTTOM LINE. With the meat & dairy portion of the typical western diet consuming 1/3 of ALL fossil fuels in the developed world, no “eco-friendly” sustainability initiative has any chance whatsoever of reversing the world’s negative cycle if it doesn’t get real serious about the extreme energy waste and environmental damage being inflicted by the unhealthy western diet.

Getting real serious means getting rid of it and replacing it with the energy friendly and environment friendly — whole foods, plant-based diet for humans.  I have concluded that there is simply no other way out of this mess that we have created.  As the movie HOME reported, the human race has caused more environmental damage in the last 50 years than in the entire preceding 200,000 year history of its species.

Life on earth began 4 billion years ago and we have practically destroyed it in less than a century.

If you like what you see here, you may wish to join our periodic mailing list. Also, for help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4-Leaf page. From the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

If you’d like to order our book on Amazon,  visit our BookStore now.

—J. Morris Hicks…blogging daily at HealthyEatingHealthyWorld.com

PS: Occasionally an unauthorized ad may appear beneath a blog post. It is controlled by WordPress (a totally free hosting service). I do not approve or personally benefit whatsoever from any ad that might ever appear on this site. I apologize and urge you to please disregard. 

 

Posted in Big Picture, Energy, Environment, Sustainability | 1 Comment