What's wrong with what we eat

Mark Bittman is a food writer known best for his simple recipes and no-nonsense style. A self-proclaimed home cook, Bittman is not a trained chef but developed an interest in food through his career as a journalist.January 2009 marked the release of Food Matters, Bittman’s exploration of the link between global warming and other environmental challenges, obesity and lifestyle diseases, and the overproduction and overconsumption of meat, simple carbohydrates, and junk food. Food Matters analyzes how the American diet is taking a toll on both human and planetary health, and it offers a viable solution to this dual problem in the form of a diet––and recipes––based on reduced consumption, or sane eating. One of his talks:

How we are deceived by our own miscalculations of the future

Daniel Todd Gilbert is the Harvard College Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He is a social psychologist who is known for his research on affective forecasting, with a special emphasis on cognitive biases such as the impact bias. He is the author of the international bestseller Stumbling on Happiness, which won the 2007 Royal Society Prizes for Science Books. Here is the video of a talk he gave during TED Talks. He believes that, in our lifelong pursuit of happiness, most of us have the wrong map. In the same way that optical illusions fool our eyes -- and fool everyone’s eyes in the same way -- Gilbert argues that our brains systematically misjudge what will make us happy. And these quirks in our cognition make humans very poor predictors of our own bliss.

Chai-Pakoda (Tea-Deep Fried veggies with gram flour)

When we are kids, we loved when it rained. Lot of rains ment: No School that day, stay at home and have good food, play indoor games and in the evening have Chai-Pakoda and Mudhi (Mur-Mura or Puffed Rice). I remember, one of us used to go out and get Pakoda/Samosa from the nearby hotel and return half wet. Yesterday it rained here and we had cloudy weather. We thought, lets try Chai-Pakoda for evening snack. This is very popular snack in Western Orissa. The best way to have it is with chutney. However you can have it with chilli/tamato sauce.

How to make Pakoda?

Ingridents:

1. Besan (Gram Flour)
2. Onion
3. Diced Garlic, Ginger, Green Chillis (optional)
4. Patato, Curliflower, Leafy Veggies (Diced and its optional)
5. Chilli Powder
6. Turmeric Powder
7. Garam Masala
8. Salt to taste
9. Baking Soda (pinch of it)


Process:

Mix all the ingridents together in a bowl. The mixture needs to be consistent and you need to be careful not to add too much water while mixing. You need to add little bit water at a time. The mixture needs to be thick enough to stick to the veggies.

Take a frying pan and pour any cooking oil suitable for deep frying. Ensure the oil is hot

Make small balls (it will be irregular) of the mixture with your fingers and drop to start deep frying. You need to fry till it turns golden brown. Ensure not to fry too much or it will not taste good.

So we are done... you can serve the Pakodas with any wet chutney (mint, tamato, tamarind...) or have them with ketchup.

Bullock Brothers Homestead - A 25-Year Permaculture Project

Bullock's Permaculture Homestead in Orcas Island, Washington: For over 25 years they have applied their experience to create what experts refer to as the finest permaculture site in North America. This site is one of the old permaculture experiment sites. You can visit http://www.permacultureportal.com/ for more information on what they do.

How to grow your own fresh air

Researcher Kamal Meattle (Delhi, India) shows how an arrangement of three common houseplants, used in specific spots in a home or office building, can result in measurably cleaner indoor air. Kamal Meattle has a vision to reshape commercial building in India using principles of green architecture and sustainable upkeep (including an air-cleaning system that involves massive banks of plants instead of massive banks of HVAC equipment). He started the Paharpur Business Centre and Software Technology Incubator Park (PBC-STIP), in New Delhi, in 1990 to provide "instant office" space to technology companies. PBC-STIP's website publishes its air quality index every day, and tracks its compliance to the 10 principles of the UN Global Compact, a corporate-citizenship initiative.

David Suzuki on Environment and the Economy

David Suzuki is a long time activist to reverse global climate change, Suzuki co-founded the David Suzuki Foundation in 1990, to work "to find ways for society to live in balance with the natural world that sustains us." The Foundation's priorities are: oceans and sustainable fishing, climate change and clean energy, sustainability, and David Suzuki's Nature Challenge.

Here is one of the talks he gave on climate change:

How to regrow a rain forest...

Willie Smits works at the complicated intersection of humankind, the animal world and our green planet. In his early work as a forester in Indonesia, he came to a deep understanding of that triple relationship, as he watched the growing population of Sulawesi move into (or burn for fuel) forests that are home to the orangutan. These intelligent animals were being killed for food, traded as pets or simply failing to thrive as their forest home degraded. Smits believes that to rebuild orangutan populations, we must first rebuild their forest habitat, which means helping local people find options other than the short-term fix of harvesting forests to survive. His Masarang Foundation raises money and awareness to restore habitat forests around the world -- and to empower local people. In 2007, Masarang opened a palm-sugar factory that uses thermal energy to turn sugar palms (fast-growing trees that thrive in degraded soils) into sugar and even ethanol, returning cash and power to the community and, with luck, starting the cycle toward a better future for people, trees and orangs. You can visit the website of the organisation: http://www.masarang.org/

GET MORE FROM LESS

While writing the last post, I remembered one more incident which I thought to share with you all. It was in March 2008, the stage was set for a annual review of all the work we did last year. Though I was a guest to the event, I was to take charge of one business. I was expected to understand the dynamics of this new business and know the team.

We had a surprise visit by a senior member from the management. This guy was supposed to talk abut the goals for coming year and share his vision of the business. Then came the presentation and on the first slide has these four words: "GET MORE FROM LESS" and for next two hours was discussion on the coming tough times in financial sector in India and around the world.

As senior managers, we were asked to prepare for an economic slowdown, credit crunch, increase in lending rates, attrition and no new manpower and so on. However, the challange was no to let the share value go down, profitibality go down. The whole exercise was to get more productivity and profitibility from less people and less resources. This ment more work for us, less time for ourselves and family, less salary hikes, less bouns, less promotion, may be more layoffs.

Now when I look back to the discussion, I ask myself what is wrong to "LIVE MORE FROM LESS"? Though the businesses won't let you do that. They will bomb you with thousands of ADs in TV, Newspaper, Internet. They will tell you that, your life will change when you buy their brand. You will feel better with their brands and not a small brand or non-brand (Though manufactured in same factory) good. These companies want consumers to spend more, buy new goods so that their business can run. They ask their employees to GET MORE FROM LESS and want consumers to SPEND MORE GET MORE.

The whole experiment with downshifting your life is to LIVE MORE FROM LESS. You can enjoy your life, have more time and freedom with less resources and consumer goods also. If can get the same thing, but a non-branded or not an established brand with less...WHY NOT?

So LIVE MORE FROM LESS...

Need-Want Matrix

I learned about Need-Want Matrix when was working for a large company and was into managing a large group of people. We were working on a Five S project implementation. Five S is a reference to a list of five Japanese words which, transliterated and translated into English, start with the letter S and are the name of a methodology. This list is a mnemonic for a methodology that is often incorrectly characterized as "standardized cleanup", however it is much more than cleanup. 5S is a philosophy and a way of organizing and managing the workspace and work flow with the intent to improve efficiency by eliminating waste, improving flow and reducing process unevenness. This concept is great for improving productivity or efficiency. This process also reduces waste.

When I was reflecting back, I found that the Need-Want matrix is really a good concept for decluttering our lifestyle also. Though I implemented in my work, I never practiced it in life. In my downshifting journey, it really helped me.

Most of the time, we plan to acquire what we want and not what we need. When the basic requirments are taken care of most of the things are wanted and not needed. I may need a car for four people, but I want a expensive large one. I need to buy a TV, but I want a large LCD. These are two examples, however when you replace all needs with wants the equations completely changes.

So when you want something, check out if you need it. People may ask why to do that. Is it frugal or we are going backwards? When we are asked toimplement the same at work to get more from less, why not in life to get more time and freedom.

WHY DOWNSHIFTING?

I have been away for some time now from work and my past lifestyle. It is been a big change, after I tried to align myself with my values and what I want my life to be from now on. When I reflect back a year or so...I find today I have much more time for myself then I ever had. Also, I got to spend lot of time with my family.

However, some people asked me WHY now? and WHY at all? This is a really good question. I also asked myself these question when I started. Though I wanted to downshift, but earlier I thought, let me give myself ten years and then start. But, now when I look back, its better to start now then ten years later. For me it is to getting a better balance between time and money. You can get caught up in working hard and creating money then spend more to counteract that. What matters is the difference between what comes in, what goes out and whether you enjoy what you do.

The starting place for me was, when I got a break. We are so busy in our day to day work and future planning that we don't get time to reflect on the journey. When I got a chance, WHY not? Also, its important to understand that, the journey is unique to the individual. What, When is good for me may not be good for others.