I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with Paul Maschka out in San Diego. Paul is (among many things) an educator, a business owner, an activist, and an organic farmer. One of the evenings we were walking a couple of blocks to a local brewpub when he said something that has really stuck with me.
As we walked past a number of lawns that had sprinklers running over them he said, “look at all that drinkable water.” It struck me because I had never really given much thought to classifying water on the basis of being drinkable or not. This is one of the privileges of living in a “first-world” country where one can simply turn of the faucet and expect: 1) water to flow out, 2) which will not make you ill.
Yet this simply remark – look at all that drinkable water – highlighted to me the obvious fact that some water is drinkable and some water is not. This fact alone would suggest that we should allocate the more valuable and versatile drinkable water toward purposes that require clean potable water, whereas used, collected, or “gray” water that is not quite drinkable can be used for watering plants (preferably edible plants). In fact, I observed this very smart allocation of water in action at Paul’s home where I noticed that the discharge hose from the washing machine led out to a garden instead of straight down the drain (apparently plants have no problem with this as long as you use non-toxic laundry detergents without salts in them). This not only saves the drinkable water for drinking, but it also saves the potential expenses associated with the waste treatment of the laundry water, which together save you money on your water and waste treatment bills.
So, I would encourage you to consider how you use our drinkable water. The California Water Service Company is currently in Stage 1 of a drought management plan and is asking its customers to voluntarily reduce their water use by 10%. The State of California has enacted a bill to require urban water suppliers to reduce their water consumption by 20% by the year 2020. This is to say that it is likely to become more expensive and more difficult to apply drinkable water to lawns. But even independent of those factors, a smarter use of our shared resources is always…well…a smart thing to do.
Cheers, Larry
One night last week my wife and I decided to make tacos for dinner. We had tomatoes from the garden, but needed a few other supplies. It was getting late, so I made a quick run out to the store. This is what I purchased: - 1 lb organic ground beef - 1 head organic lettuce… - fresh tortillas made in-store - a bag of store-brand, already grated cheese
Now, you might think that one of those things doesn’t quite belong with the others and you would be right. Unlike the other ingredients, the cheese was processed, prepared, and on sale. I was saving time and money and the tacos were pretty good.
It wasn’t until the following day that I was looking at the back of the package of cheese and noticed that the last ingredient in the list was something called natamycin. This caught my attention because my experience as a pharmacologist and as a consumer has taught me that compounds with such a suffix are likely to be antibiotics. Indeed, I looked up natamycin and found the following World Health Organization report describing the anti-fungal drug that was in my cheese.
Now, I’m not sharing this story with you to raise alarm and I’m not saying that natamycin is unsafe for consumption. My point is simply that I did not know that it was in my cheese and that I prefer to consume cheese sans antibiotics.
This also makes me think about the true costs of what we eat. I mentioned above that I saved time (already grated) and money (inexpensive store brand) on the spot by purchasing the cheese that I did. However, I have to wonder what the long-term effects and costs for myself and for society will be if we continue adding antibiotics to the food supply.
Thus, I hereby commit to read labels more carefully. No more drugs in my cheese. Sincerely, Larry
I am a fan of Will.i.am. I am also a fan of Sesame Street. So, perhaps it shouldn’t be too surprising that I thought the video at the link below was pretty cool when I first saw it. It’s a catchy tune and the lyrics are uplifting.
What I didn’t quite expect was how the song seemed to stay with me. And, perhaps this is part of the genius of both the artist and the show. I found myself humming along to the melody thinking, “there’s nothing I can’t achieve,” “never giving up, gotta go,” and of course, “I’ll keep getting stronger.” As a result, two things occurred to me. First, these are good thoughts to have running around one’s head. Second, this song might actually make for a good workout tune.
Happy Friday, Larry
p.s. don’t forget to visit your farmers markets this weekend!
