Abby Quillen

Freelance Content Marketing Writer and Editor

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Count Down to Christmas with Random Acts of Kindness

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My kids start counting down to Christmas the day after Halloween. I know they’re not alone. Many of us have an eye on the calendar this time of year (some with glee and some with a nervous glance at the to-do list). A Christmas countdown calendar is a great way to give you and your family a visual reminder of how many days are left before December 25.

A few years ago, my family started a kindness countdown tradition, and it’s become one of my favorite parts of the season. The holidays can get a tad overly focused on receiving. (Sorry about the 10-page list from our house, Santa.) Random acts of kindness put a little more of the focus on giving.

Count down to Christmas with Random Acts of Kindness #holidayRAK #kindness

This season is stressful enough, so my family sticks with simple, inexpensive acts of kindness. But we hope they make a difference to someone’s day. Here are a few of my favorites:

  • Picking up trash around our neighborhood
  • Leaving $5 in a library book for a stranger to find
  • Paying for a stranger’s coffee
  • Taping a dollar to a random vending machine

My kids aren’t always thrilled about every activity. But I try to make it fun, and they usually get into the spirit of it.

Random acts of kindness aren’t entirely selfless. It feels great to go out in the world and do some good.  Researchers have found that volunteering and doing small acts of kindness actually improve the health and well being of the giver.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”The last month of 2020 needs some cheer! Check out these fun ways to countdown to Christmas with random acts of kindness. https://abbyquillen.com/holiday-kindness/” quote=”The last month of 2020 needs some cheer! Check out these fun ways to countdown to Christmas with random acts of kindness.”]

Want to take part? Feel free to use our Holiday Kindness Countdown and/or download and print my 2020 Christmas Kindness Calendar (link). Don’t feel like you have to do everything on the list. Pick and choose what resonates, or come up with your own random acts of kindness for the holidays.

Kindness is contagious. A person is more likely to give when he or she sees someone else giving. Share your random acts of kindness on social media, and more people may get excited about adding kindness to their holiday traditions. Use the hashtag #holidayRAK, and we can follow along.

Random acts of kindness Christmas countdown

Download and print a 2020 Christmas Kindness Calendar

(Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a post originally published December 1, 2016)

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How to Raise Kids Who Love to Read

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Novelists Stephen and Tabitha King raised a family of wordsmiths. Their sons Joe and Owen are both published novelists, and their daughter Naomi, a Unitarian minister, writes daily prayers.

When Joe (Hill) published his first novel Heart Shaped Box, he explained why he wanted to join his parents in the storytelling vocation: “It sounds very Victorian, but we would sit around and read aloud nightly, in the living room or on the porch. This was something we kept on doing until I was in high school, at least.”

Gathering the entire family to read aloud probably sounds quaint in an era when some families communicate mostly via text message and others can hardly find time to eat together once a week. But like the King’s our family enjoys read together as a family a few times a week. Here’s why. Reading together has tremendous benefits for both kids and parents. It can:

  • Create lifelong readers

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has surveyed adult reading every year since 1982. In 2012, they reported that only 54 percent of adults in the U.S. had read a book that wasn’t required for work or school during the year.

Kids may learn how to read and write in school, but schools clearly aren’t creating lifelong readers. Books compete with an ever-growing contingent of television shows, video games, and hand-held devices for attention, and the sad reality is, books are losing.

The good news? It’s easy for parents to encourage kids to read for leisure. All we have to do is read! Jim Trelease, author of The Read Aloud Handbook, calls it the “sponge-factor” of education.

“Parents can encourage reading by keeping print books in the home, reading themselves, and setting aside time daily for their children to read,” advises Common Sense Media.

Reading aloud as a family is an excellent way to foster a lifelong love for the written word.

  • Develop focus and listening skills in both parents and kids

“Is Google making us stupid?” Nicholas Carr asked in an Atlantic Monthly article. “Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. . . . Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do.” 

We’re probably all a little too familiar with Carr’s sentiment.

Concentration is a powerful tool. It enables us to work efficiently, stay task-oriented, and enjoy our leisure time. But modern life encourages distraction—from the running news feeds on cable news, to the always-beckoning sirens of email, Facebook, and Twitter, to the skimming paradise that is the Internet.

Don’t be surprised if you find it hard to sit and focus on a story for even a half an hour a day. But practice makes perfect. Reading and listening to others read is a fun way to develop  listening and concentration skills. Our kids, who don’t remember life before the Internet, need to develop and practice these skills even more than we do.

  • Build kids’ literacy skills

Reading with parents exposes kids to materials they might not be able to tackle on their own yet. It helps kids increase vocabulary, work on pronunciation, speak confidently, and gives them a chance to ask questions and build comprehension skills. Reading well is also the foundation of writing well, which might explain why all those King kids are professional writers.

  • Provide more reading and bonding time for families

A family reading tradition allows you to spend more of your day cuddling with the people you love the most and reading.

  • Fuel the imagination

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. . . . Imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution,” Albert Einstein wrote.

Unlike television or video games, reading forces us to paint pictures in our minds. Kids are naturally imaginative and creative, and they’re masters of make-believe.

But a lot of adults are so swamped with the details of daily life that we don’t have time for creativity. Nearly everything around us is the result of someone’s imagination – desks, computers, houses, skyscrapers, sewing machines, novels, clothes, etc. An active imagination is perhaps the most powerful tool we have as humans. Reading every day is a great way to exercise our imagination muscles.

  • Encourage relaxation and restful sleep

In just six minutes, reading can reduce stress levels by 68 percent, according to one study. It’s more relaxing than listening to music or drinking a cup of tea.

Some sleep experts warn that using any electronic device before bed can rob us of a good night’s sleep because the light from the screen halts production of sleep-producing melatonin. They recommend shutting TVs, laptops, PDAs, and cell phones off an hour before bed. Reading together by lamplight is a perfect, relaxing, sleep-friendly pre-bedtime activity.

  • Allow parents to reread favorites and explore new titles

It’s been fun to revisit many of my favorite children’s books with my kids and to discover new titles. Our kids explore the world through books, so we’re especially excited to read more diverse books.

Here are some popular kids’ book series to read aloud as a family:

  • Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis
  • Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
  • Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and its sequels by Judy Blume
  • Henry Huggins or Ramona Quimby series by Beverly Cleary
  • The Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R Tolkein
  • The Mysterious Benedict Society trilogy by Trenton Lee Stewart
  • Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull
  • Magic series by Edgar Eager

And here are some diverse, contemporary middle-grade books to read aloud as a family:

  • George by Alex Nino
  • Front Desk by Kelly Yang
  • Marcus Vega Doesn’t Speak Spanish by Pablo Cartaya
  • Charlie and Frog: A Mystery by Karen Kane
  • Ana Maria Reyes Does Not Live in a Castle by Hilda Eunice Burgos
  • Zoe in Wonderland by Brenda Woods
  • Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart
  • Eagle Song by Joseph Bruchac
  • Wonder by R.J. Palacio
  • The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher by Dana Alison Levy

Tips for creating a family reading tradition

  1. Get comfortable. Pull out the pillows, drop into your sofa, or stretch out on your porch swing or Adirondack chairs. Make some snacks and cuddle. Family reading time shouldn’t be a chore. It should be a fun, relaxing leisure activity that everyone in the family looks forward to.
  2. Choose fun books with engaging story lines. Don’t feel like you need to plow through the classics. If you’re struggling to find a good book, go talk to your local children’s librarians. They read a lot, and they have loads of resources to help you find the perfect book. They can help you discover new authors who write like your favorite authors, find books in a particular genre, and access lists of award-winning books.
  3. Be dramatic – Create voices, read expressively, and practice your pacing. Show your kids that books can be even more entertaining than TV. If you need some inspiration, pick up some audio books at your local library and learn from experts at reading aloud.
  4. Give everyone a turn reading. When kids are old enough, let them take turns running the show.
  5. Get creative. Incorporate crafts, drama, or puppetry into what you’re reading. When I was in third grade, my dad read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey aloud to my sister and me. Those may sound like ambitious books for elementary school kids. But we followed along and loved every second of it, partly because he encouraged us to make costumes and act out scenes. For the Iliad, I played Hector and my sister played Achilles, and we spent weeks making swords and armor for the big battle scene. (I wish someone had told me how that ended before I chose to be Hector.) I still have an intimate connection with those two books. Years later, I aced the grueling exam on the Iliad in my freshman college literature class.
  6. Entertain younger kids. One of the challenges of reading as a family is appealing to different age groups. Pick a book that engages most of the family, and provide special toys for younger kids to play with just during reading time. Babies and younger kids benefit from seeing and hearing parents and siblings having fun reading, even if the story line eludes them. (Of course, they’ll need some additional one-on-one time to read books at their own level too.)
  7. Read together because it’s fun, not because it’s good for you. Resist the temptation to make everything into a lesson for your kids. Talk about what you read, but don’t drill them with questions.
  8. You don’t need kids to have fun reading aloud. My husband and I read aloud to each other long before we had a baby. Some couples read books on marriage or tackle religious texts. We stuck mostly to short stories and novels. Reading aloud is an entertaining way to spend time with anyone you love.

If you liked this post, you may enjoy these related posts:

[Editor’s note: This is a revamped and updated version of a post originally published on July 21, 2009.]

Does your family have a reading tradition? When and what do you like to read aloud together?

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The Healing Power of Oak Trees

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Fifteen years ago, my husband and I stood under a massive, gnarled limb of an oak tree and said our vows to each other.

Oak trees are considered sacred by many cultures, but we didn’t know that then. Nor did we know they were traditionally used for spiritual and civic gatherings (like weddings) to offer strength and protection.

So we were fortunate fate brought us together beneath that majestic oak tree.

The oak tree is sometimes called the king of trees. About 400 species of oaks, including coniferous and deciduous species, grow in the northern hemisphere. There are 60 varieties of oaks native to the United States, and some live for up to a thousand years.

If you haven’t gotten to know an oak tree, it’s time you did. It may sound silly to get to know a tree, but remember, trees absorb and store our rainwater. They compost the ground to build healthy soil, which is essential to all life. They give us the oxygen we breathe. They’re the best allies we’ll ever have.

Humans and Oaks Helped Each Other

Sometimes my kids and I play a game called “Did a person make it or did nature?” My kids usually knew even when they were very young. A person made our Legos. Nature made bears. A person made Dad’s eyeglasses. Nature made our brains.

If I asked my kids who made the beautiful sprawling oak savanna near our house, they’d probably say it was nature. But the answer is more complicated than that. Native American people worked with nature to create Oregon’s oak savannas.

Oaks don’t grow well in the shade and can’t survive when Douglas Firs and Western Red Cedars crowd out the light. But they’re fire-resistant. So the Kalapuya and Chelis tribes set low-intensity fires to keep the conifers from growing in certain areas. The fires kept the Oregon White Oak and California Black Oak healthy and encouraged the growth of wildflowers, such as camas lilies, which Native tribes used for food.

In modern times, we’re rediscovering this ancient land management system. We’d also do well to learn from ancient food customs, starting with the humble but mighty acorn.

The Healing Power of Oak Trees #plantmedicine #heirloomfood

Acorns are an Heirloom Food

Acorns aren’t just for squirrels. They’ve been a staple food for people in North America, Asia, the Middle-East, North Africa, and Europe for thousands of years. The Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder said the sacred oak was the “tree which first produced food for mortal man.”

All acorns are edible, and they’re high in calories, fat, magnesium, calcium, phosphorus, and antioxidants. But unlike squirrels, you can’t enjoy acorns just off the tree. They’re bitter when eaten raw, and they require low-tech processing to make them palatable for humans.

Here’s how to turn acorns into a nutritious flour. Gather whole acorns from the ground and bake them at 250 degrees for a half hour to kill any bug larvae. Shell them using a nutcracker (or a high-quality nut sheller, if you plan to shell large quantities). To leach the bitterness from them, boil them for five to 10 minutes, pour off the murky water, and repeat the process five or six times until the acorns are palatable. Dehydrate the acorns on a tray in a sunny location or in a food dehydrator. Finally, grind the acorns into flour.

Does this process sound difficult? Remember, flours made from tillage crops, such as wheat and corn, also require a fair amount of processing. But acorns offer a major advantage. You don’t need to clear the land of trees and wildlife or use pesticides and herbicides to grow oak trees.

Agriculture is one of the leading causes of biodiversity loss. Farming is what threatens three quarters of the world’s endangered species. If we could take advantage of a nutritious staple food crop without agriculture, it would be a boon for threatened ecosystems.

Lincoln Smith, a gardener in Massachusetts, is experimenting with using acorns as food at Forested, his 10-acre research garden. On one occasion, Smith gleaned 1,000 pounds of acorns from the trees on his busy street in four days. He makes bread by mixing acorn flour one to one with wheat flour.

Acorn bread has a nutty taste and appealing hearty flavor, according to reporter Caroline Selle, who wrote about Smith for Civil Eats. Smith also makes baked chocolate and molasses acorn cookies, which are “sweet, rich, nutty, and good,” according to Selle.

Despite its potential merits, acorn flour isn’t readily available commercially. You can import it from Korea, where it’s commonly eaten, or pay a premium price from a small-scale producer. Otherwise, you’ll need to copy the squirrels and harvest and process your own.

Oak Medicine

Oak bark is an astringent, and it can be used to heal bleeding gums, sore throats, scrapes, or rashes. To make a decoction of it, cut a small branch off any oak tree. Soak it in water to clean it. Use a knife to remove the outer-most bark and discard it. Then shave off a tablespoon of the white inner bark and boil it in four cups of water for 20 minutes or more. Use it as a gargle, rinse, or compress.

Native Americans also used oak chewing sticks to clean their teeth. Unlike nylon toothbrush bristles, oak twigs are naturally antibacterial and antiseptic. In a study, nearly all (99.9 percent) of bacteria spread on various wooden cutting boards, including oak, were undetectable within three minutes.

That’s significant because toothbrushes harbor huge amounts of germs. Ten million bacteria, including fecal germs, live on the average toothbrush. Seventy percent of people’s toothbrushes are heavily contaminated with potentially pathogenic bacteria and viruses, such as Staphylococcus aureus, E. coli, Pseudomonas, and herpes simplex virus, according to a study.

Plus, unlike plastic toothbrushes, chewing sticks don’t pollute the environment by lingering in landfills for five hundred to a thousand years.

It’s easy to make an oak chewing stick. Remove a small twig from an oak tree, peel the bark off one end, and leave it in a glass of water overnight to soften it. The next day, chew on it until bristles form and use it to scrub your teeth as you would with a toothbrush, no toothpaste needed. Use the same chewing stick several times by breaking the bristles off and starting over again.

If you think this ancient technology sounds primitive (or even disgusting), consider the conclusion of a randomized clinical trial comparing chewing sticks to toothbrushes, which was published in the North American Journal of Medical Sciences in July 2014: “Chewing stick was found to be equally effective as toothbrush in terms of gingival status. On the other hand, chewing stick had shown even better results in terms of reduction in plaque scores than in subjects using toothbrush.”

Trees exhale for us so that we can inhale them to stay alive. Can we ever forget that_ #quote #trees

Oaks Need Us

Now here’s the bad news. Oak ecosystems around the world are declining. Oaks once covered 50 percent of the Willamette Valley where I live, but their numbers have been reduced by 97 percent. Oaks are also disappearing from Minnesota and other states. A quarter of the oak trees in the U.S. are threatened.

Why are our oaks in decline? European settlers’ fear of fire helped transform sunny oak savannas into shady woodlands. Habitat destruction, pests and diseases, agriculture, and development are also culprits. But these are symptoms of the real problem. Now that we let the acorns rot on the ground and get our medicines from pharmaceutical companies, we’ve forgotten the value of oak trees.

Do trees matter? What do they do for us? Diana Beresford-Kroeger eloquently answers that question in her book The Global Forest.

Trees breathe, communicate, reproduce, filter pollution from the air, provide habitat for wildlife, flora and fauna, provide aesthetic value and beauty on the planet, absorb CO2 (greenhouse gas) and release life-sustaining oxygen (50% comes from trees and 50% comes from ocean plankton), provide shelter and provide a variety of food, such as fruit and nuts, as well as medicines. Trees connect elements of nature and we are connected to trees – we are one. Trees provide wind and erosion control, soil stability, assist in controlling the movement of water and in purifying groundwater. Trees provide branches for children’s swings, tree houses or for children to climb.”

Beresford-Kroeger goes on for several more pages about the virtues of trees. And even then, she can’t do them justice. They are — in a word — our lifeblood.

We need oaks and they need us. Enjoy their shade and beauty. Eat their food, and use their medicine. Fall in love with an oak tree. That’s how we’ll save them.

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I Gave Up Podcasts for Two Weeks. Here’s What Happened.

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What’s not to love about podcasts? They’re educational, entertaining, and free. I’ve been a fan since I downloaded my first one on my iPod Nano back in 2008.

I’ve listened to countless hours of Radiolab, This American Life, Invisibilia, Serial, and S-Town. I’d recognize Jad Abumrad’s voice in a crowded room.

I’ve also listened to amateur podcasts about arcane topics. I may admit to streaming them if I remembered the titles.

I’ve discovered interesting books and authors through podcasts. I’ve stumbled on topics to write about and people to interview. Podcasts helped me stay entertained during long nights pacing with crying babies and harried days at home with two little boys.

So why would I take a break from podcasts? In December, I was assigned to write an article with the title: “Is it Bad to Listen to Podcasts All Day?”

My immediate answer was, “No way! That’s my dream life!”

But then I dug into the research and reflected on my podcast habit.

My total listening added up to about one to two hours a day, or 7 to 14 hours a week. That put me in the super listener category, according to Edison Research. I usually listened when I was doing something else, like getting ready in the morning, cooking, walking, or driving.

I thought of my listening habit as a good thing. I love learning new things.

But as I revisited the research on multitasking, I wondered if trying to listen to podcasts while I hustled through life was causing me mental stress and fatigue and was actually dumbing me down. (Multitasking does that.)

Plus, some of the podcasts I was listening to were about how to live a more mindful life. And multitasking is, ahem, the opposite of mindfulness.

So I decided to do an experiment. I gave up podcasts for two weeks and replaced them with silence. Just me and my wandering mind. What happened next amazed me.

I felt relieved.

The first time I stepped out the door for a walk without glancing at my podcast feed felt like a vacation. Then I had the same sensation when I got in my car.

I wasn’t expecting to feel relief, because I thought of podcasts as something I enjoyed. But, like most people, I’m bombarded with choices and decisions constantly, which is draining. Not having to scan through feeds and find a podcast was refreshing.

Plus, it felt great to turn off the chattering in my ear (even if in this case, the chattering was entertaining me with well-crafted stories and occasional profound insights).

I live with two chatty little boys, who enjoy listening to Taylor Swift songs at high volumes. Our house is noisy when we’re all home. When I’m home alone, I read, research, and write a lot, so my mind is a busy place.

Quiet sounded so good.

Of course, this shouldn’t have surprised me. I’ve experienced enough quiet in my life to know it’s restorative.

Silence is regarded as holy in most religions. Spiritual people of all traditions herald the importance of quiet contemplation. Mother Theresa equated silence with prayer.

And scientists have discovered the power of silence accidentally when they used it as a control in research. In one study, researchers discovered that a two-minute silent pause in a piece of music was more beneficial for the body and nervous system than relaxing music.

In another study, two hours of silence a day caused mice to grow new functioning neurons in the hippocampus region of their brains. Imke Kirste, the lead researcher, theorizes that if the same results are found in humans, someday silence may be used to treat conditions like dementia and depression

But sometimes you have to immerse yourself in quiet to remember how healing it is.

Everything got easier.

When I turned off the podcasts when I was doing housework, the residual backlog of dishes and laundry at our house disappeared. I zipped through making dinner, even complex recipes. And I felt calmer and more engaged when I was with my kids. (I didn’t usually listen to podcasts when I was hanging out with my family, but I often felt in a hurry to get back to the chores so I could listen to one.)

Writing also felt easier. I attribute this to having more free time to think. The brain goes into its default mode when it’s not concentrating, where it wanders and self reflects. This state is just as essential to learning as concentration. In my well-intentioned attempts to learn more, I may have been shortchanging myself of going into this just-as-important brain state

You may think that listening to a podcast while doing something else isn’t really multitasking in the way that driving and talking on the phone is. But listening to a podcast is actually hard work for the brain. The brain is five times more active when listening to a story than when listening to a list of facts. Add sound effects, multiple characters’ voices, and a relatively fast pace, and the brain is busy.

When people were hooked up to MRI machines while they listened to Moth Radio Hour for a study, “Widely dispersed sensory, emotional and memory networks were humming, across both hemispheres of the brain,” according to Benedict Carey of the New York Times.

In hindsight, it’s funny that I thought I could listen to a complex story at the same time as I was making a new-to-me recipe or navigating an unfamiliar route in my car.

But that’s the strange thing about multitasking. We think we can do it, even though the brain can’t focus on two things at once.

Research suggests we lose 40 percent of our productivity and are four times slower at learning new things when we multitask.

I certainly felt 40 percent more productive when I stopped. But this seems to be a lesson I must learn repeatedly. I hope I finally got it this time.

Real life was more interesting.

What could be the downside of listening to a steady stream of well-crafted narratives and conversations designed to make you feel a deep sense of awe? Real life and real conversations can feel a little ho-hum. There are relatively few earth-shattering revelations, profound insights, and moments of realization in everyday chitchat.

Worse, listening to podcasts can give you the illusion you’re already socializing, which makes real socializing feel less essential. Pamela Druckerman, a self-confessed recovering podcast addict, writes in the Atlantic: “Podcasts gave me the illusion of having a vibrant social life. I was constantly “meeting” new people. My favorite hosts started to seem like friends: I could detect small shifts in their moods, and tell when they were flirting with guests.”

I hadn’t thought much about these downsides of listening to podcasts until I gave them up. Within a couple days, I felt more eager to run into people and chat. And when I was conversing with people, I felt more refreshed and engaged.

Plus, when I went for walks without a podcast, even around my neighborhood, I was blown away by all of the beauty: murmurations of starlings, fog twisting through the hills, delicate patterns etched across iced-over puddles. Had I really been missing all this before? Oh right, my brain was busy listening.

I felt happier.

I felt notably calmer. I slept better. I felt more present and engaged with my family. I noticed fewer moments of stress or anxiety.

Plus, at times, I had a feeling of spacious expansion that I haven’t felt since I was a kid. One day I was bringing books up to my son’s room. It was raining, and I laid down on his bed and listened for awhile before I returned to my chores. Another day, I sat down and read poetry, which I haven’t done for years.

My time was mine again. I could just focus on what I was doing. Or just be.

Of course, changing any habit can be hard, and giving up podcasts was no exception. I felt symptoms that felt like withdrawal (similar to when I quit drinking coffee awhile ago). I especially felt antsy when I was cooking, which is strange because cooking requires a lot of focus (and some inherent multitasking). Fortunately, preparing food in the quiet got a little easier as time went on.

Going Forward

Of course, podcasts are fun and interesting, and I miss some of them. Will I listen going forward? How much? To what?

I’m not sure yet. But I know I’ll be more mindful about what I trade my quiet for. Plus, I’m swearing off multitasking (again). Lesson learned (again).

Will taking a break from podcasts (or social media, radio, or television) change your outlook as much as it did mine? There’s no way to know except to try. If you do (or if you have in the past), leave me a comment. I’d love to hear about it!

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Why You Shouldn’t Fear Old Age and Other Insights from the 2018 National Bioneers Conference

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A few weeks ago, my sister white-knuckled the steering wheel as we crossed the five-mile-long Richmond Bridge that soars above San Francisco Bay between Oakland and San Rafael. Commuters still wove across six lanes of traffic at nearly 9 p.m on Highway 101 in San Rafael. We pulled off the freeway, wound through palm-tree lined streets, and checked into a cozy Airbnb about a mile away from the Marin Center. We were there to attend the 29th annual National Bioneers Conference.

We weren’t sure what to expect. But we were long overdue for a sisters’ getaway. We explored Iceland, Puerto Rico, the Baja peninsula of Mexico, and remote parts of Colorado together when we were in our late teens and early twenties. With jobs and mortgages (and my two small children), our travel opportunities have winnowed over the past decade. The Bioneers Conference looked like an interesting event to attend together.

We didn’t expect it to blow our minds.

It did.

I’m still digesting what I learned there, but I’ve compiled a few insights. First, what’s Bioneers, you may be asking.

What’s the Bioneers Conference?

Kenny Ausubel and Nina Simons started the Bioneers Conference in 1990 in New Mexico. It’s a conference committed to “connecting people with each other and with ideas that could positively transform the world.”

They invite leaders from the environmental movement, the social justice movement, and indigenous communities. This year’s keynote speakers included Michael Pollan and Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of #BlackLivesMatters.

In the past, Naomi Klein, Terry Tempest Williams, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Jeremy Narby, Charles Eisenstein, and other inspiring thought leaders have spoken.

Insights From the 2018 Bioneers Conference

Here are a few of the thoughts I’ve been mulling over since the conference.

Old Age Isn’t As Bad As You Think

Do you fear dementia, nursing homes, and loneliness in your older years? Ashton Applewhite wants to dismantle those common stereotypes about aging. Only 2.5% of people will be in a nursing home and 8 of 9 elderly people will stay cognitively fit throughout their lives, according to Applewhite. Moreover, most of us will be happier when we’re old.

Applewhite urges people to stop age shaming. What’s age shaming? It’s making something that shouldn’t be shameful into something that is. It may include:

  • Dying your hair
  • Not mentioning your age or lying about it
  • Slathering on “anti-aging” products
  • Dreading your birthday
  • Frowning when you see a wrinkle in the mirror
  • Scoffing about how old a celebrity looks

It also includes discriminating against workers on the basis of age. Two-thirds of workers report facing ageism at work, according to Applewhite.

Applewhite insists we must challenge negative messages we’ve internalized about aging. After all, ageism is the only discrimination we wage against our future selves.

Besides, most of us intuitively know that aging enriches us. It makes us wiser, more interesting, and more empathetic. Few older people would wish to return to a younger age.

The elderly population is growing. There will be 78 million people over 65 years old by 2035, compared to 76.7 million under 18. Feelings about aging matter. People with positive feelings about getting older are less likely to get dementia, and they live seven years longer on average.

“When we build a better world for old people, we build a better world for all of us,” says Applewhite.

We Can Heal Divisions

It’s a polarizing time. But the Bioneers Conference gave me hope we can heal. The conference celebrates indigenous wisdom and solutions to the world’s problems and brings together leaders from native communities all over the country. More than fifty indigenous leaders shared their fights to save aquifers, springs, waterways, oceans, salmon populations, and forests from oil pipelines and mining contamination.

We’re facing an unprecedented ecological crisis and we need to listen to indigenous voices about how to heal it. Human communities flourished in the Americas for thousands of years. Europeans thought they’d stumbled onto a natural Eden, but Native Americans deserve some credit for the lush landscapes here. They were brilliant land and ecosystem managers. They used controlled burning and other methods to shape the land for their purposes while fostering healthy conditions for all life.

Native Americans are not always thrilled to share their wisdom or customs with non-natives. Colonization brought disease, malnutrition, warfare, and genocide to their communities.

Two brutal examples:

  • In 1775, King George II passed a proclamation paying settlers for delivering the scalps of Native Americans. The crown paid fifty pounds for adult male scalps, twenty-five pounds for adult female scalps, and twenty pounds for children’s scalps. The scalps were called redskins (which is still the mascot for the football team of the U.S. capital).
  • Between 1879 and 1919, thousands of native children from 141 tribes were removed from their families and placed in boarding schools. Not only were the children separated from their families, communities, and culture; they were “malnourished, overworked, harshly punished and poorly educated,” according to a 1920 report. Hundreds of native children died in boarding schools because of disease and harsh conditions. Native Americans only gained the legal right to refuse their children’s placement in off-reservation boarding schools in 1978.

If Native leaders can come together with the descendants of colonialists to talk about solutions, what other divisions can we begin to heal?

We Should Understand and Honor the Past

Many of the speakers at the conference gave thanks to the Coast Miwok. The land we call Marin County is their ancestral homeland. There were 2,000 Coast Miwok in 1770. By 2000, there were only 170 (according to Wikipedia).

After Bioneers, I’m committed to learning more about the indigenous tribes and nations who lived for thousands of years on lands where I live and visit. This isn’t about idolizing First Nations or thinking their societies were perfect.

It’s about respecting that dynamic cultures once flourished in places we now live. People called these lands home and buried their ancestors on them for generations.

Colonization had the brutal legacy of erasing people, languages, stories, and cultural knowledge. Fortunately, we’re in the midst of a resurgence. The Native American population increased by 26 percent between 2000 and 2010 (compared to a 9.7 percent growth of the general population). And indigenous communities are reviving languages that were thought to be dead.

Want to know who lived where you live now? Check out this amazing map (with the caveat that all maps are colonial artifacts that may misrepresent reality). There’s probably a Native American museum or cultural center near you where you can learn more about your region’s indigenous peoples.

After Bioneers, I’m also interested to learn more about my family’s cultural history, traditions, and homelands. My sister and I plan to go to Scotland in the next few years to find out more about Scottish ancestors on both sides of our family and to Delaware to learn about our Delaware Moor ancestors.

Health Starts in the Soil

When physician Daphne Miller went to an Amazon tributary in Peru to fill in for a doctor there, she was shocked to discover the illnesses she usually treated didn’t exist there. No diabetes. No heart disease. Instead, she found a lot of well old people. What was their secret?

At first Miller was convinced it was their diet. She wrote a book called The Jungle Effect about the healing properties of native diets around the world. Later, Miller realized she was wrong. “It wasn’t their food; it was their soil,” she says.

If you haven’t heard, the nutrients in our food are disappearing. According to one study, we need to eat eight oranges to get the same amount of vitamin A our grandparents got from one. Timothy J. Lasalle, a former college professor and CEO of Rodale, who sat on a workshop panel with Miller, blames tilling for some of those nutritional declines. Tilling means using a hoe or tractor to break apart the soil before planting. Lasalle champions a regenerative agricultural method that combines organic methods with zero tillage.

Josh Whiton has an even simpler solution for those of us who don’t farm. We throw away 1.6 billion tons of food waste every year. Why not transform it into nutritious soil, starting in your own yard? Whiton runs the company MakeSoil.org, which encourages neighbors to share compost bins. Except Whiton doesn’t like the term compost. He suggests neighbors join forces to become “soilmakers.”

When Whiton asked his neighbors in an apartment complex to make soil with him, he was surprised that many of his neighbors had environmental awakenings. Some of them changed their lives entirely afterward.

Whiton contends we treat the planet like garbage when we throw food away. When we start regenerating the earth with it instead, it changes us. “It’s a relief,” he says, “We’re ashamed to be human.” Many people go on to become gardeners or activists.

“Soil makers should have a revered place in our society,” Whiton says.

Conclusion

“Bioneers is a natural antidepressant,” Kenny Ausubel, the co-founder of the conference, said in an interview.

It’s true that I feel more hopeful, inspired, and excited about the future. But I’m also still trying to get my bearings. We were only at the conference for four days, but it felt like entering another culture.

“I feel like we spent a few weeks in the bottom of the Grand Canyon,” my sister said as we drove through Oakland on the way back to the airport. I haven’t rafted down the Grand Canyon, but I knew what she meant. It’s jarring to return to our society. Violence and mass extinction are in the headlines, and my young boys beg me for violent video games and junk food, as most do. These societal norms feel even more wrong after Bioneers.

That said, I’m glad we went. Before we left, we hiked through an oak and madrone forest with stunning views of San Francisco bay. I snapped a picture. Later I posted it on Instagram and typed the caption, “My sister and I hiking in beautiful Marin County.” But I couldn’t leave it at that. Yes, this land has been called Marin County for 168 years. But before that, the Coast Miwok had hunted dear, gathered acorns, and buried their ancestors there for more than 4,500 years. The least I could do was acknowledge them.

Have you traced  your family’s history and/or been to their ancestral homelands? Leave me a comment! I’d love to hear about it.

6 Reasons to Skip Packaged Salad and Eat Fresh Greens Instead

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Rip open a bag, toss some greens in a bowl, pour on some dressing, and voila, instant salad. No washing, chopping, or spinning. What’s not to love about packaged salad greens? Seventy percent of American families buy them. And packaged greens may even encourage salad-phobic Americans to eat healthier.

Unfortunately, packaged salad greens come with some downsides and even some health risks. Keep reading to learn why you may want to spend a few extra minutes washing, chopping, and assembling your salads from fresh (unpackaged) greens.

  1. Salad with a side of foodborne illness?

Any food you consume raw comes with a greater risk of foodborne disease. Leafy green salads are one of the top sources of infections. They account for 20 percent of outbreaks in the U.S, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and 30 percent of outbreaks in Europe, according to the European Food Safety Authority. Packaged greens and salad mixes are especially susceptible to pathogen contamination because they’re handled more and sit on the shelf longer than fresh greens.

When the leaves of packaged salad greens are  torn or chopped before they’re packaged, they leak juices, which increase the risk of Salmonella growth by 2400 times. Moreover, packaged greens may be contaminated with e. coli bacteria if they come into contact with animal feces or contaminated water or if workers don’t wash their hands well at the farm or in the factory. A Consumer Reports study found unacceptable levels of bacteria in 39 percent of the packaged greens they tested, including those produced by major brands such as Earthbound Farm Organic, Dole, and Fresh Express. Some of the biggest outbreaks of foodborne disease in the recent past have been linked to bagged salad greens, including an E. coli outbreak traced to packaged romaine lettuce that killed five people and sickened 197 people in 35 different states this spring (2018).

To minimize your risk of acquiring a foodborne disease from salad greens:

  • Buy fresh leafy greens that have not been chopped, torn, or crushed and have been handled as little as possible.
  • Remove the outer layer of lettuce leaves and discard them
  • Keep salad greens refrigerated.
  • Wash salad greens (even packaged ones) before eating them by running each leaf under running water.
  • Don’t let greens sit in the fridge for more than a week.
  • Don’t eat greens if they look or smell off in any way.

  1. The packaged salad industry harms wildlife

When you eat a salad, you may feel good about consuming a meal that doesn’t hurt animals. Unfortunately, that’s probably not the case if your packaged greens were grown in Central California (and there’s a good chance they were). The region is called America’s salad bowl because more than 75 percent of America’s salad greens are grown there. Large farms in the Salinas Valley process as many as 10 million pounds of salad greens per week.

In 2006, a massive E. coli outbreak was traced to bagged spinach grown in the Salinas Valley. Because, E. Coli is spread from animal feces, all animals were seen as a threat – frogs, mice, deer, hawks, owls, and birds. Farmers responded to the outbreak by eradicating wildlife habitat from their farms. They clear cut trees, grass, and hedgerows; filled in ponds; and erected fences to keep wildlife from crossing streams and entering farms. More than 90 percent of wetlands, floodplains, and riparian habitat in the Central Valley have been decimated.

These “sterile” agricultural practices have a detrimental impact on wildlife and contribute to the biodiversity crisis and mass extinctions. Moreover, they may be counterproductive. Wetlands help reduce pesticide runoff and bacteria contamination of crops. Studies indicate farmers can reduce E. coli contamination on a farm by as much as 99 percent by restoring wetlands and waterways.

To support farmers who protect wildlife habitat:

  • Choose organic, which minimizes the use of pesticides and herbicides, which impact wildlife.
  • Look for foods with the eco-labels Certified Wildlife Friendly or Food Alliance Certified, which ensure farms protect wildlife habitat and biodiversity.
  • Shop at your local farmers’ market and talk to farmers about their farming practices.
  1. Packaging greens requires a lot of water

Have you seen the triple-wash guarantee on salad packaging labels? Repeated washing is necessary to make commercial salad greens clean and safe. No one wants to find dirt or a frog in a bagged salad mix, and, as mentioned, the risk of foodborne disease is high in foods eaten raw.

But washing operations use a lot of water. “The bagged, triple-washed variety is enormously water costly,” Gidon Eshel, a professor at Bard College’s Center for Environmental Policy told Mother Jones Magazine. You can see a video of  one part of the washing process here to understand how much water is used to clean salad mix. Farmers in Central California are incentivized to plant more greens than they can sell, which wastes even more water (not to mention that they throw excess product in the landfill, packaging and all).

Water waste may not be an issue in some parts of the country. But California doesn’t have excess fresh water to spare. Between 2012 and 2016, California experienced the worst drought in its history. Most of the water in the state is used by farmers. Since 1922, California has relied on a 242-mile aqueduct system from the Colorado River to supply drinking water to residents of Southern California.

To support agriculture that conserves water:

  1. Plastic or plastic?

When you buy packaged salad, you have two choices of packaging: crinkly plastic bags or plastic clamshell boxes. Both are a disaster for the environment, especially now that many municipalities worldwide have halted plastics recycling. If you must buy packaged salad, the most eco-friendly option is clamshell boxes made of recycled materials.

To reduce the plastic waste from your salads:

  • Grow your own greens.
  • If you buy greens at a grocery store or farmer’s market, use reusable grocery and produce bags.
  • Reuse any plastic produce bags you take.
  1. Greens with a side of chemical sanitizers?

Commercial cleaning machines handle mass quantities of greens and can’t manually clean them as well as you do at home under the faucet. Thus, they use chemical disinfectants, usually diluted chlorine. Some European Union countries, including the Netherlands, Denmark, and Belgium, have banned the use of chlorine for washing fresh-cut produce because it can create harmful disinfectant by-products in the water.

To minimize your chance of ingesting chemical sanitizer residue:

  1. Where have all the nutrients gone?

Packaged salad greens are sometimes two weeks old when you eat them and have gone through a lot of processing in the field and factory. Unfortunately, they lose a lot of nutrients in the process. Research suggests they may lose half of their folate, up to 80 percent of their vitamin C, and 46 percent of their carotinoids.

To eat the freshest, most nutritious food possible:

  • Grow your own vegetables or buy from a local farm

Conclusion

Don’t be afraid to enjoy a packaged salad mix occasionally. They may be more risky than many foods, but they’re unlikely to hurt you, statistically speaking. Moreover, any greens are better than not eating greens.

However, if you want to eat the freshest and most nutritious food possible (and who doesn’t?), skip packaged greens and opt for making salads out of fresh greens. You’ll ingest more nutrients, and you’ll support agriculture that’s better for wildlife and the environment. As Micheal Pollen writes, “How you and your family choose to spend your food money represents one of the most powerful votes you have.”

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