The Hemp Connection:
sustainability

We know that most of you who originally come to inCYST are looking for help with your infertility, your acne, your weight, and/or your depression. We take that seriously and we hope you find our information helpful, meaningful, and relevant.

That is our immediate goal.

We also have a much bigger picture in mind. One reason we believe you're having so much trouble with your hormone balance, is that you're living on a planet that has been so badly mistreated that it has trouble supporting healthy balance within all of you. Because of that, one of the most important things we hope to communicate through our mission, is that our choices have effects far beyond us, and those choices that best benefit the earth, have the most potential to resolve the more personal concerns that initially introduced you to us.

From the very beginning, I've believed that to the best of our ability, our recommendations for food and lifestyle are consistent with what you might see on a green living website. I've also been very aware that, with PCOS affecting 1 in 10 women, the shopping habits we culture have potential to collectively influence what kind of food is available for everyone on the planet to eat.

Because we are so pro-omega-3, we cannot ignore that the type of seafood we recommend must be sustainable. Earlier in the week a Huffington Post article reported that 40 species of fish (including one that is very popular in sushi) are on the verge of extinction, largely due to overfishing and pollution…reinforcing how what we do at inCYST needs to keep all of you healthy and keep the planet healthy enough so that goal #1 is even possible.

So I was super excited to receive an email yesterday, Earth Day eve, from our inCYST contact in Nashua, New Hampshire. I've come to know Pat Hunter and her counterpart Kristen Rioux through planning events to promote their new PCOS support group.

We had planned an event which was to occur on April 1, but which we have since rescheduled to the fall. The problem was, we had received a generous donation from Australis, producers of the high-omega and sustainably farmed barramundi, which we had intended to serve at lunch so that the women coming to our event would have an opportunity to try this fish. We didn't want to waste the food and we wanted to be sure that Australis was happy with their inCYST experience, so Pat and Kristen arranged to have two barramundi promotions in their employee cafeteria.

We thought Lent might be a nice time to try this, since most people are eating more fish then anyway. But we knew that New Englanders love their cod and wondered if they'd be open to something new and different. (We even joked around that a fun marketing tag line might be"Give up cod for Lent!")

I heard from Pat and Kristen yesterday and it turns out the fish was so well accepted they are now working to make it a regular menu item for their employees.

This is a change with potentially far-reaching effects. Anyone eating barramundi at work is more likely to think of it to prepare at home. The more demand for this fish increases in local stores, the more likely it is to start showing up on restaurant menus. And the more barramundi that is bought, the less stress and strain on other fish populations that may not be healthy enough to provide our demand for more seafood.

So thanks to Pat, Kristen, and especially Australis for making it so easy to give a new audience an opportunity to try a new, sustainable (not to mention tasty) food choice, and encourage its popularity to take hold, we are very enthusiastically celebrating Earth Day at inCYST.

If we've gotten your curiosity up, please check out the Australis website. Farmed seafood has a terrible reputation, but this operation has a whole lot of thought put into it. They have gone to great pains to describe their farm in detail to answer any questions you might have. You might be surprised at what you learn.

Happy Earth Day to all. Be kind to yourselves and the world around you…you depend on each other for survival!

Source: Uploaded by user via Monika on Pinterest

One of the things I am very conscious of in doing this work, is that the recommendations we make on this blog have the potential to have consequences far beyond then plates of our actual readers.

We are approaching 10,000 page reads a month, and our readers come from some pretty surprising places like India, Uzbekistan, and Trinidad. I am honored and flattered to know that the information we provide here is popular and useful to a variety of women. I do not want anyone to think that because they do not live where I do, that they cannot be healthy with PCOS. Or, that if they do not have the money for some Amazon-based supplement, they cannot be healthy with PCOS.

That being said, I am ever-mindful of the collective consequence of 1 in 5 women all rushing out to buy something because they read about it on this blog. That is why you never see me parrot, repeat, or retweet those lists of top ten healthy foods. While salmon, blueberries, and walnuts are all healthy, they are not available to many of our readers. And even to those who are, they are not the most environmentally friendly choices to make.

There simply are not enough wild salmon on the planet for it to be feasible for nutrition experts to be promoting the idea that this is the only fish that you should eat for omega-3 fatty acids. I LOVE blueberries, but I live in a hot climate where they do not grow, and the carbon footprint of the ones that make it to my local store…well…just not something I want to sign off on as my personal contribution to environmental disruption.

The other trend I see is a tendency to believe that if the food or supplement did not come from some exotic Amazon river tributary, or if it was not handpicked by an esoteric band of Mongolian monks, it can't have health value. We are sick in the Northern hemisphere, so our answer lies outside of our own environment, right?

Not quite.

One of the reasons we are sick, is that we have made our environment sick. We are all simply artifacts and consequences of our sick environment. Clean up the way we grow and produce food, reduce our carbon footprint, and we become healthy as a natural consequence of living responsibly.

Rather than jumping over foods in your own backyard, or buying into the idea that your answer is growing on some mountainside in Kenya, take a look at your immediate environment. How much fresh food are you eating? How much of it is locally grown? How much is seasonal?

Do you even know what foods are in season right now? I was floored when I used to do grocery store tours at Whole Foods several years ago. The people coming through those classes, in Tempe, AZ, and Venice, CA, were pretty well educated, and they viewed themselves as environmentally conscious.

But invariably, I would take them into the produce section and say,"Now tell me what's in season." And they would look at me like a deer in the headlights. In the middle of winter they would gravitate toward the blueberries shipped in from South America. And in the Arizona classes, they had no idea our perfectly healthy nuts are pecans and pistachios, not walnuts.

(Psssssttttt…by the way, what is in season is usually what's in the biggest bin at the lowest price, in case you were curious).

Back to blueberries. Turns out, one of the reasons blueberries are such an incredible powerhouse, is exactly why desert-friendly foods are also pretty incredible. If you would like to learn more, check out my blog post for Chow Locally this week. Take a look at what Mother Nature may have planted right in your own backyard before you get in a hurry to spend a lot of money on some food or supplement that comes from exotic, faraway land.

Much of what modern medicine tries to do, is OUTSMART Mother Nature. I believe the more logical, effective, and sustainable answer, especially for PCOS, is to LISTEN to Mother Nature. Her lessons are not the loudest ones, and they are not always on a prominent website, with a strong profit margin, but they are powerful, and they are valuable.

If you have questions about what might be lurking in your part of the world, pass them along! I'd love to learn along with you.

I've been working on my home study course for the past week, and one of the topics I spent quite a bit of time on…was my frustration about the misinformation we spread about fish. (I guess you could say"fish" is something I have a"beef" about…)

We have this tendency as nutritionists to create the perception that the only fish that has any omega-3 content…and therefore worth eating…is salmon.

I live in Phoenix. We love salmon here as much as anyone, but it's not a local fish. It's seasonal. And it's expensive. It's not the greatest choice if you have trouble with the"fishiness" of fish. And for many of the people I work with, it's simply not an affordable option.

And this idea that you have to eat salmon to get your omega-3's is simply not based in fact.

A few years ago I did an analysis of all seafood. And it turns out, whether or not you eat clams, shrimp, salmon, catfish, or mussels, you're getting omega-3's in your diet. So eat what you can get locally at an affordable price, and enjoy it!

I have a particular fondness for tilapia because it is a mild fish, it's affordable, available in most locations, and very doable for someone who's not a big fish lover. Secondly, I love this fish because it is farmed, which means it has the potential to feed a lot of people yet be a sustainable resource.

Have you considered what we do to the poor wild salmon population when we all quit eating other fish and eat this one and this one alone? It's not really logical or rational to assume that there are enough wild salmon in the Pacific to feed every person on the planet.

If you're not a tilapia fan, do take the time to visit this website: www.montereybayaquarium.org. They have a great list of seafood choices that are sustainable and therefore the ones to gravitate toward in the grocery store and in restaurants. I was surprised at what popular species are overfished and my shopping habits have changed to reflect what I learned.

I've been pretty vocal about the fact that we need to diversify our recommendations for seafood so that we don't deplete entire species in our quest for omega-3 fatty acids. In a search for options to replace the ever-popular salmon, I've learned some interesting things that we'll share on the blog. Today, I'd like to introduce you to a prehistoric Amazonian fish called paiche (pronounced pie-EE-chay). This fish is so new to culinary tables, the first one only appeared in the United States in the summer of 2010.

Fully grown, this fish can reach lengths of almost 7 feet and weights of over 200 lbs. Once overfished by natives to the point of near-extinction, the Peruvian government had placed a ban on its harvest. However, aquaculture specialists have been working to develop a means to sustainably raise this fish. Not only is this effort creating an industry beneficial to a financially disadvantaged part of the world, it is helping to replenish local waters with a vital component of the food chain that had been depleted with non-sustainable practices.

This fish is low in fat, and marketers are promoting it as a high omega-3 fish. I am working to find the exact values; this fish is so new on the market that data is not readily available. I'll update you here when the numbers actually do come in. One additional selling point of paiche is that it is farmed in the rainforest, in water that is free of mercury, antibiotics, and other toxic compounds.

Paiche's flavor has been described as subtle, like Chilean sea bass (on the Monterey Bay Aquarium's overfished list) or Atlantic cod.

Bottom line, it's good for you, it's good for the people who work to bring it to you, and it's good for the planet. When you see it in you store or on a menu, give it a try!

What do teas and bees have to do with your hormones? What do they have to do with each other? (Besides combining to make wonderfully tasty refreshments, that is!)

We'll be chatting with Kerstin Wingert, president and co-founder of Souvia Tea, a Phoenix-based, award-winning retail, wholesale and e-commerce resource for premium loose leaf teas and herbals. (Regular blog followers may remember Kerstin, as she helped me pair teas with lemonades for our popular"Arnold Palmer" recipe feature over the summer.
Kerstin will be teaching us the basics of tea: why bottled teas miss the m…ark, why teas sold by large corporate entities differ in quality from those purchased by smaller companies such as Souvia, what you can believe (and discard) when it comes to health claims made about tea, and…how to make tea more user-friendly if you'd like to take advantage of its benefits.

Currently in its 6th year of business, Souvia has become the premier place in the Valley for tea education and offers a variety of “infotainment” sessions around tea and herbals. Wingert has led dozens of informative talks, classes and events for professional, academic and civic groups on the subject and remains a sought after speaker. She also makes regular television appearances on “Sonoran Living” and “Your Life A-Z."

Co-host Michael Keele of Central Slope, will be telling us about his partnership with Humble Seed, which will bring the documentary"Vanishing of the Bees" to Phoenix for a special screening.

All of this episode's guests have great information, and as you'll see, it most certainly has pertinence to your own health and hormone balance.

Tune in live at 9 am Pacific time on Monday, October 25, or at your convenience for the recording, at www.blogtalkradio.com/incystforhormones.

I've written much about the important connection between the oceans' health and your own health.

There is an opportunity approaching this weekend which gives you an opportunity to make a difference, called LA Helps LA. Here is the information:

The event will be held on Sunday, October 3, from 3 pm to 7 pm, in a private loft at Dogtown Station in Venice, California. You will be provided the address after you register.

Small Pleasures Catering (http://www.smallpleasurescatering.com/ )is proud to announce that we will be joining forces with the food blogging community of Los Angeles, Uncle Darrow's Cajun/Creole Restaurant (http://www.uncledarrows.com/) and The Cheese Impresario (http://www.thecheeseimpresario.com/) to present a tasting fund raising event to benefit the Gulf Relief Network (GRN). We are also very happy to announce that with Hall Wines (http://www.hallwines.com/) of Napa, Ca is partnering with us and will be serving their wines at the event.

Just in- I'm so excited to announce that Catdaddy Carolina Moonshine (http://www.catdaddymoonshine.com/) is joining us to share New Orleans style cocktails made with their delicious new spirit.

GRN's (www.healthygulf.org) mission is to unite and empower people to protect and restore the natural resources of the Gulf of Mexico for future generations, and to assume the responsibility of returning the Gulf to its previous splendor.

Bloggers participating include:

Cheryl D. Lee of Black Girl Chef's Whites (http://blackgirlchefswhites.com/wordpress)

Agnieszka Graczyk of One More Bite (http://agablack.wordpress.com/)
Adair Seldon of Lentil Breakdown (http://lentilbreakdown.blogspot.com/)

Mac Ledesma of Dishin in the Kitchen (http://www.dishininthekitchen.com/)

Erika Penzer Kerekes of (http://www.inerikaskitchen.com/)

Rachael Hutchings of La Fujimama (http://www.lafujimama.com/)

Amir Thomas of Duo Dishes (http://www.duodishes.com/)

Susan Lesser of Reservations for Three (http://reservationforthree.blogspot.com/)

Greg Henry of Sippity Sup (http://www.sippitysup.com/)

Rashmi Nigam of Yumkid (http://www.yumkid.com/)

Raffle prizes have been donated by The Cheese Impresario, The Lisa Ekus Group, and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press Raffle tickets will sell for $2 each and 3 for $5. You need not be present to win.

More prizes just in -Chefs Susan Spicer and John Besh are donating signed copies of their cookbooks. Also, gift certificates from http://www.ilovebluesea.com/.

Latest raffle prize-a signed copy of Ralph Brennan's New Orleans Seafood Cookbook, and a gift certificate for dinner for 4 at Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen at Disney Downtown. BIG THANKS!

Stay tuned for updates as more bloggers, partners and prize donors join us.

Tickets are $50

Please respond to Gisele@smallpleasurescatering.com to purchase tickets.

I guest blogged for Gisele about the connection between our respective professions. Click here to read more.

Thank you to Christine Marquette and Michael Keele for such an informative program this morning!

If you're interested in hearing our discussions about vegetarian eating, home design for better health, and farmer's markets, please visit our show archives. It is the second show on the list. (I'm still learning how to work the software and didn't properly title it.)

We had a great interview with Josh Goldman, CEO of Australis this morning. Australis is the company that farms barramundi, a mild-flavored fish that is very high in omega-3 fatty acids.

If you've got the idea that it's always best to eat wild caught fish, consider listening to this interview, as it challenges some of the mantras in the debate and may answer some of your concerns about the safety of farmed seafood.

As promised in the interview, here is the legend of the barramundi, a love story told by the Aboriginals for whom this fish is a part of their culture and has been for generations.

Splashing in the billagong two lovers having fun

Ebony skin streaming under water fall.

Yungi and Meyalk sat together drying off in the sun

Their love was forbidden by tribal law, still they answered each other's call.

Creeping out during a corroboree, they ran hand in hand; love had won.

Following bush trail to the sea they knew they must fall.

They made spears to ward off angry tribe; seeing death must come.

Yungi and Meyalk threw themselves into the sea; they became barramundi fish and fooled them all.

Some spears struck their backs as they swam away; legend has it the spears became spines on the barramundi's back still visible today.