Whole Foods Not So Wholesome

Check out this investigative report from the local ABC affiliate, WJLA, here in DC. As usually the FDA is protecting the industry more than the public. Most of the problem foods are under the Whole Foods label 365, which also tends to be the cheapest on the shelf. Problem is that most of the frozen packaged food is grown and packaged in China. So don't be sure it's really organic or safe for you or the environment.



To see the list you can click here. It's an 8 page pdf with the subheading - "Whole Foods Internal Document - Do Not Distribute"

Click here for more information (scroll to bottom) and to file a complaint with the FDA National Organic Program.

Well, I suppose now I'll be going to the Dupont Circle Market today and every Sunday......

Green Your Fridge

Vegetarian Times offers 10 steps to "green" your refrigerator. Several would only be pertinent if you were building or remodeling your kitchen (i.e. move your refrigerator away from a window or don't buy a refrigerator with ice and/or water dispensers).

Nonetheless, some of the other suggestions are helpful. The link also includes some food safety tips.

How to Eliminate Caffeine

Caffeine drips into my diet via chocolate. I'm not sure how much I get in my dark chocolate fixes, but I feel lucky not to be drawn to coffee every day. It's evolved into a luxury I reserved for after dinner, when I'm dining with someone with whom I wish to prolong the time!

Why eliminate caffeine from your diet? Well, the kidneys and adrenals are depleted by caffeine as are numerous minerals.

But doing so is not easy to do - headaches, anxiety, insomnia, mood swings can ensue.

Yoga Journal offers some concrete counsel on how to kick a caffeine habit. Before changing anything they suggested adding a few items to your diet. One is yogurt or kefir and other is a bit labor intensive. Then a plan for the big day is suggested and to help with the transition, a peppermint infusion is said to help provide that wake up feeling without the caffeine.

I'm thinking of a few guys I know who are addicted to caffeine who will never do this, but I offer the link anyway. It may just work.

Local Web Site Helps You Go Green

For those in DC, Wednesday brings us the launch of Live Green.

Live Green is a local network organization that aims to

• do the research and led you to locally available, high quality green goods and services,
• provide tips for living green
• help businesses adopt green practices

For more on Live Green's services, click here.

The launch party on Wednesday, June 18th is at Local 16, 1602 U Street, NW Washington, DC. There'll be live music. There's a small fee, $13 ahead of time, $15 at the door (but RSVPs are requested).

Check it out.

Yoga Vote T-Shirts

Be Present, a great yoga clothing vendor, is featuring a special t-shirt for the season (the election season).

The word "vote" is on the chest, with the om symbol substituting for the the "o". It's very cool and comes in 4 colors.

Click here to see pictures. Price range is $27 to $35, in a variety of colors and cuts.

America's 2 Most Prominent Buddhist Teachers in DC

Well, aren't we lucky?

Thanks to the National Cathedral, Robert Thurman and Sharon Salzberg are returning to the DC for a seminar on Working with Our Enemies: Finding Freedom from Hostility and Fear. What an appropriate subject for this age of fear and hostility.

Here's an excerpt describing the subject:

Enemies—habitual, painful mind-states and people toward whom we steadily feel antipathy or fear—consume tremendous energy that we can liberate for powerful, healing change.

These pioneers in bringing Buddhist practices to the West guide us to explore our inner and outer enemies, and the stuck mode of “us” and “them” that constricts our lives. Through lecture, dialogue, and meditation practice, they show us the way toward the potential boundlessness of lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity—the four sublime states of mind known as the Brahma Viharas.

Format: both lecture and workshop.
Date & Time: Friday June 27th at 7:30 pm.
Saturday, June 26th from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm
Sponsor: Cathedral College
Location: the Kay Spiritual Life Center at American University (at Massachusetts and
Nebraska Avenues).

It's sure to fill up fast so register at the link above. It is possible to attend either Friday or Saturday or both. Special senior, student or limited income fees are available.

These are two great teachers. Salzberg books are well loved. I feature one on my web site: Loving Kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness. Some find her writing too personal, too confessional. But I find her writing on Buddhist precepts to be practical, when other writers on the same subjects can be abstract or elliptical. As one intelligent friend remarked, it seems the counsel is simply: be truthful. Well, Salzberg provides further helpful guidelines.

I've never heard Thurman speak, but he is well-reputed as well. He teaches at Columbia University. He did have some recent notoriety in testifying against his daughter's stalker and evidence some self-deprication, as reported in the New York Times back in April:

In spite of the stressful subject, their testimony was sort of a star turn for the Thurman parents, who gave a strikingly poised, sometimes compassionate and even humorous accounting of grappling with Mr. Jordan.

“I’m known as the father of Uma,” Dr. Thurman testified, with whimsical pride. “It’s my major accomplishment in life.”

Reading excerpts from 19 e-mail messages he received from Mr. Jordan, Dr. Thurman described his growing sense “not as a psychiatrist, but as a literary critic,” that Mr. Jordan was delusional. “I imagined us in a cave a long time ago, Shiva Parvati carved or mummified in that stone temple with the elephant outside of it,” Mr. Jordan wrote in one e-mail message, referring to a Hindu god and goddess that he equated with himself and Ms. Thurman.

“By this time I’m trying to remember the telephone number of the F.B.I., frankly,” Dr. Thurman testified.

In one e-mail message, Mr. Jordan addressed Dr. Thurman as “Ten zen Thor man.” Mr. Jordan’s lawyer, on cross-examination, asked whether that might be a typographical error, derived from Dr. Thurman’s nickname, Tenzin, given to him when he was a Buddhist monk.

“Not likely,” Dr. Thurman said, adding that it seemed to him that “there was a mythic thing going on.”

If any of you register to go, please let me know!