Hannah Wallace

The Next Chapter for Farm to School: Milling Whole Grains in the Cafeteria

A new pilot project in California is purchasing a mill for a school cafeteria, marking the next step in years-long effort to bring local, whole grains to schools around the country.   This was published on Sept. 10, 2021 in Civil Eats.  

 

Nan Kohler founded the milling company Grist & Toll in Pasadena, California in 2013 and her freshly milled flours have been a hit with bakers, chefs, and locavores ever since. But her abiding wish is to sell California-grown, freshly milled whole grain flour, which is nutritionally superior to refined flour, to the public schools in the area.

“If I could sell to anybody, I would sell to the school lunch programs,” Kohler says. “Then we start those little healthy bodies young, and we change those palates to look forward to delicious whole grain foods. And set them up for healthier lifestyle and eating habits going forward.”

The problem is that schools typically can’t afford Kohler’s flour. This fall, however, she is midwifing a project that will get whole grains into two California school districts. Along with the California Wheat Commission, she was recently awarded a $144,000 California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) grant that will enable Shandon Elementary in San Luis Obispo County to be the first public school in the U.S. to make its own flour using a stone mill on site. The grant, which is funded through March 2023, will cover the cost of the mill and two pasta extruders as well as the training for cafeteria staff to use both.

Elementary students processing whole wheat pasta with the wheat they harvested that season from their school’s wheat garden.

Two additional grants for $20,000—one awarded to Shandon Joint Unified School District and the other to nearby San Miguel Joint Union School District, both along California’s central coast—will buy enough whole grains from local farmers to provide both districts with freshly milled flour for nearly two years. Claudia Carter, executive director at the California Wheat Commission, says the Wheat2School project will provide students in these two districts with nutrient-dense, whole grain foods.

Over the past 20 years, the farm-to-school movement has prioritized getting locally grown fruits and vegetables onto cafeteria trays. The “grain-to-school” movement, though, is just starting to gain steam. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA), passed in 2010, improved nutrition standards nationally, requiring grain-based foods served in public schools to be made with at least 50 percent whole grains. It also provided $5 million annually in funding for farm-to-school projects across the country.

“Over the past 5 to 7 years, we’ve seen a real increase in folks doing farm-to-school that haven’t been just fruits and vegetables,” says Anna Mullen, the communications director at the National Farm to School Network. “We’ve seen an expansion of the idea—to wheat, grains, fish, protein, bison.” Mullen credits the HHFKA for codifying support for farm-to-school projects, and spurring innovation—including projects like the one at Shandon.

Ahead-of-the-curve school districts have been sourcing local wheat for years. Two in Oregon—Portland Public Schools and Bend-La Pine Schools—have been baking with flour from Camas Country Mill in the Willamette Valley for instance. In Georgia, Burke County Public Schools has been sourcing whole wheat flour, whole grain grits, and corn meal from Freeman’s Mill in Statesboro for 7 years.

And other districts are beginning to embrace the idea as well: Two years ago, the Chicago-based company Gourmet Gorilla began sourcing wheat from Midwestern farmers to make oat bars, muffins, and pizza with 51 percent whole grain for schools in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Louisiana. And in upstate New York, a dozen public schools began working with pasta manufacturer Sfoglini and Birkett Mills to serve students a 51 percent whole wheat fusilli and macaroni.

However, the Shandon project is one of the first that will exceed the National School Lunch Program’s requirement. For at least the next two years, all the bread, pizza, tortillas, and even pasta will be made with 100 percent whole wheat.

‘The Best Tortilla I’ve Have Ever Had’

Claudia Carter, who is working on a Ph.D. in nutrition at North Dakota State University, is passionate about the Wheat2School project for several reasons.

 

Chuck Buckingham, lead volunteer, using his wheat thresher to harvest at Whitehead Elementary in Woodland.

The majority of the students at Shandon and San Miguel are farmworkers’ kids, and most are Latinx. “My food service manager [at Shandon] told me, ‘For some of these kids, [school breakfast and lunch] are the only two meals they eat throughout the day,’” Carter says. “So I have to feed them the best I can. How can I be serving them a Pop-Tart, canned fruit, and fruit juice? If you add that together it’s 65 grams of sugar—and that’s just their breakfast!”

That list describes the actual menu at the Woodland Unified School District just outside Sacramento, where Carter launched a previous wheat-to-school project. And it’s a far cry from that kids have less than 25 grams (six teaspoons) of sugar a day.

“For some of these kids, [school breakfast and lunch] are the only two meals they eat throughout the day—so I have to feed them the best I can.”

Breakfasts like this, Carter says, can not only lead to childhood diabetes, they also lead to sugar spikes (and crashes) that undermine sustained learning. She points out that whole grains, on the other hand, contain not only more fiber than white flour, they contain Vitamin E, an antioxidant that is important for vision and a properly developing nervous system. (The Dietary Guidelines for Americans has called these both “shortfall nutrients” since they are so under-consumed by the U.S. population.) Whole grains also are rich in B vitamins and protein, both of which are important for brain health. And though some whole grain recipes—like whole-wheat muffins—contain added sugar, the levels tend to be lower than the processed food included in most school breakfasts.

Some nutrition professionals pointed to the high percentage of whole grain foods that went to waste in the first few years after the HHKA, but Carter believes that you can influence kids’ palates by feeding them high-quality whole grains early on.

The 100 percent whole wheat cinnamon rolls prepared for Shandon and San Miguel schools.

In Ecuador, where she grew up, bread and tortillas made with whole grain are a rarity. It was her husband, who hails from South Dakota, who converted her to eating them. “As a result, our kids have been eating whole wheat stuff since they were little,” Carter says. “I buy all the stuff Nan produces at Grist & Toll, and I make pancakes, bread, and cakes.”

Carter is also on the board of a nonprofit called Yolo Farm-to-Fork, which funds edible school garden programs throughout Yolo County in California. A few years ago, in an effort to introduce other kids to these delicious, nutritious baked goods, she helped launch Yolo’s wheat-to-school project at another elementary school in the county. The students grew wheat—and, in a single day, harvested it and milled it themselves.

“That same day we had stations for pasta-making, tortilla-making, and bread-baking,” Carter says. “Keep in mind that 80 percent of these kids are Mexican-American. They grew up eating white tortillas, like me. And every single kid had a huge smile on their face when eating their tortilla warm. I heard, unanimously, ‘This is the best tortilla I have ever had.’”

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This experience was the inspiration for the Wheat2School project at Shandon. Carter will be collecting data for her doctoral research, proving, she hopes, that kids actually do want to eat 100 percent whole grain products. She also plans to compare the nutritional content of the fresh bread with what Shandon has served in the past.

Baking Demos and Milling Lessons

This month, Grist & Toll’s Kohler will visit Shandon to train cafeteria staff and the California Wheat Commission’s intern Isaac Lopez on the mill. The staff—including Shandon’s food service manager Gelene Coehlo, a home baker herself—has expressed excitement about the project.

Lopez, a student at Cal Poly, will be on site once a week to help with trouble-shooting. Eventually, Carter hopes to train high school students to use the mill as well.

Over the summer, the California Wheat Commission hosted baking demos and tested recipes to find the tastiest and healthiest recipes for kids. Kohler is sharing some new recipes for muffins and no-knead pizza; they’re also making some surprising discoveries, including a way to decrease the sugar content in their roll recipe from 20 percent to 15 percent.

From left: Claudia Carter and Nan Kohler at Shandon Elementary school.

“The beauty of working with 100 percent whole Sonora wheat is that it comes with an internal sweetness,” Carter notes. Though the National School Lunch Program has no limit on sugar, she and Coehlo are glad to reduce it where they can.

As part of the grant, Carter and her intern will also be developing lesson plans on the history of wheat grown in California, agricultural science, and the superior nutrition of whole grains. “Right now, we’re putting together a lesson plan on the Missions in San Miguel that grew Sonora wheat specifically,” she says. Students will also have the opportunity to grow and harvest wheat in a test garden.

Supporting local farmers is key to Carter and Kohler’s vision for the project, and to that end, they’ve arranged for three of the California farmers who supply grains for the pilot project to speak in classrooms this fall.

“We want to show children their faces and say, ‘OK, you are eating their bread,’” says Carter. “A lot of pointing back to how your food is made, why this is so important.”

The Cost of Local Wheat

Since infrastructure is one of the tricky issues with wheat-to-school projects—schools need to find a local miller to work with, or have a mill on site—some people are studying how to make the process smoother and less costly. Last year, researchers at the Center for Integrated Agriculture Systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agriculture & Life Sciences and the Artisan Grain Collaborative in Madison received a $516,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farmers’ Market Promotion Program to expand the value chain for Midwest grain growers in institutions over the next three years.

“I think that creating those local businesses that make products from a local grains is probably gonna be the sweet spot,” says Vanessa Herald, a senior farm to institution outreach specialist at UW-Madison.

Umi Organic in Portland is one such company. In 2019, Portland Public Schools began purchasing the company’s 50 percent whole-grain, organic yakisoba noodles. Umi’s owner Lola Milholland says that providing additional funding for grain-to-school projects like hers is critical to their success.

“Our product does cost more money,” she says. “It’s Oregon-milled grain, Oregon-produced noodles.” (Milholland sources Durum and Edison wheat flour from Camas Country Mill in Eugene.)

Oregon’s legislature has been funding farm-to-school projects since 2007, when it budgeted for a permanent, full-time farm-to-school manager position. In July, the legislature re-upped the Oregon Farm-to-School Grant Program, setting aside $10.2 million in funding for schools to purchase and serve Oregon-grown foods. These funds, in part, will go to buy more Umi Organic noodles; the Portland Public School district just increased its noodle order from 2,000 pounds every six weeks to 3,600 per month.

In Chicago, Gourmet Gorilla maintains a cost-conscious focus, since their customers are school districts that don’t necessarily have grants. Co-founder and CEO Danielle Hrzic says they lower costs by including some conventional ingredients alongside organic ones.

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“There are some concessions you have to make,” says Hrzic. “Breads were really tough. We want clean and whole grain, and it gets expensive in a lot of cases. So that’s where we started making our own grain products that met all the nutritional requirements.”

Their internal brand, Grow Good Foods, includes GROWnola, muffins, pizza, and oat bars—all made from local grains including sorghum. The company works with Janie’s Mill in Illinois and Meadowlark Organics in Wisconsin.

The Future of Wheat2School

Back at Shandon Unified, Kohler sees a future for the Wheat2School project even when the CDFA grants expire in 2023. “We need to set it up so it can thrive on its own and be sustainable,” Kohler says. “We’ll be facilitating the connections with the farmers who are committed to a certain price point for the grain.”

Although the California Wheat Commission’s grant covers all the start-up costs—the stone mill and two pasta extruder machines, as well as staff training—the main challenge once the other two grants run out will be getting quantities of wheat at a price that can work for both the district and the farmers. “I don’t think we’ll have any trouble doing that,” Kohler says, optimistically.

“We know all about school budget deficits and challenges—but we also know what’s possible with a lot of creative thinking and community-building.”

Organic whole wheat flour costs three times as much as processed white flour, which can go for as little as 27¢ a pound. Shandon and San Miguel are paying an average of 55¢ a pound to buy unmilled wheat directly from the farmers, according to Carter.

“We know all about school budget deficits and challenges,” Kohler says. “But we also know what’s possible with a lot of creative thinking and community-building.”

When she and Carter first met with the Shandon kitchen staff this summer, they were already brainstorming about how the mill might open up fundraising opportunities like pizza parties and bake sales. Furthermore, Kohler expects more organic growers to join the Wheat2School project—she was inundated with wildly supportive messages from farmers after announcing the project on Instagram this summer. Some of these farmers grow at higher volume and may be able to achieve a lower price—one that schools can afford on their own in the future.

As Kohler said in her Instagram post, “You think it can’t be done? Too complicated? No one is interested? Kids won’t eat whole grains? Watch us, we’re about to blow the lid off all that.”

How helping my houseless neighbors helped me

This op-ed appeared in Street Roots in April.

Me, cleaning the sink after someone has showered at the Sunnyside Methodist Church.  

 

If you had told me back in December that I’d soon know all the homeless people in my neighborhood on a first-name basis, I would have laughed. But not only is this true; I have a dozen of their names entered into my phone. I’ve delivered a home-cooked dinner to one guy after his eye surgery, I helped one fellow apply for a spot at Agape Village, and on Easter Sunday, I bought a cot for an elderly houseless guy who’d told me the day before, “I’m too old to sleep on the ground anymore.”

All because of the shower project that the Sunnyside Neighborhood Association launched at the Sunnyside Methodist Church in January.

Let me explain. Last December, I joined a Sunnyside Neighborhood Association Community Committee to do outreach to the unsheltered folks who had just relocated to Sunnyside Park. They’d moved there, in part, because the city had just “swept” Laurelhurst Park, and Sunnyside was the park nearest to Laurelhurst. Sunnyside Park also had two streets that did not face residences, which I later found most houseless folks are quite conscientious about. We invited Raven Drake from Street Roots’ new Ambassador Program to help us make contact with our unsheltered neighbors. John Mayer, executive director of Beacon PDX, was also there to facilitate introductions.

The first outreach was the most awkward. But after that initial round of “knocking” on folks’ tents and having conversations about the weather, it got easier. As a neighborhood association, we were trying to figure out how to best help these folks while they are living in a park so close to us. So we asked them, “What do you need?” A thin 30-something woman in a colorful scarf and puffy jacket said laundry would be nice, because she hadn’t washed her clothes in a long time. Someone else said he hated how messy the camp had become — but they had no way to dispose of trash once they’d collected it into trash bags.

We started with a volunteer-led trash pickup, with several residents taking truckloads of trash to the dump, paying the fees themselves. I took on the “hygiene coordinator” role and was responsible for calling the city’s Homelessness and Urban Camping Impact Reduction Program to get a porta-potty installed near the park as well as ensuring that someone was collecting and disposing of needles safely and properly.

One day, I got a call from Matt, a Sunnyside Neighborhood Association board member, saying that the Groves Church, the congregation now at the former Sunnyside Methodist Church, had said we could use their showers two days a week. Soon, my fellow committee member Ash and I were off to Ikea to buy white towels and bath mats.

In very short order, I became known as “the Shower Lady.” I wrote up a list of protocols for volunteers and for people using the showers.

I’d show up at 1 p.m. on Saturdays at the park, when Beacon PDX provided lunch, clipboard in hand, and ask folks when they wanted a shower. Another committee member, Jenna, who is an elementary school teacher, printed up adorable “Shower Reminder” tickets that I scribble a person’s appointment on so he or she would have a visible reminder. Someone at the church donated more towels; Jenna and her husband Daniel did a Costco run for shampoo, body wash and clean underwear; someone else donated a hair dryer. We were off and running.

I’ll be the first to admit that I had no idea what I was doing when we started this pilot. But with the help of a few great volunteers (many of whom are still volunteering on a weekly or every-other-week basis) and with the support of the Sunnyside Neighborhood Association Community Committee, the “shower ministry,” as I call it, has become a reliable service for people experiencing homelessness in our neighborhood. In fact, the Groves recently gave us a third day: Saturday.

It’s humbling to be able to offer such a basic service as a warm shower and know that it’s making a difference in people’s lives. Each person who showers leaves the church with a lighter step. For most of them, this will be the only shower they have this week. Every single one of our houseless neighbors thanks us for being there and for the shower. (It’s not lost on them that most Neighborhood Associations are full of upset neighbors who just want them to go “somewhere else.”) I periodically get texts from some of my houseless friends saying, “I appreciate you and what you’re doing. Thank you.” Just today, one of our regulars, grateful that we didn’t leave early because he didn’t show up at the appointed time, texted me and my other volunteer, “I love you guys.”

Hannah Wallace gets a clean pair of pants for a person in need.

 

Getting to know my unhoused neighbors has enriched my life. I’ve learned to expect the questionable advice from one fellow who arrives by bike and always tells my co-volunteer and I that a daily shot of whiskey will keep COVID-19 at bay. Another regular arrives early just to chat with me about his day — or sometimes his past. A former meth addict, he’s been clean for a year and is living in a doorway, trying to stay safe and warm (and sober). He says he’s a loner, but he’s gregarious and clearly craves company. He’s been homeless for 17 years and has finally decided that he can’t live this way anymore. He wants a roof over his head. Then there’s the 40-something man who had never been homeless until 2020, when the bar he owned shuttered and his wife divorced him. He used to play bass in a rock band, and I bring him my back issues of Rolling Stone to read. I used to walk past houseless people on the street, feeling incapable of helping, let alone engaging. But getting to know these folks who come for showers makes me see them — really see them. Now, when I go running in the park, I say hello to the folks I know, sometimes even stopping for a chat.

Some people are punctual or even early for their shower appointments and don’t need reminders. Others are no-shows, not even texting to let me know they’re not going to make it. Others don’t have phones, so can’t tell me if something has come up to wreck their plans for their day. It’s OK — we volunteers have learned to roll with it. It’s not like we have to make an appointment to have our showers. We can have them whenever we like.

Some take short, military-style showers — in and out of the facility in 10 minutes. My favorite, though, is when people sing while they shower. One guy brings his radio, elevating his shower to a musical experience. We can hear his melodious voice drifting up the stairwell and it always makes me smile.

Finally, knowing more of my houseless neighbors has made me feel safer in my neighborhood. Perhaps that’s not surprising; we tend to fear the unknown.

When you don’t know individual houseless people, you are more likely to make assumptions about “houseless people” as a group. And, I think, you are more likely to lose touch with the humanity of each person. As I’ve gotten to know the individuals who come for showers, I realize how delightful, soulful, hilarious, creative and sweet they are. I can’t fix all of their problems or even get them housing, but I can help them get a warm shower. And for that I am grateful.

Learn more about the Sunnyside Shower Project or how to volunteer.

Restaurant Workers Are Embracing Mental Wellness

I wrote this for Reasons to be Cheerful in November.

An industry that often celebrates pushing through the pain is turning its focus to mental health.

When employees clock into work at Mulvaneys B&L, a popular farm-to-table restaurant in Sacramento, California, they’re encouraged to slip one of four color-coded cards into a cardboard box. The cards have faces on them: one is happy, one is angry, one is neutral and one is stressed (in restaurant parlance, that’s “in the weeds.”)

“It’s like the pain signs at hospitals,” explains co-owner Patrick Mulvaney. Though the cards are anonymous, they give employees a chance to assess their own moods and share them with the manager or the peer helper on duty. During the staff’s pre-service meeting, the manager can share how many angry or stressed employees there are that day and ask if anyone needs additional support, empathy, or patience.

The box, which was co-owner (and Patrick’s wife) Bobbin Mulvaney’s idea, is just one measure put in place by I Got Your Back, a year-old peer-to-peer counseling program that the Mulvaneys helped start in response to several suicides in the Sacramento restaurant community in early 2018. In May of that year, Noah Zonca, the beloved, larger-than-life longtime chef of Sacramento’s the Kitchen, where Mulvaney also worked, died by suicide. He was one of 12 Sacramento restaurant workers to die by suicide that year. A month later, the issue of restaurant industry suicides was thrust into the spotlight when celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain hanged himself in a hotel in Alsace, France.  

Frankie Lopez, a manager at Mulvaneys B&L, and bartender Dan Mitchell. Photo courtesy Patrick Mulvaney

Even before Zonca’s death, the Mulvaneys had been having conversations with Sacramento chefs and restaurant owners, health care professionals, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, state senators and even Governor Gavin Newsom about how to tackle mental health issues in the hospitality industry. But the losses of Zonca and Bourdain added a sense of urgency. The final iteration of I Got Your Back came out of a design workshop at the Innovation Learning Network conference in October 2018. With the financial support of the James Beard Foundation and all four major area health systems — Dignity Health, Kaiser Permanente, Sutter Health and the UC Davis Medical Center — a pilot was launched in September 2019.

Restaurant workers are especially prone to mental health and substance abuse issues. As journalist Kat Kinsman, founder of the blog Chefs with Issues, has written, “People who deal with mental health and addiction issues are drawn to this work because it has always been a haven for people who exist on the fringes; restaurant jobs have brutal hours and often pay very little and don’t offer health care; there is easy access to alcohol and illicit substances; and workers have traditionally been rewarded for their masochism — shut up and cook.” 

 

Continue reading at Reasons to be Cheerful. 

 

Black Grandmothers Feed their Communities and Pass on Food Traditions

 

 

I wrote about Grandma's Hands, a new program in Portland where grandmothers are reviving cultural connections and reducing food insecurity for Civil Eats.  

Laurie Palmer and Vanessa Chambers, two of the grandmothers in Grandma's Hands 

 

On a recent Saturday night in September, Mildred Braxton did something she never thought she’d do: she taught 20 or so others how to make succotash and steamed collard greens over Zoom.

With the confidence of a Food Network chef, Braxton, a parent of five and grandmother of three, put a skillet on the burner, poured some oil into the pan, and let it heat up before throwing in some chopped onion, frozen corn, frozen lima beans (called butter beans in the South), and black-eyed peas, narrating all the while. After covering the pan and letting it all heat up, she added stewed tomatoes, okra, and seasonings.

“Okra is the last vegetable I put in because it’s easy for it to fall apart,” said Braxton, who hails from Mississippi. “Okra has a bad rap. I’m standing up for okra!”

This virtual dinner party is part of a Portland, Oregon-based program called Grandma’s Hands, a platform for Black grandmothers to share family recipes and food traditions with future generations. So far, the 12 grandmothers involved have prepared four monthly meals for 30 to 40 participants at a time. In addition to delivering the food they make along with a bag of fresh produce grown by farmers of color to the participants throughout the community, the program brings everyone together virtually to partake of the food while sharing recipes and tips.

Though the focus of Grandma’s Hands is to facilitate community engagement and reconnect community members with culturally grounded natural foods and agricultural practices, the program may also help reduce food insecurity by teaching the younger generation the economic benefits of cooking at home for their families.

“Our [modern] life is not conducive to being healthy,” says Chuck Smith, co-founder of the Black Food Sovereignty Coalition (BFSC), which helps run the program. “Cooking as a regular family activity has been squeezed out of people’s schedules.” And yet, he stressed the fact that connection with food is a pathway to stronger identity in the Black community.  “When your [diet] is consciously connected to your cultural identity, then you can be more intentional in selecting what you eat and how you prepare it,” adds Smith.  

The idea for the series grew out of freewheeling conversations about sustainable food and food access that Willie Chambers and Lynn Ketch from the Rockwood Community Development Corporation (CDC) had with Lisa Cline and Katrina Ratzlaff, the CEO and advancement director at Wallace, a community health clinic.

Continue reading here.  

Wine Country’s Farmworkers Are Staying Healthy Against All Odds

Populated by seasonal laborers, Oregon’s Willamette Valley could have been devastated by the coronavirus. Instead, it’s become a model for how to keep workers safe. 

I wrote this story on Salud! for Reasons to be Cheerful. 

Santiago Garza Martinez, now 47, was a young man when he started working for Anne Amie Vineyards in Oregon’s Willamette Valley in 1999. He began as an equipment operator, and today, 21 years later, he’s the field manager, overseeing a crew of 38 vineyard workers, all but eight of whom are seasonal employees. They weed, plant vines, and pick Pinot Noir grapes for Anne Amie’s acclaimed bottles. And like many seasonal farmworkers, their access to health care is precarious at best.

“The majority of the farmworkers in my crew don’t have primary care physicians,” Garza Martinez says. Even if they did, paying for the care would be a challenge for many of them. There are 2.5 to 3 million farmworkers in the United States, and many lack access to health insurance, according to Silvia Partida, CEO of the Texas-based National Center for Farmworker Health. 

Since May 7, ¡Salud! has screened 400 farmworkers for Covid-19.

So when America’s first coronavirus cases were reported in January in Seattle, just four hours north of the vineyard, the need to protect the Anne Amie workers was immediately apparent. That’s where ¡Salud! came in. Founded in 1991 by two physicians who loved wine, ¡Salud! is a nonprofit health care service that runs mobile clinics in Oregon vineyards. It is supported by the state’s wine industry, which throws an annual fall gala where winemakers auction off special cases and experiences. (There’s also an online summertime auction — this year’s takes place this week July 14-16.) Last year’s two auctions brought in $1 million. Over the past 29 years, ¡Salud! has raised over $17.2 million. 

“¡Salud! is basically my crew’s primary care for wellness checks, referrals, follow-ups for any conditions they might discover in their health screenings,” says Garza Martinez. 

Over the past several months, it has also become a lifeline amid a national health crisis. Since May 7, ¡Salud! has screened 400 farmworkers for Covid-19, with roughly four percent testing positive. (Only two have been hospitalized thus far and both are recovering at home.) Leda Garside, chief nurse at ¡Salud!, estimates that roughly 70 percent of the vineyard workers she sees do not have any other healthcare.

A health care worker waits by the ¡Salud! van.

Garza Martinez himself, even though he has been on Anne Amie’s health insurance plan since 2008, has relied on ¡Salud! over the years for everything from basic physicals to vaccines. Recently, he’s availed himself of a flu vaccine, a tetanus shot and a Covid-19 nasal swab test, which he says was like having a pipe cleaner shoved up his nose until it hit the back of his tongue. “I cried!” he says, laughing at it now. (He tested negative.)

¡Salud! was excellent at educating farmworkers about Covid-19, says Garza Martinez. Not only did it send Spanish-language email and text updates from the CDC and the Oregon Health Authority on the importance of social distancing and wearing masks, it provided masks to farmworkers starting at the end of February.

In the beginning, when masks were in short supply, Garside sent out an information sheet from the CDC on how to make cloth masks. But before long, Garside’s friend, a retired nurse named Maria Michalczyk, launched the Pandemic Volunteer Mask Makers of Oregon, a group of over 500 volunteers from across the state who sewed masks for vineyard workers, donating a bunch to ¡Salud! In late April, when Governor Kate Brown received a donation of N-95 masks from China’s Fujian Province, ¡Salud! alerted field managers at all the wineries, and Garza Martinez retrieved boxes of them for his crew at Anne Amie.

“¡Salud! is really the soul of the Willamette Valley,” says Cooper Mountain Vineyard co-owner Barbara Gross, whose parents were founding members of the organization.

Leda Garside, chief nurse at ¡Salud!, estimates that roughly 70 percent of the vineyard workers she sees do not have any other healthcare.

Gross was impressed by how early ¡Salud! began testing for Covid-19 — in late March and early April, a time when many states were still struggling to implement comprehensive testing infrastructure. “I think my crew had access to testing before you, as a regular consumer, had access,” she says. “Leda and her crew proactively got out there and tested. That was 100 percent ¡Salud!”

“It’s really hard work”

Farmworkers regularly do back-breaking labor, often in harsh weather conditions. They’re out in the fields every day, picking berries, kale, asparagus and citrus — or pruning, thinning, training vines and weeding. When the Covid-19 crisis hit in mid-March, it disproportionately impacted Latinos, who comprise 72 percent of farmworkers in the U.S.

“It’s really hard work,” says Garside. “You’re exposed to the elements: cold, wind, rain — you name it.” Luckily, because most Willamette Valley vineyards farm organically or biodynamically, pesticide exposure is not a big factor. But laboring in the fields for years on end can cause health issues that accumulate over time. “And we do have workers who are in their seventies and eighties!” Garside says. A network of 174 federally funded community health centers across the country serves farmworkers, but these clinics only reach one million farmworkers and their family members, says Partida, from the National Center for Farmworker Health, leaving a big gap.

¡Salud! aims to fill that gap — at least in Oregon’s vineyards — providing healthcare to vineyard workers year-round. Spring through fall is the organization’s busiest season.

Before the pandemic, many medical procedures were conducted in the ¡Salud! van. Now, more often, they happen in the field.

“This time of year, we’re out in the vineyards every week, three to four times a week,” Garside says.

Garside, who has been working for ¡Salud! for 23 years, is its beating heart. Raptor Ridge Winery proprietor Annie Shull fondly calls her “the good witch of the Valley.” 

Garside and her team of bilingual nurses roll into vineyards in a retrofitted Sprinter Van that contains a reception area and a full examination room. Before the pandemic, they would see a patient in the van, where they’d do blood pressure checks, basic bloodwork, vision exams and vaccinations. But now, due to strict Covid protocols, the nurses set up outdoor service stations separated by dividers to maintain privacy. (They can still do basic tests and health education in the vineyard, but for other medical tests, they’re steering farmworkers to their clinic at OHSU Hillsboro Medical Center.) 

In 2019, over 900 farmworkers received wellness exams via ¡Salud! and over 500 received flu shots. Some 68 workers received free vision exams via a partnership with Oregon Health Sciences University’s Casey Eye Institute and Pacific School of Optometry. And 114 received dental services through ¡Salud!’s partnership with local dental hygiene science programs, Medical Teams International and community health centers. Until recently, most of this dental work was done in the ¡Salud! van, but that’s also on hold during the pandemic. 

Several farmworkers have tested positive for diabetes or pre-diabetes and with diet and lifestyle changes recommended by ¡Salud! nurses, have been able to manage and even reverse the condition.

Since diabetes is so prevalent in the migrant seasonal farmworker community, a blood sugar test is always done as part of routine bloodwork. Results are immediate, which allows ¡Salud! nurses to give advice on how to make diet and lifestyle changes, even if the patient is just pre-diabetic. If blood sugar levels are very high, they make an immediate referral to a primary care doctor. Garza Martinez says several of his crew have tested positive for diabetes or pre-diabetes and with diet and lifestyle changes recommended by ¡Salud! nurses, have been able to manage and even reverse the condition.

The day I spoke to Garside, she had seen 25 farmworkers on the picturesque grounds of Stoller Family Estate in Dayton. She made a dental referral for a worker whose bridge work, done in his native Guatemala a decade ago, had broken. “So he is walking around with these little stubs from four teeth and it’s super uncomfortable,” Garside says. 

“There’s a lot of conscientiousness about the land and how to maintain it and treat it well. It’s the same philosophy with health care.”

She called a local community health clinic that could squeeze him in the following day. (¡Salud! provides a dental grant if the patient cannot afford even the lower price that the health clinic charges.) Another patient had extremely high blood pressure and Garside was able to connect with his primary care doctor, who ordered a prescription he could pick up the next day. 

“We are a safety net service,” Garside says. She is grateful to the Oregon winemaking community for coming up with the idea of delivering these vital healthcare services 29 years ago. “There’s a lot of conscientiousness about the land and how to maintain it and treat it well. It’s the same philosophy with health care,” she says. “We are very fortunate that the industry has proven itself — how to take care of the land and do something for the seasonal agricultural workers.”

 

Their Restaurants Closed, Chefs Take to Instagram

I wrote this story for Civil Eats. 

Chef Michael Symon, left; Rucker's radicchio salad and pork chops with kumkquats, center, with Instagram Live comments streaming in; Chef Chris Cosentino makes cavatelli with spring greens pesto, right.

 

It’s Friday at 6 p.m. and Gabe Rucker, chef at Le Pigeon and Canard in Portland, Oregon, is in his home kitchen demonstrating how to make a radicchio salad with Caesar dressing. To Rucker’s left is his three-year-old son, Freddy, who has his own chef’s station with a cutting board. Perched on a stool to his right is his six-year-old daughter, Babette, who has become her dad’s de facto sous chef. Roughly 230 fans, all hunkering down in their own homes, are watching this cooking lesson on Instagram Live.

Like many chefs, Rucker made the difficult decision to shutter his restaurants in mid-March in response to the coronavirus pandemic. While his business partner orchestrated an online wine sale and made sure all their employees were signed up for COBRA health insurance, Rucker decided to do what he does best: cook delicious food and share it with his customers and fans.

Last week, Rucker launched live cooking demos on Instagram at @RuckerGabriel, which he plans to host three days a week, every week, for the foreseeable future.

Rucker says the online cooking lessons have brought some levity amidst the challenges of staying at home. “And it’s a way to bring the family together, too. The kids love cooking, so, it’s connective for us.” But it also helps Rucker and his wife Hana—accustomed to throwing dinner parties—connect with people other than their three kids. (Gus, age 8, is more camera shy than Babette and Freddy.)

Hana, a metal artist, has taken on the role of videographer, and also funnels questions that pop up on the screen to Rucker while he’s cooking. “What cut of pork chop?” she relayed to Rucker last Friday during the class covering pork chops, radicchio salad, and steamed asparagus.

“Not the center cut,” said Rucker, wearing a “We Put the Pro in Profiterole” T-shirt. “The center cut is lean. What you really want is up toward the shoulder. It’s gonna have more marbling.”

Chef Gabriel Rucker and his family

As much of the country isolates at home, a handful of chefs are bringing solace to their fans and followers by showing them how to cook nourishing food. Many are also plugging local farms, ranches, and purveyors that risk going out of business now that restaurants have closed.

In this time of deep uncertainty and worry—nearly 10 million Americans are newly out of work, according to the latest bleak statistics from the Labor Department—many people have suddenly lost some or all of their income. As a result, many don’t have the ability to buy pork chops right now, or the mental energy to watch a cooking lesson about how to prepare them. (Even though out-of-work Americans are eligible for unemployment benefits and SNAP, many states have a backlog of claims, which can mean weeks-long delays.)

But with restaurants closed virtually everywhere, more people are forced to cook at home than ever before, and they’re seeking inspiration. And many chefs, including Rucker, are focusing on adaptable, budget-friendly comfort-food dishes like rice bowls, soups, vegetarian pastas, and hearty salads.

Chris Cosentino making cavatelli & spring green pesto.

Chris Cosentino, chef at San Fransisco’s Cockscomb (as well as Jackrabbit in Portland, Rosalie in Houston, and Acacia House in St. Helena, California) started a #recipesforthepeople series on Instagram that includes a spring greens pesto on cavatelli—“a great way to use up greens in the house,” he says. In his videos, which he posts at @chefchriscosentino, Cosentino plugs local farms like Santa Cruz County’s Dirty Girl Produce, which launched a pre-packed veggie box service when the crisis began, and Liberty Ducks in Petaluma.

In Cleveland, Chef Michael Symon of Lola Bistro, Mabel’s BBQ, and B Spot Burgers, is posting short videos on Instagram at @ChefSymon, showing how to make comforting favorites like grilled cheese and tomato soup; pasta with garbanzo beans; crispy lunchmeat, spinach, and garlic; and root vegetable stew. He weaves in quotidian details about his day before launching into cooking.

“For those of you concerned yesterday, Norman is out of his time out, and wandering around my feet,” he says of his dog. “I’m in full pajamas today, with slippers,” he adds.

Over in Australia, Chef Jason Roberts of the Bistro at Manly Pavilion is posting recipes on Instagram at @ChefJasonRoberts for budget-friendly dishes like vegetarian lasagna and savory porridges. In Portland, Oregon, Vitaly Paley (of Paley’s Place, Headwaters, Imperial, and Rosa Rosa), is streaming on Instagram Live at @vit0bike every Friday at 5 p.m. pacific time, where he makes quick, user-friendly dishes like tuna tonnato and a Niçoise-style tapenade with crudités from the farmers’ market.

Local food champion and cook Katherine Deumling of Cook With What you Have, also based in Portland, has also been posting short videos on Instagram at @cookwithwhatyouhave, with an emphasis on local ranchers and farmers. In a recent post about vegetables, she urges followers to shop at farmers’ markets. “If they’re still open, please patronize them,” she says. “The best produce you can imagine will be there, which will help you stay strong and help support our local farmers.”

In her video for fried rice with strip steak and veggies, she mentions the beef comes from Carman Ranch, which now has a direct delivery service to Portland. (Deumling posts recipes and additional videos on her site; you can get a month of free access using the code Foodislove.)

Back in Rucker’s kitchen, he whisks egg yolks with Dijon mustard and garlic as he slowly, steadily drizzles oil into the metal bowl. “See how there’s a thin steady stream of oil going in there, right in the middle?” he asks his invisible audience.

He shakes in some Tabasco sauce and a dash of Worcestershire. “The recipe calls for red wine vinegar, but I don’t have that, so I’m gonna use malt vinegar,” he says. “You have to adapt.” He throws a bowl of pre-grated Parmesan into the dressing and a “pinch” of salt (though it’s more like a generous shake, from a squeeze tube bottle).

“What’s with the squeeze tube of salt?” Hana asks on behalf of an Instagram follower. “We cook a lot, and I’m using salt all the time, and I don’t want to put my fingers in the salt,” Rucker explains.

Rucker pauses to patiently slice a mandarin orange in half for Freddy. Later, Babette, now slicing kumquats, does bunny ears behind her dad’s head. “This is Gabe. He loves cooking. He loves doing videos,” Hana says.

“Babette is cutting up kumkquats,” Rucker says. “That citrus element on the pork will cut through the fattiness and richness. And also tie into the orange flavor of the Caesar salad.”

Rucker’s favorite source for pork chops, he divulges in response to an Instagram audience question, is Nicky USA, a Portland-based wholesaler of wild specialty meat, much of it from Northwest ranchers and farms. (During the pandemic, Nicky USA is selling direct-to-consumer by pick-up or delivery.) Later, he offers a hat tip to the produce market Rubinette Produce. “They source their produce from all of farms at the farmers’ market,” he says. He also praises Portland butcher shop Tails & Trotters, and the specialty food shop Real Good Food. All are currently offering curbside pickup or delivery, or both.

Rucker posts his recipes on Instagram ahead of time so followers can pre-shop and follow along at home. His first meal was miso black cod rice bowls; he’s also done steam burgers (a favorite from the Canard menu), and Cobb salad. Upcoming demos will cover braised chicken with mashed potatoes and roasted broccoli, and the Canard omelette.

The response has been larger than Rucker anticipated, and he’s gained 5,000 new followers over the past week alone. “People are saying it’s a real bright spot for them and that they love doing it,” he says. “Right now, it’s what we need.”

Tempeh, the 'OG of Fermented Foods,' is having a Moment

 

This story first appeared on Civil Eats on Dec. 20, 2019.

Forty-two years ago, when Seth Tibbott was 26, he visited a hippie commune in Tennessee called The Farm. A vegetarian since reading Frances Moore Lappé’s Diet for a Small Planet in 1971, he had been subsisting on vegetables and homemade “soy grit” burgers.

“They tasted bad and they digested worse,” Tibbott recalls. But while browsing the literature at The Farm, he learned about a fermented soybean product called tempeh. “So when I read that tempeh was this really digestible and fairly easy-to-make-thing, I was really intrigued.” At the time, he was working for the Youth Conservation Corps at Kinser Park. So he ordered some tempeh starter from The Farm and, a week later, he set about making his first batch.

“I got some soybeans and hand-hulled them, put the magic starter on them, put them out in the field.” For tempeh to ferment properly, you ideally need temperatures of 88 degrees, and Tennessee’s hot weather was perfect. “The next day, there was this beautiful white cake on the soybeans,” he recalls.  Tibbot later learned that when he brought his first tempeh back to his co-workers, they thought it might poison them. But they tried it anyway, and several went on to become early customers of his first commercial tempeh.

         Seth Tibbott in front of his first tempeh incubator, in 1980. (Photo courtesy of Seth Tibbott)

 

In 1980, in Oregon, Tibbot launched Turtle Island Soy Dairy, the company now known as Tofurky. But what few people know is that Tofurky—famous for its alternative holiday roast—began with this lesser-known soy product. Fermented with Rhizopus mold, tempeh is originally from Indonesia, and it can be made with any beans, seeds, or even noodles. For the first 15 years, the company barely broke even. Today, Tofurky has estimated sales of $40 million a year, and Tibbott says tempeh is one of the company’s fastest-growing product lines, increasing 17 percent from 2017 to 2018.

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Tibbott was 40 years ahead of the curve. With the popularity of plant-based burgers and fermented foods on the rise, tempeh is having a moment. It has a nutty flavor, a meaty texture, and it fries up nicely for stir-fry, tacos, or in place of a burger. Unlike the Impossible Burger (which relies on GMO soy, and, as a result, the use of glyphosate) and other ultra-processed plant-based meat substitutes, tempeh has only two ingredients: beans and culture. It’s also a nutritional powerhouse, containing almost as much protein as beef (without the saturated fat or cholesterol), all eight essential amino acids, calcium, iron, and zinc.

Though tempeh sales are still a fraction of all plant-based protein sales, there are dozens of new artisanal tempeh companies sprouting up around the country—from Squirrel and Crow in Portland, Oregon and Tempeh Tantrum in Minneapolis to Barry’s Tempeh in Brooklyn. And it’s not just popular at food co-ops—it’s on the menu at pizza franchise Mellow Mushroom’s 150 locations across the Southeast, Native Foods’ nine restaurants, and at high-end restaurants like Cafe Sunflower in Atlanta and Farm Spirit in Portland. You can even get a tempeh bowl at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. “Tempeh is like the OG fermented food,” Tibbott says.

Tempeh even has its own organization, the Indonesian Tempe Movement (without the “h” on the end), dedicated to increasing international awareness of tempeh and teaching everyone from hipsters to the incarcerated how to make it. Last winter, two food entrepreneurs in Portland, Oregon, Mike Hillis and Willie Chambers, formed a U.S. offshoot called the Tempeh Movement. They see themselves as ambassadors, spreading the good news of this often under-appreciated food.

 

Tempeh’s most tireless champion may be 27-year-old Amadeus Driando (“Ando”) Ahnan, the co-founder, with his mother and grandfather, of the Indonesian Tempe Movement. Ahnan, who grew up in Jakarta and now lives in western Massachusetts, jokes that he was weaned on tempeh. But his real conversion came later, when he was seeking a protein source that would help him bulk up for weightlifting as an adult. He realized that the food he had grown up eating every day left him feeling less bloated than beef. “I thought, ‘This is amazing! How could something that cheap have the same quantity of protein as beef?’” says Ahnan.

Around the same time, his mom, Wida Winarno, had taken a fermented foods class wherein she learned about the importance of tempeh in promoting gut health, and his grandfather, the respected Indonesian food scientist, F.G. Winarno, returned from a colleague’s seminar on the health benefits of tempeh. The serendipity was too much to ignore.

Squirrel and Crow’s tempeh flavors.

“I thought, ‘We should make an international conference on tempeh,’” recalls Ahnan. In 2015, the trio founded the Tempe Movement, starting with an online campaign. In Indonesia, as in other developing countries, eating meat is a sign of status and wealth. Vegetarian food, Ahnan says, is often seen as a sign of poverty. He and his family wanted to flip the script. “We made cartoons and videos saying ‘Hey, don’t be ashamed if you like tempeh!’” says Ahan.

Today, Ahnan is getting his Ph.D. in food science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (focusing is on tempeh’s potential anti-cancer properties.) In his spare time, he’s designed the prototype for a machine called Tempeasy, which allows people to make tempeh at home as easily as they make bread or yogurt. He’s also the co-founder of Better Nature Foods. The company will launch in the United Kingdom in January with six products, including tempeh rashers (i.e., bacon), tempeh mince, and smoked soy tempeh.

Last March, Ahnan organized an “eco-tempeh tour” across the island of Java for entrepreneurs from the U.S. and England, including Tibbott, Hillis, and Chambers.

Hillis discovered tempeh at a Grateful Dead concert in 1988 and then again through his wife, Priska, who is Indonesian. (At their wedding in Bali, his wife’s great-grandmother from Java watched him scarf down fried strips of tempeh and said to Priska, “You’re in good hands. He’ll eat your cooking!”) A few years ago, he introduced tempeh to Chambers, a former butcher who now works as a chef at the Sunrise Community Center in Portland’s Rockwood neighborhood.

         On the tempeh tour of Indonesia. (Photo courtesy of Better Nature Foods)

 

The fact that Tempeh is fermented won Chambers over, he says. He thinks tempeh is where kombucha was 10 years ago—on the cusp of ubiquity. “Now you can buy kombucha in gas stations!” he says.

The trip to Java allowed Hillis and Chambers to learn traditional tempeh-making practices from Indonesian women who have been doing it their whole lives. This fall, they hosted a tempeh event at Wajan, a new Indonesian restaurant in Portland where Tibbott spoke and guests got to sample several tempeh dishes.

The pair have big plans for the future, including community tempeh-making classes and work to get tempeh into institutional settings such as prisons and hospitals. “We want to introduce it to a much wider demographic,” says Hillis. They believe tempeh has the potential to bridge the urban-rural divide. “How many soybean farmers live 50 miles away from economically distressed urban centers where people don’t have enough food to eat? Tempeh can be a very powerful diplomatic tool,” he says.

Traditional tempe-makers in Indonesia. (Photo courtesy of Better Nature Foods)

To get there, though, tempeh has a number of obstacles to surmount—most notably an unfair reputation as a strange dish for hippies, but also, Tibbott thinks, a lack of value-added products on the market. (Mike Hillis is working on a savory tempeh snack called Tempeh Manis that tastes a bit like Chex Mix.) But the main key to the food’s ascendence may be the startling difference between fresh and pasteurized tempeh.

In Indonesia, where every small town has a tempeh-maker, tempeh is still fermented in banana leaves. It’s also rarely pasteurized. “Even in the big grocery stores, most of the tempeh they make is in banana leaves,” says Tibbott.

All the major tempeh brands in the U.S.—Surata, Tofurky, and LightLife—pasteurize their tempeh to give it a longer shelf life. Fresh tempeh will keep fermenting at room temperature—and even in the fridge. Most of the smaller tempeh startups in the U.S. are selling unpasteurized tempeh.

John Westdahl, co-founder of Squirrel and Crow in Portland, makes a variety of fresh tempeh products: chickpeas with quinoa, black bean with sunflower seeds, even one version with nixtamalized corn, pumpkin seeds, and beans. He doesn’t make a soy tempeh mostly because there are already two large companies in Oregon that do it well. “It was more or less a business decision to stand out,” he says.

This choice worked well for the many health-conscious Portlanders who are trying to limit their soy intake because of its estrogen-mimicking effects or because it’s a common allergen. Despite rumors, dietary soy has not been linked with an increased risk of any cancer.

Fresh tempeh, Westdahl says, “just tastes better. When it’s pasteurized, you don’t taste the fungus in it—which is quite nice and complex.”

Squirrel and Crow’s glazed tempeh.

Ahnan agrees, saying there’s also a texture change. “When it’s pasteurized, it loses its fluffiness,” he says. It’s best to eat fresh tempeh within three days—unless you’re curious to try the “overripe” version, known as tempe bosok, a delicacy in Indonesia. “Over-fermented tempeh produces a lot of umami compounds,” says Ahnan. He likes it in a coconut-based curry called sambal tumpang.

Despite tempeh’s new-found popularity, home cooks are still a bit clueless when it comes to preparing it, says Westdahl. At the farmers’ markets where he’s a vendor, he offers tips. “I try to read them to find out what their skill-set is. It can be put into any recipe—it’s almost too versatile,” he says. “So I ask, ‘Are you a burger person? Do you like stir-fry?’” His favorite way to prepare it is a traditional Indonesian dish called orek, which is a sticky, glazed deep-fried dish heavy on ginger and garlic. “It’s like heaven on earth,” he says.

Many eaters are just starting to experiment with tempeh. But Westdahl, Ahnan, Tibbott and many other evangelists believe that once they try it—whether at a high-end restaurant or in their own kitchens—they’ll be converts.

 

 

 

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Reversing Bunions without Surgery

 

When I was a kid at the beach with my grandma, I remember staring at her feet, aghast. Her toes were gnarled and deformed. Not only did she have angry-looking bunions—her big toes were torqued almost 180 degrees sideways—her baby toes were permanently scrunched up (what I later learned were called “hammertoes”).  It’s no wonder she had difficulty walking.

 

I always saw my grandma’s Franken-feet as a cautionary tale against heels: don’t wear cramped high heels—as she always did—and you won’t develop bunions. So for most of my adult life, I opted for sensible yet stylish flats—clogs, sandals, boots. I only wore heels to cocktail parties, art openings, and weddings. And yet ten years ago, I was still developing bunions.

But what if running shoes, not high heels, were to blame? 

I ran cross country in high school and college, completed the New York City marathon in ’97—and at age 45, still run several times a week. The Saucony shoes I’ve unquestioningly worn for 30 years—like most running shoes—have a tapered toe box (that is, they get narrower at the toe) and they also have elevated heels. 

Wearing this sort of running shoe year after year is a recipe for bunions, says Portland-based podiatrist and long-distance runner Ray McClanahan. Read my complete article at Runner's World.  

 Wearing Correct Toes and wide-toed shoes will keep bunions at bay  

(model: Ray McClanahan) 

 

The Facts of Life

Three Portland high school students are reinventing sex ed   

{A shorter version of this story appeared in the September issue of Portland Monthly.}

When 18-year-old twins Milena and Sofia Ben-Zaken and their friend Tess Waxman, also 18, were at Sunnyside Environmental School, their sex ed instruction was laughably brief. "We had one day on puberty in the 5th grade," Milena recalls. “We didn’t really have sex ed in 8th grade, either, except for on the 8th grade retreat,” Sofia says. It wasn’t until their first year at Northeast's Grant High that they finally had a thorough sex ed class. By then, they said, a lot of their classmates had already been sexually assaulted.

This absence of meaningful sex ed is not uncommon in Portland Public Schools. Though Oregon has long had sexual health education requirements—with new, more progressive standards passing in 2015—many teachers cop out because they feel unqualified or uncomfortable teaching it. When Jenny Withycombe, PhD., joined PPS as “teacher on special assignments” for health and physical education just two years ago, sex ed at the middle school level was hit or miss. “It was sometimes happening, sometimes not,” she says. “More often not.” 

Tess (second from left, 2nd row), Sofia (second from left, front), and Milena (far right) founded Let's Talk last year as a way to teach their younger peers about sex (in all its forms), birth control, body issues, STIs, and consent.  

In the fall of 2016, the Ben-Zaken twins and Waxman set out to change that. With the guidance of their English teacher, Susan Bartley, the young women met every Monday, interviewing a cross-section of their peers about what they wished they’d learned in middle school. The resulting curriculum—they dubbed it “Let’s Talk”—is inclusive and robust. In addition to covering the basics of birth control, STIs, and sex (in all its varied forms), their lesson plans cover LGTBQ+ issues, body positivity, and consent. Over the past two years, they and a handful of their Grant High classmates have taught the lessons to 7th and 8th graders at Sunnyside, Laurelhurst, and Mt. Tabor.

Whitycombe was so impressed by a class they taught at Laurelhurst that she welcomed them on as “community partners.” She champions Let’s Talk to middle school teachers throughout the district. “They had clearly put so much time and effort into it,” says Whitycombe. She was also delighted to see the middle schoolers unusually at ease discussing sexual subjects with kids just a few years older than them. (Needless to say, that’s not the case when their math or science teachers cover the subject.) “We’re more their peers than their superiors,” says Sofia, who says they all served as counselors at Outdoor School, which served as an inspiration.

As any sex educator knows, props help break the ice. “Sometimes, if they’re really quiet, I make them pass around the herpes pillow,” says Milena. When she tosses it to a kid, they have to answer a question. The young women also use a plush “Sammy the Sperm” and 3-D replicas of the male and female reproductive systems. But Waxman’s favorite part is passing around the anonymous question box. The rule is that everyone must put something on a piece of paper—even if it’s just a drawing or a smiley face. That way, more students ask real questions. Even jokey questions, though, are an opportunity for education. “We get a lot of jokes about pulling out,” says Milena. “And we talk about how that’s not a sufficient method of birth control or a sufficient way to protect against STIs.” 

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, their lesson on consent—which they wrote two years ago, when they were juniors—seems especially crucial. Waxman will spice things up with a food metaphor. “I’ll say, ‘OK, Pretend you’re making someone a sandwich. You would want them to have what they want on the sandwich, right? Like, should I put mustard on it? Would you like this?’” If a group seems super uncomfortable, Milena says she reads directly from the lesson plan, which has examples of what is not consent. The list begins, “People CANNOT give consent when under the influences of drugs and alcohol. If someone sounds uneasy it does not count. If someone is pressuring someone into a yes, it does not count. If someone clearly states their limit or needs, do not try to bend them.” At the end of the unit, kids share something they’ve learned. “A lot of times it is about consent, which is cool to see,” Waxman says.

The trio are off to college this fall—Sofia is going to Occidental, Milena to Barnard, and Waxman to Mills College—but they’ve trained about 10 classmates to teach Let’s Talk during the 2018/2019 school year. Whithycombe—who says many PPS teachers, especially if they aren’t health teachers, are anxious about teaching sex ed—couldn’t be happier. “I think when the teachers see it [high school students teaching sex ed], it takes some of that fear away,” she says. “The word will keep spinning!”

 

Portland Visionary Rukaiyah Adams

Every so often an assignment comes along that takes you out of your typical beat, making you so honored to be a journalist because it allows you to meet wise and captivating people and learn about their work and their passions. This was one of those moments. I got to profile Rukaiyah Adams for Bon Appetit's Healthyish series on "Superpowered Women"—women who are redefining wellness in their communities. As I spoke to Rukaiyah over lunch at her southwest Portland home, I realized that we have a lot in common: she's a runner, she invests in startups run by women and people of color (I don't do that, but I write about them), she loves Oregon wines (particularly Antica Terra) and she longs for our city to be a place where everyone is included in its successes.  I learned a lot from interviewing her. 

 

When Rukaiyah Adams left a New York City–based hedge fund in 2010, a non-compete clause forced her to take an extended break from work. Missing her mom, who had just been in a car accident, she flew to her hometown of Portland, Oregon.

“I went for a run in Forest Park. It was raining lightly, and the sound of rain tapping against the leaves, the smell of soil...” and that’s when it came to me: I am not a New Yorker.”

Nine months later, she packed her bags and moved to Portland, a decision that had major ripple effects. Not only did living in Portland reignite her relationship with David Chen, a lawyer in the Bay Area, it helped her switch gears professionally.

“I could make ten times more in New York, but I was past the mastery part,” Adams tells me, as she putters around the kitchen of her 1920s English-cottage-style home, making us lunch. “I needed to develop a point-of-view.” In Portland, she landed a job as director of investment management at the Standard, a financial services group, and, in 2013, was appointed to the board of the Oregon Investment Council, the state pension fund.

Today, Adams, 44, is the chief investment officer at Meyer Memorial Trust, the third largest foundation in Oregon, with assets of $788.5 million. Started by Oregon grocery store magnate Fred G. Meyer, the trust gives away roughly $35 million a year to Oregon-based social justice and advocacy organizations, equitable education and affordable housing initiatives, and environmental programs. These grants are only possible due to the success of the Meyer investment portfolio, which Adams manages.

“Rukaiyah is tackling big, thorny, important, often fraught issues,” says Eve Callahan, an executive vice president at Portland-based Umpqua Bank and long-time admirer. “And she’s doing it with such grace and generosity.”

But when I ask her what she does at Meyer, Adam’s reply is pithy: “My job is to make the money.”

Long runs in nature—she loves jogging along the Willamette River as well as in 5,200-acre Forest Park—help keep Adams poised in her high-pressure position. “Believe it or not, being healthy and having outlets is pretty important to the technical requirements of the job,” she says as we sit at her marble kitchen table, eating iceberg lettuce with goat cheese, sliced cucumbers and radishes, and shaved carrots, along with avocado smeared on toasted sourdough. “If the person managing money is pulling out her hair and crying, it generates a lot of stress!”

In high school, she played basketball and soccer, and, at Carleton College in Minnesota, she was passionate about rugby. Running has even spurred radical investment changes that have been good for the Meyer portfolio.

“Once, in 2014, I was running in Forest Park and stopped and heard the trickle of water and decided that day to switch our investments from oil to clean water.” She has not regretted the decision—global water stocks continue to outperform oil stocks by a considerable margin.

More recently, Adams has shifted Meyer’s strategy from a more traditional one of investing in global markets to mission-related regional investing.

“Historically, Meyer has focused on venture capital and accelerators—which has done quite well,” says Adams. “But, looking back over who has benefitted from that investing, it’s the same people who normally benefit.” Over the past year, Adams has stepped up investments in businesses run by women and people of color. In 2016, she invested $2 million in Nitin Rai’s Elevate Capital, a fund that invests in Pacific Northwest startups led by women and minorities. (Elevate was a seed investor in feminist tomboy clothing company Wildfang as well as in Hue Noir, a makeup company geared to people of color.)

But sexy startups only comprise a small part of Oregon’s economy. “The reality is that most brown people and people of color are employed by small businesses. And we need to grow those businesses,” Adams says. At the moment, Adams has her eye on a few businesses around the state. She’s particularly keen to invest in firms that bridge the urban-rural divide. “They don’t know it, but I’m watching them closely,” Adams says, conspiratorially. “I’m watching how they respond to stress. How they manage their time. How steady they are over time. When you invest in someone, it’s like getting married to them.”

On that subject, on New Year’s Eve, Adams wed Chen in an elegant ceremony at the Parker Palm Springs. Adams paused as she sliced vegetables for our salad to show me some photos: One of her and Chen all dressed up in their wedding best, looking radiant and joyous; one of Adams hugging her mom in front of a decorative concrete screen wall.

Several times during our interview, she tells me with pride what a fabulous cook Chen is. The youngest of three boys (by about a decade), he spent a lot of time at home with his mom, who taught him to be confident in a kitchen. He has a habit of leaving a cookbook lying on the kitchen counter—Andy Ricker’s Pok Pok, for instance, or Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty—with a note: “Pick a recipe.” Adams grabs the Pok-Pok cookbook and flips to Ricker’s recipe for Vietnamese turmeric-marinated catfish with noodles and herbs, and I glimpse a note she scrawled beneath it commemorating that he made it for her on Valentine’s Day last year. Adams says their division of labor is simple: she takes care of the baking and roasting, and he does all the cooking. (She happily does the dishes.)

Adams also loves Oregon wines, particularly winemaker Maggie Harrison’s Antica Terra. (“All I do is hug the bottles when I get them,” Adams says.) But her weekday routine does not allow for leisurely meals—at least until dinner. Like many other West Coast investors, she’s up by 6:00 a.m. to check the markets. “So even if I’m not at work, I’m working.” If she runs in the morning before work, she’ll grab a yogurt or piece of fruit on her way out the door. “I love those shredded wheat things that have sugar on top, which I probably shouldn’t eat, but they’re delicious,” she says. Once at the Meyer Memorial Trust office in the Pearl District, she’s at her desk for a few hours, and then around 11:00 a.m. she goes for a 20-minute walk. “I usually have to miss lunch, then I have to gobble it standing up at the sink,” she says. In an effort to eat more mindfully, she’s started bringing leftovers. By around 3:00 p.m., she’s ready for a cup of coffee and a walk—without her phone. “I like to smell the city and see people,” says Adams.

Lately, though, she’s working on cutting back. “2018 is going to be the year of no. I have two talks to give this year, and that’s it,” Adams tells me, with what sounds like resolution. But you get a sense that this woman would never be satisfied sitting on the sidelines.

When Adams moved back to Portland in 2011, she found a city in flux. Always a majority-white city, Portland was gentrifying at a rapid clip, with black and brown families being pushed out to the suburbs. A fourth generation Portlander—her great grandmother moved to Portland from Louisiana in the late 1950s—she had already witnessed gentrification first hand. Walnut Park, the neighborhood she grew up in, is now known as the Alberta Arts district.

As we eat, she tells me the devastating history of Lower Albina, better known today as the Rose Quarter. A vibrant African American and immigrant neighborhood full of bungalows, jazz clubs, corner groceries, and churches, it was affordable and easily walkable to downtown and the neighborhood known as the garment district (now the Pearl). In the late 1950s, the city declared the area blighted and leveled it, making way for the Interstate, Memorial Coliseum, and a hospital that never materialized. Residents, including Adams’ great grandmother and the German family she rented a room from, were forced to move out. It was an act of racial injustice that many Portlanders are still smarting from.

Adams is now on the board of Albina Vision, a coalition of community leaders and developers that aims to redevelop the Rose Quarter with affordability, equity, and walkability in mind. If Adams and the rest of the Albina Vision board get their way, the Rose Quarter will have a public connection to the Willamette River (right now, the lovely bike-and-pedestrian Eastbank Esplanade ends abruptly at the Steel Bridge), a walkable street grid from the 1950s, and affordable housing as a form of reparations to the families who were displaced.

Adams pauses and her voice drops to a whisper, so that I need to lean in to hear her. “My grandmother wrote in her Bible, ‘Dear God, I hope I’ve made the right decision in bringing my family to this place. And someday, I hope that one of my children has love, meaningful work, and safety.’” says Adams. “And I am that child.”

How Bartenders Combat Stress

This story was published on NBC's Better on Nov. 17th. 

Bartending might seem like a fun, carefree job — how stressful could it be to make cocktails and pour wine and microbrews to thirsty guests? Very, according to U.S. News & World Reports. Using their own data and data from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Outlook Handbook, the company recently released a list of most stressful jobs of 2017. Bartending is one of the twenty-two professions that made the list, right alongside anesthesiologist, paramedic and patrol officer.

Constantly interfacing with public—especially an inebriated public—can be trying, especially when you have to do it cheerfully and for prolonged periods on your feet, without a break. That said, the kind of stress a bartender faces depends very much on the type of bar. If you’re at a dive bar, you have to be security in addition to a charming host.

“Do you have to cut someone off and have them scream in your face?” asks Colin Carroll, the bar manager at Trifecta, a popular restaurant in Portland, Oregon. In a sophisticated spot like Trifecta, that doesn’t occur. But Carroll has stress of a different sort.

“There are ten tickets with 13 different cocktails and 'where the hell is my flat bread?' There’s always a running checklist of five to 10 things to do,” says Carroll, who is always prioritizing things in his head from most to least important. For Carroll, who has bartended for 11 years, this creates a low but ever-present level of anxiety.

Bartending is also physically draining. Carroll works 50 hours a week, the majority of it on his feet.

“Especially as you get older, it takes its toll on your body,” says Carroll, 36.

Continue reading on NBC's Better. 

 

Navigating Pregnancy and Maternity Leave in the Drinks Industry

Paid maternity leave is still a rarity, but some forward-thinking companies are setting the bar

{This story was published by SevenFifty Daily on Oct. 17th.}

Three years ago, when Chelsey Smith took a job at the Jack Daniel’s bottling plant in Lynchburg, Kentucky, she had no idea what the policy on maternity leave was. “I didn’t have a clue about it until I was pregnant,” says Smith, now 26. So when she and her husband, Drew, a truck driver for the company, learned they were pregnant with their first child last year, they were happily surprised to discover that Brown-Forman (the owner of Jack Daniels’s) had a progressive parental leave policy: Chelsey was entitled to 12 weeks of paid leave, and Drew, as the non-birth parent, was due six weeks, paid.

Brown-Forman’s parental leave policy proved crucial for the new parents. Chelsey had complications during labor—the epidural caused part of her left leg to remain numb—and she came home from the hospital on crutches. In addition to pediatrician visits, Chelsey had to see a neurologist several times and have an MRI. (The cause of the numbness is still a mystery.) The extra appointments would have been impossible if Drew wasn’t also home and able to drive the family.

“When I came home from the hospital, I was on crutches and couldn’t put my foot on the ground. Drew did everything: bathed me, cooked supper, went grocery shopping, did dishes and laundry—the list goes on,” she says. And because Brown-Forman’s policy allows the non-birth parent to take his (or her) six weeks any time over the first six months of the baby’s life, Drew can reserve a week or two for when Chelsey returns to work.

 

Drew, 32, realizes how rare paid paternity leave is in the United States and says he can’t imagine not having this benefit. “Those nights of hardly any sleep are much easier to deal with,” he says, “when you don’t have to worry about getting up on time in the morning.” And the time he’s been home with Chelsey and their daughter, Megan, has brought them closer as a family. “I sure am glad I was there the first time that little girl smiled,” Drew says. “I would’ve missed that and many other memories without these benefits.”

Chelsey, Drew, and Megan Lee Smith. Photo courtesy of Drew Smith.

Brown-Forman—which also makes brands such as Woodford Reserve, Sonoma-Cutrer wines, and Finlandia vodka—has one of the best parental leave policies in the alcohol industry.

“Their parental leave policy is fantastic. And their paternity leave is the highest I’ve seen,” says Deborah Brenner, the founder and president of Women of the Vine & Spirits, a membership organization dedicated to the support of women in the alcoholic beverage industry.

“It was a topic that mattered a lot to me,” says Kirsten Hawley, Brown-Forman’s chief human resources officer. “It came from conversations with women who were trying to make hard choices between staying at home to bond with a newborn baby or coming back to work so they could earn an income. And also talking to dads about their desire to stay home with their newborn child longer than they had the opportunity to.” At the time, the company already offered decent parental leave—two weeks, paid, for dads, and six weeks, paid, for moms—but it was covered by a short-term disability insurance policy. Hawley thought the company could do better. She says, “We decided to not treat childbirth as a disability.”

The revised policy, which kicks in after a year of employment, also makes no distinction between fathers and same-sex partners—the “non-birth parent” can be male or female. “We wanted to be sure that our leave addressed today’s modern families,” Hawley says. It also covers adoptive parents and foster parents, giving them six weeks of paid leave. It covers all Brown-Forman’s salaried workforce and hourly nonunion employees.

Needless to say, this is not the norm in the alcohol industry. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2016 National Compensation Survey, the leisure/hospitality sector has among the lowest rates—6 percent—of access to paid family leave. (That category includes restaurants and hotels, though not bars.) The only category to fare worse was the construction industry. Manufacturing, which includes companies that make alcoholic beverages, was slightly higher, at 10 percent.  

“The restaurant industry is not flexible, and it doesn’t put any value on families or mothers,” says Jessica Brown, 34, who oversees the food and beverage program at JetBlue. Brown should know. She had worked for two years as the wine director for a notable New York restaurant group when, soon after she’d told her direct supervisor she was pregnant, her position was eliminated. “It’s unclear whether the owners knew about my pregnancy when my position was eliminated,” she says, “but it was definitely a shock.” Not that the company offered any paid parental leave anyway.

Brown spent months applying for jobs in the industry and had some positive interviews, but once she disclosed that she was pregnant, in each case she was told (later, by the various HR staffs at the places she applied) that the employer had decided not to fill the position. Ultimately, she was able to parlay her food and beverage experience into a “day job” at JetBlue.

But maternity leave is also not the norm in any industry: A mere 15 percent of workers in the U.S. have access to paid leave, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ most recent data. That lack of paid time off means that one in four employed mothersreturns to work two weeks after giving birth.

Five states—California, New Jersey, New York, Washington, and Rhode Island—and the District of Columbia have passed paid family leave laws, but many other states offer just six weeks of paid leave at partial salary, which any woman who has given birth says is barely enough time (or money). Still, it is better than the unpaid leave mandated by federal law. The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) requires all businesses with more than 50 employees to offer new moms and dads 12 weeks of unpaid leave. (To get this “benefit,” though, you have to be full-time and have been with your company for a year.) Crucially, the FMLA also offers job protection: Your employer must offer you the same job when you return to work, or one that is nearly identical, with identical pay and benefits.  

But what if you’re pregnant and you work for a small employer, like a restaurant, cocktail bar, or small wine importer? “You hope to win the lottery,” says Kate Newhall, the policy director at Family Forward Oregon, a politically savvy nonprofit that advocates for family-friendly policies in the state.

Family Forward Oregon spearheaded the campaign for a statewide paid sick leave bill, which was signed by Governor Kate Brown in 2015, and it is one of the leading organizations behind Time for Oregon, a coalition fighting for paid family and medical leave in the state. A bill to provide such leave was introduced in the 2017 legislative session, but it didn’t pass. Newhall is confident, however, that it will be on the agenda again in 2018, saying, “We’re in it to win it!”  

Until Oregon passes a paid family leave bill, it is one of the 45 states where new mothers have to fend for themselves—or rely on family. When Sonia Kehler, 44, a bartender in Portland, was pregnant with her daughter Vela, her boss at Captain Ankeny’s bar gave her six weeks off, unpaid. Kehler survived financially because her partner, also a bartender, was able to find a better-paying day job and because her father babysat Vela when she went back to work. She was able to pump breast milk in an employee bathroom. Having been a bartender for years, Kehler wasn’t surprised by the lack of any kind of paid maternity leave. She says, “I never even asked.”

Rare is the independently owned bar or restaurant that can afford to offer paid maternity leave. Liz Davis, the owner and manager of Xico, a Mexican restaurant in Portland with 25 employees, has offered health insurance to all employees—even those who work only part-time—since the day the restaurant opened five years ago. But paid maternity leave is another matter. “Our profit margin is so small, and we actually can’t operate with one less server,” says Davis. “We’d have to replace her. So it becomes a situation where we’re paying two people.” But after reading Hillary Clinton’s book What Happened (Simon & Schuster) and thinking about the issue at length, Davis decided to offer one week of paid maternity leave. “I know that’s nothing,” she says, “but for [my employees], it’s the difference between being able to pay rent that month and not.”  

In states like California, which was the first in the nation to pass a paid family leave law, in 2002, restaurant owners aren’t faced with this tough decision, because thestate pays for the leave through a worker-funded insurance program. Jacquelyn Dowell, 33, is a bartender at Oakland’s Ramen Shop. When she told her boss she was pregnant, he was very supportive.

“He sat me down and said, ‘What shifts are gonna be good for you? I just want you to be comfortable,’” Dowell says. “So that was amazing.”

Six weeks before her due date, Dowell was racked with false labor pains, and her doctor told her not to return to work. California’s short-term disability program covered her at 55 percent of her salary for six weeks, and the state’s then Paid Family Leave covered another six weeks off, also at 55 percent of her salary. 

Was that enough to live on in the high-rent Bay Area? “Not at all—not even close,” Dowell says. But fortunately, Dowell’s husband, Kevin, works for a small spirits company, The 86 Co., and he was allowed a month and a half of paternity leave at his full salary. Knowing that most bartenders in the U.S. don’t receive any pay during maternity leave makes Dowell feel lucky. “Yet I feel that what I received wasn’t enough,” she says. “It’s super unfair. It’s just crazy to me that pregnancy isn’t covered.” Last year, California governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that will increase the Paid Family Leave payment to 70 percent of a minimum wage worker’s salary. (Workers with higher pay will get 60 percent of their salary.)  The new coverage will take effect in 2018.

Companies in the alcoholic beverage industry that are truly family-friendly, like Brown-Forman and The 86 Co., are few and far between. Some leading wine and spirits distributors offer paid leave, but only to members of the sales team. (This recalls Starbuck’s recent fiasco: Earlier this month shareholders objected that a new, 18-week parental leave policy was only for salaried workers, whereas hourly workers receive only six weeks.)

Diageo, the British multinational spirits and beer company (Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, Guinness) whose U.S. offices are based in Norwalk, Connecticut, has made Working Mother’s list of 100 Best Companies for the past nine years. In addition to subsidizing day care, the company offers job-sharing, flextime, and a decent parental leave policy. All full-time employees who have worked a year for the company—even fathers and adoptive parents—are eligible for four weeks of paid leave.

One restaurateur who is helping set the bar for paid family leave is Danny Meyer at Union Square Hospitality Group. Last fall he announced an eight-week parental leave program at all 16 of his restaurants and bars that applies equally to birth parents and non-birth parents. The program covers full-time employees who have been with the company for at least one year, and gives four weeks at 100 percent of the base wage, and another four weeks at 60 percent. Of course, this means that workers at restaurants that still accept tipping will not get tips while they’re out, but the base wage at USHG restaurants is still higher than the tipped minimum wage in New York City. (Similarly, workers who take advantage of this leave at the group’s nine Hospitality Included restaurants—that is, restaurants that have abolished tipping—would not get revenue share, but their base wage is higher than the current New York City minimum wage of $11 an hour.)  

But the majority of companies in the alcohol industry don’t offer paid parental leave for the simple reason that they don’t have to. Kat Kelly, now 38, was pregnant when she took a job as import manager at Baron Francois, a French wine importer. (She did not disclose she was pregnant in her interview because she feared she would not be hired if they knew.) She says her boss presented the company as family friendly in her interview, but he offered her only six weeks off, unpaid, when she gave birth. (Because she hadn’t been at the company for a full year, and because Baron Francois had 20 employees at the time, Kelly was not entitled to any time off under the FMLA.) Luckily, she had applied for short-term disability and so got a tiny portion of her salary. But just a month into her six-week leave, Kelly says she felt pressured by the company to work from home.

“Psychologically, I wasn’t ready. And I don’t think I’d physically healed from the C-section,” says Kelly, who returned to work exhausted. “I was forgetting things, feeling overwhelmed.” The only place she could pump her breast milk was in one of two single staff bathrooms, and coworkers were always knocking on the door. To top it off, she also felt pressured to go to evening wine events and drink a lot. “I wanted to be like, ‘Oh, I’m still cool,’” Kelly says. “But I wasn’t able to do that anymore.” She eventually left Baron Francois—and the wine industry—to work at NARS Cosmetics, which she says is a truly family-friendly company. “They have a nice, big pumping room,” she says. “Women have babies, and that’s a natural part of life.”

Kylie Henshaw, human resources coordinator at Baron Francois says the company still doesn’t have a formal maternity leave policy, but in January it will be subject to New York state’s new Paid Family Leave Program, which requires that all companies offer eight weeks of leave to new mothers and fathers, paid at 50 percent of her or his salary. (The Program covers full-time and part-time employees; full-time employees must work at least 26 weeks, or six-and-a-half months, at a company to be covered; part-time employees must work at least 175 days to be covered. The Program also covers employees who need to care for a sick relative.) Henshaw says the company has since moved to a new office space and now has a private room in which new mothers can pump.

But until all states start passing paid family leave policies like California and New York’s—or bars, restaurants, and alcoholic beverage companies start issuing more progressive maternity leave policies on their own—the drinks industry will continue to lose some of its best employees.   

“One of the main problems that the restaurant industry has right now is maintaining qualified employees,” Jessica Brown at JetBlue says. To her, it is no surprise why.

“They’re losing a tremendous number of seasoned professionals because they don’t support families or any type of maternity leave.” Employees who have been with a company for a long time are, she says, “put out to pasture” just because they decide to start a family. “The industry has to take a hard look at this issue in general. They need to look at the Big Picture.”

 

The Extraordinary Claire Wineland Shares how she Stays Resilient

When she was 13, Claire Wineland started a foundation to help people with cystic fibrosis (CF), a progressive and terminal genetic disease. That would be remarkable for any tween, but for Claire—who was born with the disease and had just nearly died of complications from it—it was especially plucky. Though she’s spent nearly a quarter of her 20 years in the hospital and has had 35 surgeries (so far), Wineland’s outlook on life is uniquely upbeat. Wineland shares her secrets on staying resilient, embracing challenges, and becoming a professional schmoozer.

Q: How do you stay resilient in the face of your disease? 
A: I don’t think of my disease as a burden. Just being alive, regardless of one’s circumstance, is incredibly challenging. Every single human being is dealing with a huge level of suffering. It’s an innate human condition. Growing up, I spent a lot of time in the hospital. I’d have the hospital room all decked out, doing arts & crafts, just being a kid. Adults would come visit me. They’d squat low and say, “I’m so sorry you have to deal with this.” And I’d be like, “No, I’m having a grand old time!” Finally, I started to hear about their lives. The more I started to talk to them, the more I realized that they were miserable. We’re looking at the wrong measurements. It’s not getting over your problems—it’s finding a way to use them.

Q: When you were 13, you started Claire’s Place Foundation to help people with cystic fibrosis. Tell me about it.
A: CF is a hugely taxing illness. After I recovered from lung failure and being in a coma [at age 13], it dawned on me how much support my parents—especially my mother—needed. She was a single mom with another kid. She was with me every single day in the hospital. She had to quit her job. On top of that, she had to find a way to pay her bills. I started the foundation to help her.

Once my mom was secure, I realized, “Wow, I’m actually pretty good at this!” The Foundation has grown every year. We provide grants for families who are dealing with extended hospital stays. We help them pay their rent, their car payments, bills—whatever they need covered financially, so that they don’t have to lose their home on top of losing their child.

Q: What keeps you upbeat and enjoying life, when it would be so easy for you to dwell on the negative? 
A: When you feel something, you have to let yourself feel it. People mistake positivity with ignoring what’s there and what’s real. The truth is, anger, aggression, fear, pain, sadness—they are way older than we are. There is a way to feel something and not get stuck: by acknowledging what’s there and realizing that, fundamentally, it doesn’t matter. I genuinely don’t care that I have CF, because I get to travel the world as a public speaker. I have a dog I love (her pit mix, Daisy). I get to design hospital rooms. I get to be the person I want to be! Not in spite of my illness, but because of it.

Q: You’re partnering with Zappos to make hospitals more beautiful. Tell me a bit about this project and why you’re passionate about it.
A: There’s no reason why hospitals have to be terrifying, cold, and sterile environments. I’m focusing on redesigning hospitals to benefit patients, so that they’re a space for them to heal. We’re re-doing the Children’s Hospital in Vegas. The playroom is my baby: I’m going to bring the outside in by changing the lighting so it’s not fluorescent, but warm. It should be done by the end of this year.

Q: How do you balance your full life with the limitations that your disease brings? 
A: I’m really bad at balancing taking care of myself and working. I tend to overdo the working and underdo the treatment. With CF, you have to do four hours of breathing treatments per day. They’re intensive and exhaustive. Then you have shots, pills, blood tests.

No matter how well I take care of myself, I have a terminal illness. But at the end of the day, what will I have done with my time? Just breathing treatments? Or will I have actually given something with my life? As much I screw up and am by no means a perfect patient, I’m really proud of myself. It’s up to everyone to find their own version of that.

This interview was done for MeQuilibrium's Cup of Calm series, where writers interview interesting people and experts, their journey to resilience, and their wisdom on wellbeing

Thriving While Sober in the Booze Industry

I wrote this piece about alcoholism in the wine, beer, and spirits industry for a new wine industry publication called SevenFifty Daily.  

Drinks professionals weigh in on their recovery from alcoholism and how they’re charting a new course

 

It’s July 2014 and Giuseppe González, celebrated bartender and owner of Manhattan’s swank Suffolk Arms, is in New Orleans for Tales of the Cocktail. It’s his birthday weekend. A rock-star partier, González also has type 1 diabetes, and his doctor has just told him he needs to quit drinking—or else. But at this weeklong bacchanalia, his doctor’s advice is far from his mind. Instead, he heads to a party and ends up in the bathroom with a bag of blow. His cell phone rings.

“It’s my mom, calling to wish me happy birthday,” González says. “She hears me and she’s like, ‘Joey, are you all right?’ and I say, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’” González got off the phone with his mom and called a friend to ask for help. His friend replied, “I’ve been waiting for this call for a while, bro.”

The next day, González went to his first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. He’s been sober ever since. That’s not to say it has been easy. “Alcoholism is chronic—it never goes away. There’s never gonna be a day that goes by that I think I have control over it,” says Gonzalez, who, three years later, attends an AA meeting every morning.  

González has plenty of company. People who work in the food and beverage industry are around alcohol daily and are often expected to drink it. Temptation is everywhere. As González puts it, “I had easy access to some of the best spirits—and some of the best bartenders in the country were my best friends.” In such circumstances, it’s easy to overindulge. Statistics bear this out: The hospitality industry is the profession with the highest rate of substance abuse, according to the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

Recently, though, a handful of high-profile bartenders, chefs, general managers, and others in the industry have been speaking out about their struggles with alcohol abuse—and their newfound sobriety. Sean Brock, chef at Husk, McCrady’s, and Minero in Charleston, South Carolina, went to rehab last January and spoke about the pleasures of not drinking in a recent article for the New York Times. A year ago, Jack McGarry, co-owner of New York City hotspots Dead Rabbit and BlackTail, stopped drinking after a close call that landed him in the hospital with alcohol poisoning. And Mickey Bakst, general manager of the Charleston Grill in South Carolina, who’s been sober for 35 years, is outspoken about his alcoholism. “I have an extraordinarily blessed career, all due to the fact that I got sober,” he says. Though not all recovering alcoholics have stayed in the industry, many have—and they say their careers are more successful than ever. The stigma of being a drinks professional with alcoholism is seemingly starting to disappear.

Continue reading on SevenFiftyDaily.com. 

 

The Facts about Vaccine Safety

When my editor at Organic Life asked me to write a piece about childhood vaccines, I had no idea how controversial the subject still was. As a health journalist, I pay attention to the latest studies and knew the scientific consensus is that vaccines are entirely safe and medically necessary if we want to keep our children protected from a variety of painful (sometimes deadly) childhood diseases. I interviewed infectious disease experts, doctors, and even a naturopath to find out how we know there's no link between vaccines and autism and whether it's OK to choose an "alternative vaccine schedule." 

Since my piece came out on April 26th, there's been another measles outbreak—this time in Minneapolis, among the Somali community. My heart breaks for the mom whose 18-month-old daughter had to get IV fluids and oxygen for 4 nights in the ICU. She now regrets that she listened to the anti-vaxxers who sowed fear about autism, which is why she rejected the MMR vaccine for both her children. She and her husband are now spending their days trying to persuade other Somali parents to vaccinate their children rather than risk exposure to measles. 

Since Organic Life is no longer around, I'm reproducing the story in full, below: 

Every Parent Needs To Know These Medical Facts About Vaccines And Autism            The anti-vaccine movement isn't just spreading fake news—it's a public health risk

By Hannah Wallace

 

The BBC drama Call the Midwife follows a group of progressive nuns and nurses in 1957 London who cycle from house to house delivering babies and dispensing free medical care. If you’ve ever watched it, you already know how deadly diseases such as measles, polio, and whooping cough (pertussis) can be.

Today, in 2017, we have vaccines against all three of these diseases—and more. So our children should be protected, these preventable illnesses confined to the past and to binge-watchable historical dramas.

Right?

Alarmingly, misinformation about vaccine safety has been spreading via anti-vaccination support groups on social media, films—and even the White House—that suggest a link between vaccination and autism.

Vaccines have been doubted since their invention. (Vaccine hysteria is much older than you think—it goes all the way to 1796.) But much of the thinking in today’s anti-vaccine movement can be traced to a 1998 paper by gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield published in the British medical journal The Lancet which linked the rise of autism to the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine. The paper was later shown to be based on fake data and has since been disavowed by 10 of its 13 original authors. The Lancet retracted the paper, but it was too late—the idea of the autism link had already taken hold.

Today, suspicion of childhood vaccination persists, despite the fact that the link to autism has been roundly disproven (see Cochrane’s systematic review of worldwide studies of the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine, which involved over 14 million children, and also the American Academy of Pediatrics’ 18-page document listing all the studies showing that getting vaccinated is not linked to autism or other neurological disorders.)

Here are the facts that every parent needs to know:

To Not Vaccinate Can Have Deadly Consequences

As a result of parents who refuse to vaccinate their children, outbreaks have been popping up all over the country. “In areas where vaccine-hesitant families cluster, we’re seeing outbreaks of chicken pox, pertussis, and other transmissible diseases that could’ve been prevented,” says Dawn Nolt, M.D., M.P.H., a professor at the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease at OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland, Oregon.

Over the past four years, there have been at least three measles outbreaks—one in Texas and two in California, both home to robust anti-vaccine movements—and public health officials worry that bigger ones are in our future. In some private schools in Austin, Texas, 30 to 40% of the children are unvaccinated, according to Peter J. Hotez, M.D., Ph.D., a pediatrician at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Hotez and others worry that we may be on the verge of a potentially large measles outbreak. Measles is a highly contagious and lethal disease. Just to give you an idea: the virus remains active in the air or on infected surfaces for up to 2 hours—you can catch it by walking into a room where a person with measles has been hours earlier. You can also catch it from someone who doesn’t yet know he has measles: it can be transmitted four days prior to the onset of the rash. Worldwide, it still kills around 90,000 children a year, as reported by the World Health Organization.

One reason people are hesitant to vaccinate their children is because they haven’t witnessed up-close the kind of suffering that these diseases can cause.

“If you don’t see it, you don’t believe it,” says Dr. Nolt. “People don’t see how devastating chicken pox, pertussis, and measles are, so it gives them a sense of security that these diseases aren’t in the world.”

Before the pertussis vaccine became widely available in the 1940s, about 200,000 children got sick with it each year in the U.S.; about 9,000 of these children died. Similarly, before the measles vaccination program started in 1963, an estimated 48,000 people in the U.S. were hospitalized with measles each year and around 400 people died of the disease.

 

Your Kid’s Immune System Won’t Be Overwhelmed By A Vaccine

Nolt says that contrary to popular belief, a baby’s immune system is not “overwhelmed” by a vaccine. “Children encounter thousands of millions of germs every day. Getting a vaccine is just drop in the bucket,” says Nolt. “Even multiple doses given at one time is not going to overwhelm their immune system.”

It helps to have a basic understanding of how vaccination works. When germs, such as bacteria or viruses, invade the body, they attack and multiply: an infection takes hold, causing illness. The immune system fights off disease-causing microbes, in the process learning to recognize the illness-causing germs. In the future, the immune system will produce the specific antibodies needed to defeat them, so the next time you’re exposed to those microbes it can take them down quickly, before infection sets in. On average, it takes your immune system over a week to learn how to fight off a disease-causing microbe. (In the meantime, you’re sick).

A vaccine exposes your immune system to disease-causing microbes that have been killed or weakened so that they can’t cause illness, teaching your system how to fight that particular disease without actually contracting, say, diphtheria, which could otherwise overwhelm the immune system before your body can fight it off, causing severe health complications or death.

Because vaccine formulas have gotten more precise over the years, children today are actually exposed to fewer bacterial and viral components than they used to be. Thirty years ago, children received shots that protected against eight diseases and were exposed to more than 3,000 bacterial and viral proteins, the Washington Post reported recently. Today, even though children receive more vaccines, the total number of bacterial and viral components administered is only about 150.

 

Vaccination Does Not Cause Autism

Thimerosal, which was once widely used as a vaccine preservative in the U.S. and elsewhere, is the mercury-containing compound that anti-vaccine activists say causes autism. However, studies that the American Academy of Pediatrics cites show no link between thimerosal and autism.

Nonetheless, in 1999, the U.S. Public Health Service recommended removing thimerosal from vaccines as a precautionary measure. Since 2001, thimerosal has not been used in any childhood shots except for the multi-dose flu vaccine, according to Ian Branam, a press officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC). Thimerosal was never used in the MMR vaccine. And childhood autism rates in the U.S. continue to increase since thimerosal was removed, which suggests that something else is to blame for our autism epidemic.

 

What To Know About Spacing Out Shots

Most pediatricians recommend following the CDC’s latest schedule. “The schedule is updated every year,” explains Nolt. There are currently 10 vaccines recommended for children under 18 months (though some are multi-dose) but the most important are Pneumococcal (which protects against Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria, which can cause pneumonia, ear and sinus infections, meningitis, and a blood stream infection), and Hib (which protects against Haemophilus influenzae type b, which causes serious infections including bacterial meningitis).

If you’re wary about your baby getting several shots at once, you can talk to your pediatrician about spacing them out. Dr. Nolt does not recommend this, because the goal is to induce protection before 12 months, when your child is most vulnerable. Some shots, like Hib, require 2-3 booster shots over time, and spacing out shots prolongs the interval when your child is susceptible to serious infectious diseases. However, she would prefer a parent delay some shots than not vaccinate at all.

Hilary Andrews, a naturopathic physician with a private practice in Portland, Oregon, customizes immunization schedules for her patients. (In Oregon, naturopaths can administer vaccines.) “Every child comes with its unique risk factors towards infectious diseases, and its own protection,” says Andrews. If you cannot find an M.D. or N.D. in your area who is open to an alternative vaccine schedule, Andrews recommends Paul Thomas, M.D.’s The Vaccine-Friendly Plan, which walks you through how to talk to your pediatrician.

“A lot of books are either completely against vaccination or all-in with the CDC schedule. This is a resource for those who are what I consider the middle group,” Andrews says. Even then, parents should fully understand the risks involved in delaying each vaccine—again, talk to your child's doctor, don't blindly follow the book. Thomas suggests skipping the hepatitis B vaccine, for example, unless you, the mother, have hepatitis B—but babies can still get hepatitis B by being bitten by an infected person, by touching open cuts or sores of an infected person, or from food that was chewed (for a baby) by an infected person. Thomas also recommends taking a pass on the rotavirus series, as long as your family practices good hygiene, drinks clean water, and has access to health care. (Most babies with rotavirus infections can effectively be treated with antinausea drugs.)

However, even Thomas believes it’s very important that you vaccinate your child against both Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib) and pertussis (DTaP), following the CDC schedule. He allows that some parents may prefer starting these shots at 3 months, as they do in certain European countries, or may want to give just one vaccine at a time—just know this will require a few extra visits to the pediatrician’s office.

Know Where To Find Reliable Information

For more facts about vaccination, refer to the following organizations:

The American Academy of Pediatrics’s Immunization Page, which contains information for providers and parents

The CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, which offers information about vaccine safety.

The Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia offers information for parents including “A Look at Each Vaccine,” which tells you why each vaccine is important for your child to get.

Institute for Vaccine Safety, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health offers an independent assessment of vaccine safety.

 

Why Grass-fed Dairy is Better for You

This explainer-style piece on grass-fed dairy was published in Organic Life last month but with all my travels this winter, I forgot to post it. ;-) 

        Petting a cow at Jon Bansen's pasture-based dairy in Monmouth

Most milk and beef sold in America today comes from cows that have been fed corn. It cheaply fattens the animals up, but because cows’ multi-compartmented stomachs can’t properly digest corn, it also makes them more susceptible to E. coli, a pathogenic bacteria that can spread to humans. The solution? The food cows were meant to survive on: grass. 

Not only are grass-fed cows healthier, but their meat and milk are more nutritious than their cornfed counterparts. Grass-fed meat and dairy contain gobs more beta-carotene and omega-3 fatty acids, which may prevent dementia as well as heart disease. They’re also high in conjugated lineoleic acid (CLA), a healthy omega-6 that’s been shown to lessen symptoms of inflammatory disorders such as allergies and asthma. In well-managed grass-fed operations—where cows are regularly moved to fresh pasture—there’s an environmental boon, too. Their manure replenishes the soil, improving the quality of the forage growth, which in turn reduces erosion and water pollution.

As word of these benefits has gotten out, demand for grass-fed products has skyrocketed. That’s led to some shady advertising. All cattle are grass-fed until they get to the feedlot, and any producer can put the words “grass-fed” on their product. (The USDA’s woefully understaffed Food Safety and Inspection Service theoretically regulates grass-fed beef claims, but doesn’t have the resources to audit ranches, so it’s all on the honor system.) Luckily, there are a few reliable and strict grass-fed certifications out there.

Continue reading here. 

 

In the Weeds: my dalliance with legal marijuana for Vogue

Now that cannabis is legal recreationally in Oregon, I thought I'd give it a try for my occasional insomnia. Here's what happened, in the December issue of Vogue. Along the way, I dig into the science and find out how terpenes influence your high (more than indica vs. sativa), which conditions cannabis actually helps, and why it can cause anxiety, paranoia, and even hallucinations in some people but not others.  Download PotHoles

Here's the uncut version, which includes more stories from women. 

Last fall, Oregon became the fourth state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. In my hometown of Portland, people began lighting up on street corners, friends threw pot-themed dinner parties, and I heard whispers about a chef who hand-delivers salted caramel “medibles.” Farma, a dispensary a mile from my house, is so spare, modernist, and color-coded that it looks more like a Damien Hirst installation than a head shop. Buds with names like Island Sweet Skunk and Dogwalker are displayed beneath the glass like so many exquisite chocolates.

Whenever my husband, an unrepentant marijuana enthusiast, invites me to join him, I decline. On the few occasions I have experimented, a creeping agitation has tempered any sense of euphoria, and I’m terrified of becoming like the dopey-eyed, shiftless stoner boys I remember from high school. I struggle with insomnia, however, and my cocktail of remedies—valerian, wine, and Ambien—has become less and less reliable. Which is how I find myself at Farma one afternoon, consulting with the slender young salesperson behind the counter.

Two women my mother’s age are sniffing a canister of buds, a tall man with a baseball cap is nonchalantly buying a pre-rolled joint, and a 20-something blond in skinny jeans and a Pendleton jacket is examining the $280 Pax vaporizer.

“I’m looking for something that will help me sleep—an indica?” I stammer, naming the strain I’ve read delivers a calming high (another, sativa, has a reputation for working as a stimulant). 

“We don’t classify cannabis that way here,” my budtender tells me knowingly. “It’s the terpenes that are important.”

Terpenes are the aromatic oils that confer character on each strain of marijuana and are believed to be responsible for particular effects. So while every label at Farma lists the percentages of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), pot’s main psychoactive compound (i.e. that promises a buzz), and cannabidiol (CBD), the medicinal elements that ease pain and anxiety but won’t get you high, terpenes are the star ingredient. As my attendant explains, strains with a red label give you an energetic high, whereas those with a blue one are calming. She selects a glass jar from the latter category and waves it under my nose.

“I’d try Blueberry Malawi combined with a CBD-rich strain like Harlequin,” she suggests cheerfully.

My head is whirling, and not because of the buds’ piney, aroma. I was too much of a square to try pot until the summer after college, when I traipsed around Amsterdam with my sister and best friend making obligatory stops at the city’s famous “coffee shops.” But in this brave new world of legalized weed, here I am, ready to reconsider and explore the drug’s much vaunted health benefits.

Research among my peers yields that Sarah, the owner of a Portland clothing store, uses cannabis as a sleeping aid several times a week. As does Amina, an engineer at a well-known Bay Area tech company. “I’ve literally tried everything: hypnotism, pills, you name it,” says Amina, who is 30 and has grappled with chronic insomnia throughout her adult life. Ambien makes her feel like a zombie the next day. “Smoking weed helps tremendously,” she tells me. “And I feel that it’s better for my body than the other drugs I’ve taken.”

It alarms me, however, that our acceptance of marijuana—and the thriving, out-in-the-open industry that is flourishing around it—has taken root faster than the scientific world can keep up with it. We know precious little about the specific ways marijuana does what it does, let alone which “route of administration”—smoking, vaping, eating, or using cream, patches, or tinctures—is optimal for which malady, and at which dosage. At the federal level, cannabis is still classified as a Schedule 1 drug with no accepted medical use, which means that funding for human studies has been scarce. (Last June, the Obama administration lifted a barrier to research, but those in the field say it’s still a bureaucratic maze.)

Before I embark and imbibe, I want to know more.  I start with Mark Ware, M.D., head of the Quebec Cannabis Registry, the world’s first research database for medical cannabis. Dr. Ware confirms what my friends are telling me—that a handful of pain studies, including his own clinical trial, show that improved sleep is a proven secondary outcome of cannabis. Yet the causality is still a mystery. “It’s not clear if cannabis works on the pain primarily—if your pain is improved, you sleep better,” he says, pointing out that another possibility is that those who sleep soundly are more equipped to handle pain.

As I sift through the research on cannabinoids’ abilities, I learn that marijuana could be of use to me in another way: It reduces inflammation, and may even reduce the inflammatory proteins linked with some autoimmune diseases. “CBD in particular is a very potent anti-inflammatory,” says Raphael Mechoulam, a chemistry professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem who is famous for having isolated marijuana’s key compounds in the 1960s. More recently, his lab has shown that CBD blocks the development of autoimmune Type 1 diabetes in mice. This stops me in my tracks. The FDA-approved drugs I’ve been on for 20 years to treat an autoimmune disease may cause osteoporosis and lymphoma. Could cannabis be more effective, not to mention safer? 

Katie McCobb, a 34-year-old tech analyst in Portland, thinks so. The first thing I notice about McCobb when we meet is her strong physique. It’s hard to believe that this woman, who cycles 100 miles a week, has lupus, an autoimmune disease in which her immune system attacks her tissues and organs, causing debilitating joint pain and fatigue. After she was diagnosed in 2013, McCobb was prescribed Prednisone and Plaquenil. Frustrated by the immunosuppresants’ side effects, which include nausea and loss of appetite, she tapered off both medications against her doctor’s wishes—replacing them with a cannabis tincture (a liquid concentration that is administered under the tongue). Since then, she says, her pain has decreased by more than half. 

I savor the notion that I could sleep better and treat my autoimmune disease in one fell swoop. However, my other concerns remain, chiefly the specter of short-term memory loss. My husband, for one, is constantly forgetting things. The other day, he suggested we go see a film we’d already been to a month earlier. Frank Lucido, M.D., a Berkeley-based family practitioner who has spent the last 20 years issuing medical cannabis “recommendations” (the word “prescription” cannot apply to substances that are not FDA-cleared), says that, along with sedation and intoxication, short-term memory loss is a classic side effect. “I’ll tell my patients, ‘You may find yourself having to ask people to repeat things a couple of times,’ ” he says.

I earn my living as a freelance writer, and can’t afford to be absent-minded. The good news, I discover, is that marijuana’s cognitive impairments are not permanent. When you stop using for a spell, your short-term memory returns. The exception is in the case of teenagers, whose developing brains are more vulnerable, says Madeline H. Meier, assistant professor of psychology at Arizona State University. Meier’s 2012 study, which tracked 1,037 New Zealanders from birth to age 38, showed that heavy teenage marijuana users suffer lasting mental deficits. “Those who began using before 18, and continued to use, lost IQ points,” says Meier. Even when these subjects eventually quit as adults, their IQs did not completely bounce back.

When my friend Sophie was in her early 20s, she loved getting stoned. “Food was better, sex was better. Music, too,” she recalls. But then she started to suffer panic attacks. “Your heart thumps, you can't catch your breath, your ears catch every noise and amplify it,” says Sophie, who is 43 and hasn’t smoked for the past two decades.

Why some people find cannabis relaxing while others find it triggers anxiety may result from individual differences in the brain’s cannabinoid receptors. More likely, though, it comes down to dosage. Too much THC lowers blood pressure and increases heart rate. It can also bring on hallucinations, paranoia, and psychosis, according to Ethan Russo, M.D, a Vashon, Washington-based neurologist and cannabis researcher. “If you overdose, you could go wacko for a period of hours with paranoia and hallucinations,” says Dr. Russo, who blames high-potency concentrates such as tinctures, oils, and “dabs,” for the proliferation of these effects. Further complicating matters, we don’t even know how to measure potency; a recent study at Johns Hopkins University revealed that the cannabinoid content of the majority of edible products for sale at dispensaries are mislabeled. “Since the FDA cannot regulate cannabis, there are no standards or method of testing or manufacturing it,” says the study’s author, Ryan Vandrey, Ph.D,. Even Dr. Lucido, the sanguine Berkeley “recommender,” observes that some marijuana dispensaries interpret his instructions more innovatively than he’d like. “It throws off my dosing strategy,” he says.

The marijuana plant itself has become stronger over the past few decades: In the ‘90s, its THC levels hovered at 3%; now, strains such as “Animal Cookies” clock in at 29%. Edibles present their own problems. Because it can take up to three hours to feel their effects, novice users tend to overindulge. (Who can forget Maureen Dowd’s description in The New York Times of spending 8 hours “panting and paranoid” in a Denver hotel room after consuming too much of a cannabis chocolate bar?)

“Eating a regulated edible should be just as easy and predictable as drinking a glass of wine,” counters Andi Bickel, a willowy blonde and the 25-year-old founder and CEO of Drip Ice Cream, whose mouthwatering flavors include honey lavender and salted caramel. As we sit at the kitchen table in her mother’s spacious Southeast Portland bungalow (Bickel’s former production headquarters) she shows me the 4-ounce containers. They come with a “dosage spoon” and are printed with a cheeky safety guide explaining one spoonful (a mere 3.5 mg of THC) will bring “delightfully subtle internal twinkles.”

I’m warming to the idea of trying cannabis again when I hear about a “Tapas & Terps” dinner hosted by Laurie Wolf, author of Herb: Mastering the Art of Cooking with Cannabis. Vaporizers will be on hand, says the Evite, and each course will be served with a strain that showcases a dominant terpene.

It’s a rain-soaked evening when my husband and I arrive at Wolf’s swank floating home in Oregon City. Our hostess ushers us into an airy living room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Willamette River and striking artwork on the walls—including an original Mapplethorpe photograph. We chill on the couch with ten others—some of whom are already passing around a vape pen. (I demur.) There’s a cannabis-activist power couple, a young woman in a chic gauzy black dress, and Laurie’s fetching daughter-in-law, Mary, with whom she runs an edibles company. Conversation flits from which pot growers use organic methods to the benefits of vape pens. “You can just slip them in your purse!” says Leah, a mother of three, whose SUV is parked outside.

Our first course arrives—button mushrooms stuffed with a garlicky sautéed mushroom filling, crowned with lavender cheese—and our goateed budtender, Tyler Hurst, offers us a puff of Blackberry Moonshine from a glass “vape bong.” It contains myrcene, a terpene known for its sedative properties. The aroma is musky and floral. I take a hit. I’m starting to get the hang of this—it’s like a wine pairing where instead of an earthy pinot, the mushroom course is paired with a myrcene-rich cannabis. Except that at this pot pairing, the guests are getting slowly stoned rather than elegantly inebriated. I ask Laurie’s son Nick, a product manager at a charter school foundation, if it’s fun having a mom who works in the cannabis industry. He’s fine with it now but it rankled him in college when she’d send care packages full of pot cookies. “I rebelled by being strait-laced,” he says. “I sure was popular, though.”

Next up are Wolf’s wonderfully crispy potatoes with juicy nubs of smoked sausage and a lemony aioli, paired with a strain called Golden Pineapple—rich in the terpenes limonene and carene. But it’s the strain that’s served with the third course—a buttery thyme-flecked shrimp-and-mango dish—whose effects I like best: J1, high in myrcene and caryophyllene. (My notes—more accurate than my memory—say, “Mellow, peppery. Smells of lavender.”) By the dessert course—a “slightly medicated” trifle (terpenes unknown) that I can’t stop eating—I’m buzzed and floaty. Back at home, though, my brain is skipping from thought to thought, keeping me up even though I’m exhausted. At 1 a.m., I pop an Ambien.

What was in the mysterious trifle? Ambien has just one active ingredient but cannabis is a complex botanical medicine with 60 cannabinoids and hundreds of terpenes, all of which we’re just starting to learn about. All of them interact synergistically, too, in something scientists call the “entourage effect.”

Two months later, I’ve downscaled my research to herbs of a gentler sort—a soporific “dream tea” of chamomile, mugwort, rose petals, damiana, lemon balm, and lavender purchased at a local botanical store. Granted, it doesn’t give me any “subtle internal twinkles” but nor does it make my heart race and my mouth dry. And so far it has lulled me to sleep every night.  

 

Well-being/MORE

Sadly, MORE magazine ("for women of style and substance") is no more. The April 2016 issue is the publication's last, which makes me sad for a number of reasons—not least of which is that I'd been writing the Well-being column since the December issue. Here's my final column. 

 

3 ways to treat acid reflux & GERD

Acid reflux, the flow of stomach acid into the esophagus, is on the rise. So is its chronic cousin, Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD). 

Eat lean, clean, and green Food triggers vary from person to person, says Jamie A. Koufman, M.D., director of the Voice Institute of New York and author of Dropping Acid: the Reflux Diet Cookbook & Cure. But the most common ones are alcohol, carbonated beverages, coffee, chocolate, fatty foods (including anything fried), onions, tomato, garlic, mint, and even some nuts and peppers. All fizzy beverages cause the stomach to expand, causing reflux, but soda is the worst culprit because it’s also acidic. Milk chocolate is worse than dark because it contains fat as well as caffeine and theobromine, two chemicals that have been shown to loosen the lower esophageal sphincter (LES), the muscle that acts as a gate between the stomach and the esophagus. (Hint: you want it to stay firm.) Nicotine and mint also relax the LES and should be avoided. But mysteriously, even decaf coffee can exacerbate reflux in a small percentage of people. If that happens, Koufman recommends trying green or black tea. While spicy foods can exacerbate reflux in some, ginger is actually soothing, says Koufman, as are fennel and aloe vera. But more important than what you eat is when you eat it, emphasizes Koufman. “If you asked me one thing that you could do to improve reflux, I’d say ‘Close the kitchen at 8PM!’”

Try Slippery Elm The bark of the slippery elm tree has been used as an herbal remedy in North America for centuries, specifically to relieve coughs, sore throats, and stomach problems. It contains mucilage that can help soothe and heal tissues of the digestive tract, says Andrew Weil, M.D., founder and director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. Though slippery elm lozenges (thayers.com) can be effective, Weil says a tea is better for the GI irritation that comes with acid reflux. Pour two cups boiling water over one teaspoon of slippery elm bark powder (mountainroseherbs.com), then add a little honey and cinnamon to taste. Drink 1-2 cups twice daily. Slippery elm bark also stimulates mucus secretion, which may protect the GI tract against ulcers and excess acidity.

Stretta Therapy Stretta, which was approved by the FDA in 2000, is a minimally invasive procedure that strengthens the lower esophogeal sphincter muscle with radiofrequency energy. “It actually stimulates your sphincter muscle to grow back,” explains Mark D. Noar, M.D., a gastroenterologist at Endoscopic Microsurgery Associates in Baltimore. Over 30 clinical studies have demonstrated that Stretta is a safe and well-tolerated treatment for GERD. According to Noar, it’s particularly ideal for people with “refractory GERD”—that is, people who take proton pump inhibitors twice daily and still have symptoms—or people who are concerned about side effects from PPIs, like malabsoroption and and bone breaks. Noar, who evaluated the long-term effects of the therapy on 217 patients, and published the results in the journal Surgical Endoscopy, found that patients who had the 14-minute laparoscopic procedure have sustained improvement throughout a decade. “The vast majority were able to go off meds and remain asymptomatic,” says Noar.

 

BOOK: The Sleep Revolution

In 2007, Arianna Huffington collapsed in her office and broke her cheekbone. The diagnosis? Exhaustion due to chronic lack of sleep. Thus began the media mogul’s quest to learn more about the science of sleep—why we need it and how to re-integrate it in our lives. In The Sleep Revolution: Transforming your Life one Night at a Time, she documents the current epidemic of sleeplessness and its frightening medical consequences—like increased risks of diabetes, obesity, and Alzheimer’s disease. Huffington condemns “the sleep industry” for plying us with caffeine and then sleeping pills—which have serious side effects and don’t yield restorative, slow-wave sleep anyway. “It’s a perfect circle of commodified burnout,” she writes. Huffington’s advice for reclaiming healthy sleep habits is mostly familiar: banish electronics from the bedroom, renounce caffeine after 2PM, get regular exercise, and skip the nightcap. But she also cites evidence that both acupuncture and meditation can be effective long-term fixes for insomnia. As always, Huffington is a witty writer; her research is sprinkled with entertaining anecdotes and relevant quotes from Shakespeare, William Blake, and David Foster Wallace. By the last page, you’ll agree with her that “Sleep is a fundamental human need that must be respected.” 

Bittersweet Treats Xylitol, a popular sugar substitute, is safe for humans but not so for dogs. The sweetener—which is in everything from gum and mints to baked goods and peanut butter—causes a dog’s blood sugar to plummet, which can lead to seizures and even death, says Dr. Tina Wismer, Medical Director of the ASPCA’s Animal Poison Control Center. (It doesn’t seem to have the same affect on cats or other animals.) According to Wismer, canine poisonings with the sweetener are on the rise. “Xylitol is technically natural so it’s in a lot of products that say ‘all natural’ and ‘no artificial sweeteners.’ And it’s safe for us. So people assume it’s safe for dogs,” says Jason Nicholas, BVM, a Portland, Oregon veterinarian who blogs at PreventiveVet.com. Nicholas, who launched an online petition for improved xylitol labeling, says the best preventive measure is to keep all xylitol-containing gum and food far out of your resourceful dog’s reach. Wismer agrees. “Don’t put your purse on the floor. If you’re making baked goods with xylitol, store them in the microwave or up high.” If your dog does ingest it, Wismer advises rubbing Karo syrup or honey onto his gums, which will help boost his blood sugar. But get your dog to the emergency vet ASAP—the sweetener only takes 30-60 minutes to wreak its havoc.

 

Portland alternative medicine innovators

I wrote about these four local complementary medicine experts for Portland Monthly.  

 

FORREST COOPER

If you’ve ever been to a Tuina parlor, you know that the rigorous Chinese massage is not for sissies. Tuina not only relaxes your muscles and loosens your joints, it can unfreeze frozen shoulders and alleviate pain from herniated discs. “It’s not a feel-good massage,” cautions Forrest Cooper. “It’s very deep tissue.” 

Cooper, a faculty member at the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine (OCOM), fell in love with Tuina as a student. As a practitioner, he finds it works best in conjunction with acupuncture, especially for people suffering musculoskeletal pain. “Acupuncture reduces pain and loosens you up,” Cooper says. “Tuina puts bone joints back in place, and breaks up adhesions.” 

Cooper recently published his first article in the Journal of Medical Acupuncture and just got his doctorate in Chinese Medicine. This year, he plans to enroll in OHSU’s Human Investigations Program, which trains doctors to do research on human subjects. “I’d like to find out why people come back for acupuncture and Tuina,” says Cooper, who hopes to do more qualitative research. “What are they getting out of their experience?”

LEE HULLENDER RUBIN

These days, it’s not unusual  to find an acupuncturist who focuses on fertility. Lee Hullender Rubin, though, not only sees patients but also conducts research on how acupuncture can boost fertility. 

One of about 300 acupuncturists in the US with a doctorate in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, Rubin is writing up findings of observational research from a Seattle-area fertility clinic that shows that women who had 12 TCM treatments (acupuncture, Chinese herbs, and diet and lifestyle recommendations) before a certain point in their pregnancy had a significantly higher live birth rate than those who had no acupuncture, or acupuncture alone. 

Rubin is currently recruiting Portland-area subjects for her own study—a randomized, controlled trial on how acupuncture and lidocaine affect chronic vulvar pain. Meanwhile, she has a flourishing practice near NE Alberta Street, where she works with women who have everything from endometriosis to recurrent miscarriage.

 

DAVID ALLDERDICE

You don’t fool around with cancer. But chemotherapy and radiation bring complications of their own—everything from fatigue to nerve damage. Enter the “integrative oncologist.” David Allderdice limits his private practice at Sage Cancer Care to cancer patients only. “I’m trying to look at the science that’s being done on Chinese medicine, immune therapies—treatments that are called alternative or complementary—taking in the totality of what’s available, sifting through it, and determining what’s the best medicine from all areas,” he says. 

Depending on the patient and the type and stage of cancer, that could mean herbs or supplements alongside chemo drugs to reduce toxicity, acupuncture to lessen nausea and fatigue, or even novel therapies still in clinical trials. “The power of holistic medicine is supporting a vital system—therapies that keep you healthier and stronger, fighting against cancer,” Allderdice says.

 

 

HEATHER ZWICKEY

When Heather Zwickey left Yale University School of Medicine to head up the Helfgott Research Institute at Portland’s National College of Natural Medicine (NCNM), her junior colleagues thought she was committing career suicide. The Nobel Prize winners on Yale’s faculty, however, applauded her move.

“Their reaction was, ‘This field is wide open. Nowhere else in medicine can you ask such big questions like ‘How does acupuncture work?’” says Zwickey. 

Pursuing those big questions is exactly what Zwickey and her students do. Currently, she is overseeing 54 master’s-level research projects, including one probing the effects of “medicinal mud” on osteoarthritis. The Helfgott’s big research wins so far involve findings on how an Ayurvedic herb activates immune cells and natural therapies’ pain-reduction potential.

As she talks about these projects, Zwickey’s passion for putting integrative treatments under rigorous scrutiny is unmistakable. “Natural medicine is growing faster than other areas of medicine,” she says. “We need to study this stuff!”

 

 

 

Healing our Troops

The best treatment for PTSD may not be pharmaceuticals or one-on-one therapy, but a revolutionary non-drug approach developed by Dr. James Gordon at the Center for Mind-Body Medicine.  In this feature in the February issue of Spirit Magazine (now called Southwest: the Magazine), I report on how military health care providers—and the veterans they treat—are embracing unorthodox therapies like meditation, biofeedback, and guided imagery because they work.

During the ten weeks they partipated in the Department of Defense's study on mind-body therapies, these veterans found support in one another

 

I’m standing in a dimly lit hotel conference room packed with 200 strangers as the German electronic music is cued up. “Start shaking,” a reassuringly calm voice intones. “Don’t open your eyes. Let everything go.” I wriggle my arms and move my shoulders up and down in a shrugging motion. At the same time, I’m bouncing in place and jiggling my butt. Forcing myself to keep from laughing aloud, I think, How ridiculous we must look! 

But I keep at it, and as I do, something interesting happens. All the tension from that morning’s drive through beastly San Francisco traffic begins to slough off like snow from a rooftop. My neck and back feel looser, almost as if I’d had a massage. My self-consciousness fades, and I start to enjoy the sensation of shaking. A minute or so in, I crack open an eyelid and see that everyone—including our instructor—is bopping wildly.

“Three minutes left!” the voice says. There are a few loud whoops from around the room. 

A few minutes later—though it feels like an eternity—the percussive, electronic sounds stop abruptly, and we are told to breathe deeply for 60 seconds before launching into a freestyle dance. “Let the music move you!” says the voice. As Bob Marley wails “every little thing is gonna be all right,” the mood in the room shifts to that of a beachside nightclub. We’ve opened our eyes by now, and people are really boogying—gyrating their hips, raising their arms in the air. It’s exhilarating. By the end of the song, I feel bound to these strangers by a shared joy in movement. 

The soothing voice is that of James S. Gordon, founder and director of The Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, D.C. And this is not some strange New Age aerobics class but the beginning of the CMBM’s intensive, five-day training of an assortment of health professionals in the science of mind-body medicine—a range of techniques that facilitates the brain’s ability to affect bodily functions and symptoms. Dr. Gordon, a Harvard-educated psychiatrist and professor at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, is constantly crisscrossing the globe to lead trainings like this one at the Sofitel in Redwood City. 

A charismatic presence with a grandfatherly demeanor, Gordon starts each session with the “shaking” meditation—a jubilant, freeing exercise that helps people break up fixed mental and biological patterns. Gordon’s book Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression describes this and other mind-body therapies in detail. “Expressive” meditations like shaking are not new. They have been used in many cultures and include the whirling of Sufi dervishes, Native American chanting and dancing, and the spontaneous movement that is part of the Indonesian spiritual exercise called the latihan.

Continue reading here or download the PDF of my article: Download PTSD

Floating my way to Inner Bliss

This is not unlike the tank I floated in at Portland's Float On (though mine did not resemble a giant white clog)  photo credit: True Rest in Tempe, Arizona

Last fall, after a conference at which I darted from session to session, networking with colleagues and tweeting obsessively, I returned to work feeling uncharacteristically scattered. I was supposed to be finishing a book proposal, but try as I might, I couldn't focus on anything longer than 140 characters. Multiple windows on my laptop vied for my attention, as did e-mails from editors, texts from friends, and a never-ending stream of provocative Facebook updates. This in addition to the pressures of being a soon-to-be stepmom. I'm usually pretty good at keeping my multiple balls in the air, but on this particular morning I felt as though my Mach-speed lifestyle had finally gotten the better of me.

Wishing I had a meditation practice to fall back on—like many people, I’ve tried and failed at mindfulness—I left the house and went for a walk in my southeast Portland neighborhood. Soon, I was strolling up Hawthorne, a lively boulevard of cafes, boutiques, and theatres. I paused outside the steamed-up windows of a storefront emblazoned with the words “Float On.” Scanning the shop’s brochure, which described a relaxing-sounding therapy of floating in a tank of 93.5-degree water spiked with Epsom salts, I chuckled. “Being in a float tank is like relaxing in outer space,” the copy read. Only in Portland, I muttered to myself, thinking of my city’s other quirky practices of yarn bombing and naked bike-riding.

But I pocketed the brochure anyway. A few days later, still feeling overstimulated, I read through it. “Floating is about everything you won’t be doing,” it said. “For an hour and a half, the outside world is gone, and amazing things happen.” It promised stress relief, a decrease in cortisol levels, and a chance to experience the “theta” state of consciousness—the slowed-down brain waves that happen right before you fall asleep (and that expert meditators often experience). The idea of taking a 90 minute, gravity-free respite from all media—indeed from the responsibilities of daily life—suddenly appealed to me. I decided to give "floating" a shot. 

Continue reading about my floating adventure in the December 2012 issue of Whole Living (on newstands now). [Or Download Floatinghw]

Organic Food for All

Responses to the recent Stanford University organic study have been all over the map. Some commentators, such as Marion Nestle, wrote that the study—which concludes that organic food is no more nutritious than its conventional counterparts—misses the point. No one buys organic food because they think it’s more nutritious. They buy it for what it doesn’t contain: pesticides. Others, such as Tom Philpott of Mother Jones, argued that the study underplays the health risks of even small amounts of organophosphate pesticidees. 

But most news reports let the study stand unchallenged. And Roger Cohen, a columnist at the International Herald Tribune, went a step further, gleefully celebrating the researchers’ findings because they confirmed his long-held view that organic food is a scam, a fad, a fable—“an elitist, pseudoscientific indulgence shot through with hype.”

Mr. Cohen may not be aware of the minefield he walked into by using the term “elitist.” After all, his beat is usually Middle East politics, not the U.S.’s sustainable food movement. The “elitist” slur has been lobbed at the food movement with such ferocity and regularity that it’s become a bit of a joke among movement activists. Are school gardens (most of which are organically farmed) elitist? Are the low-income folks in West Oakland who buy organic produce at sliding-scale farm stands elitist? Are the homeless people in my hometown of Portland, Oregon who get healthy, organic meals at Sisters of the Road, P:ear, or Outside In elitist?

Joking aside, the “elitist” tag is misguided because it perpetuates the notion that only upper-middle class people care about healthy, fresh, “organic” produce—and that’s patently not the case. As I’ve reported on the food justice movement over the past three years, I’ve met struggling people all over this country who love pesticide-free fresh fruits and vegetables and who find ways to get them on their plates—whether it’s via using food stamps at farmers’ markets, spotting deals at Walmart, or getting a plot at a community garden. Since when has it been “elitist” to not want poison on your food?

Little does Mr. Cohen know, but all across the country, small-scale projects are sprouting up that make it easier and more affordable for low-income populations to access fresh, affordable and yes, even organic produce. In West Oakland—a food desert—volunteers at City Slicker Farms have planted over 200 gardens in residents’ backyards. They may not be USDA-certified organic, but they are all grown without fertilizers and pesticides. (What I’ve taken to calling lower-case “o” organic.) This is also true of the crops grown at Cleveland’s 6-acre Ohio City Farm, which is adjacent to a low-income housing authority, and has a reasonably-priced farmers’ market that also accepts food stamps and WIC coupons. East New York Farms in Brownsville, Brooklyn, runs two community farmers’ markets where organic produce costs half as much as the produce sold at Union Square Greenmarket. There are similar initiatives in Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, L.A., Milwaukee, and on and on.

Savvy shoppers know that when you buy organic produce at the farmers’ market, you save a bundle. One study found that organic produce is nearly 40 percent cheaper at farmers’ markets than it is at supermarkets. (Potatoes were the only exception.) And unbeknownst to Cohen, nearly 3000 farmers’ markets and farm stands around the country accept food stamps. Organizations like Michel Nischan’s Wholesome Wave sweeten the deal by running “double value coupon programs” that match up to $20 that is spent in food stamps at participating farmers’ markets. Over 300 farmers’ markets around the country participate in this Double Value Coupon Program, which has dramatically increased the number of food stamp shoppers at farmers markets. Though not all the produce at farmers’ markets is USDA-certified Organic, most of it is grown without pesticides and using environmentally sensitive techniques like integrated pest management.

So when people like Mr. Cohen think that organic is synonymous with Whole Foods, I cringe. What about farmers’ markets and backyard gardens? What about Walmart, the largest seller of organic produce in the country? The assumption that Whole Foods is the only place to find organic food is in itself elitist. If Mr. Cohen spent any time in low-income neighborhoods (where not only are there no Whole Foods, there sometimes aren’t any grocery stores at all) he’d know that people of lower economic classes source their organic produce elsewhere.

Finally, many of us buy organic because we care about farmworker safety. While we’re all arguing about whether pesticide residue from conventional produce harms us eaters or not (and Cohen clearly thinks it does not), there is no doubt that the workers who toil in pesticide-laden fields get very sick indeed. (A recent study at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health found that even prenatal exposure to pesticides can have negative consequences.) Caring for others—how very elitist.

As for Cohen’s assertion that organic produce will never “feed the world,” I’ll defer to food justice guru and esteemed author Raj Patel. In his Room for Debate post, he pointed out that despite conventional agriculture’s current reliance on pesticides, we’re a long way off from feeding the world. One billion people are still malnourished despite the supposed high yields of GMO crops, and crops blanketed with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Patel is hopeful, though, and his hope lies with certain kinds of organic agriculture, which studies show can outperform conventional ag. (With lower input costs and a smaller carbon footprint to boot.) “Far from being a ‘luxury for the rich,’” Patel writes, “organic farming may turn out to be a necessity not just for the poor, but for everyone.” 

 

A Hot Topic: Menopause

When the Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly asked me to write about menopause, I hesitated. Menopause was something I was vaguely aware of, of course—having heard about the aggravating symptoms from my mom, aunt, and older women friends—but it was a subject I kept at a distance, like cancer or the conflict in Libya. But then I realized it'd be an opportunity for me to get to the bottom of all the confusion surrounding hormones (once known as HRT, now referred to by the North American Menopause Society as HT).  It would also let me interview a dozen really smart alumnae gynecologists.

I learned a lot reporting the resulting article which ran in the summer Quarterly. It turns out that the results of the famous Women's Health Initiative study should be taken with a grain of salt. The women in the estrogen-progestin trial had already gone through menopause when they started taking hormones—their average age was sixty-three. This, not the fact that they were taking hormones, may account for the increased risk of heart disease found during the study. Even the North American Menopause Society has said that it's safe for women to take a estrogen-progestin combo as long as you do it within ten years of menopause (because of the lower heart disease risk) and as long as you don't take it for more than five years (because of an increased risk of breast cancer). Read more of what I discovered—including integrative therapies like acupuncture and black cohosh that can help with hot flashes—here.

Dynamic Duos: Bill Telepan & Nancy Easton

 

There are dozens if not hundreds of organizations across the U.S. working to improve the quality of cafeteria food at public schools. But one of the best, in my estimation, is New York City's Wellness in the Schools (WITS), founded by Nancy Easton and two other public school parents in 2005. Bill Telepan, chef at the noted Manhattan farm-to-table restaurant Telepan, came on board a few years later when he realized that the kitchen at his daughter's school—like most public school kitchens—relied on packaged and processed foods (the barbeque sauce was made from ketchup and grape jelly--!) Today, WITS is bringing salad bars and healthy, made-from-scratch meals to public schools in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Manhattan.

WITS has 50-some volunteers—culinary students, nutritionists, or just those who are passionate about making sure kids have access to healthy food—who fan out amongst 35 public schools to help prepare healthy dishes such as homemade pesto on whole-grain pasta or flatbread pizza with homemade tomato sauce and roasted vegetables. (Full disclosure: I was a WITS volunteer several years ago, slicing veggies for a salad bar and making healthy cole slaw and "mediterranean pasta salad" for kids at Brooklyn's P.S. 157.)

Telepan has even gotten celebrity chefs involved. So far, 23 chefs—including Michael Anthony at Gramercy Tavern, David Chang at Momofuko, and Colleen Grapes at Red Cat—have adopted a public school. Over the course of a year, these chefs organize three “Wellness Café Days," using a new recipe and eating the meal alongside students. Some of the dishes that students try on Café Days are so popular that they’ve become WITS staples, such as the veggie salad wrap created by the team at Chop’t.

Still think that kids don't (or won't) eat vegetables or fruit? When it's fresh and plentiful, kids—of all ethnicities and economic backgrounds—can't get enough. I've seen it with my own eyes, and so has every WITS volunteer.

I write about Telepan and Easton in the latest issue of JW Marriott's new magazine. Download Jw marriott article

Cory Carman: how grass-fed beef saved the family ranch

When I heard Cory Carman speak at Ecotrust's food hub conference last spring, I knew I had to write about her. Her story, of taking over her family's ranch out in eastern Oregon and converting it to a 100% grass-fed operation, interested me for at least three reasons. First, ever since reading Michael Pollan's the Omnivore's Dilemma, I've been convinced of the environmental and nutritional superiority of grass-finished beef. (That is, beef that hasn't been fed corn for the last few months of its life.) So I'm always thrilled to discover ranchers and companies who are producing it. Second, Carman is part of a growing movement of educated young people who are choosing to make a living off the land. (For more evidence that this is, indeed, happening, check out the Greenhorns documentary.)

Finally, the challenges Carman spoke about that day—her struggle to find a USDA-inspected slaughterhouse that would take her business, finding an efficient way to get her beef to Portland eaters—illustrated logistical hurdles that small and medium-sized farmers and ranches face all over America. Sadly, our dominant food system is not set up for small, family-run ranches like Carman Ranch. That one plucky woman (and her other half, Dave) could tackle these challenges with creativity and perseverance, gives me hope that we can eventually change our food system.

Grass-fed beef is more popular than ever, but will it ever make up more than a tiny percent of the U.S. beef market? Americans have grown accustomed to marbled, corn-fed beef. Bringing grass-fed beef to the masses would require a major paradigm shift—not just in the eating and spending habits of the average American, but in the meat industry itself. We’d need to retrain ranchers in how to pasture cattle—how to keep them away from wild onions, bitterwheat, and forages that impart an off-flavor—and train them in the art of management intensive grazing. We’d need to give economic incentives for mobile slaughterhouses and smaller USDA-inspected facilities. We’d also need to end corn subsidies, which keep the price of corn-fed beef artificially cheap.    

For Carman and her cow-share customers, though, all this is, in a way, irrelevant. Waving a hand to members who are lingering to divvy up their meat, she says, “They know where their meat comes from and know the cows have never left the ranch. They’re eating whole animal quantities. This is totally representative of how our food system should be.”

Read more about Carman in the November issue of Portland Monthly.

Dining à la Cart

When I travel, I often judge a city by its street food: the bratwurst in Zurich (served on a golden Bürli roll and slathered with mustard), the buttery crepes fromage in Paris, porchetta sandwiches at markets in small Italian hilltowns, and pretty much anything from a food cart in my hometown of Portland, Oregon. (My latest favorite was the spicy fried chicken breast sandwich—made from Washington state's Draper Valley Farms chicken and topped with organic coleslaw at Cackalacks Hot Chicken Shack.)
 

But after a long-ago trip to Guatemala, I've become more circumspect when eating food (and drinking "fresh" juice) in certain developing countries. (I have one word for you, my friends: giardia.) So for this month's travel health column in Endless Vacation, I quiz Pok-Pok's Andy Ricker on his tips for staying healthy without sacrificing culinary adventures. (Ricker knows whereof he speaks—he spends several months out of each year sampling the street food in Laos, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Macau, shopping for ingredients and ideas for his renowned Portland restaurant.) I also interview Dr. Daniel Capliviski, the director of Mount Sinai's Travel Medicine Clinic.

Two tips I always follow myself: take a probiotic such as Culturelle or FloraStor—starting a week before your trip—and avoid tap water and other beverages that don't come from a sealed bottle or can. (Developing countries are the one place I break my plastic water ban—or opt for beer instead of water. Giardia is a very nasty and stubborn parasite—it can take months to get rid of it.) 

On another note, if you're gearing up for a summer camping vacation, you might want to consult my spring column on how to avoid—and treat—poison ivy, oak, and sumac.  (Treatment suggestions welcome!  I'm always looking for effective natural remedies.) 

 

 

Oregon's Pre-existing Condition

Like many Americans, I have a pre-existing condition. And as a freelancer who bought my own health insurance plan in New York City, it turns out I had it pretty good. As I reported this article for Portland Monthly, I discovered that New York is one of just a handful of states that's known as a "guaranteed issue" state: insurance companies in these states must cover residents who have pre-existing conditions, as long as they've had continuous coverage. To my dismay, in Oregon (where I recently moved) it's nearly impossible to find affordable health insurance that will cover all of me—namely the autoimmune disease I've had since college. In the story, I interview Nancy Metcalf, senior program editor at Consumer Reports Health, who told me that, if you're self-employed and searching for a good health insurance plan, which state you live in matters way more than you think it does. (Massachusetts, for example, covers everyone who is uninsured, subsidizing residents who are at 300 percent of the poverty level or less. The really poor don't pay any premium; the moderately poor can find plans that start at $39 a month.) I also spoke at length to OSPIRG's Laura Etherton, a super knowledgeable local health care advocate, and sat in on an Oregon Healthy Policy Board meeting), which gave me insight into how Oregon's plan dovetails with the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. (Though imperfect—for one thing, it won't require insurance companies cover adults with pre-existing conditions until 2014—Obama's legislation is worth fighting for, and I was happy to read in the Times this morning that Demoratic senators and reps are doing just that.)

The Kombucha Craze

Last summer, while visiting friends in Portland, Oregon, I had my first sip of kombucha. After a morning hike up the trails of hilly Forest Park, we stopped at a food co-op near Northwest 23rd.

Renee was keen on having some kombucha.

"What's kombucha?" I asked. Somehow, I hadn't yet noticed the fermented tea creeping into the aisles of Brooklyn bodegas and grocery stores.

"You know that jar of liquid on the sink with a blob fermenting in it?" she said. I had to admit, I'd been afraid to ask what that was. It looked like some sort of liquid compost. 

At first, I thought it was nasty. Sour with a slight carbonation and little wisps of what I would later learn is a SCOBY ("Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast"), kombucha tasted more like fizzy cider vinegar than tea. But over the course of a few days, kombucha started to grow on me. I learned that it's a traditional fermented tea with a long history in China, Russia, and the Middle East, and that it's packed with B vitamins, probiotics, folic acid, and organic acids of various sorts (though which ones is a matter of some dispute). I experimented with several flavors of GT's, a popular brand that I found in ready supply at Portland's New Seasons Market. On my return to Brooklyn, I began seeking out local brews such as Kombucha Brooklyn. Thus began my fascination with this tart, fizzy beverage.

As I write in the March issue of Body + Soul (Download Hannah Wallace- Strange Brew) kombucha is the latest health craze, with indie companies and giants alike jumping on the kombucha bandwagon. (Red Bull has its very own label called Carpe Diem, and Celestial Seasonings is about to launch their own line of bottled kombucha, too.) Purportedly, the drink has all kinds of health benefits—devotees say it boosts the immune system, promotes energy, and improves everything from acne and digestion to arthritis pain and tendinitis. (Others swear by it as a hangover remedy.) But in the course of reporting this story, I found it very difficult to find even one M.D. who would champion the beverage. One, a well-known integrative physician, wrote simply, "As far as I can tell, the buzz is mostly hype—not much research behind it. For that reason, I’ve been reluctant to recommend it to my patients, although I don’t actively discourage it either."

 As with many healthy foods and supplements, kombucha hasn't had a groundswell of research dollars to help prove or disprove the health claims. For now, we only have a few in vitro and animal studies that show kombucha has potent antioxidant and immuno-stimulating effects. (It also improves sleep and reduces pain in rats, apparently, though don't ask me how the scientists know the rats sleep better once they've imbibed kombucha.)

But many holistic doctors and nutritionists spoke to me of seeing their patients improve once they introduced kombucha (and other fermented foods) into their diets. Brooke Moen, a San Francisco-based acupuncturist, told me that B vitamins, live enzymes, and organic acids are all crucial for good digestive health. "B vitamins are one of the things that get wiped out when the gut is imbalanced," she says. "And enzymes catalyze processes. They move things along, break things down."

Though Moen is skeptical of many of the health claims made about kombucha, she says it's not uncommon for many conditions to improve when a person's digestive tract is working properly. "Digestion is the foundation of health. Anytime you improve assimilation and elimination, the rest of your symptoms resolve," she says. From a chinese medicine perspective, sour and bitter flavors can "move liver congestion and qi stagnation"—meaning they assist the liver and gallbladder in breaking down and removing toxins. "A fundamental treatment principle for much illness is to help move that which is stuck," Moen told me. 

See here for my guide to making your own batch at home.

 

Solutions for Dry Hair, Chapped Skin and other Winter Blahs

 

As the snow continues to fall here in New York City, it seems an appropriate time to mention my last column for Endless Vacation travel magazine, a round-up of the best products for lackluster skin, static-prone hair and chapped hands. Unfortunately, it's not available online, but here are a few of my favorites: Kiehl's Imperial Body Balm, an ultra-rich cream that contains sea-buckthorn berry, a beta-carotene-rich fruit, and shea butter; Andrew Weil's Plantidote Mega-Mushroom Face Cream (a splurge at $61 for a small jar, but a little goes a long way); and the Body Shop's Ginger Scalp Care Shampoo. (Actually, my favorite product for staticky hair is the Body Shop's banana conditioner, which has just been re-released after a hiatus of 15 years.) I also include some drugstore finds such as A+D ointment (good for chapped skin and as a nighttime eye cream) and jojoba oil (for splashing on after a shower or bath).

My most recent E.V. column, on how to avoid heat-related maladies, seems entirely inappropriate for the current weather conditions. But it'll serve you well should you be headed to a tropical locale. (And if you are, I'm envious!)

The Globalization of Healthcare

As we continue to debate (and debate and debate) health-care reform in this country, many Americans who are either uninsured or under-insured are traveling abroad for health care. And not just for plastic surgery or dental work, as I found out while writing this article for Endless Vacation (RCI's travel magazine).

The savings are enormous, even, unbelievably, when you factor in international airfare and luxury hotels. In India, which has an array of top-end facilities including Wockhard and Apollo Hospitals, the average price for medical care is 80% less than it is here in the U.S., according to Devon Herrick, senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis in Washington D.C.

Adventurous travelers are heading to Costa Rica for dental work, India for high-tech heart and orthopedic surgeries (including hip resurfacing, which is not widely practiced in the U.S.), and Turkey for oncology care. And the total number of "health tourists" is only expected to rise in coming years, according to health economists. 

If you're intrigued, check out these 7 tips which I gleaned from Josef Woodman, author of Patients Beyond Borders: Everybody's Guide to Affordable, World-Class Medical Travel.

Coffee: is it Good or Bad for your Health?

A latte at Portland's 3rd St. Stumptown, August 2009

The news about coffee couldn't get much better: drinking it lessens one’s risk of type 2 diabetes, liver cirrhosis and gallstones—not to mention heart disease and cancer. It's a legal performance-enhancer. And according to a recent Finnish study, drinking 3-5 cups a day can even stave off dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease. Yet, as I write in the latest issue of Whole Living (pg. 127), coffee does have some downsides—and some people can tolerate the beverage better than others. To see the PDF:  Download CoffeeHealth 

Coffee actually has a long history of medicinal use. In the 14th century, Arab women would drink it to alleviate menstrual discomforts; the Turks, for their part, claimed coffee was an aphrodisiac. The Indian Materia Medica prescribes coffee for everything from infant cholera to spasmodic asthma and states that coffee “assists assimilation and digestion” and even protects against malaria. In Chinese medicine, coffee would be classified as a medicinal herb that regulates liver qi and purges the gallbladder—which is to say it improves mood and promotes the production and flow of bile. (This explains coffee’s ability to prevent the formation of gallstones and alleviate constipation.) 

Despite coffee's proven health benefits, many in the holistic health world scorn the beverage, saying coffee depletes the adrenal glands (among other things). Subhuti Dharmananda, Ph.D., the director of the Institute for Traditional Medicine in Portland, Oregon, disagrees. “The frequently repeated comment that caffeine causes adrenal exhaustion was based on one old and not repeated animal study,” he told me. Nonetheless, he acknowledges that coffee is not right for everyone and says moderation is key: one to three 6-8 ounce cups a day is a good range. (A Starbucks “Tall” is 12 ounces—so try to limit yourself to two Talls. And lay off the Frappuccinos. Such sugar-laden beverages are “just a mess” says Dharmananda.)

Coffee—which comes from a berry, let’s not forget—is a traditional beverage with a long history of being enjoyed by various cultures: it’s been cultivated since at least the 13th century, when Arabians began roasting and grinding the beans before brewing the bitter elixir. Michael Pollan's by-now well known edict “Don't eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food” has become my mantra. I’m sure my great-great-grandmother, who lived in Baltimore in the first half of the 20th century, wouldn’t know what to make of a Frappuccino. But I bet she drank and savoured her coffee. And so, then, will I.

 

Mercury + your health

Mercury is a heavy metal that’s found naturally in the earth’s crust. But there’s nothing natural about the amount of mercury that’s released into the atmosphere these days: 104 metric tons a year, according to the EPA. Coal-fired power plants, which generate over half of the U.S.’s electricity, are the nation’s largest source of mercury emissions. But mercury is also emitted from municipal and hazardous waste combustors, medical waste incinerators, and chloralkali plants (chlorine-producing factories) and it finds its way into our water via the improper disposal of batteries and other mercury-containing products such as thermometers, thermostat switches and even compact fluorescent light bulbs. 

From these combined sources, elemental mercury accumulates in lakes, streams and oceans, where it converts into methylmercury and is absorbed by fish. Large predatory fish—those that live longest and are higher on the food chain, such as tuna, swordfish, shark, king mackerel, and tilefish—contain more mercury than small fish. 

But as I report in the June issue of Body + Soul (tear sheet here: Download Hannah Wallace- Mercury+ Health), the list of high-mercury fish is much longer than the FDA would have us believe—and it's not just pregnant women and children who need to beware. Jane Hightower M.D., author of the riveting book Diagnosis: Mercury: Money, Politics, and Poison, discovered through diligent detective-work that many of her patients—otherwise healthy adults—were suffering from mercury toxicity. The reason? Thinking that fish (packed as it is with brain-boosting omega-3's) is healthier than meat, they were eating it (sushi, fresh swordfish steaks, you name it) two to three times a day.

I wouldn't doubt it if Jeremy Piven really did have mercury poisoning. His symptoms—extreme fatigue, dizziness, and neuro-muscular dysfunction—are the very ones that Hightower has seen in her San Francisco-based patients. Once again, moderation seems to be the key to a healthy life. Meanwhile, instead of listening to the FDA, I'll be consulting the Environmental Working Group's sensible, fact-based list of fish to avoid.

Pathfinders in Public Health

I wrote this article about Mount Holyoke alumnae who are spearheading important public health projects before the swine flu epidemic hit.  But this outbreak (just like the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe, and the very real dilemma of antibiotic resistance here in the U.S.A.) shows just how vital preventive measures are—and I'm glad to see that President Obama is focusing on prevention. Since his deputy chief of staff is a Mount Holyoke alumnae, I'd like to think she read this article carefully—particularly the answers these five women gave to my question What would you ask President Obama to do for public health? 

The Truth about Lipitor

Sally Fallon's talk last week inspired me to delve into the latest research on cholesterol and statins. Though this investigative article is over a year old (it was BusinessWeek's cover story last January 17th), it's one of the most thorough I could find on the subject of statins (specifically, Pfizer's blockbuster drug Lipitor) and their inability to significantly reduce heart attacks in any but those who have already had heart disease. 

Journalist John Carey's main points, in case you don't have time to read the whole thing:

1. Pfizer has mislead the public (as most pharmaceutical companies do) by using this dramatic statistic in its ads: Lipitor reduces the risk of heart attack by 36%. Read the fine print, and you'll see that in a large clinical study, only 1 person out of 100 was spared a heart attack after taking Lipitor for 3 years. (In scientific parlance, Lipitor has a very high NNT—number needed to treat—of 100. Compare that to the standard antibiotic therapy to treat H. pylori stomach bacteria, which has an NNT of 1.1—10 out of 11 people will be cured.) 

2. 10-15% of statin users suffer side effects including muscle pain, cognitive impairments, and sexual dysfunction. Small prices to pay if you're definitely preventing a heart attack. But if after 3 years of these unhappy developments you only reduce your risk of coronary events by 1 out of 100—you have to ask yourself if Lipitor is worth taking. (Not to mention its high price tag—if not to you directly, then to insurance companies, Medicare, and ultimately back to you via taxes.)

3. Though Lipitor indisputably lowers cholesterol levels, many scientists are raising doubts that we need to drive down our cholesterol levels in the first place. (i.e. the whole cholesterol hypothesis of heart disease is under intense scrutiny.)  As Dr. Ronald M. Krauss, director of atherosclerosis research at the Oakland Research Institute says in the article, "When you look at patients with heart disease, their cholesterol levels are not that [much] higher than those without heart disease."  John Carey, the reporter, continues:

Compare countries, for example. Spaniards have LDL levels similar to Americans', but less than half the rate of heart disease. The Swiss have even higher cholesterol levels, but their rates of heart disease are also lower. Australian aborigines have low cholesterol but high rates of heart disease.

It's starting to look like Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, Gary Taubes, Uffe Ravnskov (author of the out-of-print "Cholesterol Myths"), and other "cholesterol skeptics" (as they're known) should not have been so quickly dismissed.

The Oiling of America—why saturated fats deserve a second chance

Last night, I attended a riveting talk by Sally Fallon, president and founder of the Weston A. Price Foundation and author of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats. The sanctuary of the Community Church of New York was packed—a sign to me that even New Yorkers have an increased interest in the traditional diets that Price encountered on his travels around the world in the 1930's.

Tall and regal, with a mane of white hair, Fallon stepped up to the podium and began detailing the history of the lipid hypothesis, which is, of course, still accepted as the gospel Truth in the U.S.  Americans ate a diet high in saturated fats in the early 20th century (to illustrate, Fallon read a list of buttery, creamy, lard-filled recipes from an 1895 cookbook published by the Baptist society of Illinois), yet the first recorded heart attack wasn't until 1921. By the time Americans had shifted their diets to include more vegetable oils and processed foods in the 1960s, 500,000 were dying of heart attack.

Two theories emerged as to why so many Americans were suddenly dying of heart disease. One was that vegetable oils, which had recently been introduced into the diet, were to blame; the other was the diet-heart theory (aka the lipid hypothesis)—that Americans were eating too much saturated fat and had high serum cholesterol levels. Despite the fact that there was little evidence for the latter (in fact, a study by Harvard pathologists Lande and Sperry of 1936 showed that there was no correlation between cholesterol levels and atherosclerosis), the lipid hypothesis was the theory that was promoted "with great vigor," according to Fallon. An organization was even founded to promote it and something called the "prudent diet": the American Heart Association.

I won't reiterate the entire sordid saga—which is full of industry pressure (Proctor & Gamble, et all), doctored study results, and plenty of medical professionals who were skeptical of the lipid hypothesis, including the American Medical Association—but I did have two "A-ha" moments. One was when Fallon told us how Mary Enig, who did her PhD thesis on trans fats at the University of Maryland, realized that most foods that contained trans fats (margarine, vegetable shortening, cookies, chips, etc.) were not labeled as such—food companies actually listed trans fats as saturated fats until the 1980's. So researchers using government databases (in particular, one called the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey or NHANES II) came to the erroneous conclusion that saturated fats were causing disease—when in fact trans fats were to blame.  Every epidemiological study done before 1980 (that had to do with saturated fat intake and heart disease), Fallon says, is extremely suspect.

The other was that the Framingham Heart study (one of the three studies most often cited by our government to bolster the lipid hypothesis) was presented in a misleading way. (See slide #13 on Fallon's PPT presentation.) The intervals on the bar graph start out evenly spaced (with 30 points between each cholesterol number), but the final interval is a whopping 830 points—making the increase in heart disease at the upper-end of the cholesterol spectrum appear drastic. Fallon showed us what the heart disease line would look like if the intervals were evenly spaced, with 30 points between cholesterol numbers: it's almost horizontal. The upshot: if your cholesterol level is 1000 (a very rare condition) you have a slightly increased risk of heart disease.

I'm going to stop there, because I hope to write more about this controversial subject in the future. But for those who are interested, here's a link to "The Oiling of America" talk on DVD and an article version is on the Weston A. Price site.

Minimizing Jet Lag

In my humble opinion, there's nothing new to say about how to minimize the effects of Jet Lag—sleep on the plane (if you're one of the lucky few who can), take melatonin at your new bedtime, and start eating & sleeping on the new time zone ASAP.  (And frankly, the only thing that works for me is a First Class lie-flat seat and time—one day for each hour I'm crossing.) But while reporting this month's column for Endless Vacation, I did learn that melatonin is not available over-the-counter in countries such as Germany. Also, my doubts about the controlled-release version of Ambien (Ambien CR) were confirmed by Dr. Teitelbaum, who says many of his patients have found it to be mildly addictive. (It's a much higher dose than regular ambien—12.5 mg. versus 5 or 10 mg.) 

Travel health Insurance

Let's be honest. When was the last time you clicked that little box "I want trip insurance" when you bought a plane ticket online?

But you should. Most private health insurance plans don't cover medical expenses incurred outside of the U.S. —and rarely do they cover evacuation to the nearest hospital, which may be a problem if you're in rural China or hiking a mountain in Peru. And don't think that you're impervious to accident or illness just because you're traveling to a western city such as London or Paris. 

After reporting this story, I decided to check that box. For only $80 or so extra per trip, I'm covered for up to $10,000 in medical expenses and $20,000 in emergency medical transportation but also $500 in case of flight delay and 125% of my trip's cost if my trip is interrupted. 

Herbal remedies on-the-go

Valerian or melatonin?  Airborne or Emergen-C? Natural "alternative" remedies are all the rage—but do they really work? And which of the many out there work best for specific complaints? 

I interviewed Naturopathic Doctor Joseph Pizzorno, a leading authority on science-based natural medicine and President Emeritus of Bastyr University in Kenmore, Washington for this E.V. column to find out which therapies are best for five common travel maladies and why.  

Preventing Migraines/ Vogue

Check out my one page story (Download Vogue) in the April issue of Vogue ("Sweet Relief," pg. 253) on how to prevent migraine headaches with "alternative" treatments such as acupuncture and feverfew. I came up with the idea after reading Judith Warner's nytimes.com blog about her struggle with chronic migraines and how amitriptyline (her regular medication) wasn't working well anymore (and caused nasty side effects).  That blog received an outpouring of letters from other migraineurs—572 of them at last count—many of which advised Warner to try acupuncture, magnesium supplements, biofeedback or other complementary treatments.  I did some research and realized that, while more studies are needed, many alternative treatments have a great deal of scientific research behind them.

Why I Love Europe, reason #223

If you aren't a member of RCI, you've probably never heard of Endless Vacation, the travel magazine that I write a health column for.  But that's O.K., I'm giving you the unexpurgated version of the story I wrote for the March/April issue on a subject dear to my heart: European thermal baths. (The published version had to be drastically cut for space—something I don't have to worry about on this here blog.) Feel free to leave your comments, especially if you've been to any of these and want to weigh in with your own experiences.

But here's the "On Location" I wrote about our recent visit to the Engadin Bad Scuol in Switzerland. 

THE WATER CURE
by hannah wallace

In America, spas are typically high-end affairs. You go for one or two (expensive) treatments, and only then do you gain access to the sauna, steam room, and whirlpool (there’s usually only one of each). Europe’s classic thermal spas are a breed unto themselves. Enormous complexes that you can get lost in, they have mazes of indoor mineral pools—hot and cold, with fountains and jets—circuits of steam rooms, saunas (of varying temperatures and styles), foot baths, and cold plunge pools that you cycle through until your body is flushed and wrinkled. There are even "relaxation chairs" where you can nap after the exhausting activity of taking the waters.

The Romans were bathing fanatics—recognizing the healing properties of mineral water, they built their towns around springs and founded elaborate bathing complexes. “Taking the cure” became fashionable again in the 19th and early 20th centuries when soaking in thermal waters was prescribed for everything from arthritis and rheumatism to sterility and gastrointestinal ailments, but fell out of favor after the second World War, with advances in medicine. But now that the link between stress and disease has been established, wellness is a priority again and thermal baths are no longer the domain of elderly pensioners who’ve come to convalesce. These days, Europe’s classic baths attract a mix of fit young couples, athletes, and even families who come to lose themselves in a timeless ritual and relax with a range of treatments, from aromatherapy massages and mud packs to colonics and drinking cures (imbibing mineral water).

Traditions vary from country to country, but generally, you should allow two to three hours for steaming, soaking, and plunging.  The circuit goes something like this: 20 minutes in a steam room or sauna followed by a cold plunge, followed by another steaming session or soak in a thermal pool, followed by another cold plunge.  At any point you can sit and rest or read a book in the “relaxing room” (a concept American spas should make note of), where you drink copious amounts of mineral water to replenish your fluids. Showering before entering the baths is compulsory. Rules about nudity vary—in the German and Swiss traditions, nudity is strictly enforced in the sauna areas (though not in the baths themselves), whereas in England and Turkey, you must wear bathing suits (or in the case of Turkey, tea towels) at all times. (See “etiquette” for specific customs, below.)

Austria
Therme Rogner Bad Blumau, Styria(43/0) 3383-5100-0; www.blumau.com; Day rate $54 [37€])  (Double room at the hotel are $366 [250€] and include unlimited spa access and two meals.)

This colorful spa hotel, designed by the Austrian artist/ecologist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, looks like something out of a fairy-tale orchestrated by Gustav Klimt. There are no right angles—Hundertwasser was famous for his rejection of the straight line—and the curvy, multi-hued buildings sprout grass from their roofs. The thermal baths are magical, too: indoor and outdoor pools, heated to a lukewarm 97 degrees, are connected by a swimmable tunnel and encircled by whimsical bridges and terraces. Even hotter and more healing is Vulkania lake, which draws from volcanic springs 9,000 feet below the earth’s surface. Soaking in this piping hot 230-degree water, which is high in salt and mineral content, speeds up metabolism, promotes blood circulation, and firms and smoothes the skin. Though you can order a medical consultation, the focus here is on wellness through stress management: in addition to flower essence massages, acupuncture, and sound therapy, you can take Tai Chi and yoga classes as well as aerobics and Masai MBT walking. (Guests at the 312-room hotel get unlimited access to the hot springs as breakfast and dinner at one of 9 on-site restaurants.)

Etiquette: Swim suits are required everywhere except for the sauna area, which is a nude zone.

Czech Republic
Marienbad (Mariánské Lazné) (www.marienbad.cz; Day spa packages start at $113 [77€], but any single treatment at the spa includes entrance to the baths; A classical spa stay, with room at Nove Lazne (the best hotel in town) is $183 [125 €] and includes two medical exams, full board, unlimited access to the baths, and a customized cure plan that includes 3-4 spa treatment a day.

In its heyday in the 1850's, this spa town attracted 20,000 visitors a year—including Goethe, Frédéric Chopin, Thomas Edison, and King Edward VII. Treatments range from the spa-like (dry brush massage, peat wraps) to the medical (acupuncture, colon hydrotherapy, gas therapy)—you can even get an EKG ($22 [15€]) or a urine analysis ($3 [2€]). Yet the focus here is on the “drinking cure”: imbibing large quanitities of mineral water each day to stimulate the kidneys, improve digestion and increase absorption of minerals from food. (Marienbad has six different springs, each with its own mineral composition, each targeting a different ailment.) Though the on-site doctors will treat any condition, the focus here is on kidney and urinary tract disorders as well as infertility and sexual dysfunction. (Gas therapy, in case you were wondering, helps men who have recently had prostate surgery “improve their manhood.”)

Etiquette: the Czech bathing culture takes its cue from the German tradition: swim suits are verboten in the steam rooms and saunas. Though they are optional in the mineral pools, suits are required in the swimming pool.

England
Thermae Bath Spa, Bath (44-01225-33-1234; www.thermaebathspa.com; Day rate $108 [£52])
Health tourists have flocked to Bath since at least AD 70, when the Romans built Aquae Sulis here, a sophisticated bathing complex dedicated to the goddess Sulis Minerva. Fed by mineral-rich springs, the roman baths were said to cure everything from rheumatic and muscular disorders to skin ailments and respiratory problems. These days, after a $48 million [£23] upgrade, Thermae Bath Spa attracts a new breed of wellness-seeker: those for whom a caviar facial is just as healing as “taking the waters” in a 114.8-degree springs. The New Royal Bath, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw’s strikingly modern glass box, contains two thermal baths—one an open-air rooftop pool with views of the city—and four steam rooms, each infused with a different aromatherapy oil: lavender, mountain pine, eucalyptus mint, or jasmine. For an extra charge, you can also soak in two historic baths, the intimate Cross Bath ($27 [£13] for 90 minutes) and the Hot Bath (reserved for Watsu massage treatments). Though there are no week-long programs here, you can sign up for individual spa treatments or a day-long package such as the “Thermae Top to Toe”: a 4-hour spa session, followed by a 2-course meal, use of the Kraxen Stove (a steam room with alpine hay), a full-body massage, and a facial. (Cost: $261 [£125])

Etiquette: Swimming costumes (as the Brits put it) are required in all baths, steam rooms, and pools.

Germany
Baden-Baden  (www.carasana.de) Day rate (4 hours) $23 [16 €] for Caracalla Spa and $43 [29 € 3.5 hours, including brush massage] for Friedrichsbad)
“I fully believe I left my rheumatism in Baden-Baden,” Mark Twain wrote in A Tramp Abroad. The pure waters here, which spurt from a depth of 6,500 feet, haven’t changed much since Twain’s visit in the 1880’s: they’re still touted for healing rheumatism and other chronic inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. (German doctors also prescribe visits for patients with spinal and locomotive disorders, degenerative spine disease, and broken bones.) There are two equally seductive complexes: the grande, marble-columned, 32,000 square-foot Caracalla Spa, with its multitude of pools and grottos and recently renovated sauna area (which includes the space-age “blue space” relaxation room and two log cabin saunas); or the neo-classical Roman-Irish Friedrichsbad, with its momentous Beaux Arts dome, where bathers follow a traditional 17-step ritual that includes steaming, soaking, and an invigorating scrub-brush massage (it’s good for the circulation). For an extra charge, you can work out at the ArenaVita fitness center or get a Lomi-lomi massage or anti-aging facial at the CaraVitalis spa.

Etiquette: Nudity strictly enforced at Friedrichsbad (though linen towels are provided for stages 1-5); bathing suits are worn in the bathing area of Caracalla, but not in the saunas and steam rooms, where they are verboten.  (Friedrichsbad has single-sex days; however, men and women still meet up for several stages of the circuit.) 

Hungary
Saint Gellért Medicinal Bath and Pools, Budapest (36-1-452-4500;
www.gellertfurdo.hu; Day rate $18 [3,100 florin])

Though Budapest didn’t earn the nickname “City of Spas” until the 1930’s, it has been known for its thermal springs since the Romans colonized the area west of the River Danube, calling it Aquincum (abundant in water). Today, of the fifteen baths still in use, the most famous is the Art Nouveau Saint Gellért Baths, with nine medicinal pools, five saunas, a solarium, an indoor effervescent pool (with underwater jets), and an open-air wave pool. The opulent facilities (currently undergoing an extensive renovation) evoke the early 20th century when the spa was built: there are domed ceilings, marble pillars, bronze statues, and colorful mosaic floors. The mineral waters—rich in calcium, magnesium, sodium, and fluoride ions—are used to treat everything from migraines and sports-related injuries to arthritis and osteoporosis. In addition to massages, pedicures, and mud packs, you can order up medicinal treatments such as an underwater beam massage, inhalation therapy (for those who suffer from asthma or chronic bronchitis), and even dental surgery (there is an on-site dental clinic). Top the whole experience off by sunbathing on the roof terrace.

Etiquette: bathing suits required in baths and saunas. (This may change after the renovation in late 2008.)

Italy
Adler Thermae, Tuscany (39 0577 889 001; www.adler-thermae.com; Doubles from $315 [215€], includes unlimited use of the baths and sauna area. Day rate $161 [110€], includes access to pools, sauna park and 1 massage; Weekly stays start at 1,862 [1270€])

The ancient Etruscans and then the Romans venerated the healing thermal waters of Bagno Vignoni. The Adler, a classic terme (Italian for mineral spring) at a lavish hotel, draws on these same springs today, providing guests with a mix of sulphate, bicarbonate, calcium and magnesium that’s good for the bones, joints, and skin. In addition to soaking in the enormous, curving outdoor pool (heated to 96.8 degrees), you can make the rounds from an herbal-infused steam room to a Finnish sauna (made of olive tree wood, which emits oils that are good for the skin), to a seductive salt water grotto, and the “Grotta del Filosofa” (a steambath in a candle-lit cave). Resident doctor Thomas Platzer can give you a medical check-up, test you for food allergies, and treat you with herbs and bach flower remedies.

Etiquette: No suits in the sauna park or steam rooms (though towels can be worn); suits are worn in the thermal pools, but not the the salt water grotto.

Switzerland
Bon Engadina Scuol, Scuol, (41-81-861-20-00;
www.scuol.ch/de/navpage-BognEngiadinaSCUOL.html; 3 hours from $22 [25SF]; entrance to the Roman-Irish bath (includes use of regular bath + sauna area) is $59 [66SF]

The highlight of this complex, located in Switzerland’s Lower Engadine Valley, is the Roman-Irish bath. Like the Friedrichsbad at Baden-baden, it’s an ordered circuit of steaming, relaxing, bathing, and scrubbing where you lose track of time; however, here, you can reserve it for two to four people, meaning you get complete privacy. The regular bathing area isn’t bad either: the steamy outdoor pool, with jets and waterfalls to pummel your sore muscles, has views of the Dolomite mountains. The indoor pool, surrounded by jacuzzis of varying temperatures, a steam room, and relaxation chairs, is ideal for families. Utterly peaceful is the adults-only sauna area, which has an outdoor Finnish sauna (203 degrees F [95 C]), a cold plunge pool, foot baths, and a quiet relaxation room. You’re also encouraged to drink the water here, which is rich in calcium, magnesium, and carbon dioxide and is good for the stomach and digestive system. Spa treatments—everything from underwater massages to Fango treatments—and medical examinations are also available for an extra charge.

Etiquette: Bathing suits required in the thermal pools; you must shed them for the sauna area and the Roman-Irish bath.

The Revolution Will Not be Pasteurized!

There aren't that many reporters who cover the raw milk beat, but I was happy to see an 8-page story on the subject by Nathanael Johnson in the current issue (April) of Harper's magazine. Those of you who read my story in Salon.com (click here for a refresher), should take a look. 

While it covers some of the same material that I did in my article, Johnson talks at length to Michael Schmidt, the Canadian farmer who went on a hunger strike after his farm was raided by national health inspectors, and  also visits Mark McAfee at Organic Pastures.   It's a great read and further evidence that there is a growing need in this country for unprocessed, whole, REAL foods that are made on a small scale by farmers who care more about the quality of their food (in this case, milk and other dairy products) than the bottom line.   

Vegie Dogs? I think not.

I laughed when an editor at Vegetarian Times asked me to write a story answering the question, "Should my dog (or cat) go Vegetarian?"  My unequivocal answer was "NO!"  How could I write a 1300-word story saying, in effect, um, no?  But once I began researching the issue, I realized that there are actually a whole lot of vegies and vegans out there—not to mention companies who cater to them—who try to get their naturally carnivorous pets to eat garbanzo beans and quinoa. There's even an organization called the Vegan Dog Nutrition Association. 

As I say in the article (Download 0308_VegPets), if you want your pet to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle, you should stick with a "companion animal" that's naturally vegan such as a rabbit or a guinea pig.  My cats (this is Iris, above) love fruit and vegies, but I would never think of depriving them of the food that gives them the most sustenance (and pleasure): meat. And yes, they prefer it raw. (Current favorite brand is Primal from San Francisco.) 

Toxic Mattresses?

If you're like me, you probably never gave much thought to your mattress—other than making sure it's firm and comfortable. Well, if you're chemically sensitive or at all concerned about your health, you should read my article, "Nocturnal Emissions," in the current (March/April) issue of Mother Jones.   

While researching this piece, I was surprised to learn that most mattresses are made of polyurethane foam, which in turn is made from petroleum. Polyurethane foam is highly flammable—in the insurance industry, it’s referred to as “solid gasoline.” (Once lit, mattresses release intense heat, large quantities of dense smoke, and toxic gases such as carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen cyanide.) In 1972, in an attempt to reduce the number of deaths caused by fires started in the bedroom, the U.S. Department of Commerce adopted the first federal mattress flammability regulation, which required that all mattresses made or sold in this country be resistant to a lit cigarette.    Today, however, mattress companies must comply with both the "cigarette smoldering" test and a new open-flame standard. To pass these tests, overseen by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, companies are treating mattress fabrics with fire-resistant chemicals. (We don't even know which ones since most conventional mattress companies are being very tight-lipped, calling their flame-retardant blends "proprietary.")

A note about PBDEs, the flame retardant chemicals that cause liver, thyroid, and nervous system toxicity.

In 2004, the European Union banned penta- and octaBDE (used in personal computers and small appliances), a step the EPA has so far refused to take—largely because U.S. government and regulatory agencies require proof that a product is dangerous before pulling it, whereas in Europe, manufacturers bear the burden of proving that a product is safe. (The EPA does require manufacturers to notify it if they plan to use either penta- or octaBDE, and the sole U.S. manufacturer of these chemicals phased out production in 2004.) However, two states have followed the EU’s lead, banning the sale of products containing these two PBDEs—Maine (in 2005) and California (in June 2006).

From the 1980's until the end of 2004, though, pentaBDE was the main flame retardant chemical used on polyurethane foam.   

Here's some background that was cut from my story for space:

Whether or not PBDEs were used in mattresses is a controversial issue. While anti-PBDE activists and green mattress advocates contend that mattresses made in this country before 2004 likely contain PBDEs, Luedecka of the Polyurethane Foam Association says that untreated polyurethane foam itself is resistant to smoldering ignition—so mattress companies would not have had any reason to treat their foam with fire resistant chemicals. “Polyurethane foam itself is an efficient thermoplastic—meaning without fire retardants it shrinks and retreats from a radiant heat source,” says Luedecka. In other words, mattresses made of polyurethane foam would’ve passed the federal smoldering test with flying colors. However, Luedecka admits that there were requests from mattress companies that insisted their foam be fire resistant in order to meet California’s open flame regulation for furniture, TB 117. (Passed in 1975, this standard required that all furniture sold in California pass an open flame test; though mattresses weren’t included in this proviso until 2005, some companies, according to Luedecka, still asked that their mattresses comply.) Ironically, then, California—known for its environmental leadership—unwittingly encouraged the use of PBDEs when it adopted this stringent legislation.

Bottom line?  While the chances that your pre-2004 mattress contains PBDEs is small, there are other chemicals in conventional mattresses that you may not want to sleep next to every night, particularly if you are chemically sensitive or have a weak immune system.   (Note that while "green" mattresses are expensive--in the story, I quote Savvy Rest's queen-sized model selling for $1,599, that's not THAT much more than a queen-sized mattress from Simmons, which is $1,000.) 

I'll leave you with this quote, from Michael Penny, owner of the Virginia-based organic mattress company Savvy Rest. 

“Thirty to forty years ago, tobacco companies would’ve said that there was no conclusive proof that cigarettes were bad for your health,” says Penny. “But back then, someone who was mindful of her health would’ve said, ‘I’m not sure it’s bad for me—but I’m sure it’s not good for me, either.’”

Happiness @ Work?

A few years ago, when I was an editor at Travel + Leisure, I was diagnosed with two herniated disks. Though far from incapacitated, I quickly realized that sitting made the pain much worse—unfortunate, since much of my job required me to plant myself at a desk or sit through frequent (and lengthy) editorial meetings. I tried taking periodic water cooler breaks and sitting with crossed legs (better), but the pressure was still intense and the sciatica eventually became unbearable. The only positions that gave me true relief were headstands, lying flat on my back, and standing. Since the former two were out of the question at the office, I focused on standing. Driven by pain, I knocked on my managing editor’s door. Could I possibly get a new desk?  One that’s 60 inches off the floor so that I can stand while editing? After hearing me out, he promised to put in a request for one. A month or two later, I had a chic black custom-made desk that was the envy of the office. Even the fashion-forward art director coveted my new setup, but more importantly, my action inspired another colleague who had been struggling with severe pain from her own herniated disks, to request a similar desk in her cubicle.

Sometimes, achieving a measure of happiness at work is as easy as the old adage, “ask and you shall receive.”

A former colleague of mine, now an editor at Body + Soul, asked me to write about what innovative U.S. companies are doing to keep their employees happy—and six things that you can do to take charge of your situation (be it office environment, setting boundaries, or initiating perks that no one else has thought of) if you're not lucky enough to work for one of these progressive companies.   Check out the March issue of Body + Soul, or click here to read an abbreviated version of the print edition.  (The online version is shorter and it's also broken down into two components, with the second part here.)    

Soothe Dry Eyes

I don't have chronic dry eyes. But my mom and 9 million other Americans do.   For three ways to treat dry eyes, check out my What's the Alternative? on Dry Eye Syndrome in the current issue of Prevention.

Healing Secrets from Around the World

As the winter approaches, maybe you can pick up a new health habit from this feature I did for the Nov. issue of Prevention on "the World's Best Natural Cures."

I'll add one that was cut for space:

Patrick Borgen M.D., breast cancer surgeon
STAY-HEALTHY SECRET: “I hit the road on my Harley motorcycle to clear my mind.”
Easy Rider Borgen says riding both keeps his brain focused and gives him a workout—it takes a lot of strength to control an 800-pound bike. But most of all, it gives his mind a break. “The biggest part of my job as a cancer surgeon is breaking bad news,” says Borgen. “On a bike, I’m able to push that to a back corner. When I get off, I feel that I’ve pressed the clear button on my calculator.”
TRY IT: You don’t have to ride a Harley to clear the mental cobwebs out. Any type of regular physical activity— be it riding a (ten-speed) bike or horseback riding—should do the trick. The key, says Borgen, is having a passion outside of work, “something that you can really look forward to.”
INSIDE INFO: An estimated 10 percent of the 6 million active motorcyclists in the U.S. are women, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council.
Borgen, an expert on breast cancer in younger women,  is co-director of the Maimonides Cancer Center in Brooklyn and Chief of Breast Surgery.

Once you have HPV...

The controversies surrounding Gardasil, Merck’s new cervical cancer vaccine, have distracted the public from one simple fact: the vaccine is only FDA- approved for girls and women ages 9-25 who haven’t yet been exposed to the human papillomavirus (HPV).  So what are those of us who already have HPV—25 million women in the U.S., according to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control—supposed to do?  (HPV can lead to cervical cancer...and you may still carry HPV even after you've had the warts removed.) There's actually a lot you can do to stave off cervical cancer— from an alternative perspective. In my article in the current issue of Natural Health, I lay out the best-studied botanical remedies—from green tea to DIM—that are effective at reversing and preventing cervical dysplasia and cervical cancer. 

Motion Sickness

If you ever get seasick or carsick, check out my E. V. column on motion sickness for some useful tips.  

What's the alternative to antibiotics?

I had a bladder infection once in college, and I thought I was going to die from the pain.  So I fully understand the need for a quick fix—antibiotics.  However...if you're prone to UTIs, as some women are, repeated use of antibiotics can be rough on your body. (Not only that, they'll stop working eventually, as the e.coli bacteria learn resistance to them.)   A good friend recently had an extremely scary allergic reaction to Cipro, which she'd been prescribed repeatedly (over several years) to treat a chronic UTI. Anyway, as a result, I pitched this "What's the Alternative?" to Prevention.   

CLA: an omega-6 that's good for you

My story on conjugated linoleic acid (CLA)—a healthy fatty acid that's being extensively studied as a cancer fighter, metabolism booster, and anti-inflammatory compound (good for asthma and allergies)—is in the July/August issue of Natural Health.