A New Way to Think of Lovingkindness
This post originally appeared in the author’s blog Mindful Mothering on December 7, 2011.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
I still have thoughts swimming from David Whyte‘s workshop and one was on this idea of lovingkindness. That is not how he described it but he speaks of the essence of how we nurture ourselves. He suggests that we are the only part of creation that is allowed to deny itself, ie a tree or flower do not get to deny their essence but we as humans, constantly deny or reject parts of ourselves that we are dissatisfied with. And so this idea of how to nurture ourselves is cast aside by our self-criticism. Continue reading →
A Food As Medicine Treasure: Jim Joseph's Talk on Longevity & the Aging Brain
James Joseph, PhD, was a highly distinguished research scientist– Director of the Neuroscience Laboratory, USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, at Tufts University– and he was also our friend. He passed away just days before Food As Medicine this June. My 18 year old son, attending Food As Medicine for the second time and who had heard Jim speak before, said the same thing I did on hearing of his passing: “No, no, no! Not Jim!” The thing about Jim was he was not only brilliant but endearing, and laugh-out-loud funny. What better way to convey the science than to have ‘em rolling in the aisles?
He always said that because of his USDA funding, we couldn’t sell the recordings of his talks, but that we could give them away. So it is with great pleasure that we offer you this treasure– a video of Jim Joseph’s lecture recorded at Food As Medicine in Baltimore in 2008.
Please do share!
Dr. James Joseph – Nutrition and the Aging Brain
Thank you, Jim, for a wonderful ride.
Fascinating Talks: William Li, "Can we eat to starve cancer?"
This remarkable talk has been flying around the internet, but in case you missed it as I had, take 20 minutes and get a new perspective on cancer prevention and treatment in William Li’s recent TED talk.
Fascinating Talks: Carolyn Steel- How Food Shapes Our Cities
How do you feed a city? It’s one of the great questions of our time. Yet it’s one that’s rarely asked. We take it for granted that if we go into a shop or restaurant… there’s going to be food there waiting for us, having magically come from somewhere.
But when you think that every day for a city the size of London, enough food has to be produced, transported, bought and sold, cooked, eaten, disposed of, and that something similar has to happen every day for every city on earth, it’s remarkable that cities get fed at all.
Thus begins Carolyn Steel’s excellent TED talk, “How Food Shapes Our Cities”. Steele is a London-born architect who’s chief interest is in exploring the inner lives of cities. In her new book Hungry City and in this talk, she explores how cities were formed at approximately the same time as the agriculture that made them possible, and that they were shaped around the food being transported into them.
How did Rome feed its million citizens?
Basically, Rome had access to the sea, which made it possible for it to import food from a very long way away… So Rome effectively waged war on places like Carthage and Egypt just to get its paws on their grain reserves. And, in fact, you could say that the expansion of the Empire was really sort of one long, drawn out militarized shopping spree…
London has it’s Bread Street, where grain came in from the Thames in the 17th century, and Fish Street, where the daily catch was traded in the open air. Boston has it’s Milk Street, one of the earliest and oldest streets in the heart of the old town (Benjamin Franklin was born at No. 1 Milk Street). Here in Washington, DC, farm markets are springing up and becoming the heart of neighborhoods all over the city. Back to the future? I like to think we are cultivating the best from the past.
Watch for part 2 on this fascinating talk.
