Dove's Eye View

Five Frugal Food Treats: Save Money, Save the Planet

I've been blogging frugal food for a couple of years now, and thought I'd summarize a few greatest hits in belated honor of Mother's Day. But these ideas do more than just save money. Food that has been processed less can be healthier than the store-bought alternative; using less packaging it saves resources as well.

1. The Internet's Most Famous Red Lentil Soup

2. Pasta with grated cheese, olive oil and a bit of leftover lentil soup. Much more frugal than Amy's Mac N Cheese, and healthier too.

3.  Pumpkin Tahini

4. Your own Chai: Spiced Tea

5.  Sweetened-up yogurt instead of commercial flavored yogurt cups, as suggested by Marion Nestle in her book, What to Eat. Use fruit preserves, honey, or just plain sugar. With a little more trouble (but not much) you can make your own yogurt, no machine required.

I feed my sons plain yogurt with a dot of vanilla and a half teaspoon of sugar for dessert. They think it's an amazing treat. I tried giving them jam in yogurt but they don't like it as much.  

Check out the calorie values.              

	amount	calorie
lo-fat plain yogurt	8 oz	154
sugar	1 tsp	16
vanilla	drop	0
Total home sweetened yogurt	8 oz	170
Lo-fat vanilla yogurt	8 oz	208
Lo-fat fruit yogurt	8 oz	250

So your home-brewed flavored yogurt can have less sugar in it than the store-bought stuff; it also uses less plastic (especially if you make your own) and has no preservatives or other fillers. Thrifty eating is better for the health of the planet.

Bravo to all the Moms (and Dads and other caregivers too) putting food on the table every day.

A Swine Flu Prevention Tip

One minute animation

A Swine Flu Prevention Tip from Click To Play Media on Vimeo.

Longtime friend Anna Runkle and company. Thanks, Anna! Everybody: wash your hands...

Lebanese Foods That Fight Cancer

الغذاء اللبناني التقليدي يقي من السرطان | جريدة الأخبار

I wrote an article in English for Rami Zurayk over at Al-Akhbar newspaper, based on a survey of the nutritional research published by UC San Francisco. It's titled Traditional Lebanese Foods Prevent Cancer and it's in today's edition (May 1, 2009). He translated it for me - I don't write Arabic that well!

English version below the jump. I do not know if the Arabic version is an exact translation.

Personal: Good News

I have known for 11 days now that I will not need to return to chemo. A full body Pet CT Scan taken January 13 shows that everything is stable and oral medication will continue to be my treatment. This is huge news, and I thought I would share for those of you concerned with my health.

My strength builds weekly and I have energy to do all kinds of activities; this means I spend less time in bed, and much less time online.

What about this blog?

My twelve-year-old self stood on a rooftop in South Lebanon in 1974 watching Israeli planes bomb Ain-el-Helweh. During times of crisis that twelve-year-old self emerges, shouting to the skies: this is wrong! It must stop! You don't understand what you are doing! You aren't making yourself safer and you're killing people who don't deserve to die!

Last week while reading the blogs on Israel's disastrous assault on Gaza, I realized: I don't have to keep trying to convince "them" anymore. Many, many more people "get it" than ever have in my lifetime. I haven't convinced everybody. I haven't convinced the men (and women) who give the orders to the fighter pilots and tank commanders. Lord knows if I've even convinced a single person who didn't already agree that killing people just creates more killing.

But one thing about this tragic war in Gaza: it has changed the climate. More people are waking up and realizing that war is not the answer in Palestine, Lebanon, Israel.

I'm not shutting down the blog but I am going to post less often. I am also going to focus more on the reality we want to create: peace and justice in Palestine, Israel, Lebanon - and America. Rather than focusing on the problems, focus on the solutions, the positive outcomes we want to see. I will post links to the many blogs, news organizations and non-profits that tell us what our mainstream media outlets overlook about the reality in Palestine - but I will devote my posts again to signs of hope, to visions for the world we want.

Wash your hands. With soap!

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Millions mark UN hand-washing day.

I'm always after my little boys about this. And use plain soap, not anti-bacterial. Just scrub and rinse well. Sing "Happy Birthday" twice while scrubbing. Prevents all manner of basic yukkies.

Living: Me and Elizabeth Edwards

No scandal gossip here. Press coverage of Elizabeth Edwards' metastatic breast cancer has me steamed, and as a sister cancer patient, I want to say something about it. My story with breast cancer parallels Elizabeth's. Elizabeth Edwards and I are both *living* with cancer. We are alive!

My first occurrence of breast cancer happened back in July '04; I had surgery, then chemo started the day after Kerry/Edwards lost to Bush II. What a gloomy day in the chemo lounge at UC San Francisco! The next day Elizabeth Edwards announced she, too had breast cancer. My own surgeon appeared on the local news, explaining Mrs. Edwards' treatment. My heart went out to Elizabeth Edwards as we coped with chemo at the same time.

Readers know that I applied to grad school while in chemo, got in, finished chemo, and spent two glorious years studying for an MFA in fiction, while raising my children and loving my husband. In March 2007, just before I graduated, Elizabeth announced her terrible news... news I hoped I would never have to hear for myself. I tried not to read too much about her disease and treatment. I was busy juggling family life while preparing to teach college English in the fall of 2007.

One month into my first semester of teaching, I got the same news Elizabeth had received not long before. Metastatic - spread to the spine, lung and most troubling, the liver. Like Elizabeth, I was put on hormone treatment. I looked healthy still, 45 years old, fit, lots of hair. A little overweight from cancer treatment & hormone therapy, but the metastasis took care of that!

Unlike Elizabeth, I couldn't stay on Femara. It didn't work for me, and I started intensive chemo in November 2007. That seems so long ago. I've been getting chemo once a week - three weeks on, one week off - for ten cycles now. For a long time my doctor kept telling me -- more chemo. Just keep getting chemo.

Today my doctor decided, without much warning, that I get to go off chemo after this next 4 week cycle, and go on an aromatase inhibitor. This means so much for my quality of life, you cannot imagine. My hair will grow back, and I won't feel tired and draggy from the cytotoxins in my system every week.

In this last ten months of chemotherapy, I have managed to travel a little, give four parties, finish teaching that college semester, give a talk at my graduate school, write 200 pages of my novel, blog like crazy, read books and attend my writers' group, and attend movies, dinners, parties and school functions with my children. I've baked cakes, cooked soups, crafted artisan bread. (Cooking is my hobby). I've prayed, meditated, tried a little yoga, hiked in the redwoods. I can do almost two miles at a time.

Every week I take the bus in to San Francisco for chemo, because I like the independence of commuting in. People don't know I'm a cancer patient - if it comes up and I mention it, folks are staggered. One guy was complimenting my hairdo and clearly chatting me up - I had to tell him I am actually bald, it's a wig, and I am on my way to cancer treatment. My husband tells me I still look hot, and I am pretty sure he means it.

I do not look the way I did a year ago. I don't feel the way I did a year ago. But I am very much alive. In some ways I am MORE alive, because I have shed many of the resentments and obsessions that keep me from enjoying this moment. And when they arise again, I take them less seriously.

I'm a more patient and present mother. I want the boys to remember me at my best. I still make mistakes but I practice a lot more kindness and good communication, with them and with my husband.

Now about Elizabeth Edwards. Press coverage of her often includes comments that "she's dying." Or they talk about how bad her prognosis is.

Fiddlesticks.

Elizabeth Edwards is living. First of all, I have been on Femara, which seems to be what EE is taking based on the Vanity Fair profile; my experience is that it's very easy to tolerate. You take a pill every day. Big deal. Elizabeth's cancer is not spreading and she is doing what she wants to do. She has problems. But she is living her life. And so am I.

I meet women all the time in the chemo ward who have been living with metastatic breast cancer for YEARS. One lady has had it for twelve years.

I am LIVING with cancer, and so is Elizabeth Edwards. Don't write us off.

Nobody, including her doctor, knows how long Elizabeth Edwards has, and nobody knows how long YOU have. I have already, sadly, outlived one of my glorious, beautiful, healthy friends who grieved with me when I was first diagnosed. So enjoy this moment. It's all you've got. It's all I've got.

I am so glad to be alive here, at sunset in Oakland, CA, on this green and spinning planet, along with Elizabeth Edwards and millions of other brave cancer patients LIVING with this disease.

Personal Good News

A bit of personal detail. Many of you know that I got my every-three-month Pet CT Scan on Tuesday July 1. Today at chemo my nurse interpreted the results for me - very good news.

Feel free to skip the following if my cancer test results are TMI. Many of my relatives and friends read Dove's Eye View and it's easier for me to post the info here.

Everything is extremely stable; the bony metastases show signs of healing; the tumor on the lung that was a half inch (13 mm) in October has disappeared completely - no sign of it. The liver metastases are not showing any "uptake", i.e. they aren't dividing rapidly and are not increasing. The diffuse lesions are just sitting there. Also the bloodwork shows that the CEA tumor markers have again dropped, now to 4.4 which is in the range of normal. The liver continues to "feel" good when she examines it manually.

I still get chemo, and started the ninth cycle (month) today. She offered me a break next month, but upon discussion we decided to plan the one month break for October when I hope to be traveling insha'allah.

Interestingly enough, the young man who does Reiki healing for me has been saying that he doesn't "sense" cancer in me - I don't have that static or buzz or sparkle that he feels in his other cancer patients. I wonder if he's perceiving the slowdown of the tumor cells. It's a subjective, "non-scientific" response - it seems to coincide with what I understand of the test results. Who knows.

I began responding to chemo very strongly after beginning regular Qi energy and acupuncture treatments in late March. You don't have to believe that these treatments help me - I do. And your prayers are helping me. Thank you all.

Because I had a five hour break between the nurse visit and the infusion appointment, I got to work on my novel a bit in the local library branch - a sunny courtyard with roses, Japanese maples and an olive tree. Public libraries are great luxuries and pleasures of our society and I am so grateful for them.

My friend who drives me home from the hospital took me to Irving Street where we ate Indian food, then to Golden Gate park where we lay on the grass until time for infusion.

I'm very tired now. I'm just really happy to be alive and able to bop around San Francisco, play with my children, vacation with my husband.

Why aren't you blogging?

My internet buddy Jadepark posts this question: Why aren't you blogging? at Writing Under a Pseudonym.

She's talking about herself, but I am going to pile on. When I go silent for a week, my faraway friends and relatives worry about me.

Don't worry. Chemo is going well. My blood work looked great last week; I have decent energy. A friend came from New York for the weekend and I whooped it up with her (a relative term - just ran around quite a bit during the day on Friday and a little on Saturday and Sunday). I've had the energy to play with my kids, take them to school, cook a meal, clean out some clutter, and more.

I should be writing now, not blogging. OK folks. I am fine. Just not blogging!

PS: Lebanese Green Beans with Olive Oil, Garlic and Tomatoes for dinner tonight.

Does Cancer Suck?

Warning: everything I say here applies to me alone. If you find any concepts of interest and try them for yourself, great. If not, no problem. Your mileage may vary.

This time around with cancer, I notice a new fad among patients, nurses and people who support us: the slogan "cancer sucks!" Google the term and you find a non-profit, a website devoted to Cancer Sucks coffee mugs, and another for clothing with the logo. Amazon features books with "cancer sucks" in the title or subtitle - plenty of humor as well as heart-wrenching memoir.

If this slogan appeals to you, that's fine with me. It just doesn't ring true to me, and I find I don't know what to say when somebody says it to me.

Nobody wants to be a cancer patient. I don't. Nobody wants to hear this diagnosis - I didn't. Nobody would choose the treatments, the side effects, and the barefaced look into one's mortality.

I always hated medical procedures and hospitals; just getting induced for my first childbirth made me cry. I hated the machines, tubes, beeps, medical professionals, implements, drugs - the whole apparatus of modern medicine. But I didn't want a stillborn son so I went ahead with the induction and gave birth to a healthy child.

The first time I had cancer, my unconscious slogan was: Cancer doesn't matter. I was determined to get through it and never think about it again. I felt that getting cancer was just a big mistake all around, and I was going to keep going as if it had never happened. Ok I stopped dyeing my hair and gained weight, so I looked different. But damned if I was going to write about cancer, or think about it if I could help it. I changed my life in one way - I went to graduate school and got a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing - as well as a whole community of writers who remain my inspiration and support.

Now that I've got a diagnosis that implies a chronic illness for which I will always be in treatment, I must find a way to live with my reality. If cancer sucks, then every day of the rest of my life is going to suck. That just doesn't work for me. I have to go with what is truly here in this moment.

Today I took the bus to San Francisco for infusion three of my seventh month of chemo; along the way I admired the choppy waves on the bay. The nurse at the Breast Center got me through the visit fast; my blood counts look good. Upstairs in the chemo lounge I got to sit next to one of my buddies, a fellow metastatic patient even younger than I am, who is thinking about writing a children's book. Then my friend Lisa arrived with her "entourage", some lovely ladies from New Mexico - Lisa drives me home from chemo most weeks. We went to King of Falafel on Divisadero Street and feasted, then had an easy drive home.

Now I'm in my bed under the new hot pink duvet, looking out the window at the green trees in our garden. My husband, who works from home, spent an hour at my desk facing the garden, working on his laptop; we had some companionable time together. Pretty soon I'll go outside for some sunshine; later a friend from my college is bringing dinner. My children will come home, we'll visit, I'll help get them ready for bed.

OK I know that talking about the gifts of this illness might make many cancer patients resentful or bitter or disgusted. That's fair. I can understand that reaction. Who wants to hear a smarmy bumper sticker slogan when you're feeling scared and sick? So if that's you, don't read this. But if you are willing to hear about my experience of cancer, then here goes:

However sad, scary, frustrating and horrible this journey has been, it has also brought me so much love and connection with others. I have had uncountable experiences of love, kindness and good will since I was diagnosed. I allow myself to feel miserable, don't worry. I express myself pretty strongly, for negative and for positive. AND I find that continuing to turn to what is good about this moment makes me feel really really happy. I'm sorry I had to get this sick in order to learn how to shut off the negative side of my brain, but I did. 

Today I spend more time being happy than I did when I was cancer-free. Nothing else about my life has changed since then - I have the same husband, financial situation, family, house and life that I had before. And that husband, children, house, family and life were then and remain great blessings; I was unhappy because of the state of world politics, the environment, and my writing career. What's different today: I am forced to work on my inner life, forced to accept reality and find happiness in what is, because otherwise I would just face misery for the rest of my days.

For me, every day is a gift. So while it might be true for you that cancer sucks, I am just not going to accept that idea. I am glad to be here and I am glad you're here reading this. A bird is singing outside my window and a breeze blows the curtains, which are the same new green as the tree leaves. What more do I have than this moment?

Drought

Camanche Reservoir, California

Just like Lebanon, California has had sparse rainfalls for a couple of years, and our reservoirs are depleted. We consume lots more water than the average citizen worldwide (all Americans do) - industrial uses, but also our copious showers, dishwashers and clothes washers, car washes, lawns, golf courses, and agriculture. We grow rice in the arid Central Valley.

The East Bay Municipal Utility District (East Bay MUD) has been phoning me and writing me letters - we must cut our water usage by 10% or pay an extra fee due to the extraordinary drought. Now, this may work out to a few dollars a month - the price of a couple of gallons of bottled water - not so expensive, especially when our EBMUD water has been tested to be of the highest quality in the country. Still, the point of the measure is to get us to do the right thing - use less water.

Tonight I hauled five gallons of water down two flights of steps from the upstairs bathtub, where I'd left the children's bath water standing, to the front garden. The automatic watering mechanism has stopped working but most of our plants are drought resistant natives anyway; I used the recycled water on the one remaining rose bush, the potted jade plants, and the little succulents that line the driveway. And after supper I poured the water from washing the lettuce onto the apple tree in our back garden, and dumped the coffee pot rinse water into the compost bin.

It takes physical energy to recycle water this way. There are companies in the East Bay now that will install permitted greywater systems, but we're not ready to spring for such luxuries. Anyway, it gets me into the garden. Notice that doing something for the environment also saves money (pennies, but still) and burns calories. Earnest Callenbach, author of Ecotopia, posited this rule of thumb.

My health is improving. Can you tell? I would not have had the energy to do all this two weeks or two months ago. I still spend a lot of time resting, but my energy begins to return. Dr. Feng, the acupuncturist and martial arts teacher, asked me to try pushing him - a basic Qi Gong exercise. I got in the stance, put my palms against his, and pushed him backward into the wall, twice.

Woah! He said. You are really strong! (I'm sure he was humoring me but his wife swears that nobody pushes him around) Later that day I had to go to bed. It seemed easy enough at the time to push the grand master into the wall, but he says it took a lot of energy. He told me today to practice pushing and pulling with my husband; practice gathering energy and concentrating it.

So in case you're wondering how I'm doing - that's one answer. My oncologist is happy with the progress I've made in the last six weeks - a sudden jump ahead. Thank you for your prayers, gifts, calls and notes...

Back to recycling water - during a drought in New York City back in the 80s, I used bath water to flush the toilet. My colleagues at work thought I was nuts. But excuse me, why shouldn't you use a little soapy water to flush the toilet? Just dump a big bucket of water in the bowl and it flushes by itself.