Pabulum

pab-yuh-luhm [noun] 1. something that nourishes an animal or vegetable organism; food; nutriment. 2. material for intellectual nourishment.

[pabulumblog]

Alpacas are considerably smaller thanllamas, and unlike llamas, they were not bred to be beasts of burden, but were bred specifically for their fiber. Alpaca fiber is used for making knitted and woven items, similar to wool. These items include blankets, sweaters, hats, gloves, scarves, a wide variety of textiles and ponchos in South America, and sweaters, socks, coats and bedding in other parts of the world. The fiber comes in more than 52 natural colors as classified in Peru, 12 as classified in Australia and 16 as classified in the United States.

[thehonestpalate-blog]

“The dairy lobby argues…that allowing aspartame in milk would make it a healthier product and reduce childhood obesity by offering milk with fewer calories.”

Why is this necessary?  The only way to get consumers to buy more is to appeal more to our innate desires for sugar, salt and fat.  The food industry continues to trick our brains by further sullying yet another perfectly natural and wholesome product.

Pass the diet milk?  Gross.

[pabulumblog]

word of the week: organic farming

Organic farming is a form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control. Organic farming uses fertilizers and pesticides but excludes or strictly limits the use of manufactured (synthetic) fertilizers, pesticides (which include herbicides, insecticides and fungicides), plant growth regulators such as hormones, livestock antibiotics, food additives, genetically modified organisms,[1] human sewage sludge, and nanomaterials.[2]

[thehonestpalate-blog]

If you’re going to eat three times a day, every day, until the day you die, why not be good at it?

Jamie Oliver (via thehonestpalate)

[pabulumblog]

[climateadaptation-deactivated20]

Postscript from yesterday’s announcement via Andrew Revkin: Looks like “Dot Earth” will stay open - for now.

From a logistical standpoint, the shutdown of Green was probably inevitable once the environment desk was closed in January. The two editors have new duties, and a blog is a lot of work. [Read “The Changing Newsroom Environment” for more.]

But inevitability doesn’t take away the sting.

Curtis Brainard, who writes about science journalism for the Columbia Journalism Review, harshly criticized Times management for the move and posted an apologetic e-mail message sent by Nancy Kenney, the former deputy environment editor, to the blog’s contributors.

The news side of The Times has nine sports blogs; nine spanning fashion, lifestyles, health, dining and the like; four business blogs; four technology blogs (five if you include automobiles as a technology); and a potpourri of other great efforts, with four of my favorites being the Learning Network blog, Scientist at Work, the IHT Rendezvous blog on global news and Lens, run by the paper’s photo staff. You can tour the paper’s blogosphere here.

Via

[pabulumblog]

word of the week: beast of burden

A working animal is an animal, usually domesticated, that is kept by humans and trained to perform tasks. They may be close members of the family, such as guide or service dogs, or they may be animals trained strictly to perform a job, such as logging elephants. They may also be used for milk, a job that requires human training to encourage the animal to cooperate. Some, at the end of their working lives, may also be used for meat or other products such as leather. Such animals are sometimes calleddraft animals or beasts of burden. Using animals for work is considered by some as animal slavery. It raises concerns foranimals rights.[1]

[pabulumblog]

Hey everyone! I recently created a youtube channel called madefrmscratch. I'll be sharing super simple and wonderfully delicious (and healthy) recipes with you all, so feel free to check it out and let me know what you think! 

Much appreciated :) 

[cutedork]

Cooked spaghetti squash for the first time. It was scrumptious.

[pabulumblog]

S.A.D [also known as the "Standard American Diet"] 

...or Western pattern diet, is characterized by a heavy consumption of red meat, sugary desserts, high-fat foods, and refined grains. High in saturated fat, this diet causes many health problems including heart disease and diabetes. We probably recognize a lot of these S.A.D. foods as menu items from fast food restaurants--but remember folks, they are not limited to french fries, hamburgers, and soft drinks. Processed foods--including all those snack foods also fall underneath this category. Now stop feeling sad about yourself by avoiding these S.A.D foods! (Wow, that was incredibly lame) 

to learn more about S.A.D, click here!  

[pabulumblog]

One should eat to live, not live to eat.

What does that even mean anymore? I came across this quote a couple of days ago. Sure, it's not the first time I've heard it--and I wouldn't be surprised if any (or many) of you have also seen this saying before, but I'm wondering: do you actually live by these words? I think a lot of people fall into the second category: living to eat--I mean, look at our obsession with food manifested in sites such as this one. Don't get me wrong, I'm not excluding myself from the latter group--I do occasionally find myself "living to eat", where food is not nourishment anymore, but indulgence and escape and an attempt to fill this void of boredom or frustration. 

But what if we really learned to embrace these words? I'm not saying that we need to completely abstain from eating for the sake of pleasure, but what if we made a small, more conscious effort in eating for the sake of living? I wonder how things would change. Maybe we wouldn't be as caught up in our feelings and emotions towards eating. Maybe we would stop assigning positive and negative attributes to a piece of fruit or a doughnut. Food would just be food, it wouldn't be something "evil" or something "good", and it wouldn't assume the role of a significant other. What if we just let food be food?  

[pabulumblog]

One should eat to live, not live to eat.

Molière

[pabulumblog]

Last week, I brought my roommate to Souen, this really great macrobiotic restaurant nearby Union Square. Here’s a photo of what I ordered: the macro plate—a wonderful assortment of mouth-watering steamed veggies and beans (kale, kombucha, chickpeas, carrot, hijiki seaweed, broccoli) along with brown rice and a dressing (mine came with this nutty tahini dill sauce). The meal was extremely filling (could probably feed two people with normal levels of hunger) and my roommate even asked me if I was planning to finish all of it (I did manage to eat all of it in the end)! Even though there was a lot on my plate, everything was very light, and essentially no oil. I think the whole meal came out to around 9 bucks, but I definitely got what I paid for: good, real food.

[pabulumblog]

Just wanted share this amazing yoga studio with you all! :) For all of you who live in NYC, check out Yoga To The People, a donation-based studio providing classes for anyone and everyone--and I'm not kidding when I say everyone: some evenings, I find myself coming to class 15~20 minutes early and still needing to squeeze in between people! Their practices are generally one hour long, and pretty intense (I've only been to the one at St. Mark's Pl because it is relatively close to my dorm), so be sure to bring that water bottle of yours! Namaste!

[pabulumblog]

Update

Hello to my five lovely followers! 

No, I'm not dead, I've just been finishing up my first semester of college (which has been ridiculously fantastic...I don't think I've ever experienced the lowest of the lows or highest of the highs until this year.) Anyway, today, I was working with my team to submit our proposal for this business venture; we're creating this iPhone app, which will change the way people eat forever (not going to give too much away, I don't want anyone to steal our revolutionary idea) and guess what we're naming after? This blog, Pabulum! Isn't that awesome? *silent cheering* 

I know I haven't updated this blog in the longest time, but I've just realized something: it really doesn't matter what I put on this blog, just as long as I keep blogging--whatever it is, a picture, a video, an article, as long as I get it up here. I know this must be common sense for most people, but I seriously got obsessed with figuring what sort of content I wanted to post, and that kind of obsession stopped me from posting at all (or I would post all at once, but then go into periods of hibernation). I think part of the reason was because of my self-consciousness; I wasn't used to just writing stuff so everyone could see it--I felt like I had to make sure what I said had a purpose, but sometimes we don't know what purpose our blogposts will serve before we set them free into the wild, and who knows--I bet many posts will go unnoticed, but what I've rationalized to myself is this: if it never gets posted (no matter how good or bad of a post it may be), there is a 100% chance that nobody will ever see it and benefit from it. 

So I'd like to post more regularly (still not sure if I can make any promises) but, hey, there's bound to be slip-ups, I've just got to keep on going posting. 

[cutedork]

Yesterday, I went on an urban farm tour a little uptown from campus. I think using milk crates to house plants is brilliant: everything is totally portable. Since this farm is in conjunction with a restaurant, the menu is heavily shaped around the vegetables in season. The chef uses many creative pickling methods to preserve the excess veggies that can’t all be used immediately. I think that’s something we can all learn from this is that we should shape our recipes around the fresh ingredients we have access to instead of buying food solely for a recipe!

[cutedork]