Take action to beat type 2 diabetes now! (via @skinnycity)

You’ve likely heard the chatter about the rising rates of type 2 diabetes. You’ve also likely heard there’s a strong connection between carrying extra pounds and type 2 diabetes — it’s true!

Obesity and type 2 diabetes have been described as the twin epidemics of the 21st century. These U.S. stats tell the story:

* about 17 million people have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes
* another 5 million people have type 2 diabetes that has not yet been diagnosed
* 57 million people — about one-sixth of the population — have pre-diabetes (when blood glucose is higher than normal but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes)
* 133 million people are overweight

Get the picture?

Here’s the connection: Excess pounds set off a cascade of events in which those extra fat cells produced by extra pounds put out substances that cause a constant state of inflammation. The body’s response? Insulin resistance, which makes it harder for the body to use the insulin you make, and forces the cells in your pancreas that make insulin (beta cells) to make even more insulin.

As insulin resistance worsens, it causes problems way before blood glucose rises too high — low HDL, high triglycerides, high blood pressure, and sleep apnea, for starters. Eventually the beta cells in your pancreas poop out and can no longer keep up with the demand for insulin. It’s then that blood glucose has risen high enough to diagnose pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes. You may have heard this same situation called Metabolic Syndrome? Same scenario, different name.

This series of events is slow and subtle and can take upwards of a decade to progress. The bad news is that way too many people are unaware of the busy work their body is up to and healthcare providers often overlook the obvious and wait until the situation worsens and type 2 diabetes is diagnosed.

But there is good news. You can take action now to prevent (or at least delay) type 2 diabetes and improve a lot more than just your blood glucose. It’s simple, yes, but oh so hard to do: lose a few pounds and keep them off.

A well known study called the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) conducted on people with pre-diabetes through the National Institutes of Health, showed that losing 5 to 7 percent of your weight (an average of 15 pounds) by lightening up on calories and fat grams as well as physical activity of 150 minutes per week helped people prevent/delay progressing from pre-diabetes to type 2. And just recently a follow-up study to the DPP, the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study (DPPOS), showed that the people who kept at least some of their weight off (at least 4 pounds) over 10 years were less likely to develop type 2 diabetes.

So, there’s no need to get back to your figure of yesteryear. But you do need to keep at least some of the weight off for the long haul. That, no doubt, is a big challenge today and it’s exactly what Skinnyandthecity.com is all about – offering you skills, strategies and support. Also learn more at stopdiabetes.com.

Beyond excess pounds, other risk factors heighten your odds for developing type 2 diabetes, such as family history, having had diabetes during pregnancy and more. Take the American Diabetes Association Risk Test to get a read on your risks.

If you or your loved ones are at risk for type 2 diabetes, take action NOW. But don’t go looking for a magic bullet diet. Instead take the tried and true lifestyle change approach. Set a few goals at a time and make changes for good. Don’t wait to develop type 2 diabetes. Take simple actions starting today to put the insulin resistance free fall into reverse.

Invitation | Screening | Here We Grow

feastup:

You are cordially invited to join us for a special screening and panel discussion of Here We Grow, a documentary by natural food chef and entrepreneur Craig King.

As a chef and nutritional consultant, Craig helps clients and patrons reevaluate the way they think about food and wellness. His goal is to explore the current state of America’s food supply chain and educate the public on steps they can take to align consumption habits with long term health goals. Inspired by the cliche “You are what you eat,” his vision is to help people live healthier, more wholesome lives through socially responsible food choices.

At this Feastup, you will first screen the 65-minute documentary. We will then allow you to hear directly from the director and industry insiders about their philosophy on the foods we buy and the foods we eat. The fee for this event also entitles you to a culinary tasting of socially responsible foods, complementary wine & cheese and hors d’oeuvres. We hope you will attend.

Wednesday, November 18

Green Spaces Business Incubator
394 Broadway (just south of Canal Street)
$25 in advance / $35 at the door
to RSVP, click here

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Feastup.com is the fastest growing culinary meetup group in New York City. We’re crazy about food and hope you will join in our cause.

Become a fan Follow us

via feastup

"American Hospitals Beginning to Make the Connection Between Diet and Health"

Article here http://bit.ly/2Qj2It

Exciting Q +A with Michael Pollan from Delicious Living Mag here: http://bit.ly/36bfaq
“Michael Pollan’s dilemma: Reaching a new generation” regarding the release of The Omnivore’s Dilemma: The Secrets Behind What You Eat, Young Reader’s Edition on October 15th. Will you buy it?

I am so Honored to be Included!

I just got this weeks Vegan At Heart Weekly Mission and I am so honored to be included in the list of blogs below! Wow. Thanks Marisa! I can’t wait to check out the other blogs…

~~~~~
Weekly Mission
Insta-Community: Awesome Vegan at Heart Reader Blogs & Sites
Dear Janna,

Today your mission is to click on three Vegan at Heart readers’ blogs to meet others in the community, be inspired, and learn a thing or two.

Last week I asked subscribers to send me links to their personal blogs, websites, etc. about healthy, humane, eco-friendly living, and I was deluged with replies…not just from our 500+ direct subscribers but also from readers who read the weekly missions on one of my favorite sites, www.vegdaily.com.

When I checked out your blogs & sites, I laughed, I cried, I nodded my head in agreement, and I raised an eyebrow at times, but mostly I drooled over the recipes and food pics you posted. Woweee!

This week, your mission is to drool over—er, I mean click on 3 links below and get to know other Vegan at Heart readers in our little community. Feel free to bookmark sites that you want to spend more time on.

(Note: not all content on every site is vegan. Vegan at Heart readers represent a diverse community of people at various places in their journey towards a more plant-based lifestyle. If you’d like to comment on individual blog posts, it always helps to be compassionate and respectful. Thank you!)

Blogs

http://sistersvegan.blogspot.com
Cooking, comics, current events, and the hijinks of our loopy vegan sisterhood!

http://girliegirlarmy.com/blog/
Your guide to glamazon living

http://vegangirlnextdoor.wordpress.com
It’s Easy Being Vegan!

http://zpoeschl.wordpress.com
Conscious consumerism for every aspect of life

http://www.ecocupscious.com
Living eco-consciously and other fun stuff!

http://www.tinychoices.com
Our thoughts on small (and not-so-small) environmental choices

http://nashvegan.wordpress.com
Eating (and living) as a vegan in Nashville, IN

http://friendordoe.blogspot.com/
Featuring vegan fashion & recipes, it’s a lifestyle blog that highlights veganism as both normal, easy & pretty hot too!

http://www.organikook.com
An organic, vegan, green living website

http://www.theapeman.blogspot.com
“Recipes for vegan dinners and baked goods and a few vegan tidbits that keep me motivated to be a vegan activist”

http://vivasustainable.tumblr.com/
Ideas, tips and philosophy on sustainability as it relates not only to our environment and both our personal and universal health, but our lives in general

http://itsnoteasybeinggreen.typepad.com
A planet and animal friendly blog dedicated to sharing the daily little things that make all the difference in the world— it’s not easy being green but it sure is worth the effort!

http://greenergirl.typepad.com/
Green, ethical, animal-friendly cosmetics, body care, food and fashion

http://www.vegansoapbox.com/
An online portal into the vegan world

http://www.twolia.com/blogs/livin-veg/
Livin’ Veg - animal rights, veganism and living a humane life

http://esgonevegan.blogspot.com/2009/04/dude-i-hear-ya_11.html
“My experiences with the hows and whys of starting a vegan diet.”

http://www.troofoodliberation.com
“Fighting Food Crime Since 2009”

http://pandoras365.blogspot.com/
“This is my 365 blog where I post a pic (or more) each day for a year, a way to get inspiration for the future by looking back.”

Social networking

http://www.meetup.com/Vegan-Long-Island/
Vegan Long Island is a meetup group for vegans, vegetarians, and the veg-curious founded in April ‘08, now with over 200 members.

http://meetup.com/Northwest-Connecticut-Vegan-Outreach
Northwest Connecticut Vegan Outreach is a meetup group whose purpose is to help folks meet vegans, vegetarians, and raw foodists in the area, and be an active voice for farm animals.

Organizations

http://www.novoiceunheard.org/
A non-profit organization who has found a niche as an independent publisher of books about animals, including Ninety-Five: Meeting America’s Farmed Animals in Stories and Photographs, due out next spring

Businesses

http://www.twoinatree.com or http://kitcolorado.etsy.com
Unique, often up-cycled, hand-crafted jewelry (we do custom orders!)

http://www.mdyoga.com/
Chicago and Indialantic, FL-based yoga teacher who is “spreading joy and mindfulness for a kinder, gentler world.”

So proud to be part of this amazing online community!

Your fan,
Marisa

Interview: Susie Cagle!

vegansaurus:

Susie Cagle’s new comic book, Nine Gallons, details her experiences—equal parts hilarious and bewildering—as a volunteer for Food Not Bombs. She also writes for lots of awesome publications, including The Daily Cross Hatch. In addition to all that, Susie is SUPER FUCKING FUNNY. If you don’t follow her on twitter, you’re missing out on one of the most charming, funny, smart, and fantastic things on the entire internet. THE ENTIRE INTERNET, PEOPLE. THAT  INCLUDES R.KELLY VIDEOS AND KEYBOARD CAT (he’s a cat! playing a keyboard! HILARIOUS!). Susie recently moved back to the bay area so let’s welcome her by saying all sort of nice things in the comments section, okay!?

How long have you been vegan?
Four years..? Before that I was vegetarian for… six years? something like that. But I’ve had some cheegan moments, I admit—it hasn’t really been easy going, especially on long road trips. (Yes, please, bring on the hate comments.)

Are you vegan for health, environmental, animal rights reasons, or a combination?
I guess it’s a combination, but primarily environmental and animal rights reasons. I’ve always liked to call myself a Reluctant Vegan, because of and despite many different factors; I don’t think food politics are black and white, I don’t think it’s healthy to look at anything that way, especially issues so complicated. I mean, veganism isn’t sustainable on a worldwide scale; I wish vegans were more willing to talk about things like that. And I’m still pretty freaked out by the vegan cult and anyone talking about “cleansing.” I think vegan outreach kind of sucks for these reasons—food choices are very personal, deeply ingrained in culture and upbringing, and they won’t be easily changed, even when people are presented with facts. As a journalist, I should know that presenting people with facts doesn’t do much good. I think if you want to make real strides, they should be presented with tiramisu cupcakes. But I guess I got a little off-topic there.

Vegetarianism (or some may say near-vegetarianism) is sustainable worldwide, as it uses resources that exist; if cows, goats and chickens were no longer factory farmed but just roamed the countryside, it would be better for the planet for us to use their extra milk and eggs (eggs especially since chickens produce lots). Same for wool, or things like ahimsa silk (from abandoned silk worm nests). But if you’re an abolitionist vegan, it would still be completely wrong to you on moral, animal rights grounds. This is where my whole Reluctant Vegan thing sort of comes into play—I think it’s the best answer to the current situation we’re in, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the best answer ever for all circumstances and for all times. I mean, is living on a diet of prepackaged vegan treats that’ve been shipped across the country better for the planet than drinking the milk from your well-treated cow on your own farm? That might not be the most fair comparison, I’m just playing devil’s advocate. (This is why I often wear used leather instead of buying new PVC products that often degrade faster and require more new purchases.) Then it gets into cultural differences, like what about native tribes in Brazil? Should they not fish in their rivers? Should they survive on rice and grass and import tofu and seitan at a great cost to themselves and the planet? The logical extensions of these arguments become problematic. Plus then this gets into the fact that a lot of prominent vegans I know whose names I really can’t use have told me they would or do eat eggs from their friends’ chickens…

I’d love to spark some debate on these things though since I think it’s important to constantly reevaluate your political beliefs. And maybe that’s the difference for me: I see veganism as a political choice, whereas I know some other people see it as closer to a moral or even spiritual choice. Maybe, though, that’s because I identify more closely with environmental concerns than just with animal rights.

In “Nine Gallons,” you volunteer with Food Not Bombs and the experience was…interesting. Has anyone from FNB seen the comic? What do you think of them now? Would you encourage people to volunteer there? Is the soup really edible?
A couple of volunteers have seen the book, but no one who’s actually in it has seen it yet, as far as I know. (Though I’ve been told that they were portrayed very true-to-life… Yikes.) I think Food Not Bombs is great, and I would absolutely encourage everyone to volunteer with them. Why go to a government-run food bank when you could volunteer with wacky anarchists and salvage food that will otherwise be thrown away? I hope when the story is completed people will see that there’s a lot of good to be done there, especially if you’re also a person in need and if you already know where the good dumpsters are. And yes, the soup is really edible, though some batches are certainly better than others.

How has being vegan influenced your comics?
I’ve done a fair number of vegan comics, like this one about the FBI infiltrating vegan potlucks that no one believes is based on this story about FBI agents in Minneapolis trying to infiltrate the radical community. I think sometimes people think I’m just making this shit up, even when I say “true stories.” There’s also some conversation about veganism later on in “Nine Gallons.” I’ve written a lot more comics about industrial food production, factory farming and modern food science I’d like to do in the future too.

Who is your favorite cartoonist, vegan or not? it’s okay to say Jonas. In fact, it’s best if you do. KIDDING!
Aw man, I have lots of favorite cartoonists… I’m going to suggest some people that maybe your readers are less likely to have heard of already. I think Hellen Jo is a watercoloring force to be reckoned with. Ken Dahl draws like a motherfucker. Eleanor Davis is completely underrated. In terms of storytelling specifically, I really like Chester Brown, and Guy Delisle and Joe Sacco’s reportage stuff. There are a lot more, but I’m on deadline… And if you’re looking for more vegan comics, J.T. Yost is really great. You guys should interview him too! [Ed.: Forthcoming!]

What is your favorite animal?
Otters holding hands; runners-up: kittens in a tissue box.

Favorite vegan food to make?
Apricot almond cupcakes from VCTOTW. Dreena Burton’s chocolate chip cookies, because they’re done in 15 minutes, start to finish. And seitan riblets, easiest seitan dish I’ve ever made.

Favorite vegan dish at a restaurant/favorite vegan restaurant?
Crispy nuggets at Vegetarian Palate in Brooklyn, hands down. (Ed.: FUCK YEAH DELICIOUS CRISPY NUGGETS FROM VEGETARIAN PALATE!!)

Based on food options alone, which is your favorite comics show to travel to?
Well, I’ve never been to the vegan hipster mecca that is Portland, Oregon so I’m not sure I can give a complete answer. But I think New York offers an astonishingly wide range of foods.

Any eating tips for traveling cartoonists?
Primal Strips (Ed.: FUCK YEAH DELICIOUS PRIMAL STRIPS!!!)are a great thing to have on hand. They’re like 10 grams of protein for $1 or something, maybe $1.50 with inflation. And just do your research — consult the hive mind. Lots of places that don’t seem veg friendly totally are. I used to manage the restaurant database for SuperVegan when I lived in New York and I was always running across random vegan treats at unexpected spots.

Do you have one drawing tip to share?
Just keep doing it—you’ll get better, and the more you do it, the faster you’ll get better.

Do you have a day job, or do you draw comics full-time?
Well, neither. I’m currently a victim of the economic downturn and its particular wrath on journalism. I’m freelancing for a few different places, but this has given me a lot of time to be drawing comics.

I have to ask you about your dad. What influence did his career have on your own path as a cartoonist?
Wait, does that mean you’re going to post that picture of me in the bath? Please don’t! (My father is an editorial cartoonist; before that he was a commercial illustrator for many years, including a long stint with the Henson company drawing, as he puts it, “pigs and frogs.”) I think my father has been a big influence on me in terms of his ambitiousness and his determination to do his own projects; I definitely have that headstrong perspective, sometimes to a fault. One of my most vivid memories as a kid was his always reminding me that he’s never had a real job; of course, one my other most vivid memories as a kid was thinking that we were always one Zillions cover from economic ruin. But I think just being around so many cartoonists growing up gave me the bug—our annual family vacation was to the National Cartoonists Society Convention, after all.

Do you guys ever get together and draw comics? What feedback has he given you on your work?
When I was little my father would give me drawing lessons all the time; I have some of these old gouache paintings from when I was eight or nine, and they’re kind of amazing. But he really cracked the whip, and I stopped drawing for a good 10 years because I felt like I just wasn’t good enough at it. The guy is a harsh critic, which can be a double-edged sword—he has a lot of really great points, but he’s not so cognizant of his delivery. To be fair, he’s very critical of his own work too, and he often asks for my input on gags.

You have a cat, right? Tell us about her! Any other cute pets?
Hannah! My cat followed my friend home a year and a half ago in Brooklyn, and my roommate and I had originally meant to just foster her. I was never really a cat person, I thought they were kind of boring and I was afraid of their claws. But then one night I woke up to her spooning me, and it was all over. She is three years old, her favorite game is fetch and her favorite treat is tomato paste. I still don’t think I’m a cat person, though, because I think Hannah thinks she is a dog.

What exciting upcoming projects can we look forward to? Because we do look forward to them.
I’m going to be the cartoonist in residence at the Charles Schulz museum on Saturday Oct. 10, I will have a new “This is What Concerns Me” minicomic for APE about recession woes, Nine Gallons the graphic novel will, if all goes according to plan knock on wood oh my god please please please, be out next June. AND THEN I can start on this monster of a book that I’ve been writing for the last six months about California history—cults, Manifest Destiny, serial killers, natural disasters—you know, the fun stuff.

Any questions for Vegansaurus? Anything!
How do you guys get all that sweet free shit?!

A: Begging, naturally! Thanks, Susie!

Susie’s comics are available for purchase at her website. GO BUY THEM ALL NOW.

via vegansaurus