Your healthy, energizing breakfast for the week! Mix 3 cups rolled oats, 1-2 cups nuts (we like walnuts, pistachios, pumpkin seeds), ¼ cup coconut flakes, 1 ½ tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp salt. Melt ¾ stick butter, ½ cup honey, and combine with the dry items. Spread on a baking sheet and bake at 250 for about 1hr 15 min (stir a few times). Serve over yogurt and enjoy!

P.S. It’s also nice to make a double batch and throw some extra into Mason jars to give to your friends as thoughtful and unexpected gifts.

P.P.S. The perfect morning: wake up, turn on your favorite music for practicing yoga to, spend an hour on the mat moving through your flow, and then reward yourself with a post-practice bowl of your homemade granola, topped with fresh fruit from the farmer’s market. Are we right that this would be the perfect morning?

From the article:

There’s lots of money to be made selling fast food and then treating the diseases that fast food causes. One of the leading products of the American food industry has become patients for the American health care industry.

So poignant!  Have you ever wondered why in the world it is that hospitals, whose sole reason for being is to keep people healthy, consistently serve highly-processed, un-fresh, terrible-tasting food to their patients?  We have…

And so the government is poised to go on encouraging America’s fast-food diet with its farm policies even as it takes on added responsibilities for covering the medical costs of that diet. To put it more bluntly, the government is putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup.

Luckily, signs from the Obama administration suggest that food reform is, in fact, on the future agenda (i.e. Michele Obama’s White House garden, President Obama’s remarks about a possible soda tax.)  And we certainly hope so, because if the food industry giants of today have their way, they’ll be stamping processed, sugar-filled children’s breakfast cereals like Cocoa Krispies and Froot Loops with tragically misleading labels like “Smart Choices”!  …Oh wait, they already are.

[New York Times]

It’s wonderful that many of us (yogis and otherwise) are hip to the food activist cause, but today we’re celebrating the fact that the venerable mainstream news establishment TIME Magazine just published a lengthy five-page article about the reality of the industrialized food system. TIME Magazine, guys! This is big-time. From the article:

The U.S. agricultural industry can now produce unlimited quantities of meat and grains at remarkably cheap prices. But it does so at a high cost to the environment, animals and humans… Add to the price tag the acceleration of global warming — our energy-intensive food system uses 19% of U.S. fossil fuels, more than any other sector of the economy.

And perhaps worst of all, our food is increasingly bad for us, even dangerous….

Some Americans are heeding such warnings and working to transform the way the country eats — ranchers and farmers who are raising sustainable food in ways that don’t bankrupt the earth. Documentaries like the scathing Food Inc. and the work of investigative journalists like Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan are reprising Sinclair’s work, awakening a sleeping public to the uncomfortable realities of how we eat.

Click below to read the full informative article!

[TIME Magazine]

Apparently this Whole Foods controversy didn’t peter out over the weekend like some people were probably hoping it might.  We wonder what might become of Whole Foods’ controversy-stirring CEO John Mackey in light of the unceasing media coverage this story is receiving.  Will the board decide to oust him at their next meeting and replace him with someone who doesn’t randomly decide to publish pointed op-ed pieces in conservative newspapers at politically-sensitive times which alienate Whole Foods’ entire customer base?  One has to wonder.

While we’re on the topic, we thought we’d share with you an informative web page we stumbled upon while doing some Whole Foods research.  It’s a thorough list of some other questionable aspects of Whole Foods about which you might not have been aware. We appreciate this website’s rather level-headed approach to Whole Foods. They are clear to point out that:

We’re not suggesting that anyone stop shopping at Whole Foods and we’re not calling for any kind of boycott – we just want consumers to realize that even a company that puts on a socially-responsible face doesn’t always live up to its own hype.

If Whole Foods’ recent health care controversy doesn’t really bother you, you might discover something that irks you a bit more on this site…

The corporate chain Whole Foods, many a yogis’ grocery store of choice (except for those yogis who prefer to support local, independently-owned businesses, of course), has come under harsh criticism and even organized boycotting since its CEO and frontman John Mackey published a pointed op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

In his commentary, Mackey expressed his wholehearted disagreement with the health care reform plan which is being proposed by Democrats.  In boiled-down terms, he is ardently against universal health care and thinks we should be moving toward “less government control and more individual empowerment” when it comes to the American health care system.  He even argues against the belief that all people have an intrinsic right to health care, instead claiming that:

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges.

Wow! Whole Foods customers tend to be health-conscious, yoga-practicing, progressive-leaning types who are certainly supporters of universal health care.  With this WSJ piece, Whole Foods’ CEO just opened up the floodgates to controversy and criticism from a huge swath of his most frequent shoppers.

The backlash has so far ranged from an op-ed piece in today’s Los Angeles Times to coordinated boycotts and a new anti-Whole Foods Facebook page.  Whole Foods has also reportedly set up a special hotline to field phone calls from angry customers as well an online forum dedicated to this issue on its website.

What will become of this whole debacle?  Will Whole Foods see any significant drop in dollars from boycotts, and will John Mackey honestly re-evaluate his rather conservative views on health care?  Let’s stay tuned to find out!

P.S. Should it really be that much of a surprise that the CEO of a major, publicly-traded corporation which grossed nearly $8 billion dollars last year would turn out to be… conservative?  Just wonderin’.

Here are pertinent links to explore to find out more about this Whole Foods controversy:

Wall Street Journal op-ed piece by Whole Foods CEO Jack Mackey

Los Angeles Times op-ed piece in response

Whole Foods Boycott Facebook page

Whole Foods website health care reform forum

1) You know how so many people in the yoga community love attending live kirtans (call-and-response chanting concerts in the Hindu tradition) at their local yoga studios?  And you’ve noticed how American kirtan musicians with adopted Indian names (Krishna Das, Jai Uttal, etc.) have become household names among yoga students across the U.S.?  Well, how interesting would it be to read an article about the popularizing of kirtan in America from the perspective of the Indian community?  To find such an eye-opening piece of writing, you need look no further than August 4th’s issue of the Wall Street Journal (American’s New Idol?)

2) Could it possibly be? Has a new study revealed the true connection between yoga and thinness?  Although it’s an intriguing idea, we’re kind of skeptical.  Although yoga and thinness have a correlational relationship, we’re not so sure that it’s also a causal one.  But here’s a quick excerpt from the LA Times article (The Real Reason People Who Carry Yoga Mats Always Look Thin) to give you the gist of the argument:

Mindful eating helps people to stop eating once they are full, even if delicious food remains on their plates. They try not to let tempting advertisements lure them to food; they avoid eating while they are distracted by a TV show or other diversion; and they don’t eat to distract themselves from emotions like stress or sadness….

The mental focus required to hold a difficult yoga pose could also help people avoid “eating more even when the food tastes good” or “eating when you’re not hungry,” he said in a statement.

We agree that mindful eating is an essential aspect of healthy living, and we would even concede that a consistent yoga practice definitely teaches one to “tune into” one’s body on a subtle level.  But we don’t think this is explanation can be applied to the entire population of thin people who practice yoga.  There’s got to be some other factor at work there as well…  Any ideas, guys?

3) Both the Atlantic Monthly (Will Uncle Sam Pay for Your Yoga?) and Time Magazine (Americans Spending on Yoga, Echinacea, and Acupuncture) wrote about some recently-released data regarding Americans’ out-of-pocket spending on health care.  Apparently, our country spent about $34 billion on “complementary and alternative medicine” in 2007, and both magazines pondered how this fact might play into the health care debate which has been cycling through Congress lately.  The answer is that it probably won’t impact the current debate much, if at all. But hopefully such data will make a difference a little further down the line as the scope of medicine in our country changes in the coming years.

4) Remember the whole “state licensing of yoga studio” fiasco which has been taking place in the great state of New York over the past few months?  Well, apparently a New York law firm is offering to file suit against the state on behalf of the yoga studios affected by the New York government’s recent actions, and they’re doing so on a pro bono basis.  Their suit will ask for an official declaration that the licensing of yoga teacher training programs is unconstitutional.  If you’re a New York yoga studio who received one of those scary cease-and-desist letters back in May, you might want to consider jumping on board here!  Click here for more information.

5) Michael Pollan, everyone’s favorite food writer (okay, maybe he’s not everyone’s favorite food writer, but he’s probably everyone-who’s-not-part-of-the-industrial-food-industry’s favorite food writer), just published a fascinating piece in the New York Times about the famous Food Network, home to many a celebrity chef and quite a few competitive cooking shows, and whether or not this food-oriented television channel truly ends up helping people cook at home.  It’s an admittedly lengthy article, but it’s well worth a thorough read if you can spare a few minutes.  (Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch)

**We felt like this was a particularly good issue of “Interesting News Items You Might Have Missed”, didn’t you?  The variety of topics discussed here was interesting, and each individual piece was quite compelling.  Bye now!

The New York Times just ran an article titled “Where Thin People Roam, and Sometimes Even Eat“.  Apparently, a new study which utilized body-mass index data found that the borough of Manhattan houses the thinnest people in all of New York City.  In fact, people in Manhattan are thinner than the collective body mass indexes of both New York state, and surprisingly, the entire nation of the U.S.!  (To clarify, this doesn’t mean that Manhattanites are the thinnest people in the country – it just means that if you compare the average body mass index of the population of Manhattan to the same figure for the country as a whole, Manhattanites are thinner.  But is this really a surprise?)

The NYT article offers a few possible explanations for the thinness of Manhattan:

First and foremost, they said, Manhattan is a place where people walk. Even subway riders need to climb stairs. Storefront yoga studios, parks and pedestrian-friendly streets make working out relatively easy.

Note the plug of our favorite lifestyle activity, yoga!

The article goes on to interview several Manhattan residents about their methods for staying thin.  ($300 workout coaching methods are mentioned, and one interviewee exclaims, “Look at my cute little triceps!”  Ahem.)  Through these mini profiles, readers are left with the distinct impression that Manhattan as a whole is… oh how shall we put it… quite superficial?

Anywho, reading this article reminded us of another interesting piece we read just last week in one of our favorite magazines, The New Yorker.  This piece was titled “Why Are We So Fat?“, and it was penned by writer Elizabeth Kolbert.  It’s basically a survey of several books published in the last few years about the enormous weight gain our country has experienced since the 1980s.  Many of the hypotheses posited in these books are not new ideas to us, but one segment in particular caught our eye.  Kolbert relays a brainstorming session which took place during the early days of McDonald’s:

Customers were purchasing a burger and perhaps a soft drink or a bag of fries, and then leaving. How could they be persuaded to buy more? Wallerstein’s suggestion—a bigger bag of fries—was greeted skeptically by the company’s founder, Ray Kroc. Kroc pointed out that if people wanted more fries they could always order a second bag.

“But Ray,” Wallerstein is reputed to have said, “they don’t want to eat two bags—they don’t want to look like a glutton.” Eventually, Kroc let himself be convinced; the rest, as they say, is supersizing.

Wow, we had never thought about the role that social pressure might play in the realm of the human appetite.  Fascinating!

In this article we also learned about a burgeoning (and somewhat questionable) academic field called “fat studies” (along the lines of “black studies” or “women’s studies”…)

The movement known variously as “size acceptance,” “fat acceptance,” “fat liberation,” and “fat power” has been around for more than four decades…  According to the authors of “The Fat Studies Reader,” the real problem isn’t the sudden surge in obesity in this country but the surge in stories about obesity. Weight, by their account, is, like race or sex or bone structure, a biological trait over which individuals have no—or, in the case of fat, very limited—control…  Undeniably, the fat—the authors of “The Reader” are adamant advocates for the “f” word—are subject to prejudice and even cruelty.

Overweight people in America are certainly subject to discrimination.  But the concept of “fat studies” departments at universities and the idea that undergraduates could choose to major in “fat studies” at college is kind of mind-bending!  Kolbert goes on to elegantly outline some appropriate criticisms of the field:

But, just because size bias exists it doesn’t follow that putting on weight is a subversive act. In contrast to the field’s claims about itself, fat studies ends up taking some remarkably conservative positions. It effectively allies itself with McDonald’s and the rest of the processed-food industry, while opposing the sorts of groups that advocate better school-lunch programs and more public parks. To claim that some people are just meant to be fat is not quite the same as arguing that some people are just meant to be poor, but it comes uncomfortably close.

Anywho, it seems to us that ‘fat’ is a becoming a bit of a buzz topic at the moment.  We wonder which other media outlets will join the discussion?

[New York Times]

[The New Yorker]

1) The esteemed New York Times just can’t seem to stop writing about the yoga world!  It must be inherently fascinating to them.  (It certainly is to us!)  A few weeks ago they discussed the topic of OM-ing during yoga class in one of their advice columns. A couple of weeks later, they published an article on the hot topic of state regulation of yoga studios.  (We discussed both of these NYT articles here on our blog when they were first published.)  And just the other day, they ran a feature piece on the recent upsurge in popularity of yoga retreat centers’ work-study programs.  Apparently the dismal economy has inspired a significant number of yogis to take refuge at well-known yoga retreat spots like The Himalayan Institute in Pennsylvania and the Satchidananda Ashram in Virginia.  In exchange for daily chores like chopping vegetables and making beds, these work-study students receive free room and board and a relatively small amount of money.  Sounds like a potentially favorable deal, right?  Check out the article to find out more.

2) You’ve probably heard about it (and we wrote about it here on our blog awhile back), but the Wanderlust Festival, the first-ever combination music-and-yoga festival is taking place this weekend in Lake Tahoe, California!  (Think Coachella, but with yoga teachers headlining alongside musicians.)  We’re super curious about this festival: what the vibe will feel like, how many people will attend, how the music and yoga will be coordinated around one another, etc.  Many yoga-based outlets have been promoting Wanderlust, but we noticed that the established entertainment magazine Variety mentioned the innovative festival – that’s sure to gain the event some attention!

3) A new UCLA study suggests that meditation encourages brain “growth” and can result in superior emotion regulation.  Coolness!  From the article: “Push-ups, crunches, gyms, personal trainers — people have many strategies for building bigger muscles and stronger bones. But what can one do to build a bigger brain?  Meditate.  That’s the finding from a group of researchers at UCLA who used high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of people who meditate.”

4) NPR’s Morning Edition featured a great story on diaphragm breathing and the benefits of conscious breathing in general.

5) We personally enjoyed this helpful article entitled “The 10-Ingredient Shopping List” and we thought you might, too.  It was written by Mark Bittman, one of our favorite food writers.

6) Due to the regular workshops and teacher trainings that she holds at Santa Barbara Yoga Center, many SB yogis are familiar with the widely-respected yoga instructor Sarah Powers.  Sarah has been teaching yoga since long before the current yoga mainstream madness, she holds workshops nationally and internationally, and she also stars in an awesome yoga DVD which we carry at Drishti.  (In fact, Jenni, the owner of Drishti, took an 11-day teacher training course with Sarah several years ago at SBYC!)  Anywho, all of that interesting information is leading up to the fact that Sarah was just featured on the cover of the well-known Buddhist magazine Shambhala Sun!  You can check out Sarah’s profile article and cover photo here.

7) Here’s an important question for all of you bicyclists out there (ourselves included!):  Is bicycling bad for your bones?  Well, according to a recent New York Times article, the short answer is (drum roll please)… no, not really. But why don’t you take a look at the article for the full, enlightening, informative answer?

To be honest though, the study didn’t really turn up anything especially damning about reusable bags (but we’re sure its sponsors would have liked it to!)  Funded by the Canadian Plastics Industry, the research basically found that if a small amount of water sits at the bottom of a folded reusable bag for an extended amount of time, certain types of bacteria could develop, some of which could be harmful if they were to come in direct contact with food.

In teenager speak, “Um… no duh!  Did it really take a specially-funded scientific study to discover this?”

In short, to be super safe, clean your reusable bags from time-to-time!  Just like you would your yoga mat – another surface which could potentially accumulate harmful bacteria if moisture remains trapped inside a rolled-up mat for a certain length of time.  Hey, maybe someone should sponsor a study about the scary risks of yoga mats!  Hello, Pilates Mat Industry?

[NewsDay]