Hanakapiai Falls and Jamie among a vast Bamboo forest.

Jamie Rock climbing, and the beautiful green hues of the forest.

Aloha Everyone,

Thank you very much for reading my blogs.  Last November I tore my right MCL surfing at off The Wall.  The tear did not require surgery, but has kept me out of the water for more than 4 months.  I have been stitched up countless times over the years from my surfboard hitting me,  fin cuts, reef cuts, etc. but I have never had an injury that kept me out of the water for more than a few days.  This was undoubtedly the worst, and I missed a very, very good winter here on the North Shore.  I seldom went to the beach to watch the surf as I couldn’t stand not being in the action.

I have been surfing with a brace on my right knee for the past few weeks and even though I am a little stiff, it is great just to be in the water again. I started running a few weeks ago as well and even though I can’t go full-speed, it is great just to sweat naturally instead of from some man made machine.

Yesterday, I was on Kauai and did a day hike to Hanakapiai Falls.  The weather was fantastic, I brought a great lunch and the day couldn’t have been better. The eight mile round trip from the end of the road in Haena was very muddy, slippery, and dangerous at times, but well worth the effort.

I am writing this blog is to tell any of you that are currently injured that there will be a day when you will be well again and able to resume your daily activities.  Whether it’s working in the garden, taking a walk around the neighborhood, or training for a marathon–that day will come.

Here are a few pictures for your enjoyment.

Cheers,

Jamie

Several months ago I received a comment online that disagreed with my contention that organic food is more nutritious than commercially grown food.  I finally found the research I had used regarding this information.

According to studies comparing 11 main nutrients by scientists at Washington State University, and the University of Florida, organic food averages 25% higher in content of these 11 nutrients.

The comparisons studied numbered 236 between food grown organically, and commercially and the scientists used all available data at that time. The report titled  ’State of Science Review: Nutritional Superiority of Organic Foods’ can be view by going to the following website- www.organic-center.org.

Jamie

“In a discovery that has stunned even those behind it, scientists at a Toronto hospital say they have proof the body’s nervous system helps trigger diabetes, opening the door to a potential near-cure of the disease that affects millions..”

This study was first based on the structures of what happens within the body in Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.  In Type 1, which is usually first found in children or young adults, the body does not produce insulin.  The most frequent form of diabetes is Type 2, where the body’s cells ignore insulin, or not enough is produced.

Scientists in Canada found that  “diabetic mice became healthy virtually overnight after researchers injected a substance to counteract the effect of malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Dr. Hans Michael Dosch, an immunologist at the hospital and a leader of the studies. “In my career, this is unique.”  The substance in which was injected was ” Capsaicin, the active ingredient in hot chili peppers, to kill the pancreatic sensory nerves in mice that had an equivalent of Type 1 diabetes.”

The researchers are astonished at their findings but admit that there is much studying to be completed before human test subjects are introduced, but this marking event gives hope for the future that there could be a groundbreaking discovery to help millions suffering with diabetes.

To read the entire click here.

The immense list of health benefits that come from peppers are ongoing, visit our “fun facts” section for a little crash course on “hot food health info.”

I am excited because over the last 2 weeks I have planted two new gardens at my house!  The summer here in Hawaii is hot,  a bit humid when the trade winds don’t blow, and there are many things that are impossible to grow in this heat.  Believe me, I have tried to grow fall and winter crops in the shade of my tomatoes, peppers, etc. in the summer but it just doesn’t work very well.   So, now that we have turned the corner on the summer heat,  and the long, hot days , I have planted for the Fall.  Into the garden with broccoli, cauliflower, many types of lettuce, bok choy, kale, chard, carrots, asian cabbage, spinach, radishes,  eggplant, cilantro, green onions and more.  Since we can grow tomatoes most of the year, I also have about 15 plants going with 5 different varieties.  By the way, I grown only heirloom varieties.  I will publish more on the disappearance of our heirlooms and the appearance of more and more GMO’s in the near future.  I just love watching the new, fragile life popping up through the rich, brown soil. If any of you have read my blog on building an asparagus bed then you would know that I planted my bed a few weeks ago.  The asparagus is up with more than 95% germination and is about 4″ tall now.

I usually have two compost piles going so there is nice, rich, beautiful compost available every week or so, but I have nixed one and the next one will be going away in a week or two.  Say what???  Don’t worry, I have gone hi tech and have purchased two new items for the garden–a compost tumbler, and an electric leaf shredder.  We will see how they work, but they sound great.  The tumbler promises black, rich compost in 14 days and the leaf shredder says I will be able to reduce leaf volume by 91%! So, now I will have a lot more room in the garden to grow, and  I will be able to compost in a more efficient way or so I hope. I will keep you updated.  I still do however have two 30 gallon trash cans going that make compost using an anaerobic method as well. I cannot emphsize enough to all of you how composting is not only the best thing you can do for your garden, but a great thing you can do for the planet.  It completes the circle where there is no waste, just harmony.

Big news!  I have been researching solar energy and am making plans to get panels on my roof in the near future.  I am already using solar panels for my water heater, but now would like to add panels and use them for electricity and to heat my spa.  I am also looking into a few wind generated turbines for the same purpose as well.  The goal is to get off of the grid and only use it as a back up. The next thing I will be doing will be to build a cistern to catch the rainwater from the gutters on my roof.  I am reseaching the different type of filters now.  If anyone out there has done this, and the solar thing, please get back to me with your thoughts.

Mahalo, and thanks for reading.

Jamie

As I write these blogs, I am energized from the food out of my organic garden. About 50% of my daily caloric intake comes from the earth that I have nurtured for more than 14 years at my current home.  And before that it was from gardens at my other homes or schools or rented plots from the city that I lived.  I have been doing this so long it is a huge part of my life.  Why do I go through this effort? The number one reason is that I can control what I eat. I know what goes into the soil and I know what comes out of the soil.  I love watching something grow that I started from a seed.  I never got married, and never had children, so I guess I am sort of the Father to my plants and trees and the like.  There is a lot of satisfaction in seeing this growth and all of the verdant colors, smells, bees, butterflies, earth worms, etc. and a working ecosystem in my garden.

Let’s talk about the typical city dwelling American’s journey to the local market.  Did you know that the average American meal travels more than 1500 miles to get to that market? We are so spoiled in the States.  We have to have our apples 12 months a year, but do we realize that for 6 or those months the apples are being shipped from Chile or New Zealand?  And what about all of the cheese products from France, or England?  And so forth and so on.  There is a tremendous waste of fossil fuel to get to our local markets. Those foods have to be transported large distances,  some need refrigeration, most have heavy duty packaging, most have preservatives and/ or are sprayed/gassed, some are GMO sourced (genetically modifed organisms), most are picked very green, and the quality is poor and taste is poor compared to locally grown organic food.  How great is it in the summer time when you pull a big, bright red, ripe tomato out of your garden?  You cut it open and it bursts with juice and a wonderful smell and you know it’s going to taste great.  You grew it  and it is now rewarding you for your nurturing. In Hawaii where I live, we have no apple orchards.  I love apples, but I won’t allow myself to buy them at the local market.  It’s against my principles, and they are old and mushy anyway, so what’s the point?  But above all, they piss away a lot of fuel getting to the Islands, and are laced with chemicals.  So what do I do?  I eat organically out of my garden and purchase locally as necessary as much as possible.  This provides healthier food, promotes sustainable agriculture, supports local co-ops and farmers markets, and reduces the negative environmental impacts associated with commercial farming. If you add the distance that non- locally raised food travels to get to your market, that exacerbates the problem.  Organic food is fresher, has more vitamins and minerals and tastes like it should.  And local local organic is a bonus!

It is a proven fact that organic produce, organically raised livestock, and organically raised grains have more nutrition.  AND the yield from the pastures, and gardens are greater in an average rainfall season, and more than 15% greater in seasons with any significant lack of rainfall.  This is because organic soil has more compost which retains the moisture that it does receive.  And when you combine this with no chemical runoff from chemical fertilizers and pesticides (see table), it is a win-win situation.  Then you add the taste, the health benefits, and satisfaction from eating locally, you have a win-win-win situation.

Globally traded organics?  Sounds good doesn’t it.  Why not help the poor coffee farmer in Nicaragua or Ethiopia?  Now I know that I am hitting below the belt, because even I enjoy a good cup of coffee.  And I enjoy the organic coffee from the places mentioned above, especially a light-medium roast.  But the problem is that most globally traded organic food doesn’t come from the poor farmer you are trying to support.  The multinational conglomerates only want you to think so.  Most of these products come from vast mono-culture farming techniques that completely go against the basic principle of organic farming-diversified agriculture . They take poor rural communities and completely transform a diversified agriculture system into a machine like producer than grows one thing.  Think about coffee, sugar cane, corn, etc.  And then a lot of the time they grow with genetically altered seeds. What is organic now?  You have taken a diversified, working system changed it into a monoculture that now forces the local people go outside their geographic area to buy staples.  And these GMO seeds do not have the ability to reproduce!!! Genetically engineered plants and seeds are sterile!!! (more on that later).

And again what is organic?  This term is a joke now.  In the USA,  for many years, multi-national corporations have lobbied congress to change the definition of organic to allow low levels of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and perservatives.  Your “organic free range” chicken that comes from “Wilma’s Farm”  only has to be given access to the outdoors the last week of it’s pathethic 7 week life. It lives with 20,000 other “free range” chickens on the cement floor of a warehouse where it is soaked in urine and feces.  And if you check with “Wilma” there is no Wilma, she doesn’t exist.  But after more investigation you discover that “Wilma” is actually big agri business.  Now is that “organic”?  Well, friends, that is where we are today and the situation is getting worse not better as the multinational producers gain more power and wealth. And as more and more of the rural population moves into the cities to find work, we will depend more and more on commercial, chemical based farming techniques that produce cancer causing, bad tasting, genetically altered produce and meat products that will literally kill you.  Why do you think that cancer is so prevalent in today’s society? We eat polluted food, we breathe polluted air, and we drink polluted water.  Now ain’t that great? What can you do??? You can start an organic garden in your backyard- a 10′ x 10′ plot of raised beds will produce enough produce for a family of 4, buy from your local farmer’s market on the weekend,  support local organic cop-ops,  and elect representatives that understand this and give a shit and are willing to fight for this.

Here is a table recently published by the US Environmental Working Group (EWG) that based its results from nearly 87,000 tests for pesticide residues in produce grown by commerical, chemical- based farming techniques conducted between 2000 and 2007 and collected by the US Department of Agriculture and the US Food and Drug Administration.  This assumes that all fruit and vegetables were rinsed or peeled.

The research found that people who eat the top 12 of the most contaminated on the list ingest an average of 10 pesticides a day.  And these pesticides are stored in the organs or your body.  What locations in the body do the cancers kill?

Worse to less worse

1.    Peach

2.    Apple

3.    Capsicum (peppers)

4.    Celery

5.    Nectarine

6.    Strawberry

7.    Cherry

8.    Kale

9.    Lettuce

10. Grape

Better to Best (some uncommon omitted)

38. Eggplant

39. Cabbage

40. Kiwi

41. Sweet peas

42. Asparagus

43. Mango

44. Pineapple

45. Sweet corn

46. Avocado

47. Onion

Note:   Almost ALL that are listed for the above  (good) group have thick skins, or layers that will not allow a lot of pesticide absorbtion.

“Organic” Farming- fact or fiction?  Well, I guess that depends on how you “organically” farm.  But if you know your source- know where your food comes from, how it is grown/raised, you will get a better feeling for the “organic” near you…

Or

As I sit here in the comforts of my home, I often think about not so fortunate people in the world. I have traveled to more than 50 countries in my life and have gotten to know a lot of people up close and personal.
I am not the traveler who goes on the whirl wind tour of 8 countries in 14 days. I am the traveler who stays in one location for an extended period of time (as long as the surf is good…) and makes lifelong friends. What amazes me is that most of the really good surfing spots in the world are located in very remote areas. On my first drive to Central America in 1975, we had no running water. We did have well with a bucket that supplied all of our needs and electricity was spotty at best. On my first trip to South America in 1977, I rented a house on the beach for $40.00 a month and went to a communal water hydrant on the street where we filled up 2 buckets on a stick and then filled up a 50 gallon drum. My traveling buddy Glenn had to return to the states after 6 weeks because he contracted hepatitis from that water in the drum. Electricity came on for 2 hours a night if we were lucky. And that was a light bulb on a wire. On my first trip to Indonesia in the ’80′s we were on an outer island where there was no electricity and water was taken from the river where the locals bathed. That was a long time ago, but the situation is still the same in much of the world today. With a growing world population and industrial pollution of our rivers and water tables, clean, potable water may be a thing of the past in the near future for a large percentage of the world’s population.

Today, more than 35% of the world’s population do not have water for basic sanitation. 1 out of 6 or 17% of the worlds population does not have adequate access to clean water. In fact, about 5,000 children a day die from diarrhea related diseases which are directly caused by dirty water.

What can you do? Financially support any non-profit organization that you feel best addresses this problem. I support “Clean Water for the World”. They are listed as a 501c3 non-profit organization. They provide simple, adaptable water purification systems to communities that do not have access to clean water at no charge.

Thank you.

Jamie

The reason for anoxic water is that there is excess amounts of phytoplankton at the surface of the ocean (algae blooms) that produce excess organic matter. As this organic matter finishes its life cycle, it sinks to the bottom of the ocean where it is broken down by bacteria. This process is known as “bacterial respiration”. Even though the phytoplankton eat up carbon dioxide and produce oxygen during their photosynthetic process, the bacteria produce carbon dioxide and use up this oxygen during their respiration process. The “exchange rate” is not equal and the result is that the bacteria use up all of the available dissolved oxygen in the water. This dissolved oxygen would normally be utilized by other oxygen respiring animals such as shrimp, crabs, clams, lobsters, fish, etc. The ones that can escape to other areas where the oxygen content of the water is normal and can support life, flee, while the slow moving die.

The expansion rate of these “creeping” dead zones is alarming. They now number over 400. In fact, the number of these dead zones has doubled every decade since the 1960′s. This expansion rate is trending towards exponential growth and even though only 2% of our oceans are affected now, this number could be 20% by the end of the century. Most of these dead zones are located near the mouths of major rivers worldwide. The main culprit for this is commercial farming, sewage runoff and emissions from the burning of fossil fuel in factories and automobiles. The runoff from the nitrogen based fertilizer gets into the rivers, flows to the ocean and then mixes with the ocean water adding excess nutrients. The fossil fuel emissions produce airborne nitrogen oxides which rain distributes into the oceans which also accelerates the growth of the phytoplankton. This happens because we are living the same consuming lifestyle with “old” technology that is inefficient. More than 49% of our energy is supplied by “dirty” inefficient coal burning plants in the United States. And we are the king of the consumers on earth where the average American uses more than 100 times more energy per capita than it takes to sustain one life on this planet. Then you bring in commercial, chemical based agriculture and you get the picture. As other developing countries such as China, India, and Brazil to name a few grow and expand their “middle class”, they too want this lifestyle- a piece of the American consumer driven pie. I will have more on this later. Now back to the dead zones…

Other events such as volcano eruptions, hurricanes, and polar cap melting can accelerate the expansion of dead zones as well. Major ecosystems in the worlds oceans are being disrupted and destroyed and the problem is not getting better, it’s getting way worse. Another downside is the commercial fishing industry. There has been a tremendous downturn on production from these areas. When you look at the big picture and remember that we derive more than 70% of OUR oxygen from this very same ocean, you have to be concerned.

What can you do? Support organic farming, drive less, demand green technology incentives from your politicians, live a responsible, sustainable lifestyle. BUT the bottom line is that in the USA we use dirty, inefficient energy, and there is little incentive from the government to the private business sector that would encourage new research and development of clean energy technology. The government of the United States must GUARANTEE that these new technologies will be utilized OR THERE WILL BE NO DEVELOPMENT by this private sector. And without these new, clean sources of energy we will continue down this deadly path until we kill ourselves because we didn’t demand change. We need a green revolution now, not tomorrow. Our future depends on it.

Aloha Friends,

Well it’s been hotter than Africa here in Hawaii- 90 plus everyday and no trade wind to cool you off. I worked so hard on the farm yesterday that I had a headache and almost passed out every time I got up from my hands and knees after planting. At first I attributed it to “old age” and then realized that maybe I just worked way too hard and didn’t drink enough water. I just friggin’ overheated. So, I thought I would get some good information out to all of you since it will be getting hot where some of you live and really hot where others of you live, and really, really, can’t work outside past 10AM hot where some others of you live! About the “old age” thing, I feel great every day, can’t believe I am past 18. I just look like hell!

So if you are planning on spending hours under sun exposure, you better watch out for heat stroke. YES, as ridiculous as it might sound, heat stroke does exist, and it could be life threatening if not attended on time. “The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that about 176 to 200 Americans die from heat-related illnesses each year.” For example, in 2003, a heat wave in Europe killed 35,000 people (qtd. in USA today).

Heat stroke is a condition that results when the body does not sweat enough to lower the body temperature during extreme sun exposure. Most of the times, heat exhaustion is accompanied with dehydration, a condition that develops by not drinking enough water.  Heat stroke and dehydration are especially dangerous for the elderly, infants, and people who spend an extensive amount of time outdoors or are under certain medication.

According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, the symptoms are:

Headache
Dizziness
Weakness
Disorientation
Agitation or confusion
Fatigue
Seizure
Hot or dry skin that is flushed but not sweaty
High body temperature
Rapid heartbeat and breathing
Hallucinations
Thirst

If you or someone you know begins to experience any of these symptoms, the first thing to do is to get  indoors or out of the direct sun, followed by changing  into lightweight clothing or removing the heat absorbed clothes being worn.  Then, drink and apply plenty of water to the skin to stimulate sweating.  Monitor the person closely, if symptoms persist, call emergency medical assistance (eMedicine Health).

There you have it! Even though the hot summer sun feels good on your skin, try to monitor and be safe about your sun exposure. If you plan on remaining outdoors for long period of time, take the necessary precautions; stay hydrated and use plenty of sunscreen/sunblock.