Get thin quick methods are a hoax

Canadian health professional asking government to regulate commercial weight-loss programs

You see it all the time on TV and hear it on the radio – “I lost 40 pounds in 4 weeks!”

An editorial in this week’s Canadian Medical Association Journal says that the majority of commercial weight-loss programs are not based on evidence-based treatments. Health professionals want to see the government regulate these programs so that people can start proper weight loss programs that involve educating patients about proper nutrition and ways to make healthy lifestyle changes.

And indeed, they should be regulated immediately.

Success stories of people who got thin quick are not the fairy tale that they appear to be. Some people do indeed shed off the weight with magic supplements and teas, but they don’t tell you what happens after the story has ended.

Majority of people gain all that weight back after they stop the program – and not only have they regained all that weight, but many will gain more, meaning they are heavier than they were before. If you have doubts, you don’t have to look farther than the most famous yo-yo dieter there is – Oprah Winfrey.

Oprah has publicly battled her weight for years. Every time she puts on weight, she starts a new program to lose it. And every time after she’s lost the weight, she gains in back with the addition of a couple more pounds. Recently, Oprah has admitted that she has gained weight again and is very disappointed in herself.

And who can blame her? No one wants to be thin for only a short time. Losing weight makes people happy and boosts their confidence. Unfortunately, the best weight loss programs are slow and require lifestyle changes. Yes, you may have lost all that weight – but if you think that you can celebrate by eating burgers and fries – then you are only fooling yourself. And your health and self esteem are going to suffer the most.

The first step in changing your lifestyle starts in the grocery store. When you first walk into a grocery store, you will find yourself in the produce section — so take advantage of it and fill up your cart! Fresh fruits and vegetables are the number one items that many North American diets are lacking. Not only are they good for you and taste great, but many studies are showing that certain vegetables can reduce your risk for heart disease and diabetes. Do your homework – the info is out there!

The next step is to get your family involved. You can spend more time together by visiting your local farmers’ market. Not only is this a great way to get fresh produce – which often has more nutrients – but it’s also a fun day out for the family.

With spring around the corner, think about visiting local farms. Take the kids out for an afternoon and pick strawberries together. Not only are they a great fruit that kids love, they are also a great source of Vitamin C and antioxidants. But best of all, it’s also a great way to spend time outside and be active together.

So get out there and start changing your lifestyle – for your health and for your family.

 

Farmers’ Markets Ontario

Agricultural communications diploma opening up to wider audience

News Release

(GUELPH, April 28, 2009) — Canada’s online agricultural communications diploma program at the University of Guelph is opening to a wider global audience.

The three three-day residencies that were part of the limited-enrolment program are being replaced with online learning modules to make the program more accessible, says Owen Roberts, the program’s academic coordinator.

“The feedback we’re getting is that the residencies restrict too many potential learners from enrolling,” says Roberts. “We want the program to be as widely available as possible, so we are eliminating the residencies.”

Roberts says lessons normally in the residencies, particularly photography and citizen journalism, will be offered online instead. Student presentations that were part of the residencies will be given through videoconferencing or other electronic communications means.

The agricultural communications diploma program is the only one of its kind. The 16-month, five-course program is dedicated to communications skill development and application. It concludes with a three-month virtual internship which pairs student learners with a communications initiative at an agricultural business, agency or organization.

Applications are being accepted now for the 2009-2010 cohort. For more information, visit www.agcommunications.ca or contact Roberts at owen@uoguelph.ca.

Women and agriculture

Are we an underestimated resource?

 

Women are powerful. Well, as a woman, no doubt that I would agree with that. In some situations, the strength, intelligence and viability of women are underestimated. When it comes to women in agriculture, that strength we posses as a resource is probably underestimated the most.

 

In a commercial by CARE Canada, it shows that group of women walking through a dessert, saying “I am powerful.” During this, an over voice says that women are the most underestimated natural resource that the world can no longer ignore.

 

Well, according to Wikipedia, women are not a natural resource. Natural resources are naturally forming substances that are considered valuable in their relatively unmodified (natural) form. A natural resource is something that is associated with extraction and purification – not something that is created (like in agriculture).

 

That definition did not stop me from checking out CARE Canada’s website. Some of the information that they provided was eye opening:

 

-          Women are one of greatest and most untapped resources in the developing world.

-          Seven out of ten people living in poverty are women.

-          Out of 876 million adults who cannot read or write in the developing world, two thirds are women.

-          Women produce half of the world’s food, but only own one percent of its farmland.

 

Take a moment if you can, and re-read that last statistic.

 

Half of the world’s food is produced by women.

 

Now, I know that I could go into the second half of that statement about women’s rights to own land, but let’s focus on the first part.

 

Food production is no easy task. Regardless of what level of equipment you have to work with or your location in the world, turning grass into milk and wheat into flour is a lot of work. But, it is harder when you are a female in a developing country.

 

More than anything, women who are farmers in developing countries are farmers out of necessity. Making food is a necessity. Feeding your family is a necessity.

 

 

 So why is this enormous capability under-acknowledged – and maybe a little under appreciated?

 

Because in western society, we have it easy. Access to safe food and clean water is as easy as turning on the tap and a quick walk to your local store.

 

But I do think that CARE Canada was right when they say that women are one of greatest and most untapped resources in the developing world.

 

Now, I am not one of the women that helps produce half of the world’s food.

 

But, I did study agriculture at a top university and now work in the agriculture industry – as does many of my females colleagues. Thinking back, my class was at least 60 to 70 percent female. We are all intelligent, educated, young women ready to take on the world. Female agronomist, veterinarians, communicators, business developers, accountants, food safety monitors, microbiologist – and farmers – we all work in agriculture. There is nothing that we cannot do.

 

Now imagine if those educational resources in agriculture were made available to women in developing countries who do help feed the world.

 

There is nothing that we cannot do – that just rose to a whole new level.

 

 

CARE Canada

Federated Women’s Institutes of Ontario

Agriculture Online

Women in Ag Expo

 

The turmoil of passing on the family farm

Succession planning is important for the future of the farm – and starts earlier than you think

 Now, in my family, two things were always made extremely clear. One, the most important thing in our life was an education. School came first, plain and simple.

The second thing we were told was that we don’t have to take over the farm if we don’t want to. That one was never really said out loud, but more importantly, we were never told that we HAD to take over the family farm.

What do you do when dad won’t sell the farm? What if he does want to pass it on, but no one wants it? How do you divide up the family business amoung your kids?

These and many more difficult questions are what need to be asked – and answered – when making a succession plan with the family farm.

But as it turns out, many family farms don’t have one.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business conducted a member opinion survey in 2007 and found some things that I find concerning:

-          34 per cent believed that a succession plan was a high priority

-          27 per cent want to retire in 5 years

-          29 per cent want to retire in 10 years

-          of that 27 per cent who want to retire in 5 years, only half have a successor

On average, half of farm families do not have a plan in place and only 38 per cent have an informal one.

I’ve seen the foundation of many family farms fall to pieces when it comes to succession.

A farmer may pass the farm onto his son, but as soon as that son wants to make a change, the father steps in and stops him.

A child raised to believe that he has to take over the family farm will become unsettled. He was never given the option to figure out what he wanted in life.

Never was I so proud of the relationship between my brother (who has an interest in the farm) and my dad when I observed then taking off soybeans last fall. My brother was combining…and he was leaving half of them behind.

Coming home disgruntled, they were first going to replace the blades on the combine. Realizing that they were still sharp, my dad asked him if he remembered to grease the blade. The answer was no.

That was it. Nothing more was said – and nothing else needed to be said.

Children, no matter how old they are, need to learn from their own mistakes. What good would a lecture from my dad do in that case anyways?

With me and my siblings, being left to make our own decisions and mistakes in life is what has led my brother to want the farm. And having the opportunity to seek our own paths in life is what has led me and my other to have fulfillment elsewhere.

Despite my parents putting everything into the family farm, it was to make a better life for me and my brothers. It was not to create something that we had to take over one day.

So, now that it has been established who has an interest in the farm, the time has come down to finalize the farm succession plan. Though a making a plan or a will may feel like it equals death, it needs to be done.

Though the initial planning with my family is going well, accessing resources from Canadian Association of Farm Advisors and Farms.com have gone a long way. That and many, many, MANY talks around the kitchen table.

Get thin quick methods are a hoax

Canadian health professional asking government to regulate commercial weight-loss programs

 

You see it all the time on TV and hear it on the radio – “I lost 40 pounds in 4 weeks!”

 

An editorial in this week’s Canadian Medical Association Journal says that the majority of commercial weight-loss programs are not based on evidence based treatments. Health professionals want to see the government regulate these programs so that people can start proper weight loss programs that involve educating patients about proper nutrition and teach them how to make healthy lifestyle changes.

 

Success stories of people who got thin quick are not the fairy tale that they appear to be. Yes, some people shed off the weight with magic supplements and teas, but they don’t tell you what happens after the story has ended.

 

Probably the worst part of these get thin remedies is that majority of people gain all that weight back within a couple of months after they stop the program – and not only have they regained all that weight back, but many of them will gain more, meaning they are heavier than they were before. If you doubt me, you don’t have to look farther than the most famous yo-yo dieter there is – Oprah.

 

Oprah Winfrey has publicly battled her weight for years. Every time she puts on weight, she starts a new program to lose it. And every time after she’s lost the weight, she gains in back with the addition of a couple more pounds. Recently, Oprah has admitted that she is has gained weight again and is very disappointed in herself.

 

Who can blame her?? No one wants to be thin for only a short time – only to become overweight again. It’s depressing! And that is what keeps people coming back for quick fixes. Losing weight makes people happy and boosts their confidence. Unfortunately, the best weight loss programs are slow – very, very slow. They require lifestyle changes. Yes, you may have lost all that weight – but if you think that you can celebrate by eating a burger, fries and coke – then you are only fooling yourself. And you health and self esteem are going to suffer the most.

 

The first step to in changing your lifestyle starts in the grocery store. There is a layout design that grocery stores follow that can help you. When you first walk into a grocery store, you will find yourself in the produce section, so take advantage of it and fill up your cart! Fresh fruits and vegetables are the number one items that many North American diets are lacking. Not only are they good for you and taste great, but many studies are showing that certain vegetables can reduce your risk for heart disease and diabetes. Do your homework – the info is out there!

 

The next step is to get your family involved; your lifestyle change can be good for them too. Have the whole family go grocery shopping together, but make sure to just circle around the perimeter of the store (the centre isles is where all the junk food is). You can spend more time together by visiting your local farmers’ market. Not only is this a great way to get fresh produce – which has more nutrients – but it’s also a fun day out for the family.

 

With spring around the corner, think about visiting local farms. Take the kids out for an afternoon and pick strawberries together. Not only are they a great fruit that kids love, they are also a great source of Vitamin C and antioxidants. But best of all, it’s also a great way to spend time outside and be active together! So get out there and start changing your lifestyle – for your health and for your family.

“What should we have for dinner?”

Book takes a look at the process food takes to get to the dinner plate

While enroot to a banquet last week, a friend and I conversed and talked about what we had been up to since the new year. Getting to the topic of books, he told me about one book that Santa had delivered to him. Being not the typical classic or romance novel that I guilty admit to reaching for more than I would like, the topic of this book caught my interested since it was agriculture related.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals is a 2006 non-fiction book by Michael Pollan. As my friend elaborated, he had heard about this book when the local food movement was generating more interest a couple of years ago. And that this book which came out around that time, was so popular, that he couldn’t get it anywhere. Having finally received it, I asked him to tell me more about it.

He told me that he was interested to learn if the interest in purchasing local food was a fad, or was it something that is economically viable – and hoped that this book would educate him more on the subject.

The author, learning that the average meal travels about 300 miles to your plate, found this disturbing and decides to educate himself on farming and food processing. The novel is written like a journal with the author sharing what he learns along the way, which a lot of comparison drawn between three types of farming: conventional, organic and alternative.

So one of the things that the author looks at is why food policies changes so much in the 1970s and why there is less return to farmers in regards to the food they ship. Why were things different before? Pollan learns that when it comes to corn production, the economics of supply and demand don’t follow. He says that when there was a horrible growing season in the 1970s, that farmers planted more corn the following year to cover their loss. This resulted in a higher surplus of corn than ever before. So, to encourage the use of corn, the government provided subsidies, tax breaks and the innovation around using corn for other things increased. One of the encouragements was feedlots. People found out that the consumption of corn decreased the market readiness time frame of a steer or heifer by half. But as the number of feedlots increased and the consumption of grain feed cattle increased, people began to realize that the health of the cattle and the effect on the environment had a negative effect – an effects that people are still trying to figure out what to do about. This is only one of the things that the author examines in the book.

As I have not yet read this book (and am waiting for my friend to finish so that I can borrow it), and therefore can’t really give an opinion about the book, I will say one thing. Farming HAS changed. Whether it has changed for the better, I’m not sure about that one yet. The thing is change can be a scary thing. The unknown is even worse, and the future of farming is very unclear. Maybe trying to understand why things have changed will help us to figure out what the future holds. Maybe we need to all have a review on the way things used to be and re-learn how to appreciate what we do have. Some people say that the best meal that they have is the one that they prepare themselves. Maybe we should include growing the grain, making the flour and pulling the weeds in that statement to really appreciate what goes into deciding what to have for dinner.

Dairy Farmers of Canada do more than promote milk

Milk: It does more than keep your body good

“Why lose sleep over the shape of your body when you can wake-up and get into shape?”

“Is it better to have a body in shape than obsess about the shape of your body?”

These are some of the questions posed in a radio commercial by the Registered Dieticians of Dairy Farmers of Canada. As each questions was asked, I thought “Yes; I know I think about my body image and food…all the time.” And I would argue that this is a more-than typical thing for most women. We tend to eat our emotions, whether we want to admit it or not. We eat when we are happy, we eat when we are sad, we eat when we are stressed, we go out and eat to celebrate and the list goes on and on. I know that I am not the only one; I don’t have to look much farther than my two female university-student roommates to see that.

So when this commercial caught my attention, I listened. I also looked up their website: yourhealthyweight.ca. What I found was what I expected. Information on assessing your weight, eating habits and activity levels were three parts of a calculator to tell you whether or not you should consider changing your lifestyle. There was also Q&A’s, nutritional information and recipies.

What I didn’t find was an ad promoting the consumption of dairy products. And this I liked.

Given, there was some icons of dairy products and mentioning of consuming two to three servings of dairy products a day, but it still didn’t strike me as a glorified self promotion campaign. At one point I forgot that the website was related to the Dairy Farmers of Canada.

This really impressed me.

Milk has been shown to play a role in losing and maintaining a healthy weight – but this isn’t the sole objective of this website. With obesity and weight related health problems increasing and being titled an epidemic, the Dairy Farmers of Ontario are doing their part by having this “Healthy Weight” campaign.

Heavy snowfall causes barn cave-ins

A heavy snowfall in the small town of Arkona, located and hour east of Sarnia, Ontario, caused much devastation to farmers in the area with barn roofs caving in and corn left standing in the fields. 

Several barn roofs collapsed under the weight of the snow which fell during the night of Friday, November 21, 2008. Records indicated that some areas received 60 to 76 cm (2-3 feet) of snow at an incredible rate of 5-8 cm (2-3 inches) per hour. Some barns, such as such as Van Aert’s 2500 swine farrowing barn, spent majority of the weekend removing their livestock from their facilities.

 

 

 

Tony and Joanne Rombouts of Arkona, Ontario, suffered a lot of damage to their drive shed and to the farm machinery they had stored in it, such as their combine. To make things worse, the doors on their shed were a recent addition this past year.

 

“When I came outside that morning, I first thought that the drive shed doors were open,” says Joanne Rombouts. “Then I realized what had happened.”

 

Thick vegetable soup makes a great fall recipe

This great vegetable soup recipe makes for a hot, hearty meal on a cold day – especially when fall ends abruptly and winter drops down over night. This recipe is also a great way to include fall vegetables – like potatoes, onions and carrots – which are available locally in Ontario right now.

 

Chopped onion                       2 cups

Diced potato                           3 ½ cups

Sliced carrots                          1 cup

Chopped celery                       1 cup

Diced fresh mushrooms          1 cup

Water                                      6 cups

Beef bouillon powder             1 tbsp

Chicken bouillon powder        1 tsp

 

Butter                                      1/3 cup

Flour                                        1/3 cup

Salt                                          1 tsp

Pepper                                     ¼ tsp

 

Combine first 8 ingredients in a large pot. Bring to a boil and reduce heat. Cover and let simmer for about half an hour, or until vegetables are tender, but still colourful.

In a small pan, melt butter. Mix in flour, salt and pepper until smooth. Pour carefully into simmering vegetable mixture.

 

NOTE: The soup should instantly thicken and may begin to boil very hard – you may need to reduce heat or remove the pot from the burner.

 

This recipe freezes very well, but on re-heating, vegetable pieces will break into smaller pieces very easily.

A 4-H Member Memoriam

Nothing cuts through a family more than the death of a child – even more so when it’s caused by a farm related accident.

 

While checking the level of corn in a silo, 14 year old David Parrin from Ayr, Ontario was overcome by the nitrogen dioxide fumes from the silo. This odourless and tasteless gas caused him to pass out and fall into the silo where he passed away on October 4, 2008 on his family dairy farm.

 

A 4-H Ontario member, he would have shown his dairy calf at the Rockton Fall Fair Thanksgiving weekend and from there would have participated in the Classic Canadian Junior Dairy Show at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto this November.

 

4-H Ontario is a youth develop organization that provides young people aged 10 to 21 the opportunity to learn communication and leadership skills, problem solving and goal skills while making friends and having fun. Each year members choose from over 60 different projects to work on, from drama to livestock and square dancing to life skills.

 

David Parrin was working with his dairy calf, Meadow Lee Mary Storm, as part of one of these 4-H projects. The dairy livestock projects has one of the highest participants in 4-H. Members choosing this project select the calf they want to work with in the spring and attending meetings each month where they learn how to manage, feed, groom and train their calf for show. Participating in the Rockton Fall Fair would have signified the completion of David Parrin’s project.

 

To commemorate David Parrin, his family has decided to donate his 4-H calf to the Friend of 4-H Fundraiser, taking place Saturday, November 8, 2008 at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair. His calf will be put up for auction with the proceeds going to a Farm Safety endowment fund in his memory.

 

More on the Friends of 4-H Fundraiser later this week.

 

Note:   Calf: Meadow Lee Mary Storm

            Sire: Pursuit September Storm

            Dam: Meadow Lee Mary Lynne Divine (GP-84-2YR-CAN)