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The motivations and benefits of being a vegetarian

March 10th, 2008 Tina Noga Posted in Food and Drink, General, Health 3 Comments »

People often ask me why I am a vegetarian and for how long I have been a vegetarian. I decided to write a series of articles about vegetarianism because it is close to my heart and there are lots of things to be said about it. In this first article I briefly outline my personal reasons for being a vegetarian.

The simple answer is that I love animals and since the age of 16 I have refused to eat them. To me the notion of loving someone and killing them does not go together. And to me all animals are worthy of life and it makes no difference whether people eat a cow or a cat - you kill to eat and it is equally bad.

the cat who adopted me

Now I am not a fanatic vegetarian in the sense that I don’t object to other people eating whatever they want, but I do oppose people categorizing themselves as something they are not – like the notion that people who don’t eat meat but do eat fish are “vegetarians”. To me this categorization is wrong because a fish is NOT a vegetable.

According to the official definition of vegetarianism from Wikipedia “it is the practice of a diet that excludes all animal flesh, including poultry, game, fish, shellfish or crustacean, and slaughter by-products”. A vegan is a person who excludes all animal products from diet and in some definitions from attire also, whether or not the production of clothing or items has involved the actual death of an animal (dairy, eggs, honey, wool, silk, down feathers, etc.). I am a vegetarian but I don’t buy leather or feather pillows or covers. This is against my conviction (which is personal and not religious).

My main reason thus is ethical - an aversion to inflicting pain or harm on other living creatures, or a belief that the unnecessary killing of other animals is inherently wrong.

Environmental reasons also count high on my list – namely the fact that so many people are starving and the production of meat for consumption as oppose to grains is unsustainable. Did you know that the inefficiencies of meat, milk and egg production range from 4:1 energy input to protein output ratio up to 54:1 and as such the U.S. could feed 800 million people with the grain that the livestock eat.

Another argument is that farmed animals produce about 130 times as much excrement as the entire human population of the United States. Since factory farms don’t have sewage treatment systems as cities and towns do, this ends up polluting ground water, destroying the topsoil, and contaminating the air. Hence as a meat-eater you should consider yourself partly responsible for the production of all of this waste — about 86,000 pounds per second.

There are an endless list of motivations and benefits of being a vegetarian including: religious and spiritual, health reasons, medical, ethical, environmental, economical, psychological, and cultural. In my next blog posts I will write on the topic in greater detail.

So as you can see there are plenty of reasons to stop eating meat – in fact you can improve the world by stopping today :-)

Good luck.


Podcast: Pun Pun - Sustainable organic farming

March 4th, 2008 Thomas Posted in Health, Podcasts from Thailand, Thailand, Travel 3 Comments »

In this podcast, I met up with Peggy and Jo - the two founders of Pun Pun. During the interview, we discussed their views on Sustainable living & farming, Earthen house building, how they started out, and the philosophy & vision driving their work.

Podcast 13 - Pun Pun interview [31:31m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Pun Pun (meaning ‘thousand varieties’) is an organic farm, seed-saving operation, and sustainable living and learning centre based about 50km North of Chiang Mai, Thailand in Mae Taeng district. The first I knew about Pun Pun was last year, when I heard about an amazing new organic vegetarian restaurant that had opened in the grounds of Wat Suan Dok temple. I visited it at the first opportunity, and quickly became a regular!

Pun Pun Organic farm - sustainable living in Thailand

Pun Pun offers a variety of workshops and training courses, from their 10 week internship program offering an in-depth, hands-on experience in organic gardening (including seed saving, earthen building, and community living) through to 3-5 day earthen building workshops, and sustainability study trips. If you’re interested in finding out more, you can contact them via their website - the details are below.

Peggy & Jo - Pun Pun restaurant, ThailandFurther information

www.punpunthailand.org - For further information on Pun Pun, including upcoming workshops and internships at Pun Pun farm. Map of how to get to Pun Pun restaurant.

You Sabai - You Sabai Home is located in Mae Taeng, next door to Pun Pun’s organic farm and sustainable living learning center outside a village in Mae Tang province, 50 km from Chiang Mai. They also build and live in simple earthen houses, close to nature.


Air pollution levels in Chiang Mai rising

February 27th, 2008 Thomas Posted in Health, Thailand, Travel 5 Comments »

It’s getting to that time of year again when the pollution levels in Chiang Mai start climbing to dangerous levels. This happens every year towards the end of the dry season, between February and April and is largely attributable to slash-and-burn farming methods. Last year the pollution levels got so high that literally thousands of people across Chiang Mai province were admitted to hospital with various respiratory illnesses - including Tina - and the government released a 24 hour emergency number for reporting the fires. You can view the pollution levels in Chiang Mai between 1998 and the present day by clicking on the button above.

PM10 – small but deadly particles

One of the measurements to look for is the PM10 (PM-10) level. This indicates the density of very small particulate matter in the air (particulate matter less than 10 microns in diameter in a cubic metre of air). These particles are too tiny to see – five particles would fit across a strand of human hair – but they can be deadly. As an illustration of how dangerous these particles can be, the number of people in a seemingly ‘clean’ country such as New Zealand who die early from pollution caused by traffic is similar to the number killed in road accidents each year.

These small particles of pollution in the air come from sources such as waste burning, wood burners, car exhausts and industry. They can cause serious health problems, such as making breathing problems like asthma and bronchitis worse. They can exacerbate heart problems, and are thought to be one of the catalysts for throat & lung cancer.

In London, the United States and the European Union as a whole it is considered a serious pollution ‘episode’ if the PM-10 level exceeds 50 - see the London Air Quality Network website.

For some reason, the Thai Pollution Control Department has set the ’safe level’ to be anything less than a PM-10 of 120. Just to illustrate how high the levels can get to in Chiang Mai, on 14th March 2007 PM-10 levels reached 303.9 - catastrophically high by any standards.

By way of a comparison, the World Health Organisation came up with weighted list of average PM10 concentrations in residential areas of cities larger than 100,000 throughout the world, and the averages were as follows:

A selection of these is as follows:

  • China - 87
  • Denmark - 23
  • France - 15
  • Germany - 22
  • Greece - 47
  • Indonesia - 102
  • Iraq - 178
  • Israel - 52
  • Malaysia - 24
  • Myanmar - 89
  • New Zealand - 16
  • Pakistan - 180
  • Saudi Arabia - 106
  • Spain - 40
  • Sudan - 246
  • Syria - 102
  • Sweden - 13
  • Thailand - 76
  • United Kingdom - 19
  • United States - 25

I decided to work out the daily average for Chiang Mai over the last year from February 2007 to February 2008 and came up with the following:

  • Chiang Mai - 49.85

I then worked out the daily average for March 2007 only and it worked out as the following:

  • Chiang Mai - 161.7

When is the best time to visit Chiang Mai? The answer would depend on the state of your respiratory system - but I’d day avoid March if possible!

If you’re interested in downloading the Excel spreadsheet with all the international data from the World Bank website - please click here.


Theta Healing Courses in Chiang Mai, Thailand

November 10th, 2007 Tina Noga Posted in Events and Activities, General, Health, Thailand No Comments »

Theta healing is a meditation technique developed by Vianna Stibal. It directly addresses the subconscious mind to change the subconscious “bugs and blocks” in ourselves and is a way to make changes in your life. Using the theta-brainwave it can change old beliefs and as we all know - success in every aspect of your life is determined by your beliefs.

My old girlfriend Signe is a well-known theta healer and she says that ‘instead of walking around wanting something, you should teach yourself what it feels like to have it - and attract it into your life. With theta healing you can teach your body new feelings in seconds that might have taken you a life time to learn’.

This healing technique is also known to have helped people:

• Heal emotional trauma and personal relationships
• Self help for financial and health issues
• Personal growth and spirituality

The courses take place in Chiang Mai (in the Holiday Garden Resort) on December 8th – December 10th (Basic course – DNA2) and December 15th – December 17th (DNA2 advanced) 2007.

I will participate in the course myself and I am very excited about it because in my experience Signe is a very good healer and I think the course will be very beneficial for me.

For more information please go to Signe’s website: www.SigneFjord.com

Theta Healing Courses in Chiang Mai in December 2007


Podcast: Coffee enema - do it yourself detox

November 4th, 2007 Tina Noga Posted in Health, Podcasts from Thailand 6 Comments »

Coffee Enema bagCoffee Enemas have been used for over a hundred years as a generalized detoxification procedure. I do a DIY coffee enema every two months or so. The procedure stimulates the liver and gallbladder to release stored toxins and wastes and liver function is enhanced. The immediate benefits for me are always a relief in my stomach, a feeling of well-being and increased metabolism.

It is also a very cheap procedure because you can do it at home yourself and all you really need is a special enema bag (which costs about 130 baht or $4), purified water and some organic coffee.

It is interesting to note that drinking a cup of coffee has an entirely different effect from that of using it as a cleansing enema.

Below is a podcast we made about coffee enemas. Enjoy…I did :-)

Podcast 06 - Coffee enema - do it yourself at home [13:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download