Vegans in Space (NASA)

Rose Y.Colón (finedininglovers.com, July 24, 2012); Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Worlds in space/sky (Sanskrit, akasha) are best visited by vegans (wallpapervortex.com). Below Mars image from Shutterstock engineers at NASA’s Synthetic Biology Initiative using life to create building blocks of life instead of shipping them (via inhabitat.com).

Mars is really more hospitable than trip there

We have Buddhists in space, Buddhists from space, Buddhists sending messages from space, so why not smart, compassionate, green (environmentally-conscious) vegans? 
 
The next time NASA sends astronauts to Mars in the 2030s, they will not be eating synthetic capsules, freeze-dried food, or liquid meals. That's so last millenium.
  
On their mission to Mars, NASA astronauts will eat 100% vegan meals complete with fresh fruits and vegetables grown on the spaceship.

  

How is this possible? [A better question is, Why? Could it be that even mainstream scientists know full well that a vegan diet is the healthiest for humans particularly those under the strains and stresses of space travel, while the fiction is maintained that here on Earth we need junk food and flesh?]

It is all thanks to the research being done by NASA's Advanced Food Technology (AFT) project. 

V is for Vegan tees (OnOurSleeve.com)

Since Mars has some gravity, the AFT researchers believe astronauts will be able to chop and cook vegetables and even grow their own plants with hydroponics using recycled water.

 

The six to eight astronauts who will participate in the Mars mission will require enough food for three years. Mars is so far away that NASA will not be able to send food every six months like they do for the International Space Station. Neither will they be able to preserve meat or dairy for such a long period, according to senior research scientist Maya Cooper. 

 

That is why Cooper and her team have come up with a menu of 100 vegan recipes. According to this video, NASA is still working to ensure the astronauts have healthy and varied meals.It is not clear how talented a chef will be onboard to prepare these recipes, but if this animated 3D short film is any indication, the astronauts are in for years of treats. AP/FDL VIDEO

(GoVeg.com)

 
Inhabitat:

• NASA harnessing the power of microbes to create building bricks on Mars
• How "soft infrastructure," like wetlands and green roofs, could save NYC
• Our World: giant pixelated LEGO map built from 1 million bricks!
• London’s Earth creature is super adobe dome by city’s smallest architects
• INTERVIEW: Architecture for Humanity’s Co-Founder Kate Stohr 
• "World’s Most Sustainable Gas Station" in the Netherlands
• UK scientists developing autonomous flying honey bee robots!

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Getting fat for Kill Turkey Day

Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times (Nov. 20, 2012); CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

Face it, or don't eat it. Or there's kind Tofurky. By eating it one is complicit it its torture and gruesome murder. Americans will buy 581 million pounds of turkey flesh for Thanksgiving this year but will trash more than a third of it (keepitsimplesurvival).

 

American tradition means eating dinner at lunch set up to look like a big family supper near Plymouth Rock, which means inviting the neighborhood Native American family to sit at one end. In the center is a big dead bird. This is sad enough, but it gets sadder:

A third of all Thanksgiving turkey meat won't be eaten.

SAD: Standard American Diet

Americans will buy 581 million pounds of the fowl, but 204 million pounds will end up in the trash can, the Natural Resources Defense Council reports.

Some 204 million pounds of meat will end up in the garbage after the holiday feast, according to an NRDC blog post.

The waste is especially appalling given that the resources required -- including feed, water and transportation -- to produce each pound of turkey are equivalent to fuel enough to drive a car 11 miles and take a 130-minute shower.

Natives never wasted any part of an animal.

Overall, that equates to greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 800,000 car trips from New York to San Francisco and enough water to supply New York City for more than 100 days.

Over the full year, Americans chuck out $165 billion in uneaten food, according to the NRDC.

And turkey prices are not getting any cheaper. They are up 7% from a year ago, pushed by the severe summer drought... More

(EcoVeganGal) Glimpse of the 2009 Vegan Thanksgiving Potluck in LA.

• GoVeg.com
• Pledge to be Vegan for 30 Days
• 15 Vegetarian Thanksgiving Events
• Cruelty Free: VeganLosAngeles.com 
• The Importance of Compassion in Buddhism

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YogaMan? Why Men CAN'T Do Yoga (video)

The Men of Wisdom Quarterly

Paradox: Try less, go further. Don't force it. Use the Force, he-man! (technabob.com)

 

Why not?

Fun with flexibility (photo-librarian.com)

Men can't do yoga, at least not American men. There are various reasons for this, two of which are most salient. It's too easy, and it's too hard.
  
Given a Hot Yoga class (or what the Choudhury Corporation tries to appropriate under the exclusive "Bikram" brand name), we rise to the challenge. Now there's something to sink our teeth into! We come to stare at yoga-butts, to see what all the fuss is about, and we end up with mild cases of heat exhaustion. And we wonder how all these women are able to keep going without collapsing.

  

Baggy yoga pants (aliexpress.com)

We muscle through it, laugh at the off-color commentary (characteristic of so many Bikram franchises), and treat ourselves to rajasic- and tamasic- poisons afterward. We have to do something to undo the cleansing reaction from all that sweating. But given the task of a slow-paced Hatha (Sun-Moon) Yoga class (characteristic of Iyengar), we wither. We're helpless. There's nothing to do!
  
Give us something to do, something to climb, something to conquer! We can't just stand here listening to some woo-woo gal blithering on and on about proper form. Well, we can't until patience builds, maybe some reserve, and when we finally stop staring/drooling at all the women standing around us in colorful tights and tutus from Lululemon, OMgirl, and Victoria's Secret.

Here's The Secret, Guys

There is an ancient Asian philosophy that goes by the Sanskrit name of sthirasukha. It roughly translates as "hard-easy," "hard-softness," "effort-ease," or "strive-rest." Maybe "force-flex" or "yin-yang" would be catchier. Whatever. Once you understand it, you can come up with your own translation.
  
The way of the Tao is the path of least resistance. "The Force" is the magical mystery of the universe, the movement of prana (not to be confused with prAna, which only makes for good fashion sense).
  

Nerds rejoice. Star Wars to the rescue!

To get where you're going you have to resist inertia a little then rest into it. For instance, one makes an effort to breathe then lets go. One makes an effort to stand then stands. One makes an effort to get into a pose then simply rests in it. It's not really rest -- because that would be collapsing -- but rather resting into it, steadying, undoing the tension, releasing excess energy or stress, letting go.
 
It's all about balanced-effort. We all do well to have open minds...but not so open that our brains fall out. Don't jump unless you have a parachute: Don't try the extreme pose if you haven't built up to it by slow and steady training. That is the quickest route to failure, disappointment, and stopping.

Notice anything? This yoga stuff is more than something practiced in a studio with fancy flooring and ambient music. It's a lesson in how to live: Go easy. Go strong. Relax. Build real or core strength. It derives from ease not force. Supple flexibility is stronger than brittle stiffness.
  

A woman's strength, a man's balance (uechi)

Softness only seems like weakness -- until we see what yoga women (yoginis) are capable of.  And look at the Indian yogis, who are preternaturally strong yet even more flexible than American women. Who cares if we can demolish everybody in the other platoon, hood, squad, barrio, team, or country? If we can't bend, our machismo is only poison to the world. Stretch the heart.

• Yoga for Guys: Top 3 Reasons "A Little Stretching" Is Everything We Need
• Dress Codes - What's a Guy to Wear for Yoga? NYTimes.com
• What's the deal with guys and yoga? Fit and Feminist
• Do straight guys do yoga? - Yahoo! Answers 
• Guys only! What's with you and girls who wear yoga pants?‎ 
• 5 Toughest Yoga Positions for Guys - Men's Fitness 
• Yoga for Regular Guys: Best Damn Workout on the Planet

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Berkeley Buddhist Veggie Recipes

Berkeley Buddhist Monastery; Wisdom Quarterly

Grilled Kabobs (berkeleymonastery.org)

  

INGREDIENTS

12 cherry tomatoes

12 sweet mini peppers

12 zucchini cubes, 1/4 inch

12 brown or button mushrooms

12 firm fried tofu or tempeh cubes 1/2 inch

12 smoked gluten (seitan) or veggie meat cubes 1/2 inch

1 tbsp black sesame seeds

2 tbsp soy sauce paste

2 tbsp Taiwanese BBQ saute paste

PREPARATION

Slice zucchini, cube tofu, cube gluten. Mix black sesame seeds, soy sauce paste, and saute paste. Pre-marinate tofu in the fridge for 3 hours before grilling. Skewer all ingredients and brush with sauce mixture. Set the oven to broil (about 500 degrees), grill kabobs, turning if desired. Remove after 3-6 minutes. Serve over rice or salad. Serves 4. More

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Monks sickly on diets without work or yoga

CC Liu, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Theravada monks with alms bowls in hand (Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

   
Eating a decadent diet -- white rice, meats, burned and carcinogenic vegetable oils, sugar, synthetic flavorants and excitotoxins -- has long term consequences. Exercise keeps the aging (oxidizing) effects at bay for lay people, who color their hair, get false teeth, and endure various and sundry skin treatments. Monastics do not have it so easy. Their sedentary lifestyle, often missing the heart of a monastic's duty of meditating on a regular basis, is full of toxins, calories, and excess, the essence of craving. In ancient times there would also have been ample work duties and what we recognize as yoga postures (asanas) to keep the body limber and unconstipated. Now doctors are documenting the predictable results:

A research study indicates that almost half of Thai monks are overweight or affected by noncommunicable diseases

The Nation

Thai monks (Markus Gebauer/flickr.com)

The study focused on the health concerns of Thai monks and how to offer them food during the upcoming Buddhist Lent [Vassa, the Rains Retreat when monastics refrain from travel].

The survey’s participants included 246 monks from the Dhammayuttika Nikaya [an ascetic strain of forest monks that comprises only 10 percent, as contrasted with most Thai monks who are members of the Maha Nikaya school] and Mahayana movements in 11 provinces. [Since there is next to no Mahayana presence in this overwhelmingly Theravada country, it is likely that the study authors or reporters are mistaking Maha Nikaya and Mahayana.]

Forty-five percent of the monks experience varying levels of obesity, while 40 percent of them face such diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and allergies, partly due to the rich, oily, and sugar laden foods offered to them by the Buddhist faithful.

The average monk’s only sporting activities is walking in the morning while on rounds seeking alms and sweeping temple courtyards. Only around 21 percent have annual health checkups.

According to the study, some monks have more than three evening drinks each day, for they must abstain from eating food. However, some of the drinks offered to monks are not healthy, as they are mostly soft drinks with sugar, leading to diabetes.

A dualtrack campaign is being prepared to teach monks to select healthy drinks and also to inform food donors about healthy food when offering alms to monks.

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