Amy's Farm

This weekend is went to Amy’s Farm.  It is an organic farm not an organic certify farm near Chino, California.  It is a nice little family own farm that you can buy fresh organic produces at their produces store.  The farm needs volunteers to keep the farm running.  Amy’s Farm also raise a few livestock but you have to buy a share of that animal to get the produce or meat from the animals, and they try very hard to feed the animal with their natural food like weed and grass.  They use natural composed for fertilizes at the vegetable and herbal plants, and they rotate the yield like every half-a-year to a year to put back nutrients back to the soil.  They also use a method called urban pot farming, which is farm a row of plant is a very small space and to utilized as much land as they could.  I learned that using that method of growth crop and increase food production in a small piece of land.
 http://www.amysfarm.com/ for more information about Amy's Farm.

climate changed

In this week blog, I was assigned to see climate change is really happening or not.  According to EPA, the climate is changing right now such as sea leveling rising, temperate rinses more than the natural rate, and ice surface are melting at a rapid rate than the natural rate.  The CO² level indicator shows that since the industry revolution CO² level start to raise rapidly that is totally human-made by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas.  Climate changed likely to affect our society and our world are: it will affect the coastal area and low-land area like Florida, USA would be underwater if the sea level continues to rinse, food production shift, massive global climate shift, and possible huge number of climatic immigrate.  The skepticism center about climate change are the recent temperate rinses is a part of a natural cycle not man-made, which is based on the debate on Natural vs. Man-made causes global warming lead to global climate changed.  In addition, some scientist believes that global climate change is a part of a natural climatically cycle.  I think skepticism exists on climate change is Oil companies and government not want to attempt about global climate change because of their millions of dollars of the economy, and they afraid if they attempt there is global climate changed, they will lose millions of dollars.  I think this is the reason that the U.S. is a part of the Kyoto Protocol because of economical interest of the U.S. government.  I think the world will be like in 50 years if we continue with our current path and do nothing to slow the rise of CO2 levels in the atmosphere are have more extreme weather and climatically pattern, sea level will continue to raise, will have a lot of climatically immigrate, world production might have to move towards the pole, and the polar region possible will be the new tropical area on Earth.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/indicators/

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/basics/#responsible

http://heartland.org/ideas/global-warming-not-crisis

Food! - Jasmine Rice

This is assignment is to research one of food that I enjoy the most.  I choose Jasmine Rice (floral aroma); it is popular in Asian culture.  The ingredients are very simple just Rice grain.  I think the Rice grains are usually air-dried.  It grow in Southeast Asia especially Thailand; it is the hub of Jasmine Rice.  It is raised in rice-paddy, and it is labour intensive to raise it.  I think it is grown be individual farmers and its local government because it is one of the economy core in Thailand.  The environmental impacts are low because it usually it farm along the flood plain or river basin.  It is a water base plant unless it have genetic modifier the plant to grow on soil.  It usually packaged in cloth/plant base bag (usually commercial size), paper and plastic bag (usually consumer size).  In the United Stated, one of the distributors call the “Golden Star” based in Central Valley, California; it seems related to the Asian Immigrate in the United States.  It is transportation possibly by truck to port then by airplane either on passenger or freighter plane, then by truck to distributors and by then truck to supermarket.  It is a health product, and I do not think it is genetic modifier unless the product contain extra amino acid and vitamins than its natural protein and nutrients.  White Jasmine Rice contain magnesium and phosphorus, dietary fiber and natural omega 3 (as protein), vitamins B6, niacin (B3), and thiamin (B1); Blown Jasmine Rice contain a lot more this nutrient than the white one.   Blown Jasmine Rice also contains zinc and iron.  The White Jasmine Rice have a good source of glucose and the Blown one has a lot more benefit, it can reduce the chance of heart attack, high pressure, type-2 diabetes, and reduce weight gain.  I believe the sources are accurate because the Blown Jasmine Rice has a lot of nutrition value, but it is not a good for glucose source.  I usually mix white and brown Jasmine Rice when I stream them in order to balance the sugar contain.

Note: White Jasmine Rice can cause weight gain and diabetes if eat too much.

http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/benefits-jasmine-rice-11081.html

http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/benefits-brown-rice-puffs-6926.html

Pictures: http://www.goldenstartrading.com/products/rice/jasmine-rice.html

White Jasmine Rice

Blown Jasmine Rice

Try to reduce my waste!

In this week blog, I am assigned to see how much solid waste I create in this weekend to the landfill.  On the first two-day period, I produce about a full grocery bag of waste.  About 75% of my waste is recyclable that I have recycle that are all PET plastics household items.  There are some of the waste-reduction strategies I found about the 3Rs principles such as reduce, reuse, and recycle.  On the third and fourth day, I redo the same day habit but I use the 3Rs principles to reduce my solid waste.  I use a refill and reusable bottle with a carbon water filter build-in, which I can reduce my consumption on the PET plastic water bottle by 80% in two days.  Overall, the waste I produced about 25% of the grocery bag, which is the same amount of waste as the first two days.  I find that 75% of the household items can be recycle or reuse like plastic containers, clean plastic packaging, cardboard box, plastic bags, and soda can be the common one I reuse or recycle.  The wastes that cannot be reuse or recycle are extremely dirty plastic food package, tissue, and paper-towels, which are my 25% of my solid waste.  I found again about 75% are plastic container but I reduce the use of PET water bottle that are recyclable.  Most of it are facial tissues because of last week there are the Santa Ana Wind blowing very hard in Southern California; I have a runny nose due to allergies during the weekend, and sadly I usually only use that very little facial tissue in normal conditions like a couple a day.  I practiced the 3Rs principle since 2005; I am able to reduce plastic consumption and reuse before recycle it; however, I will still have to work on reuse and reduce in the 3Rs principle.  I hope I can further reduce my waste in the long-term. 

P.S. I have found this assignment is pretty hard to achieve waste reduction in two days, it is way too short to see the result.