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.

inserts in the garden

Last Thursday, I had attend an insert workshop held by Student Sustainable Club at Riverside City College's Community Garden and it was presented by University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources.  At the workshop, I learned using inserts to keep the garden healthy by using natural enemies (Predators vs Parasites) like convergent lady beetles vs aphids.  I also learned that scale insects are very harmful to the garden because they will take all the nutrients from the plant and the plant will die slowly.  In order to get rid of scale insects, you will need to introduce wasps into the garden to control the scale insects’ populations.  Another inserts, I learned in the workshop is Syrphid fly will help the plant pollinate and their larvae eat aphids and eat soft-bodied insects.  Before the workshop, I just know that ladybugs eat bad bugs.  Since after the workshop, I had learned a variety of inserts that can benefit and keep your garden healthy by keeping the parasites inserts population low.

Here are some of the photos I took at the workshop:

The collection of insert bought by UC Agriculture and Natural Resource

There is a convergent lady beetles/ ladybug searching for aphids, whiteflies, and other soft-bodied inserts

There are a few Syrphid flies in the garden

A grasshopper is a parasites in a garden, they will eat your crop

There is a whitefly within blue circle I draw in this piece photo at the center and near the top of this photo.

Some common list of Natural Enemies of Garden Pests/Inserts from UC Agriculture and Natural Resources

Gasland 2 after thought

After seeing “Gasland 2”, I felt that the oil giant have taken over people’s land slowly and forced them to leave their home because of fracking along the fault line and Marcellus and Utica Shale.  Fracking is to drill for oil or natural gas use high-pressure stream or water to force the oil or gas out of the wells.  Fracking may caused some earthquakes, when oil companies inject water into the ground until a certain pressure the ground can hold before an earthquake is released its energy (stress).  However, it has a negative impact the environment and just a matter of time before it pollute groundwater and air large area around the drill site with their toxin waste.  Also, oil company are not reliable because they are exempt from the Clean Water Act.  Drill wells are prompt the leak over time, and it could leak huge volume of methane gas (4 times as powerful as carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas) into the atmosphere, which can lead to runaway global warming or climate change.  The oil giant and the government hide the truth about fracking to the public.  It is just matter of time before the oil company starts to mine the methane ice in the arctic.

Is Riverside City College sustainable or not?

This week, I was assigned to observe how sustainable Riverside City College (RCC) is.  I had observed at RCC the transportation is not that green; although that, some of the students did walk, take the Riverside Transit Agencies (RTA) bus, and even ride their bike to RCC.  I find that most students prefer drive or carpool to RCC.  I have asked some of the International Club members on Saturday about their thought about the RTA bus service on Route 1, and most of them replied that the RTA service sucks because it always late and sometimes over-crowded.  I have also asked the club members that if you have a driving license and a car will you drive to RCC, and they replied possible yes because they are tired of waiting for a RTA bus.  I had some similar experiences with RTA, which RTA was always late and they sometimes will missed a scheduled bus service.  I only ride the RTA for half a year since I transfer from Santa Monica College (SMC) back in 2009.  The reason I stopped ride the RTA bus because it is unreliable and I was always late for my classes during my first semester at RCC that is not fun at all.  Now, I drive to RCC everyday although RTA bus can reach my apartment but I still prefer I drive to RCC because I can better manage my time from at least an hour back and from RCC to about 20 minutes when I drive, which I can used the time I saved to put it on my study time.  When I compare the transportation between RCC and SMC, I saw there is a huge difference because the bus company (Big Blue Bus) at Santa Monica did add some special service on top of their normal service on the Route 7 depends on how much people are at the bus station depart form SMC toward Los Angeles.  I remember that SMC encouraged students to take the Big Blue Bus to school that is one of the green principle they have beside there are a lot of green recycle bins which is very easy to identify.  Overall, I do not believe RCC is that sustainable campus compared to SMC; in order to, for RCC to be sustainably first they educate students how to be sustainable, and for its transportation to and from campus RTA need to improve its service and its frequency.

www.smc.edu

http://bigbluebus.com/
http://riversidetransit.com/home/                                                

Observed the nature

Riverside City College (RCC) campus map http://rcc.edu/about/parking/Pages/Campus-Map.aspx

I was assigned to observe the nature of about 20 minutes. It was difficult to observe the nature within an urban environment. However, I managed to find a quiet place near the Administration Building and the Quadrangle (Quad.) at Riverside City College (RCC). It was a semi-quiet environment in Riverside. During the 20 minutes period, I managed to observe some wildlife and some artificial noises. I saw and heard some birds singing and flying around the campus (the consumers) such as pigeon, hummingbird, crow, a few woodpecker, and a seagull fly by. I also saw a squirrel climbing down and up the tree to search for food. I have noticed there are a few type of trees planted on campus, which are the producers in an ecosystem such as palm and pine trees, Magnolia, and some flower tree. There are also a few brushes near the Administration and the Quad. I have also noticed there are a few human beings (college students) at time, and there are a lot of road noises from the Magnolia Ave. It is hard to focus when a vehicle with a loud exhaust passes by. Other than that issue, I also heard tree leaves rustling by the strong gust of wind, and there is some train sound their horn echoing from a distance. Overall, RCC located at a quiet neighborhood, and I observed most wildlife in this area lives in a community ecology. I was surprised that almost all animal I observed can adopt to this unique ecosystem. I make me think an ecosystem will be keep evolving which is a strong adaptation in this harsh environment.

Environment Science in the News – Information Literacy

News Article - Rainforest in Transition: Is the Amazon Transforming before Our Eyes?

This news article was written by David Biello, who is one of the authors publish scientist articles on Scientific American.  The news article was about deforestation due to agricultural activities at the Amazon Basin that may have a link of climate change in that region.  Biello showed us that deforestation at the Amazon Basin might cause reduce rainfall in the region and increases release of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/amazon-rainforest-tranformation/

About Scientific Americian

This news article is a somewhat reliable information source because it has a lot of current fact in the Amazon Basin Region, but it had missed some scientific data to support the fact.  The website is run by Scientific American, and they make the information seems reliable.  Scientific American’s mission is to “provide the leading source and authority for science, technology information, and policy for a general audience” (from Scientific American website).  This information is listed on its website. 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/pressroom/about-scientific-american/

The news article claimed that deforestation which caused by human impacts on the region’s weather.  Biello did not provide enough climate data support his claim, but he stated human impacts caused deforestation that I agreed.  For this reason, it is hard to tell did the author used any logical fallacies.  I believe he did not use any logical fallacies.

I was interested about this article because it talks about climate change.  However, the article also confused me because Biello only focus on the cause of the climate changed in the Amazon Basin, and lack of the long-term regional climate data to support his claim.  I hoped that Biello had provided more climatically data to support his claim.