Roberts is the brains behind Lyfe Kitchen, a new American dining experience that serves dairy-less cookies and beef from grass-fed, humanely raised cows. There’s no butter, cream, white sugar, white flour, high-fructose corn syrup, additives or trans fats in any of the menu items, which include grilled barramundi and fish tacos, according to a feature on the company published in Wired magazine.

Lyfe Kitchen (Lyfe stands for Love Your Food Everyday) opened less than a year ago in Palo Alto, Calif. But Roberts has big plans for his fledgling eatery. He aims to open hundreds of locations across the nation within five years. Lyfe, he hopes, will become America’s new and improved McDonald’s.

Lyfe isn’t just committed to serving healthy meals — though Roberts hopes to serve brussels sprouts like McDonald’s sells french fries — it’s also committed to eco-conscious culinary practices.

Take this example: The poultry industry typically cools slaughtered chickens in chlorine water baths. But Wired reports that Lyfe’s poultry supplier, Mary’s Chickens, uses chilled air to cool its birds, which runs a lower risk of food contamination and saves gallons of water each day.

“It’s better for food safety,”Jim Campbell of Synergy Restaurant Consultants, the company Roberts has hired to source many of Lyfe’s ingredients, told Wired in an interview. “You’re not mixing all these chickens in a bath of water, where contamination can occur. And you’re saving 30,000 gallons of water a day.”

Main photo credit: Lyfe Kitchen

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When compared with other industries, farmers and ranchers are 2.5 times more likely to need amputation as a result of being hurt on the job. Most of these amputations involve fingers and toes, but there are still plenty of farmers who lose larger body parts and have to manage with insufficient prostheses.

“There are lot of issues and challenges to farming with a prosthesis,” said Stefania Fatone, research associate professor in physical medicine and rehabilitation at Northwestern and corresponding author of the study. “They often need to climb ladders and silos, lift bags of feed and seed, and walk on uneven terrain, in all kinds of weather conditions. Also, a dairy farmer may have very different needs than a corn farmer or cattle rancher.”

The major issue reported by interviewed farmers and prosthetists was durability. Farmers reported breaking bolts when lifting and jumping, as well as other farm tasks. Heavy lifting, rough terrain and aspects of farmers’ lifestyles also cause prostheses to deteriorate faster and fail more frequently than those belonging to individuals in other occupations. And, to make matters worse, prosthesis failure and durability issues often lead to secondary injuries.

Prostheses are also quite expensive, and farmers in rural areas may have to travel great distances to a prosthetist’s clinic, adding to the cost. In addition, farmers’ medical insurance is often inadequate in covering the devices, so many farmers attempt to repair their own prosthesis — which can be a major safety concern — while others simply go without replacements.

Part of the problem here is that prosthetic devices are not made for day-to-day farm life, instead being best suited for someone with an office job or other not-physically demanding position. Another issue is that prosthetists are not typically trained about specific needs of farmers and ranchers, and thus sometimes prescribe inappropriate options or do not inform farmer patients about proper care and maintenance. The Northwestern study is part of a larger project that aims to tackle both of these issues. The project will design educational materials outlining farmers’ prosthesis needs, as well as work with prosthesis manufacturers to develop more robust devices.

Researchers are now recruiting farmers with prostheses from across the United States to take part in a larger study.

Main photo credit: Paul Bettner/Flickr

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At a cost of $1.8 million and with an expected release date in 2014, the study will take a look at 2,000 homes distanced between 500 meters and five kilometers from installations with eight to twelve turbines. There are nearly 140 such places spread throughout Canada, supplying 2.3 percent of the country’s electricity needs. Interviews will be recorded, blood pressure will be monitored, and sleep studies will be conducted by 25 experts in acoustics, health assessment and medicine.

Jane Wilson, who heads the group Wind Concerns Ontario, thinks the study is a great first step towards proving that wind turbines damage human health. “The symptoms that are being reported by people in Ontario are the same as those being reported around the world,” she said. “So there really is something there.” CEO of North American Platform Against Wind Power Sherri Lange supports the study as well. “The house vibrates, it becomes like a guitar. The noise and the vibration enters the home and it actually increases the effect,” she told CBC News.

As to be expected, wind industry folks don’t expect to see any connection between turbines and human health. Robert Hornung, president of the Canadian Wind Energy Association said that “we believe that the balance of scientific evidence clearly shows that wind turbines don’t have an impact on human health,” adding that numerous reviews in the past backed up his claims. He does, however, welcome any new studies on wind energy. “Health Canada’s new study will contribute to the scientific literature and our knowledge base, and we appreciate the opportunity for stakeholders to review the draft methodology and study design and we look forward to undertaking such a review and providing our feedback,” he said.

In addition to industry members, even some government policy makers don’t expect anything from the report. The director of Queen’s University’s Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy Warren Mabee is among those who don’t see the correlation. “I don’t expect any big surprises in this report, because it’s been very, very difficult in the past to link conclusively cause and effect, to show that the turbines themselves are solely responsible for any kind of health impacts people are experiencing,” he said.

My unprofessional guess and opinion? They aren’t going to find too much, unless a resident happens to live directly underneath one and they are suffering from a lack of sleep because of the noise. That I can understand being annoying and detrimental to one’s health. Other than that, I think we need to take into consideration the effect on our health if we don’t move away from burning fossil fuels to provide electricity; I think that’s much more dangerous path to continue on than the noise generated by a wind turbine.

[via O.Canada]

Image Credit: Neville10/Flickr

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Because coal and gas companies are some of the worst offenders when it comes to air pollution, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created special rules to monitor them. Under these regulations, high-polluting plants are required close or undergo significant renovations in order to meet air safety standards.

Since coal and gas companies rake in billions in profit each year, you’d think they could at least try not to give us all asthma. According to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council, however, the fossil fuel industry would rather not be troubled with public health. The report revealed that eight leading U.S. utilities, known as the “Gang of Eight” has spent millions of dollars lobbying and litigating to block, weaken, or delay major Clean Air Act safeguards.

So who’s in this dirty gang? According to the report, these companies are AEP, Ameren, DTE Energy, Energy Future Holdings, FirstEnergy, GenOn, PPL and Southern Company.

In 2011, the coal-fired power plants operated by these companies generated enough air pollution to have contributed to 10,400 deaths; 65,000 asthma attacks; 6,600 hospital and emergency room visits; and 3.4 million lost work-days. According to the NRDC, their combined economic toll on America (based on a widely-accepted model that links air pollution to adverse health consequences) is a staggering $78 billion. It seems these companies would rather waste money defending their right to kill people rather than simply updating their plants to reduce emissions.

“The ‘Gang of Eight’ utilities are putting their profits over protecting kids and communities from deadly and dangerous air pollution,” said Pete Altman, climate and clean air campaign director at NRDC. “Without these health protections from the Clean Air Act, we will see more premature deaths, asthma attacks and other illnesses every year, together with billions of dollars in estimated health costs that go with them.  We want to see these companies focus their money on cleaning up pollution rather than using litigation and lobbying to delay important improvements in clean air protections. ”

To find out how much each company has spent on blocking these regulations, read the full report here. 

via Inhabitat

Photo credit: takomabibelot/Flickr

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