A Summary

This blog post finds me at the end of my high school career, and I can say it's been quite a year. I didn't get as much sleep as I would've wanted, but senior year has been a period of great personal change for me. Through my social studies, English, and bio classes I was able to explore topics about health and the environment that I cared about, which helped me develop a sense of the complex issues we face today. This blog, in fact, has been most instrumental in allowing me to explore, and so I might continue with it anyway. I hope I've helped inform others as well, even though my student perspective isn't as far-reaching. 


In this post I'm going to try to summarize the conclusions I reached and centralize the experiences that led me to them. I will also include some quotes that inspire me, so that maybe in several years I can look back here and remember where I was at this point in my life. 

The Poisonwood Bible catalyzed the process in me, I think, because it discussed nature's awesome omnipotence. And in AP biology, the deeper we delved into the processes and patterns that govern the natural world, the more fascinated I was that everything seems to fit together so perfectly. It got me thinking that maybe sometimes God and nature are synonymous, because I can imagine no greater force that could have created our world with so much care and calculation. And so this omnipotent force, whatever we call it, demands respect and humility from everybody, no matter their beliefs. And of course, as any scientist can tell you, nature wants to be balanced always, and I imagine it really hurts her feelings when humans upset that balance deliberately and without concern.  


While these philosophies are well-meaning, I'm afraid the odds are stacked against us when we try to implement them. I hate to be cynical, but it seems to me like the US government doesn't care to prioritize its citizens' health very often. In fact, it allows practices that are very clearly harmful and dangerous, all in the name of progress and capitalism. I think we reached a point, though, at which progress can no longer mean "make as much money as possible." Progress will have to involve righting our wrongs and developing a conscience, for once. Just to be clear, I'm not anti-government; I just wish our government would stand up for us, the little people, once in a while and give big corporations a well deserved slap on the wrist. 

Based on what I've learned this year, I've started to make small lifestyle changes here and there, like buying less plastic. Hopefully, these changes will add up and make a difference one day. But my journey to health and sustainability is just beginning: I look forward to college and the years beyond to develop the habits and knowledge even more. I can't wait to participate in ecotourism, to join UIC's Ecocampus club, to pay close attention to what I put on my skin and in my stomach. 

If I can say nothing else, I would like to end with the thought that health (our health and that of the planet's ecosystems) must be our priority. Since a foundation of health is necessary for all other undertakings, unsustainable habits create a lifestyle that is inherently doomed. And in order for health to be the norm, we need balance everywhere. We must have a balanced diet and daily routine, but the institutions and industries that govern our society should also give back what they take. Maybe this kind of world is unattainable, but we can at least get close, can't we?

Fed Up

A few days ago I started watching a documentary called Fed Up that recently appeared on Netflix. I saw the trailer last year and I couldn't wait for the documentary to come out (I put the trailer below). I've seen several documentaries about the effect food, particularly American food, has on our country's collective health. Most of these discussed sugar and it's omnipresence in the American diet, but Fed Up is the first one I've seen that is all about sugar. It is narrated by Katie Couric, directed by Stephanie Soechtig (known for GMO OMG), and produced by Laurie David, producer of An Inconvenient Truth.

I'm writing this post mainly to recommend the documentary to those interested, rather than to review it. Like I said, it's available to watch on Netflix and I think Vimeo also has the whole documentary here. For those who are not interested or don't have time to watch, I will highlight some important points below. 

The label on the right shows the total amount of sugars, calories, and sodium in a
bottle of Coca Cola. From the blog Food Politics by Marion Nestle. 

• In the U.S., 93 million Americans are obese--this is roughly one-third of the country. A lot of these cases can be attributed to consumption of sugary drinks (though diet soda is just as harmful). 
• Sugar is silent but deadly: every time you ingest sugar, it triggers a spike in insulin levels that convert sugar into fat so your body can store it. Also it is highly addictive, 7 times more than cocaine.
• People should only consume about 6 teaspoons of sugar (about 25 grams) every day, but most Americans consume about 153 grams of sugar daily. This isn't very hard to do, since a can of coke has about 39 grams of sugar. 
• While it is certainly important to exercise and not to take in significantly more calories than you spend, weight loss is not that simple. The food you eat to get those calories really does matter. I wrote more about this in a post some months ago.  
• Obesity is a disease of poverty, meaning that is disproportionately affects lower-income families. Oftentimes these families are minorities. 
• Children are targeted by the food industry even more than adults through advertisements for sugary and fatty foods and drinks on kids' channels. Latino children are even more exposed; they seem about 50% more of these ads on Spanish-language television. 
• The U.S. food industry (Big Food, as it is often called) has done everything they can to make sure they don't lose profits. This is by far the most frustrating part of the documentary. The health of its population should be a country's priority, but sadly that doesn't seem to be the case in the U.S.. 

I would also like to point you to a blog about the same issues, aptly named Food Politics, by Marion Nestle. 

Plastic

Happy Earth Day!

In honor of this environment-appreciating holiday, I'm going to discuss recycling, particularly plastic recycling. Ever since I chose to do my final service project on plastic, I’ve been thinking a lot about plastics and where it ends up. Sometimes it’s quite overwhelming, and I feel like I need to replace every little piece of plastic in my life with reusable options. This, of course, isn’t really a realistic goal, but there are certainly little changes that all of us can make sure that anything that can be recycled is recycled.

RIC symbols 

I’m pretty optimistic and I like to think that people (here in the north shore at least) are pretty good about recycling. But I think that fewer people are aware that not all plastic is created equal, and as a result not all types can be recycled. Recyclability is based on a Resin Identification Code (RIC) that was created in 1988 when the plastics industry realized that maybe recycling would be a good idea. The code runs from 1-7 and simply lets recyclers know what type of plastic they’re dealing with. You can find this number at the bottom of plastic products surrounded by a chasing arrows. The code is only placed on products 8 ounces or bigger and, interestingly, is required to be “inconspicuous” so as not to influence the consumer’s choices.

I made a list below of the 7 types of plastic, their industrial names, and whether or not they can be recycled. I’ve also listed common products made out of the different types of plastic to make it easier to tell what we can recycle and what we can’t. Recyclable plastics are the green ones, while the red are non recyclable.

1 - Polyethylene terephthalate (PET/PETE) - these are the plastics we as consumers encounter most often, and they are easily recycled into all sorts of things. PET is durable, transparent, and safe, so it's a versatile option for many manufacturers.

Products: plastic bottles, cleaning product containers, cosmetics, food containers

2 - High density polyethylene (HDPE) - HDPE usually is used to make thicker containers for heavier products because it's stronger that PET. It is very durable and toxic to use or make. It is also easily recycled. 

Products: detergent, bleach, cat litter, milk, shampoo, motor oil

3 - Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) - PVC is very cheap, but is widely considered to be quite toxic, especially during production and when it ends up in landfills. The health effects of these toxins are still a point of debate.

Products: pipes, electrical insulation, shower curtains, toys, plastic bags, medical feeding tubes, blood bags, IV bags, raincoats, credit cards

4 - Low density polyethylene (LDPE) - LDPE is more flexible than HDPE but it much harder to recycle, so most centers don't accept it.

Products: lab equipment (pipettes, squeeze bottles), grocery bags, Ziploc bags, shrink wrap, food wrapping

5 - Polypropylene - this plastic has a very high melting point, can be used as a solid or as a fiber, and it can be colored.

Products: Tupperware, carpeting, car parts

6 - Polystyrene - also known as Styrofoam, polystyrene is very good at insulating. It's easily recycled into a variety of new products.

Products: disposable utensils, plastic plates, packing peanuts, coffee cups

7 - Other - these are usually products that contain multiple types of resins mixed together. Because the resins can't be separated once they've been mixed together, number 7 plastics are obviously not recyclable. Number 7 plastics also include newer plastics made containing acrylic, fiberglass, nylon or plastic made from corn, starch, etc.

Products: I couldn't really find a list of number 7 products, mostly because this whole category needs to be revised very soon.

Palm Oil

Recently I was flipping through my Facebook feed and came upon an article about palm oil. I'd venture to say that palm oil, as common as it is, is something most people are relatively unfamiliar with. The vegetable oil appeared in our food supply to replace other unhealthier fats. Nowadays, thanks to palm oil, the nutrition labels of our packaged foods print "0 g trans fat". But since its health benefits and drawbacks are somewhat debatable, and since palm oil isn't always sold in an edible form, I would like to focus on its environmental consequences instead. 

Palm oil production by country, from GreenPalm

Crude palm oil comes from the oil palm, Elaeis guineensis, which is grown primarily in Indonesia and Malaysia but also in the countries shown to the right. Many of those countries are covered in tropical forests, so planting oil palms requires burning and clearing the trees and peatland. Most of us know the US and China are the two countries that emit the most greenhouse gases, but surprisingly Indonesia is also at the top, mainly because of the thriving palm oil industry. The large-scale burning leads not only to carbon emissions but also to environmental damages that come with deforestation. Soils that are no longer anchored by roots wash away with seasonal rains, causing landslides while habitat loss threatens endangered species.

A baby Bornean orangutan photographed
by Suzi Eszterhas.

Indonesia's case is especially dire. The country accounts for 50% of total palm oil exports, and is expected to produce 40 million tons by the end of the decade. But as a result, nearly 80% of Indonesia's GHG emissions come from forest and peatland clearing. If Indonesia is projected to produce even more palm oil, these emissions will likely only increase unless an alternative method is adopted. This is especially disheartening since Indonesia is home to the world's 3rd largest tropical forest and to 15% of the world's known species. Already the population of orangutans in Indonesia decreased to 50,000 from 150,000, and there are only about 400 Sumatran white tigers left in the wild. Deforestation also harms locals who depend on forests to survive, get caught up in land disputes, or become displaced.

Although Indonesia is thousands of miles away from those of us in America, palm oil certainly is not. In fact, it seems to be in everything, from Oreo's to soap, because of its versatility. Palm oil has dozens of aliases, blending into ingredient lists pretty well, so even those who are watching out for it still miss it. So basically, it seems like we can't avoid palm oil no matter how much we hate its effects on the planet, like there is nothing to be done.

Thankfully, that's not entirely true. Some manufacturers that comply to strict standards outlined by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) are able to grow certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO). The RSPO is called a sustainability standard, and is based on principles and methods (in the image below) that ensure an industry is operated as ethically as possible. Palm oil grown in this way can be identified thanks to GreenPalm's label, proving its certification. Companies that buy palm oil (and eventually, consumers as well) can then source palm oil grown in much healthier ways.

The principles upon which the RSPO is based.

Furthermore, Indonesia along with a number of palm oil growers and companies that sell products containing palm oil have checked themselves before they wreck themselves. Companies like Nestlé and Unilever are leaders in the packaged food industry for their commitment to safer grown palm oil, according to several factors detailed by the Union of Concerned Scientists' report Donuts, Deodorant and Deforestation: Scoring America's Top Brands on their Palm Oil Commitments. Kraft, however, scored the lowest. Thanks to the reports, consumers can choose to buy from the companies supporting responsible palm oil growth and demand greater commitment from flakier companies.

If all of these improvements will stick, then the outstanding economic benefits of producing palm oil do not have to come at a detriment to the environment, the community, and to endangered species. Sometimes, I'm pessimistic about the difference an individual can make, so I'm glad that the companies and manufacturers have taken responsibility for their actions.

Calories

Fewer calories = healthier?

Just before writing this post I had some ice cream, and I noticed that on the carton was a little label claiming that Edy's french vanilla ice cream has 1/3 the calories of other ice cream. Presumably, Edy's chose to advertise that fact so more people would pick their ice cream. After all, it has less calories, so it must be healthier, right?

Lately, it seems that more and more people see calories as the enemy to weight loss and believe they must be avoided as much as possible. Various studies have shown that when given the choice people tend to choose lower calorie meals in favor of higher calorie ones, regardless of what's in the food. In the simplest terms, a calorie is simply a measurement of heat, or energy. As most high school students who have taken a health, chemistry, or biology class know, a calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water one degree celsius. A kilocalorie, or Calorie with a capital "C," is the energy needed to raise one kilogram of water one degree, and this is actually the unit we see on nutrition labels. That being said, calories are essential for proper body functions because they power everything from the beating of our heart to the firing of neurons across our nervous system.

So if calories are really a neutral term and integral to bodily functions, how come they have such a negative connotation in our culture? Eating fewer of them is associated with losing weight and being skinny and attractive (body image is a whole other discussion), while eating lots of calories is associated with being heavier and unhealthy. People who are trying to lose weight are advised to "balance their calorie intake", making sure that the calories they take in are less than the amount of calories they would use in a day. This system would put them at a calorie "deficit", forcing their bodies to turn to stored energy, or fat (which also has a horrible reputation) in order to start depleting those stores.

Both meals have the same calorie amount, but the one
on the left is nutrient dense. 

I'm not a nutritionist, but after plenty of research I think it's safe to say that the calorie counting approach, as well as how our culture views calories as a whole, is quite misled. In fact, counting calories can lead to other health risks, such as orthorexia nervosa. Though not recognized as a clinical disorder by the DSM-5, it is characterized by an obsessive fixation on healthy eating that can be fueled by meticulous calorie counting. And if a dieter considers only the amount of calories in a food, then it would seem that 500 calories of cookies is the same as 500 calories of carrots, and we know that's not true.

The fact is that not all calories are created equal, and so calorie counting oversimplifies concepts like weight gain and obesity. Weight loss is subject to a slew of other factors, from stress level and lack of sleep to genetics and the kind of foods you're eating, which means that it actually does matter in which form a calorie is ingested. Empty calories, or those that come from the simple sugars in a cookie, can actually lead to fat retention, while calories from the carrots are nutrient dense and beneficial. Unfortunately, the American diet today is permeated with empty calories contained in processed foods and refined carbohydrates. Cutting the discussion off at the shallow calorie level ignores nutritional requirements and complex chemical interactions inside the human body.

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter how many fewer calories my ice cream has compared to other brands. Ice cream will be ice cream, and will probably never count as a healthy choice. Of course, that might not stop people (such as myself) from enjoying it, but at least when we do want to make a healthy choice, we should understand the need to be looking beyond just calories.

Keystone XL Pipeline

On January 20th, President Obama gave his State of the Union address, promising to utilize his veto if a displeasing bill reaches his desk. Nine days later, the Senate proceeded to approve the legislation to construct the Keystone XL Pipeline even though his veto is expected. The pipeline would stretch 1,179 miles and connect Alberta tar sands to existing pipelines in the Northern US to transfer tar sands crude oil to American refineries. Proponents of Keystone claim that it will pump oil money into the US economy, create thousands of jobs for Americans and shift the American oil supply westward. Environmentalists answer that the 42 thousand jobs Keystone claims to create are nearly all temporary, leaving just 50 permanent maintenance jobs, and are stressing the dangers of Keystone to North American wildlife and to the atmosphere overall.

Since crude oil extracted from tar sands is thought to produce more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than other types of crude, the Department of State conducted a Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) that estimated the emissions of sand crude from Keystone. The FEIS found that Keystone oil’s GHG emissions would be around 1.3-27.4 million metric tons per year, which sounds like a big number but would constitute only about .02-.4% of the US’s total annual GHG emissions. Sand crude is much thicker, though, so it needs to be heated in order to flow, and requires much more energy to refine, meaning increased carbon emissions before the oil is even used (those numbers aren’t included in the above figures). Furthermore, both the FEIS and TransCanada, the Canadian energy company set to build Keystone, agree that even if Keystone itself doesn’t go through, crude oil demand in North America will persist and Alberta’s tar sands will still be mined.

The result of a sand crude oil spill in the Kalamazoo
River in 2010. It's still not cleaned up.  

Yet even though the GHG impacts attributed to Keystone seem inevitable, it seems environmentalists are mostly concerned about the impact building Keystone would have on wildlife ecosystems and about the consequences of an oil spill on wildlife and water supply. Sure, oil spills look kind of pretty, but according to the EPA, sand crude oil is much harder to clean up than other oils because it doesn’t biodegrade and it’s far stickier. In response TransCanada promised to instate a slew of regulations and safety measures.

Parking lots covered in solar panels would be a
genius idea, wouldn't it?

As a young adult who cares about the course of the Earth’s environment, I would be much happier seeing the $8 billion dollars set aside for Keystone go to the wind and solar industry. A couple years ago this would have been a tough demand, but recently both the solar and wind sector have seen significant growth and have become much cheaper. A January 2015 study conducted by Oceana, an ocean conservation organization, tapping into wind resources off the Atlantic coast would yield twice as much energy and jobs than oil drilling.

To me it seems like a no-brainer to rain down support on the clean energy sector, even if Keystone fulfills all of its promises regarding jobs and safety. If you’re already eating a lot of junk food, the sensible thing to do would be to move away from that kind of diet to something healthier. The US is at that point now. We can continue to add more junk food oil to our energy diet, or we can spend our time converting to the kale of energy: limitless wind and solar.  

Vaxxing

To many kids, the word “vaccine” is a sinister one, mostly because it involves a needle. But in the world of medicine, vaccines are considered one of the greatest public health successes achieved. In the 20th century, vaccines have managed to completely eradicate smallpox, nearly eliminate polio, and bring a slew of others under control. In the US for example, measles was declared eradicated in 2000, with a few cases appearing every year as the disease was brought in from other countries.

An infographic showing the influence of common vaccines

If measles is “eradicated,” though, how come we’re currently experiencing the largest measles outbreak since 2000?

2014 saw 23 outbreaks of measles, totaling more than 600 cases. About 100 more cases were reported in January of 2015 alone, which is significantly more than cases documented in entire years since 2000. The majority of the cases were traced back to Disneyland in California, with one outbreak in an Amish community in Ohio, and were blamed on unvaccinated children contracting measles and subsequently spreading it around at school or daycare once they got home. This is worrying because more and more parents have been declining the CDC's heavy vaccination schedule, especially the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. 

A bar graph from the CDC showing the prevalence of measles since 2000 

The MMR vaccine is of particular concern, in part because of the negative media attention it has attracted in the past. The MMR vaccine contains a live but weakened virus that can reproduce well enough to alert the immune system, but not enough to cause actual symptoms. After the initial infection, an immune response can be mobilized even quicker in case of another infection. Even though the vaccine virus is mostly harmless, for a long time the vaccine included thimerosal, a preservative that prevents contamination from microbes when the vaccine was still administered in multi-dose vials. Thimerosal was thought to contain trace amounts of mercury, which though harmless in one dose was feared to add up as kids received multiple doses and cause neurological problems. Today the MMR vaccine is administered in single-dose syringes in the US and though thimerosal was shown to be harmless by various studies, it was removed from the MMR vaccine and is used only in two vaccines. 

In 1998, British doctor Andrew Wakefield published a study in The Lancet in which he claimed that the MMR vaccine caused autism, prompting many parents to refuse vaccination for their children. Wakefield's results were not reproducible and after an extensive investigation, the doctor had his medical license revoked for publishing a deliberately fraudulent paper. Though the MMR vaccine has been shown not to cause autism, many still associate the two and this negative media attention may be partly responsible for the outbreak we are experiencing today.

A visual of herd immunity at work from The National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

The anti-vaccine movement would respond simply that having a group of unvaccinated children does not inherently threaten vaccinated children if we believe vaccines are actually effective. But this is where the concept of herd immunity comes in. Basically, the theory of herd immunity holds that the more immunized people exist in a population, the lesser the chance of an outbreak will be. Even if one unimmunized person contracts a disease, it's likely that the chain of transmission will be cut off if the infected person is surrounded by immunized people. Think of stepping stones: unimmunized people are stepping stones the pathogen uses to spread. But if 90% of the population is immunized, the pathogen won't have a stepping stone on which to transmit.

Of course, many still discredit herd immunity, calling it a "myth", and although the theory does represent a scenario of perfect distribution, I would still rather live in a country in which most people choose immunization. Sure, that means we need to accept some risk of rare or manageable adverse effects. We've just come so far in getting so many infectious diseases under control that it would be disgraceful to back down now.