Getting to the point

July 29th, 2009

When I first got the idea in my head that I wanted to have a blog, it was because I wanted a forum to babble about issues that interest me. My academic background, as you can see from my profile, is Health. Community Health to be precise. In my undergrad studies I took courses in Health Promotion, History of Medicine/Disease and Development of Healthy Communities. On Monday I turned in the capstone project to the last course of a Certificate in Field Epidemiology (excellent program if you are so inclined: look here). So from now on I am going to try to blog once every day or two about some issue or news article that I am passionate about. Please be forewarned, I have lots of interests, I believe that health is more than simply biological and hereditary and that social, political and environmental issues (a.k.a. social determinants of health) have an important place in the discussion surrounding health (and improving it!).

That all being said… today I read an article about a study from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. This study looked at the results of other studies (side note: this type of study is called a meta analysis) over the past 50 years which examined the difference in nutritional content between organic and commercially produced foods. Well, the results suggest there is no significant difference! Does this mean that we are wasting money buying organic? Well, perhaps not. This study does not address the issue of pesticides, whose effects on human health in the long term are not fully understood.

If you are concerned about pesticides, and want to get the most “bang for your buck” with organic fruits and veggies, the Environmental Working Group has a list of the “Dirty Dozen” and “Clean 15″. Have a look.

Oh and… don’t use tanning beds.

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Vacay in Montreal!

July 6th, 2009

So… almost 6 years ago I moved from the US to Canada to go to school. Because I have lived here for so long I hold great affection for Canada, ironically I don’t often spend Canada Day in the country. Canada Day falls on the 1st and Independence day is the 4th, so I often have a long weekend to go home and visit my friends and parents. This year my best friend and I went to Montreal We had quite the sightseeing and gastronomic experience

For a quick summary… we flew in on June 30 and got in just in time to drop off our bags (we stayed on Amherst Street, fairly close to UQAM) and to see Stevie Wonder perform at Jazz Fest. The rest of the week we saw all of the sights; Mont Royal and the neighborhood around it, Little Italy and Jean Talon Market, Old Montreal, Jean Drapeau Park, the Olympic Village, fireworks at Le Ronde and shopping on St. Catherine street. And the food… oh… the food… bagels, poutine, beavertails (its a dessert not part of an animal), creton, pizza, montreal smoked meat sandwiches… Yum! It was probably good that we were walking around so much!

I’m still working on editing/sorting my pictures, so they will come in a future post.