Marilu hosted The Actors Fund’s 15th annual Tony party in Los Angeles on Sunday, June 12, 2011. Hal Holbrook was honored at the event.

Perhaps the most disgraceful aspect of our agricultural system — I say this as an Oregon farmboy who once raised sheep, cattle and hogs — is the way antibiotics are recklessly stuffed into healthy animals to make them grow faster.

The Food and Drug Administration reported recently that 80 percent of antibiotics in the United States go to livestock, not humans. And 90 percent of the livestock antibiotics are administered in their food or water, typically to healthy animals to keep them from getting sick when they are confined in squalid and crowded conditions.

The single state of North Carolina uses more antibiotics for livestock than the entire United States uses for humans.

This cavalier use of low-level antibiotics creates a perfect breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant pathogens. The upshot is that ailments can become pretty much untreatable.

~ Nicholas D. Kristof, When Food Kills, June 11, 2011

Read more – it’s not long.

Yes, we’re on a bit of a main-dish salad kick around here. Summer makes us want cold foods and easy meals. Main-dish salads fit the bill.

This recipe came from the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Care (located near Northwestern University in Chicago). We were privileged to accompany a friend there during her initial interviews, and we found the idea of integrated care (Western medicine’s diagnostics and treatments plus Eastern “alternative” treatments such as acupuncture, meditation, massage, plus support in nutrition and exercise) to be the most sensible thing we’ve seen in medicine. Marilu’s husband Michael also received care here when he had cancer.

Anyway – we got this recipe there, and it’s delicious. Enjoy!

~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Curried Cashew Quinoa Salad
from the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Care
Blue * Serves 6-8

1/2 cup unsalted, raw cashews
1/2 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1/8 teaspoon sea salt

For cashews: Combine above ingredients and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 350F until nuts look dry, about 20 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

1 cup quinoa, uncooked but rinsed well
2 cups vegetable broth
1 can (15 oz) cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cucumber, seeded and diced (peeled if waxy)
10 cherry and grape tomatoes, halved
3 Tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 teaspoons olive oil
Sea salt and pepper to taste

Bring broth to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add quinoa, cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off heat and let quinoa continue to cook in the covered pan for approximately 10 minutes, until broth is absorbed.

Meanwhile, combine beans, cucumber, tomatoes, and cilantro in a medium bowl.

In a small bowl, whisk together lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper, until well mixed. Pour over vegetables and allow to marinate until quinoa is cooled. Add cooled quinoa to salad mixture and toss until combined. Roughly chop curried cashews and sprinkle on salad before serving.

This song expresses the urgency we all face to unite together as a planet and offers us wisdom with the words, “War, children, it’s just a shot away… Love, sister, it’s just a kiss away”. It really is that simple. We dedicate this song to all the lost, homeless and forgotten people in this world. It is in the shelter of each other that the people live.

~ Playing for Change

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

National Get Outdoors Day is an annual event to encourage healthy, active outdoor fun. Prime goals of the day are reaching first-time visitors to public lands and reconnecting our youth to the great outdoors.

There are all kinds of programs being offered at different locations, or you can just Get Outdoors on your own. If you have a state or national park nearby, it’s a good day for a field trip!

Need another reason to Get Outdoors? “Recreation is a powerful antidote to stress.”

Teenagers live in a world that is more stressed than ever before. They get overloaded with pressure at school, conflicts at home, relationship problems, and career choices. Many have to deal with divorce, moves, financial struggles, jobs, and blended families. When stress builds up, teens cope however they can. They may drink, drive aggressively, get high, overeat, go shopping, spend hours on the computer or playing video games, or take out their frustration on others. This is why we see increased bullying, isolation, depression, obesity, eating disorders, inappropriate sexual activity, violent outbursts, cutting, intolerance and hate crimes, suicide, and many other destructive choices. Kids need new and better choices. They need help unwinding and handling pressure in positive ways. Recreation is a powerful antidote to stress.

~ Reason #2, Top 10 reasons for National Get Outdoors Day

You know what they say about Early Birds…

Early Birds get what they want. If you want a fit, toned body, get up early to exercise. Try an early morning boot camp class. Run or walk with a friend. Get to the gym or fitness center before work (hey, they have showers, and you’ll free up the bathroom at home for someone else). Get it done before the day gets too hot or stormy, or before the June gloom turns into a beautiful day.

You’ll start your day by boosting your metabolism, you’ll have more energy through the day, you’ll be motivated to fuel your body with healthy foods – and your evenings will be free for friends and family.

Here’s a lovely summer recipe that uses up the smallest tomatoes – one of the most bountiful of all garden plants. Use red, orange, or yellow tomatoes – cherry or grape or pear varieties all work well. The more variety you have in the tomatoes, the fancier the dish looks.

Make the dish just before serving for best results. And, to sound somewhat contradictory, serve the leftovers cold, perhaps with added leftover cold roasted chicken or fish. (It makes a great pasta salad lunch the next day.)

~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes
from Seriously Simple: Easy Recipes for Creative Cooks, by Diane Rossen Worthington
Green * Serves 4-6

1-1/2 pounds ripe cherry or grape or pear tomatoes (red, orange, or yellow), halved
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs
1/2 cup vegan parmesan sprinkle (see recipe below)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/4 cup olive oil
1 pound penne, fusilli, or farfallini pasta
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh basil

Preheat the oven to 400F. Place the tomato halves in a large baking dish that can be used as a serving dish.

In a small bowl, combine the garlic, bread crumbs, cheese, salt and pepper. Spoon evenly over the tomatoes. Carefully drizzle the olive oil evenly over the mixture. Roast the tomatoes for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the mixture is bubbly, browned, and slightly thickened.

Meanwhile, in a large pot of salted boiling water, cook the pasta for about 10 minutes, or until al dente. Drain well. Add the pasta to the tomato mixture in the baking dish. Add the basil and toss to combine. Serve immediately.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Vegan Parmesan Sprinkle
Blue * Makes about 1 cup

3/4 cup blanched almonds
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Blend all ingredients in a blender until there are no more noticeable nut pieces. Store in an airtight container in the fridge. Adjust nuts and yeast according to your taste.

We love Michele Simon’s considered response to the USDA’s MyPlate nutrition guidelines. We apologize for being a bit sound-bite-y here, and we encourage you to go read the full article.

…Allow me to get a few things about the new version off my chest. First of all, the website url tells us a lot: “ChooseMyPlate.gov“. The word choose or choice, where have I heard that before? Oh yes, it’s a favorite of the food industry, to remind us that really, it’s all up to individuals to choose to eat a healthy diet, and that companies provide a wide range of choices for us each to choose from….

As Marion Nestle pointed out, protein is not a food, it’s a nutrient, so the meat industry must be very happy to see it represented so prominently, as they have brainwashed the American public for decades into equating “meat” with “protein.” Most Americans eat way too much protein and certainly need no reminders….

They recommend “protein” but then why is “dairy” and not “calcium” recommended? Ah the politics of inconsistent messaging….

It’s going to take way more than a measly $2 million educational campaign to get Americans to fill up half their plate with fruits and vegetables. It’s going to take a massive overhaul of our agricultural policies…. It’s also going to take addressing the billions of dollars in marketing the food industry spends each year to keep us from eating off of plates at all. (Perhaps a better image might have been a pizza box or a take-out carton?) It’s especially going to take massive political will to stop the food industry’s predatory marketing of junk food to children.

~ Michele Simon, Why we need MyPolicy instead of MyPlate

Michele Simon is a public health lawyer who researches and writes about the food industry and food politics. She specializes in legal strategies to counter corporate tactics that harm the public’s health. She wrote Appetite for Profit: How the food industry undermines our health and how to fight back, published by Nation Books in 2006.

Marilu Henner Has a Remarkable Memory: MyFoxLA.com

Former “Taxi” star and author Marilu Henner is known for her entertainment career, but did you know that she also has a remarkable memory? In fact she was tested and found to have a rare ability called “superior autobiographical memory,” that allows her to recall every day of her life in detail.

On Monday Marilu talked to us about her unique gift and her involvement with the The Actors Fund’s Tony Awards Viewing Party.

~ myfoxla.com