Soul Vegetarian begins cooking with their new solar cooker
Courtesy of Ahk Yatneal Ben Nasik Rahm Manager of Soul Vegetarian Restaurant #1 Atlanta
When the solar cooker was set up on the side of the resturant it started attracting attention left and right, and the food that we cooked that day was wonderful!
This is not some Boy Scout Field Badge project. The quality of the food cooked on the solar stove was far superior and better tasting than what we could have done on a conventional stove.
And, yes......all that's needed is a steady supply of sunshine!
For more information on the Solar Cooker, please call us at the Soul Vegetarian Restaurant at (404) 752-5194.
This past spring, the U.S. began its 2009 observance of Daylight Saving Time which resulted in longer days. Now, as the winter cycle draws nigh, the daily amount of sunlight hours is decreasing. This natural, seasonal change ushers in with it a later sunrise and an earlier sunset from now until next spring.
Although the Daylight Savings Time 'change' was created long ago to regulate natural time cycles, it has been made law by Congress, in modern times, throughout the US except for all Hawaii Islands and Arizona with the exception of the Navajo Nation which does observe DST.
In accordance with those laws, the time will "fall back" an hour to local standard time US time which "sprang forward" earlier this spring.
This year's Daylight Saving Time will officially end 2:00AM, on the first day (Sunday) of the 11th month (Nov. 1st or late Saturday night).
DST will re-commence next spring on March 14, 2010 and will end on November 7, 2010.
"And he shall think to change times and laws." - Dan.7:25
An all-male college in Atlanta, Georgia, has banned the wearing of women's clothes, makeup, high heels and purses as part of a new crackdown on what the institution calls inappropriate attire. No dress-wearing is part of a larger dress code launched this week that Morehouse College is calling its "Appropriate Attire Policy." The policy also bans wearing hats in buildings, pajamas in public, do-rags, sagging pants, sunglasses in class and walking barefoot on campus.
However, it is the ban on cross-dressing that has brought national attention to the small historically African-American college. The dress-wearing ban is aimed at a small part of the private college's 2,700-member student body, said Dr. William Bynum, vice president for Student Services. "We are talking about five students who are living a gay lifestyle that is leading them to dress a way we do not expect in Morehouse men," he said.
Before the school released the policy, Bynum said, he met with Morehouse Safe Space, the campus' gay organization. "We talked about it and then they took a vote," he said. "Of the 27 people in the room, only three were against it." There has been a positive response along with some criticism throughout the campus, he said.
Senior Devon Watson said he disagrees with parts of the new policy, especially those that tell students what they should wear in free time outside of the classroom. "I feel that there will be a lot of resentment and backlash," Watson said. "It infringes on the student's freedom of expression. I matriculated successfully for three-and-half years dressing so how is this a problem?"
Senior Tyrone McGowan said he has mixed feelings about parts of the policy. "But I have been inspired by the conversation it has created," he said. "We have to find a way to create diverse leaders from this college. I don't want this to place all of us in one box."
Those breaking the policy will not be allowed to go to class unless they change. Chronic dress-code offenders could be suspended from the college. Bynum said the policy comes from the vision of the college's president, who wants the institution to create leaders like notable graduates Martin Luther King Jr., actor Samuel Jackson and film director Spike Lee.
Senior Cameron Titus applauds the change. "The policy is just saying that you have to show more respect in how you dress and there are things that are just not acceptable at Morehouse," Titus said. "We have a legacy that we are trying to uphold."
School lunches need more fruits, veggies and whole grains and a limit on calories, says a report urging an update of the nation's 14-year-old standards for cafeteria fare. But the changes won't come cheaply. Schools can't put just anything on a kid's lunch tray. They must follow federal standards, because the government's school lunch program subsidizes lunch and breakfast for needy kids in nearly every public school and many private ones. Yet those standards are lacking, according to an Institute of Medicine report released Tuesday. They don't restrict the number of calories kids are offered, even though childhood obesity keeps climbing. And they don't match up with the government's own dietary guidelines, which serve as the basis for the familiar Food Pyramid and were updated in 2005. They call for lots of fresh fruit and veggies and more whole grains.
"Today, overweight children outnumber undernourished children, and childhood obesity is often referred to as an epidemic in both the medical and community settings," Virginia Stallings, who chaired the report committee, wrote. The proposed standards won't be cheap. The committee said breakfast prices could soar 20 percent, and lunch prices could rise by 4 percent. That's daunting for school kitchens, which get less from the government, $2.68, than it actually costs to make each free lunch, about $2.92, according to a recent survey done by the School Nutrition Association.
Combine that with rising food and fuel prices, and school kitchens are feeling the squeeze. Many have been raising prices for full-price meals. The federal dollars "simply do not keep pace with the rising costs on everything from food and labor to napkins and spoons," Dora Rivas, president of the association and head of food and nutrition in Dallas public schools, said in a statement last week. The group is pressuring Congress to boost spending on school lunches. The Institute of Medicine committee agreed, saying the reimbursement should be raised to cover the cost of adding more fruits and veggies to the menu and substituting healthier whole grains for refined grains.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the Obama administration would review the report as it writes new rules for school meals. The report proposed new standards according to grade levels - kindergarten through five, six through eight and nine through 12. Among the recommendations:
-Each week, kids should be offered 2 1/2 to 5 servings of fruit for lunch, depending on their grade, and at least five servings of fruit for breakfast. No more than half the fruit servings should be juice.
-Kids should be offered 1 1/4 to 2 1/2 servings of vegetables for lunch, according to the report, which says that a half-cup of dark green and bright orange veggies and legumes like beans should be offered at lunch.
-And kids should be offered nine to 13 servings of grain for lunch and seven to 10 servings of grain for breakfast, the report said. At least half of those servings should be whole whole grains such as whole wheat bread, oatmeal and brown rice.
That is what they should be offered - under the proposed standards, a kid would be allowed to turn down some items in the cafeteria line as long as they still took a certain number of fruits, juices or veggies to their seats. The current standards only set minimum calorie levels, but the report says there should be a ceiling on calories, too. Lunch should be no more than 650 to 850 calories, and breakfast should be no more than 500 to 600 calories, depending on grade, the report said.
The Institute of Medicine is part of the National Academies, an independent organization chartered by Congress to advise the government on scientific matters.
Soul Vegetarian begins cooking with their new solar cooker
