Six months ago, I went to the doctor for a check-up. The doctor was blunt. He told me I need to eat more fruits and vegetables, and exercise more. And most disturbing to me, he told me to lose weight! At the time, I wasn’t very thrilled with his advice. But I listened. Since then, I started exercising a little more. I stopped eating between meals (for the most part). And best of all, I have lost 15 pounds. What if doctors failed to initiate difficult discussions or offer advice? What if doctors withheld information fearing their …
Ditching Conservation
Start today and lose up to 10 lbs. and 5 inches overall in your first month with the Nutrisystem® weight loss program. According to their spokesperson, the Nutrisystem® diet really works. For many hoping to shed those extra pounds, eating fewer calories is the key. But on the long road to optimal weight, the one thing that helps motivate a dieter is a good jump start plan. It’s that first 5, 7, or even 10 initial pounds lost that, in the beginning, makes the sacrifice all worth it. A quick jump start is a great idea and one that many diet …
Cost of soil erosion in Iowa, not a pretty picture
Reprinted with permission from The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture By LAURA MILLER, Newsletter editor and JERI NEAL, Ecology Initiative Leader Rick Cruse is getting used to hearing a collective gasp about two-thirds of the way through his presentations these days. Cruse, who directs the Iowa Water Center and is Professor of Agronomy at Iowa State University, has made it his mission to share some startling information about soil erosion in Iowa. His message is two-fold:We’re losing much more soil than we think because not all …
Unintended Consequences – Part II
Last year, I wrote a column entitled Unintended Consequences. The column was about how my grandpa straightened his stream many years ago and the unintended results of that action. Of course, at the time, he had no idea of the series of events he was about to set off. I have a feeling I could start a whole new blog entitled “Unintended Consequences in Agriculture”. I doubt I would ever run out of material. Agriculture is complicated, and it is hard to predict what is going to happen and there seems to always be unintended consequences. …
Who should pay?
Last month, I had one of those aha moments. A reporter was asking me about my thoughts on Iowa’s water quality and whether I thought shifting rainfall patterns (climate change) could be affecting nitrogen and phosphorus runoff. I responded that the research on this topic was crystal clear -- that over the last 20 years, the intensity of rainstorms has significantly increased, resulting in more runoff. The seriousness of this phenomenon should not be dismissed or ignored. Across most of the United States, the heaviest rainfall events have …
The Survey Says…
Imagine you are on the game show Family Feud where two families compete by guessing the most popular response to a survey question. This week the host asks you to complete the sentence, “Absentee landowners only know how to blank”. That’s right, it is your job to fill in the blank. You hit the buzzer and you respond, “Absentee landowners only know how to raise rent". Okay, maybe that wouldn’t be your answer, but I’ll bet it would be the #1 answer to the survey question that was previously posed to a group of 100 people. Last month, I …