In US, plant-based diet easier than ever, even at Thanksgiving

Yahoo – AFP, Bob Chiarito, November 26, 2019

US President Donald Trump will "pardon" turkeys Bread and Butter (seen here)
before Thanksgiving, but some Americans do not eat turkey at all on the holiday,
preferring to embrace plant-based diets (AFP Photo/SAUL LOEB)

Chicago (AFP) - When Elysabeth Alfano hosts a Thanksgiving dinner for 12 next week at her home in Los Angeles, the menu will be traditional -- with a few key changes that were all but impossible just a decade ago.

For dessert, she'll have the staples that feature on nearly every American dinner table -- pumpkin and apple pie. And the huge number of vegetable side dishes are not unusual.

But the "turkey" -- the centerpiece of the meal -- will be a vegan-stuffed breast made of chickpeas, wheat gluten, tomato paste, mushroom broth, seasonings and red wine.

Her main dish reflects a shift in eating habits in the United States: there are an increasing number of Americans choosing a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle. But they're calling it something else.

While still only around three percent of Americans identify as vegan and six percent identify as vegetarians, more and more offerings are being marketed as "plant-based" -- a term which food industry watchers say is more palatable to all.

"Veganism is often linked with some sort of deprivation," explains Michael Robbins, spokesman for the three-year-old Plant Based Foods Association, which represents more than 100 companies including food giants like the Campbell Soup Company.

Pumpkin pies are part of a traditional Thanksgiving meal, but some Americans 

are changing up their menus to accommodate their plant-based diets (AFP Photo/

Olivier DOULIERY)

"Plant-based is generally associated with the general benefits of eating plants" and "has been shown in research to have a greater acceptance to a broader set of consumers," he told AFP.

Indeed, nothing is more mainstream in America than fast food, and the giants are all in -- Burger King is serving meatless Impossible Whoppers, and McDonald's is test-marketing its plant-based burger.

"Just as the horse and buggy gave way to the car and the typewriter gave way to the computer, we are seeing more and more people go plant-based," says Alfano, a chef, coach and lifestyle expert.

"In the first half of 2019, 248 million plant-based burgers were sold, 95 percent of which were bought by meat-eaters. The meat-eaters are the largest segment incorporating plant-based."

Diet vs lifestyle

For decades in America, veganism has been linked to a way of life that transcends food choices.

Practitioners often don't only refuse to consume any animal-based products -- they also don't wear clothes made from animal products like wool or leather.

Eating vegetarian or vegan has become a lot easier in the United States 

in recent years (AFP Photo/Olivier DOULIERY)

Devotees of plant-based diets are generally all about the food, but they are happy to embrace the ethical debate as well, within reason.

Chicago-based artist Tammy Kohl grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin but has gradually shifted her diet, which has been completely plant-based for a year.

"To keep weight off by taking dairy out of my diet made sense. I did vegan cleanses and felt great and that inspired me," said Kohl, who added that anti-animal cruelty efforts made cutting out meat easier.

But she noted: "I still wear leather. If you own leather, you might as well wear it."

Holiday options

Jean Johnson, a sales consultant from Colorado, converted to a plant-based diet for health reasons and shies away from the term "vegan," which she says conjures up an image to which she does not subscribe.

On Thanksgiving, she says she'll stick to eating vegetable side dishes at a friend's home -- and isn't all that worried if she happens to inadvertently consume animal products.

"I'm not so OCD about it where you can't put any butter in the mashed potatoes -- it's such a small portion," Johnson said.

Tofu may feature on some Thanksgiving menus in the United States

(AFP Photo/Olivier DOULIERY)

Alfano, who splits her time between Los Angeles and Chicago, went completely vegan in 2016.

Her Thanksgiving plans are proof positive that the stigma which once surrounded non-carnivores, especially on traditional American holidays, is slowly fading away.

"What we have now that we didn't have 10 years ago is good taste. We have convenience and we have price," she says.

Kohl said she will celebrate the holiday with some relatives who raise beef cattle -- a profession that hardly aligns with her veganism. But another family member is a vegetarian, and everyone gets along.

"I usually bring my own plate and very quietly fill it up," Kohl said. "I'm not one of those preachy vegans."

Fad or trend here to stay?

Johnson believes that her plant-based diet helped her beat cancer, and she identifies another benefit of plant-based diets these days -- she has seen her grocery bills plummet.

Different takes on plant-based burgers are even being offered at the nation's

largest fast food chains such as Burger King (AFP Photo/ERIC BARADAT)

"Meat and dairy, that's not cheap stuff, whereas rice and beans, lentils and potatoes are cheap,” Johnson said.

Alfano agreed, saying it would also help Americans save money if healthier eating meant they could stop taking certain medications such as those to control cholesterol.

"It's really expensive to be sick. If you can get off the pills, you'll really be saving money," she said.

Of course, meat producers are hardly on board for all this, but they're not really worried either.

Hillary Makens, director of media relations for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said vegans and vegetarians constitute a tiny portion of the US market, and her industry has bigger concerns.

"The beef industry has been competing against other proteins for a long time. When you think of chicken, pork, beans, peanut butter, all types of protein, it's not really a new thing." Makens said.

However, consumer research company Mintel said the number of new US food and drink products that mentioned "plant-based" grew 268 percent between 2012 and 2018.

Additionally, in a May 2019 report, Mintel said 38 percent of US consumers report trying to incorporate more plant-based items into their diet.

"Rarely in life do you ever get a triple winner -- where one thing positively effects your health, positively effects your wallet, positively effects the environment and the planet," Alfano says.

Low-skilled worker life expectancy is five years less than for graduates

DutchNews, August 16, 2019

Photo: Depositphotos.com

Today’s new pensioners with a college or university degree will live an average of four to five years longer than those with vocational qualifications, the national statistics agency CBS said on Friday. 

Men with a degree are now expected to enjoy 22 years of retirement, while men with few qualifications will live a further 17 years, the CBS said. In addition, the life expectancy gap for men has grown a full year since the period 2011 to 2014. For women, the gap remains four years. 

Lifestyle is likely to be behind the difference, the CBS said. ‘People with a lower level of education are more likely to be overweight and to smoke,’ a spokesman told news agency ANP. They are also more likely to have hearing, eyesight and muscle problems. 

In addition, people with degrees retire, on average, eight months before the low-skilled – meaning they enjoy both a corporate and state pension for longer. 

The FNV trade union federation, which is campaigning for early retirement to be incorporated in the current proposals to reform the pension system, said the new figures demonstrate the real need for change. 

‘The growing difference in life expectancy shows that the union is right to call for the state pension age to be frozen and to scrap the fines for early retirement,’ a spokesman told ANP.

Dutch showman makes global headlines with ‘I’m 49 not 69’ court case

DutchNews, November 8, 2018

Emile Ratelband at a book launch in 2015. Photo: Fotopersburo Edwin Janssen via HH 

Dutch showman and self-styled ‘motivational guru’ Emile Ratelband has hit headlines around the world with a court case to have his age officially cut by 20 years. 

Ratelband was in court in Arnhem earlier this week in a bid to have the clock turned back on his official documents so that he is only 49. 

‘We live in a time when you can change your name and change your gender. Why can’t I decide my own age?’ Ratelband is quoted as saying. In particular, Ratelband, hopes being officially younger will enable him to attract more women.

‘When I’m on Tinder and it says I’m 69, I don’t get an answer. When I’m 49, with the face I have, I will be in a luxurious position,’ he said. Ratelband has been married twice and has seven children. 

The BBC, Daily Mail and Telegraph are among the foreign media outlets which have picked up the story, which has generated thousands of comments. 

Ratelband, who converted to Buddhism earlier this year, told the Telegraaf that he is not suffering from the Peter Pan syndrome and has been checked out by a doctor to make sure he will ‘be able to deal with this major step.’ 

After all, he told the paper, there are some disadvantages to becoming younger. ‘For a start I’ll be missing out on my old age pension for 20 years,’ he said. 

Judges will rule on the case later this month. 

Ratelband has a history of outspoken comments and has described Osama bin Laden as a ‘freedom fighter with clear principles’. In 2003 he made an attempt to enter parliament on a populist platform. He received just under 10,000 votes.

A Dutch "young god" just months shy of his 70th birthday has launched a legal bid to slash 20 years off his age as he looks to enhance his prospects at work and in love https://t.co/HvJgOg49Bk

— AFP news agency (@AFP) November 8, 2018

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Public health minister takes health warnings with pinch of salt

DutchNews, April 13, 2018 

Photo: Health Ministry 

If every excess glass of wine shortens your time on earth by 30 minutes, is the sum total a joyless life? 

Dutch public health minister Hugo de Jonge suggested on Friday that he was taking new reports on the damaging effects of alcohol and sunbeds with a pinch of salt. 

Speaking to reporters on the way to a cabinet meeting, he said that health secretary Paul Blokhuis was best placed to comment on a new report in The Lancet suggesting that 12.5 units of alcohol a week – or five glasses of wine – is the upper safe limit. 

‘It’s his area, and I am always glad of that when I read reports that say something else is bad for your health,’ he reportedly told NOS. ‘That’s often the case with the joys of life.’ 

He added that he was not planning to stop using sunbeds himself, despite safety warnings earlier this week from the KWF cancer charity. ‘I have become a minister, not a monk, which means that I have my foibles,’ he said. ‘I like to use a sunbed every now and then. Otherwise you lot will tell me I look bad.’ 

His own maxim was: all things in moderation, he added. ‘With all of these things, be aware and be moderate. That is the best advice you can give anyone.’ 

The Lancet story, widely reported in the international and Dutch press, suggested excess drinking was more damaging than previously thought, at lower levels. 

But the Dutch health council has already, for the past three years, recommended that people do not drink alcohol at all or limit themselves to a glass a day.

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Amazon tribe has lowest heart risk ever seen: study

Yahoo – AFP, March 17, 2017

Most members of the Tsimane community, an indigenous Amazonian tribe, are
active for between four and seven hours a day --  hunting, gathering, fishing and
farming, the study found (AFP Photo/ANTONIO SCORZA)

Paris (AFP) - Researchers said Friday they had found an indigenous Amazonian tribe with the lowest levels of artery hardening -- a portender of heart disease -- ever observed.

And while they hailed the group's "subsistence lifestyle" as a heart-protecting factor, others cautioned against romanticising the community's hand-to-mouth existence.

Known as the Tsimane, the small forager-farmer community in Bolivia was five times less likely to develop coronary atherosclerosis (artery hardening) than people in the United States -- where it is a major killer, scientists wrote in The Lancet medical journal.

They pointed to the community's low-fat, high-fibre diet and non-smoking, physically active lifestyle -- factors which most scientists agree contribute to good health.

The study was an observational one, meaning it merely uncovered a correlation between lifestyle and heart health, and cannot conclude that one causes the other.

Yet, "the loss of subsistence diets and lifestyles could be classed as a new risk factor for vascular (blood vessel) ageing," study co-author Hillard Kaplan of the University of New Mexico concluded.

"We believe that components of this way of life could benefit contemporary sedentary populations."

The Tsimane diet comprises unprocessed, high-fibre carbohydrates such as rice, corn, nuts and fruit, as well as wild game and fish.

The community eats little fat, few smoke, and most are active for between four and seven hours a day -- hunting, gathering, fishing and farming, the study found.

Observers pointed out that while the Tsimane had lower levels of artery calcification and heart disease, the most common age of death was 70, compared with about 80 in most developed countries.

And these were just the ones who survive childhood -- one in five die in the first year of life.

"There may not be many old Tsimane men with heart disease but that's probably because only the fittest and healthiest Tsimane survive to old age," commented Gavin Sandercock, a cardiology expert from the University of Essex.

For Tim Chico, a University of Sheffield cardiologist, it is important "not to romanticise" the Tsimane existence.

"Two-thirds of them suffer intestinal worms and they have a very hard life without fresh water sewerage or electricity," he said.

Rates of diseases other than heart disease were much higher in the Tsimane -- especially of the infectious kind.

"So, would I live like the Tsimane to reduce my risk of heart disease? No way," Chico said via the Science Media Centre in London.

Researchers took CT scans of the hearts of 705 adults aged 40-94 in 85 villages in 2014 and 2015 for the study.

Based on the results, they concluded that almost nine in 10 Tsimane people (85 percent) had no risk of heart disease, 13 percent had a low risk, and only three percent a moderate or high risk.

By comparison, about half of Americans aged 45-84 have a moderate or high risk of heart disease.

Kraft pulls the dye out of Mac and Cheese

Yahoo – AFP, 21 April 2015

Kraft Foods Group will stop using artificial coloring in its iconic Kraft
Macaroni and Cheese product (AFP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)

Washington (AFP) - Consumer activists cheered Tuesday, but some comfort food fans booed, after Kraft Foods Group said it will stop using artificial coloring in its iconic Kraft Macaroni and Cheese product.

From January next year, two kinds of yellow dye will no longer be added to the packaged dry pasta and processed cheese mix that is famous for its gooey yellow-orange look.

Instead, natural ingredients like paprika, annatto and turmeric will be used, said Kraft in a statement Monday that promised no change in how Mac and Cheese actually tastes.

"These recipe changes are the latest steps in the Kraft Mac and Cheese journey to delight consumers with on-trend updates to meet consumers' changing lifestyles and needs," it said.

Cheap and easy to make, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese -- known in Canada as Kraft Dinner -- has been part of the North American family diet since its introduction in 1937 amid the Great Depression.

Campaigners have long pressed Kraft to stop adding artificial coloring, amid fears of a link with hyperactivity in children.

"This is a crucial first step on removing an unnecessary but potentially harmful additive from the food supply," said North Carolina food blogger Vani Hari in an email to AFP.

Hari, who writes the Food Babe blog, was behind an online petition that drew more than 365,000 signatures urging Kraft to stop using fake coloring.

"Kraft's Macaroni and Cheese isn't a health food," added the Center for Science in the Public Interest, another critic of artificial coloring.

"But replacing its Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 with natural colorings is a step in the right direction," it said on its website.

On social media, however, diehard Mac and Cheese fans cried foul.

"Why would you want to change a great product like your Mac and Cheese to please some health nuts and ruin it for your loyal customers?" wrote one outraged American mother on Kraft's Facebook recipes page.

"Please don't change my Kraft Dinner! I am 52 years old and it's been the same great taste since my childhood!" added a Canadian consumer, also on Facebook.

Last month, Kraft and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics said they would end a controversial children's nutrition awareness initiative for a processed cheese product.

The food giant said it will remove the academy's "Kids Eat Right" logo from Kraft Singles, individually wrapped slices of a processed cheese product, after it was criticized as an endorsement of Kraft products.

The venture, announced by the academy earlier in March, was aimed at promoting better nutrition for youngsters.

Doctors launch online personal health check

DutchNews.nl, February 24, 2015

A number of healthcare organisations on Tuesday launched an online personal health check (PGC) aimed at prevention and an improvement in lifestyle. 

The organisations, which include doctors’ associations NHG and LHV, council health service GGD and the diabetes, lung, kidney and heart foundations, say the personal health check is a scientific answer to the many health checks already available, which they consider to be unreliable. 

The existing commercially run health checks, such as total body scans, often lead to unnecessary follow-up checks, the organisations say. 

Rob Dijkstra of family doctors’ association NHG says body scans are nothing more than a snapshot. ‘Around one-third of the CT scans come up with false positives,’ he told broadcaster Nos. ‘People appear to be healthy and do not get the treatment they need, or they are given unnecessary treatment.’ 

Prevention

 The new PGC is aimed at prevention. The organisations behind the check think people should be responsible for their own health and only make use of professional help when it is necessary. 

A pilot PGC in the Utrecht neighbourhood of Leidsche Rijn was a success, local family doctor Karolien van den Brekel said. People who did the check became aware of the influence of their lifestyle on their health, she told the Nos. 

The PGC, which is free, is at www.persoonlijkegezondheidscheck.nl, and provides a personalised report with lifestyle advice. Where necessary, the advice may be to make a doctor’s appointment.

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Finding Well-Being, of a Kind, Through Self-Hypnotherapy

Jakarta Globe, Lisa Siregar, Feb 06, 2015

Hypnotherapist Lala, center, sees her holistic approach to healing as the
most effective way to maintain health. (JG Photo/Tunggul Wirajuda)

Asense of tranquility fills the house in East Jakarta’s Buaran ward as hypnotherapist Lala Latifa uses her steady, soothing voice to lull her client into hypnosis.

Cares and worries gradually slip away for the patient as Lala, 39, pairs her voice with use of pressure points on the forehead and temples. Long used to clearing the mind or improving blood circulation, the acupressure that Lala employs has a beneficial touch by giving positive affirmations. In turn, patients acquiesce to the hypnosis.

Hypnosis, she claims, will induce a sense of peace and deep sleep, while emptying the mind.

Lala then evidences the power of the mind, suggesting to the client that she is tying 20 balloons (imaginary) to her right hand and placing a stone (also imaginary) in her left hand. The client’s right rises in response, and her left hand drops.

“Hypnotherapy is dependent on the mutual trust between the hypnotist and the recipient of his or her treatment,” Lala says.

“The process can only be done properly if the hypnosis is done with the other party’s consent. The method combines the power of belief and an innate understanding of what makes people what they are. But most of all, hypnosis can and should be used to treat oneself, as only we know what’s good for us and how we should deal with our problems or challenges”.

Discovering hypnotherapy

Lala’s own awareness of hynoptherapy’s benefits originate from her experience with a bout of serious illness.

“I started taking an interest in hypnotherapy in 2013, after the uric acid problem that had long been ailing me reached a terminal stage,” says Lala, a former primary school English teacher.

“The ailment caused blood clots that left my feet swollen, and could have led to a stroke. I wasn’t happy with conventional medication, as it only treat the symptoms instead of the ailment, and hampers the body’s natural ability to treat itself. The side effects of taking medication are also a drawback, as they create further complications.”

Lala’s medical circumstances, as well as her curiosity, encouraged her to give alternative therapies a try.

“I started by trying cupping therapy, which did wonders in treating the blood clots hobbling my legs. After that, a friend introduced me to meditation, and it was from there that I learned about hypnotherapy,” she says.

“I was trained by Rifky Haryo Wibowo, an expert in the field, from September 2013 until I started my own practice in April 2014. Hypnotherapy was an eye opener, as it can treat a range of mental, emotional and physical problems with the help of other hypnotists or ourselves, by harnessing willpower and one’s mind.

“For instance, self-hypnotherapy helped me overcome my phobia of earthworms and enabled me to treat my uric acid problem, to the point that I can eat virtually anything.

“While it does wonders in treating physical ailments, it comes into its own when treating mental or emotional problems,” Lala adds.

“As a skill that deals with the subconscious and the vibrations that it generates, hypnotherapy is also versatile as it can be combined with meditation, reiki and reading tarot cards as well as SEFT,” or spiritual emotional freedom technique, a form of psychotherapy said to improve life at various levels.

“If combined with hypnotherapy, whether on the self or others, the effect is liberating, as we can overcome anxiety and improve our confidence,” Lala says.

Hypnotherapy to help

“Hypnotherapy, particularly self-hypnosis, did wonders for me, but then I realized my true calling lay in helping others and sharing my skills with them,” Lala says.

“Many of the issues that I help my clients with are emotional or psychological in nature. For a method that deals with the subconscious, hypnotherapy is quite frank and literal, as there’s little of the symbolism of tarot reading. As with any other problem, they have to talk to me to identify them and pinpoint them.

“I even treat the very people who tackle those issues, such as psychologists, who are afflicted with issues like bipolar disorder and other problems that they can only manage to repress. Hypnotherapy helps them bring those issues to the fore, as the subconscious is coaxed out.

“The treatment also requires a lot of tact, as both educated and uneducated people with problems are oblivious to their issues or deny them, and often take it the wrong way if you try to point it out. But it’s important that we get them out of denial as repressing their psychological or emotional problems in a prolonged manner can lead to cancer and other psychosomatic illnesses.

“But eventually, it’s vital that I teach them self-hypnosis, so they can deal with their own problems instead of depending on others to resolve them. After all, the only people who can deal with our own problems are ourselves. I’m only there to help them resolve their issues.”

Dealing with challenges

Like many practitioners of alternative healing techniques, Lala has more than her fair share of detractors, from skeptics to religious fanatics.

“Skeptics and fanatics are among the hardest people to convince when it comes to the benefits of hypnotherapy. The former hold on to science and logic, so that even if they’re aware of the subconscious, they are inarticulate about it at best,” Lala says.

“But at least they can agree to disagree. Fanatics are harder to deal with because they’re more irrational and take their holy texts more literally.

“Sometimes they’re not above accusing me of black magic and asking me what my religious beliefs are. They are also more likely to intervene than skeptics. But a lot of them use their beliefs as a shield to protect them from their issues.”

Lala also pointed out that the shady business of spiritual healing casts a pall over those legitimately trying to do good.

“Many [alternative therapy] practitioners aren’t above slandering their rivals in their bid to promote themselves, as well as take out ads. They are also known to make their clients depend on them by predicting doom and gloom and then telling them otherwise — for a price.

“The nature of the business contradicts many of the underlying principles of my hypnotherapy practice, which is to get people to help themselves and reduce their dependence on others.”

Lala admits that hypnotherapy is still a new frontier for Indonesia, but says she’s certain the method will thrive.

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"The Innate Revealed" (3) - Nov 22/23, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

"The Mysterious Innate" – Aug 31, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“.. Mining the Akash - The Role of Innate

What I'm going to tell next, we have given you before. However, I wish to explain it better in this communication. Your innate is also a governor of what you personally need. Let me explain: Turn a page with me. We have talked in the past about mining the Akash. So let us open that door for a moment. Is it possible, dear one, that you could go into the vast storehouse of the attributes of your past lives and pick out something that you need today? The answer is yes. It's called mining the Akash, and it is a staple of the Kryon teaching. However, the way it's accomplished by the individual Human is really difficult to describe. It's a personal intuitive process. However, one attribute of it that is often misunderstood is that permission from the innate is needed. This is because the innate smart body knows what you need. It is then the governor, or the filter, giving you permission regarding what can be pulled out of your Akash and used. It will say no to frivolous things and yes to the things that will allow you to cure yourself of disease, live longer, and increase the efficiency of your DNA. It's a smart body regulator.

Innate doesn't care how you look. It cares about your health. If you want to go into your Akash and pull out something that you need for survival, it's right there with you. If you want to make clearer skin, it won't respond. Do you see what I mean? It's the governor for mining the Akash. By the way, the Akash is very ready to be used for this. [Kryon wink]

You have earned what you've lived, dear ones, and it's very available. It lies in a quantum soup of lifetime information that is ready to be used. If you have a disease in your body right now, and perhaps you want to mine the Akash in a way that will create healing, you can. Like all nonlinear things, it requires a new, mature consciousness and practice to work. But the body is ready for you to "go get" the cellular structure of a past life that had no disease. The blueprint for this resides within you since you earned it and lived it. The innate is responsible for spontaneous remission! Science has no idea how a Human does this. The innate can help you "go get" the things within your earned Akash and place them into your cellular structure. That's how smart it is! Imagine clearing disease so completely that there is no sign it was ever there? It happens all the time. Imagine being able to drop a chemical dependency overnight? It's exactly the same principle.

Did you ever sit in a meeting and something is said or a feeling can happen, and you get chills? What are they? You might say, "They are chills of validation." Guess where they came from? The innate! The innate has the ability to signal you the truth. The brain does not. In fact, your brain will often get in the way. It's the brain that contains your box of belief. It's the brain that contains the perception of who you are based on experience and memory. It's your 3D survival instrument. But the brain can't give truth. It can only give you what it perceives as the truth, based on logical, processed, computed, synaptic reasoning and only based on your past experience.

Your brain can tell you not to touch the stove because of what happened once before. But it can't give you chills of validation from information it does not have. The intellect wants you to believe that your brain is supreme. However, the brain is only one part of the body system and not a very intuitive part. It is the innate that knows the truth. The innate is connected to the quantum parts of your DNA and, therefore, also knows of your spirituality and the truth of God inside. …”

The Dutch Don’t Care About Marriage

Americans can learn a lot from their indifference.  

Slate, Katie Roiphe, October 30, 2013

Being single in the Netherlands is pretty great. (Photo by Ferdy Damman/AFP/
Getty Images)

I was in Amsterdam for probably three hours when I began to see that having children and not being married was not a big deal there. In fact, marriage itself is not a big deal there. I was there to talk about my book In Praise of Messy Lives, which was coming out in Dutch, but what passes in America for a messy life is in Amsterdam just, well, how things go.

The Dutch attitude, which I like, is that marriage is not for everyone; it is a personal choice, an option, a pleasant possibility, but not marrying is not a failure, a great blot on your achievements in life, a critical rite of passage you have missed. Sometimes people get around to getting married, and sometimes they don’t. Several Dutch women in their 40s, with children and rich romantic histories, tell me about marriage, “It just wasn’t something that mattered to me.”

Katie Roiphe, professor

at the Arthur L. Carter

Journalism Institute at 

New York University

As a popular view, this laissez faire approach accommodates the vicissitudes of the heart, the changing nature of love, the great variety of forms attachments take in real life. It acknowledges that things change, and to exit a relationship with kids is less violent somehow, less publically absolute, than to exit a marriage. A bit of tolerance, of bemusement, of compassion or imagination is built into the system.

I try to describe to a couple of audiences in Amsterdam the against-the-grainness of someone, especially a woman, who has not married in America. I try to explain how having children outside of marriage is still considered an alternative, and essentially inferior life choice. I mention that an American writer wrote a coverstory in the Atlantic on the remarkable and exotic fact that she was in her late 30s and had never married. This sort of blew their minds. Who could possibly care? It seemed like a crazy American thing for marriage to matter so much. To them this obsession, this nagging necessity for weddings, the lack of general acceptance toward other pretty common ways of living, is so foreign, so uniquely American, such a quaint narrowness, that it’s incomprehensible as an actual mode of modern life.

At first I started fantasizing about whether I could move to a steep little Dutch house, and if I could balance a child on a bicycle. But it also seems to me it would be a great thing if we could absorb some of the Dutch attitude toward conjugal life. I am not here arguing against marriage, but against marriage as a rite of passage, against the assumption of all little girls that they will one day be married in a white dress on a green lawn, against the socially engraved absolute of it, the impossible-to-evade shining ideal.

What would it mean to end the centuries-long American fixation on traditional family structures? Would we be able to look at families living outside of convention without as much judgment, as much toxic condescension? Would the “smug marrieds” Helen Fielding wrote about in Bridget Jones’ Diary be less smug and just married?

If we woke up one morning and discovered that in America marriage was suddenly regarded as a choice, a way, a possibility, but not a definite and essential phase of life, think how many people would suddenly be living above board, think of the stress removed, the pressures lifted, the stigmas dissolving. Think how many people living unhappily would see their way to living less unhappily. In Edwardian England, the cultural critic Rebecca West wrote about the “dinginess that come between us and the reality of love” and the “gross, destructive mutual raids on personality that often form marriages.”

Whatever one thinks about the institution, the truth is that marriage is increasingly not the way Americans are living. If one goes strictly by the facts—that the majority of babies born to women under 30 are born to single mothers, or that about 51 percent of American adults are married—one has to admit that marriage can’t be taken for granted, assumed as a rite of passage, a towering symbol of our way of life. But somehow this hasn’t dimmed our solid sense of marriage as the American normal.

If we suddenly stopped being in thrall to the rigid, old-fashioned ideal of marriage, we could stop worrying about low marriage rates and high divorce rates. We could stop worrying about single mothers and the decline of marriage as an institution, especially in the lower middle class, and the wasteful industry of wedding planning. We could instead focus on actual relationships, on intimacies, on substance over form; we could focus on love in its myriad, unpredictable varieties. We could see life here in the amber waves of grain not for what it should be, but for what it is.

Katie Roiphe, professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, is the author most recently of Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Marriages, and In Praise of Messy Lives.

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Kryon Q&A

Question: Dear Kryon, how do we know when a divorce is appropriate or not?

Answer: It’s appropriate when the energy and consciousness of the one is on a different reality from the other, and it’s obvious that it will never change.

This isn’t about enlightenment, either. It’s about your individual paths. Although contrary to your society, the rules of the church, and what your family wishes for you, sometimes you go through "partnership stages" that are appropriate but temporary. It can also be between two enlightened souls who simply needed to be together for a while.

So if you’re going to separate a partnership, do it with integrity. Do it in a way where you offer friendship. Do it with wisdom and maturity. Never slam the door. Offer the other person your maturity all your life, and always give them the opportunity for forgiveness and discussion.

As you grow older, you’ll eventually see the dynamics of growth, and why a temporary partnership might have been needed in your own personal path, or in theirs. Sometimes it’s only about being a time placeholder, keeping each other in a place so that something else could happen. Each path is different, and there are as many who will stay together until they stand and hold hands on the other side of the veil. Then they’ll do it again the next time around! Don’t pass judgment either way. There is appropriateness in many things that result in growth and maturity for either or both of those involved.

As I discussed before, your cultural rules are often designed to look like they’re also the "rules of God," but often they’re just the rules of Humans who are doing their best, without full understanding of how big God really is.

Philippine Elite Fight Ageing With Stem Cell Therapy

Jakarta Globe - AFP, Alexandra Gemperle, November 6, 2013

In a picture taken on October 27, 2013, Cynthia Carrion-Norton gestures as
she speaks during an interview at her home in Manila. (AFP Photo/Jay Directo)

Manila. Cynthia Carrion-Norton flits high-heeled around the Philippine capital with energy levels belying her years, thankful for a controversial treatment she highly recommends to fellow sixty-somethings.

Carrion-Norton, 66, a member of the Philippine Olympic Committee and a former undersecretary for medical tourism, credits her vitality to adult stem cell therapy.

“The day I got the therapy I went to a dinner party and everyone told me: ‘Cynthia, you’re blooming!” Carrion-Norton told AFP.

The procedure involves harvesting the patient’s stem cells from their own fat and injecting them into their blood, which she likened to being injected with intravenous fluid in the arm.

In a country where many elite are obsessed with anti-ageing, wealthy Filipinos are shelling out between $12,500 and $18,000 per session of stem cell therapy in the belief it will improve their overall health and make them look younger.

Rich businessmen and public officials — mostly male — are the most eager customers, according to Florencio Lucero, a doctor in Manila who said he started performing adult stem cell therapy in 2006.

“They do it because they want to work longer,” Lucero told AFP.n”And then they tell their wives or girlfriends.”

Lucero said Filipinos had been receiving anti-ageing stem cell treatment since the 1970′s, often flying abroad to do so.

Thai medical entrepreneur Bobby Kittichaiwong says he has a lucrative business catering to the Filipino elite, who pay $20,000 to visit his Villa Medica clinic in Germany for a more controversial form of stem cell therapy.

The clinic harvests cells from unborn sheep to be injected into a patient’s muscles, known as fresh cell therapy, and Kittichaiwong said 400 Filipinos visited last year.

“After 14 days, the patient’s skin will glow and their digestive and immune systems will improve,” he told AFP.

Among Villa Medica’s high-profile clients is former president Joseph Estrada, 76, who has staged a remarkable political comeback in recent years after being forced to stand down from the nation’s top job in 2001 because of corruption.

“Now I sleep better, my knees are no longer a problem, my skin has been radiant like this ever since,” reads a testimonial from Estrada in a Villa Medica brochure.

A spokeswoman for Estrada, who was this year elected mayor of the nation’s capital, confirmed he had stem cell therapy treatment at Villa Medica.

Another remarkable, elderly politician who has cited stem cell therapy as one reason for his enduring career is 89-year-old Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, who was defense minister during the reign of dictator Ferdinand Marcos a generation ago.

Villa Medica also cites Enrile as one of its patients.

However the use of stem cells from sheep has attracted much criticism, with Samuel Bernal, a professor of medicine at the University of California, among the many Filipino doctors to warn of its dangers.

“When animal cells are transmitted to humans, it could be fatal,” Bernal said at a recent forum on stem cell therapy in Manila.

Kittichaiwong insists fresh cell therapy is perfectly safe.

“What you eat everyday is foreign material, but you don’t get rejection,” he said, adding that Villa Medica planned to soon open a clinic in the Philippines.

‘The medicine of the future’

Amid this debate, Carrion-Norton wants to promote the less controversial adult stem cell therapy in the Philippines, and set up her own clinic.

“I don’t want only the rich to be able to do it,” she said. “I want everyone that needs it to be able to do stem cell therapy, because this is the medicine of the future.”

However, treatments at Norton’s clinic will start at about $17,000.

“It’s still expensive, and will remain so unless a lot of people get into the business,” said Norton.

“That’s why I want more people to know about it and not be afraid of it.”

Stem cell therapy for health and cosmetic purposes is popular in China, India and many other Asian countries. However, like the Philippines, laws and enforcement are in large part yet to catch up with the medical advances.

The Philippine Department of Health is scrambling to regulate local stem cell therapy practices amid a chaotic and often dubious boom in the industry.

In an effort to tap into the much larger markets of the Philippines’ lower and middle classes, advertisements for more affordable products and treatments claiming to use stem cells have been springing up.

Stem cell pills claiming to make customers “feel and look at least seven years younger” can be bought through Filipino websites for just 9,000 pesos ($200).

Cheap and top-end beauty centers also offer a range of treatments, some not involving qualified health professionals.

Human stem cell procedures can indeed offer life-saving treatments for patients with leukemia, lymphoma and some solid tumors, according to the American Medical Association.

The US-based International Society for Stem Cell Research also said the procedures for human, or adult, stem cell therapy had “tremendous potential” for treating a range of human afflictions.

But it warned clinics around the world were offering “unproven treatments” for many illnesses that posed “very real risks of developing complications.”

The lack of regulations in the Philippines makes it an ideal setting for medical practitioners to “prey on the desperation of sick people,” Dr Anthony Leachon, vice president of the Philippine College of Physicians, told AFP.

Health Secretary Enrique Ona said his department was planning to come up with a list of doctors and institutions accredited to practice stem cell therapy in the Philippines.

But the government is clearly eyeing the potential economic benefits of stem cell therapies.

“We look at this issue with a certain degree of liberty to make sure that our hospitals that are carrying out good stem cell therapy practices can continue them,” Ona said.

“Hopefully, in the future, the Philippines can even claim to be a center of stem cell therapy in this part of the world, if not even internationally.”

Agence France-Presse