From Oregon to South Carolina, the solar eclipse taking place on Aug. 21 will track southeast, inspiring travel operators along its route to celebrate the nearly two-minute syzygy — or alignment of the sun, moon and earth.
In the Willamette Valley of Oregon, Brooks Winery plans to hold a Solar Eclipse Party, including an outdoor yoga class, brunch and a tasting of its new sparkling riesling in anticipation of the total eclipse passing over the vineyard around 10:30 a.m.
The eclipse will peak in Perryville, Mo., about 80 miles south of St. Louis, just after 1 p.m. Buses will shuttle guests of host hotels in St. Louis, including the Renaissance St. Louis Airport Hotel (from $109), to an eclipse watch for $25 a person.
As the shadow passes over Nashville, guests of the Union Station Hotel Nashville can attend a champagne viewing party on the veranda with special glasses for watching the eclipse and other amenities provided (rates from $478.21 a night with a two-night minimum stay).
In Charleston, S.C., the King Charles Inn will hold a lunch lecture by an astrophysicist and a viewing party aboard a tall ship in Charleston Harbor (rates from $397 a night with a three-night minimum). The HarbourView Inn will hold a rooftop viewing party with an astronomer on hand to answer questions (rooms from $532).
If hotels on the route are hard to find, or inflated, consider camping. A six-day rafting trip departing on Aug. 18 from Mountain Travel Sobek on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho will coincide with the eclipse (rates from $1,995 a person). A seven-day rafting trip on the Main Salmon River in Idaho with OARS, departing Aug. 15, will feature a guest astronomer (rates from $2,682 a person).
Apparently, the first day of Donald Trump’s new immigrant crime hotline went amazingly — just not in the way the Trump administration had probably hoped.
The Victims of Immigrant Crime Engagement Office(VOICE), established to assist victims of crimes committed by “removable criminal aliens,” was reportedly prank-called all day by protesters claiming to have been abused by E.T., Jabba the Hutt, and other notorious creatures from outer space.
The trend was first noticed by Robbie Gramer, a writer for Foreign Policy.
“I swore an oath to defend my community and uphold the Constitution,” McCoy says. “I see speaking out as a way of continuing to fulfill my oath and standing behind the immigrant community that is under attack.”
McCoy, who explains that he finds the term “aliens” intentionally dehumanizing, called the hotline and — after waiting on hold for 20 minutes — was asked if he was calling to report a crime by an “illegal alien.”
He told the operator that he’d been abducted and taken to a UFO.
“I heard them give a long sigh,” he says. “And they closed out the conversation saying that they’d make a note of it.”
Critics of VOICE allege that it unfairly demonizes immigrants — singling them out for suspicion based on their status.
The office was announced during Trump’s February address to Congressduring a tribute to four guests whose family members were killed by undocumented immigrants.
Two recent studies conducted by The Sentencing Project, a criminal justice reform organization, and the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, found that immigrants — whether documented or undocumented — commit crimes at lower rates than native-born residents.
An ICE official told Upworthy that the VOICE office is intended to provide information to crime victims, does not receive crime reports, and that he considers the protest a “shameful” stunt at victims’ expense.
After McCoy’s tweet went mini-viral, other prank-tivists began calling in, adding their own spin.
Michigan resident Lisa Polmanteer used her time on the phone with a VOICE representative to troll Melania Trump — claiming to have been “victimized” by an immigrant living off her tax dollars in New York City.
According to Polmanteer, the operator asked if she was talking about the first lady. When she said yes, he hung up.
Others on Twitter suggested an entirely different, punny approach.
While the prank was undoubtedly silly, its message was incredibly serious.
“I feel like the administration is going to use these stories to further demonize immigrants [and] refugees,” Polmanteer says. “My grandparents were immigrants. I take it personally, I guess.”
McCoy hopes the protest will move participants to support the efforts of immigrant rights groups, like United We Dream, Presente, Mijente, and the DRM Action Coalition, who have been, as he says, “fighting this fight much longer than I have.”
He also hopes people will continue to take action against attempts to stigmatize those who come to the U.S. seeking a better life.
For now, that means fighting efforts like VOICE — even if it means being a little annoying.
Or especially if it means being a little annoying.
“I feel like the only thing I can do about it is be disruptive.” Polmanteer says. [I’m] feeling pretty overwhelmed and powerless, you know? So I’m a jerk wherever I can be.”
A car parked in a driveway — that was true of housing in the 1950s, but it’s still true of many boomer houses today. And that’s a problem. (Photo: George Marks/Retrofile/Getty Images)
The oldest boomers are now just 68. But there are 78 million of them, and as they get older, the impact on suburbia will be profound. More and more of municipalities’ taxes will be going to support them instead of schools and parks — Why? Because they vote a lot — while property values, and the tax base will decline as whole neighborhoods turn into senior citizens districts, with old Saturns rusting in the driveway like at my mother-in-law’s house. Transit costs will go through the roof as seniors demand services in low-density areas that cannot support it. The fact is, there is a major urban planning disaster staring us all in the face, which is going to seriously hit everyone young and old in about 10 years when the oldest boomers are 78. We have to prepare for it now.
My mother-in-law’s house with that rusting Saturn in the driveway. (Photo: Google Maps)
So what has happened since? Not much. Over at CityLab they revisit the story and find that baby boomers are mostly staying put right now, hoping house prices will continue to rise. Many are still “under water” with houses worth less than their mortgages, or just treading water, where the house won’t sell for enough to retire on. So right now they’re thinking about renovating. Arthur C. Nelson, who predicted the Great Senior Sell-off, says it’s still coming, but later, in the mid to late 2020s.
“It’s not that Boomers are going to ‘age in place’,” says Nelson. “They’re going to be stuck in place, and they’re going to make the best of it.” Those who can afford it will remodel.
Boomers are renovating more, moving less. (Photo: Joint Center for Housing Studies)
This is more in line with my understanding of the demographic; it will start getting messy when the boomers start hitting their late 70s. At some point, they’re not going to have a choice but to sell. That also just might coincide with when the millennials’ kids are getting too big for the apartment and they’re ready to move to the suburbs. The timing might just work out and avoid the urban planning disaster I’ve predicted.
On the other hand, there may well be a mismatch between what the boomers are selling and what millennials are buying. Jennifer Molinsky of Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies tells CityLab:
“Millennials are likely to prioritize different features in their homes, such as greener materials or in-law suites,” says Molinsky. And according to the Harvard Joint Center’s projections, nearly 90 percent of those looking for homes in 2035 will be under 35 or 70 and over — and both groups tend to buy less square footage.
Yogi Berra was right when he said “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” But there’s one thing we know for certain: There are 78 million baby boomers who are getting old fast, and what they do (and how they vote) pretty much drives every issue from housing to health care . Many are confused about what they want (Read: Study confirms that boomers are clueless) and are not prepared for what happens when boomers turn into seniors. Sara Joy Proppe looks at the problem in Strong Towns, after telling a story of giving a lift to a senior:
This story reflects the isolation felt among many of our senior population as they maneuver the built environment. By designing our cities for cars, and consequently neglecting our sidewalks, we have siloed our elders in several ways. Not only does an inability to drive confine many seniors to their homes, but corresponding busy roads and inhumane streetscapes add to the isolating effect by also limiting walkability.
We’re sentencing literally tens of millions of people to this fate if we don’t start planning for this now.
Ed Werner, Trent Dilfer and Danny KanellGetty Images
The feared day is here for many in Bristol.
ESPN president John Skipper sent out a memo to employees Wednesday morning alerting them that 100 employees will be laid off. Around half of those receiving pink slips are well known, according to James Miller, author of the ESPN behind-the-scenes book “These Guys Have All the Fun.”
The layoffs were expected for months, but according to Miller, some are still in shock as they are notified they are among the ones being let go.
Ed Werder, a prominent on-camera NFL reporter, shared on Twitter that he was fired.
Former “First Take” host Jay Crawford is leaving, along with fellow “SportsCenter” anchors Jaymee Sire, Jade McCarthy, Darren Haynes and Chris Hassel, college basketball analyst Len Elmore, golf voice Dottie Pepper and ESPN Radio host Robin Lundberg. In addition, anchor Hannah Storm, “Baseball Tonight” host Karl Ravech and ESPN Radio’s Ryen Russillo (who is Kanell’s co-host) will have their roles “significantly reduced,” a source told The Hollywood Reporter.
Other journalists who revealed they have been let go include: columnists Johnette Howard and Jane McManus; baseball reporters Jim Bowden, Doug Padilla and Mark Saxon; basketball reporters Ethan Strauss, Calvin Watkins and Justin Verrier; hockey reporters Pierre LeBrun, Scott Burnside and Joe McDonald; college reporters Dana O’Neil, Brett McMurphy, Eamonn Brennan, Chantel Jennings, Jeremy Crabtree, Max Olson, C.L. Brown, Austin Ward and Jesse Temple; and soccer reporter Mike L. Goodman.
Modal TriggerESPN president John SkipperGetty Images
“This could be a bloodbath,” a source told the Sporting News earlier this week, and it appears that prediction has come true.
In a press release titled “ESPN’s content evolution strategy,” the company appeared to acknowledge how cord-cutting and technological shifts have undermined the cable-TV-first business model. “Given how fans’ habits are changing, our focus continues to be providing high-quality, distinctive content at any minute of the day on any screen,” the release said.
“These decisions impact talented people who have done great work for our company,” the statement read in part. “I would like to thank all of them for their efforts and their many contributions to ESPN.”
Why spend so much time stressing about menu planning and cleaning when none of it really matters? The focus should be on having a good time with friends.
This past weekend, my husband and I had some friends over to play a board game. At the last minute, we decided to make it dinner, too, which meant we had only a couple hours to pull it together (and a bunch of kids to feed and put to bed). Usually I plan my dinner parties days in advance, so this was definitely outside my comfort zone.
I did not have a menu. I resisted washing the floor. I didn’t fret over stray toys. Instead, we cooked larger amounts of the same simple meal we were planning to eat ourselves. Our guests brought several bottles of red wine. I ignored the fine china, handed out rumpled cloth napkins, and we ate, drank, and played Settlers of Catan until 1 a.m. It was so easy and fun that my husband and I both looked at each other after the guests left and said, “We have to do that more often!”
The experience has reminded me of the importance of relaxing when it comes to entertaining. This is something that other cultures, particularly Europeans, understand well. I have wonderful memories of lazy, languorous meals spent in the company of wine, food, and good friends in Sardinia, Croatia, France, Israel, and Brazil; and yet, I struggle to replicate it here in Canada. I worry that my guests expect something formal, elaborate, and impeccably executed, even though I know that’s silly.
I love the idea of the ‘Crappy Dinner Party,’ as described by Kelley Powell in an article for The Kitchn. Powell is an exhausted working parent who used to feel tremendous stress prior to a guest’s arrival, until she decided to let it all go. Now she hosts friends without stressing about cleaning, cooking, and organizing. Her ‘crappy’ dinner parties follow these rules, which her guests also understand:
No housework is to be done prior to a guest’s arrival.
The menu must be simple and not involve a special grocery shop.
You must wear whatever you happen to have on.
No hostess gifts allowed.
You see, as soon as you remove the fluff – all those extra stressors that make entertaining so intimidating – you get a completely different view of it. The experience becomes focused on being with people you like. Yes, the food needs to be good, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. There’s got to be enough wine, but it doesn’t have to be expensive. Music should be playing, but no one’s really listening.
I won’t practice all of Powell’s rules on a regular basis, since I do like putting on a clean shirt, but I’ll embrace her philosophy of relaxed entertaining with open arms. I hope it leads to many more laid-back nights with good friends this summer.
In the early hours of April 24, 2017, the first of four Confederate monuments in New Orleans was dismantled — to the delight of some and anger of others.
In 2015, the New Orleans City Council voted 6-1 to remove four of the city’s Confederate monuments. Just months after Dylann Roof murdered nine people inside a Charleston, South Carolina, church, many in the South began the process of reconsidering what place Confederate flags and monuments have in modern society.
New Orleans voted to remove its public monuments.
Pretty intense argument has broken out at Liberty Place. People in crowd start chanting ‘there was no vote.’
The first monument taken down was the Liberty Place monument — a statue honoring the Crescent City White League’s attempt to overthrow New Orleans’ government after the Civil War.
Workers dismantle the Liberty Place monument. Photo by Gerald Herbert/AP.
From 1934 until 1981, when the inscription was covered up, the statue shared an endorsement of white supremacy:
“McEnery and Penn having been elected governor and lieutenant-governor by the white people were duly installed by this overthrow of carpetbag government, ousting the usurpers, Governor Kellogg (white) and Lieutenant-Governor Antoine (colored). United States troops took over the state government and reinstated the usurpers but the national election of November 1876 recognized white supremacy in the South and gave us our state.”
Landrieu on Liberty Place monument: The monument was put up to celebrate the murder of police officers by white supremacists.
You’d think that dismantling a literal monument to white supremacy would be something most people could agree on. You’d be wrong.
Workers taking down the monument faced threats of violence from those intent on preserving it and had to sneak in to dismantle it in the dead of night, guarded by snipers and wearing bulletproof vests and military-style helmets.
Removal of the first Confederate monument begins in New Orleans: updates
Efforts to remove four Confederate monuments commenced early April 24, as crews and police surrounded the Liberty Place monument downtown around 2 a.m.
A common argument in favor of protecting the Confederate-era monuments is that removing them would be a form of “erasing history.”
New Orleans takes down prominent Confederate monument
New Orleans removed the first of four prominent Confederate monuments under the cover of darkness early Monday, the latest Southern city to sever itself from symbols viewed by many as a representat…
And others made a bizarre argument about the removal of the monument being about “Marxism.”
Dana Farley of New Orleans stands vigil at the statue of Jefferson Davis. Photo by Gerald Herbert/AP.
But taking down these monuments doesn’t mean forgetting the Confederacy’s role in American history.
Nobody is going to forget the Confederacy anytime soon — especially not those whose ancestors were harmed by it — and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who argues that artifacts from the Civil War shouldn’t be displayed in proper context within museums.
Yes, some monuments simply mark a historical event or person; but others outright celebrate them, and it can be a very thin line between the two. Perhaps there’s a better way to remember significant moments in history without celebrating those who fought to preserve the institution of slavery.
In 2016, The Atlantic reported that there are around 1,500 Confederate monuments around the U.S. — many of these monuments located in regions of the country that weren’t even a part of the Confederacy. Statues of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard pepper the country.
On Twitter, people chimed in with some suggestions for what we can honor in place of these monuments without forgetting or erasing our Civil War history.
For every Confederate monument we should commission 5 statues of the black people that wanted said person gone
History is what happens, and it should never, ever be forgotten. Monuments come after, and they don’t always get it right.
Remembering the Civil War doesn’t mean we must pay tribute to those who took arms against the state, and it certainly doesn’t mean we must (or even should) preserve literal monuments to white supremacy and racism — especially in a city with a majority people-of-color population.
Workers dismantle the Liberty Place monument. Photo by Gerald Herbert/AP.
The real question here — which is sure to bring out strong emotions on all sides of this issue — is about what we build next. Do we take a critical look at our past to inform ourselves how to live better today, or do we devote time and energy and emotion to uncritical protection of vanity monuments that only divide us further?
All around the world, communities are starting to speak out against the senseless “mass aerial litter” created by balloons.
Residents of Rhode Island have joined in the call to ban balloon releases for environmental reasons. After picking up nearly 2,200 downed balloons along the coastline in the past several years, the Clean Ocean Access group is petitioning the city of Newport to stop allowing the practice altogether. While a floating mass of colorful balloons may look beautiful and celebratory for a few short minutes, it can be deadly for wildlife for many years to come.
Contrary to what manufacturers claim, latex balloons are not biodegradable. Balloons may break up into smaller pieces over time, but, with the addition of chemical plasticizers and artificial dyes, they never fully biodegrade. Anti-balloon group Balloons Blow has a photo gallery of deflated latex balloons that have ended up as pollution on land or in water, where they threaten wildlife by looking dangerously like food.
“Sea turtles mistake them for jellyfish and ingest them and die. They are made of plastic and take a long time to degrade, likely breaking into small pieces of plastic, absorbing toxins, [getting] ingested by fish, and leading to bio accumulation. Besides the balloon itself, the ribbons are also made of plastic and lead to entanglement of seabirds, and become entangled with seaweed.”
Britain’s Marine Conservation Society says it found 53 percent more balloon-related litter on beaches in 2016 than a year earlier.
The Rhode Island petition comes on the heels of Atlantic City’s new ban on outdoor balloon releases. People will face fines of up to $500 for releasing a helium balloon into the air, a move that PETA has praised. Last year, Gibraltar also made international headlines for ending its famous annual release of 300,000 red and white balloons to mark independence. As Matt Hickman wrote for MNN at the time, “At the end of the day, joyous littering is still littering.”
Rob Macmillan, co-founder of 11th Hour Racing who has spent the last decade sailing off the Rhode Island coast, told ABC6 News:
“It’s incredibly depressing. You’ll be sailing along and you’ll just see plastic balloons floating everywhere. And, you’ve got to imagine that the sea life that encounters them are just ingesting them and dying, or it’s getting into our own food supply.”
It’s an issue we should all be aware of, and a particularly easy practice to eliminate, since balloons serve no practical function. If you’re wondering about alternative ways to celebrate, visit the Balloons Blow website for lots of creative alternatives, from flags, streamers, ribbon dancers, and kites, to drumming, floating flowers, and more.
Not only are there questions about whether these campus carry laws actually work in the “the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” sense, but there’s also an intellectual cost to life on campus where you never know when what started as a healthy debate could turn deadly.
The brilliant minds behind the viral “cocks not glocks” protest have released a funny new video addressing their concerns with campus carry.
Hawking “Student Body Armor,” a (fake) new product with safety and school spirit in mind, the video takes a tongue-in-cheek approach to fighting back against laws that would allow weapons on college campuses.
According to Cocks Not Glocks founder Jessica Jin in an interview with The Guardian, the goal of Student Body Armor is to use “absurd branding that makes people just slow down for a second and question what they value as acceptable in day-to-day life.”
In that case: mission accomplished.
There are two things each of us can do right now to push back on the spread of campus carry laws.
The first is to get in touch with state legislators and voice concern about campus carry. Campus carry laws already exist in Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin. If calling from one of those states, push your legislators to seek repeal. If elsewhere, urge them to oppose those laws moving forward.
The second thing you can do, if you’re a high schooler or anyone else considering where to attend college and you decide against a particular school because of the school or state’s gun policy, is let the school’s admissions office know why you didn’t choose their school.
Michael Tang thought his 8-year-old’s mile-long walk would fix homework problems, but the lesson has turned out to be much bigger than that.
Parenting is hard at the best of the times, but it’s especially tough when it is treated like a spectator sport by nosy neighbors and over-enthusiastic police. A California father named Mike Tang is the latest victim of society’s unfortunate obsession with judging parents harshly for decisions we might not make ourselves.
Tang, a chemist who was feeling frustrated with his 8-year-old son for cheating on homework, decided to teach him an important life lesson – that money is hard to earn and slacking off at school could mean not having a home someday. Tang dropped Isaac off in a parking lot one mile from home and told him to walk the rest of the way. It was 7:45 p.m. in Corona, a city near Los Angeles, and the sun had barely set. Isaac knew the route home and was familiar with using pedestrian crossings.
When Tang sent his father to get Isaac after 15 minutes, the child had already been picked up by the police, alerted by someone who thought he was in danger because he was alone. Tang was arrested and spent the night in jail; but the punishment did not end there. Reason reports:
“A jury later convicted him of child endangerment, and the judge sentenced him to parenting classes and a 56-day work release program picking up trash and doing other menial work.”
Tang has refused to serve the sentence, and when presented with the outstanding arrest warrant for his failure to comply, scribbled the following response in blue marker over top:
“F*^k you all! Walking on a public sidewalk at 7:34 pm is not child endangerment. You are the ones violating my rights and rigged my trial by suppressing my evidence. I will doing everything in my power to defy you.”
Whether we, as individuals, agree with Tang’s disciplinary approach or not, it is ridiculous to believe that Isaac that was in actual danger. As Lenore Skenazy of Free Range Kids points out in a five-minute video about this case, some might call the situation unusual or controversial, but it’s certainly not dangerous. Corona has a low crime rate and Isaac knew his way home.
The problem is the moralizing that goes along with authorities’ assessments of other people’s parenting tactics. A fascinating study from the University of California last year found that people’s estimates of the danger in which children are placed vary tremendously based on their opinion of a parent’s behavior, i.e. if a mother’s absence is intentional or ‘immoral,’ a child is perceived to be at greater risk than if her absence is accidental. (I wrote about this on TreeHugger last fall.)
Clearly this had an effect on the outcome of Tang’s trial. Court transcripts cite the arresting officer saying he wouldn’t let his 20-year-old daughter walk home alone. This says it all about his approach to parenting – a true helicopter dad whose adult daughter presumably has fewer real-world skills that 8-year-old Isaac already does.
And what if the officer’s fears are logical? Then we have a much bigger problem on hand, and every parent should be outraged, defending our children’s rights to be pedestrians at reasonable hours of the evening.
Tang has received an outpouring of support from people who have learned about the story, mostly through the video below and Skenazy’s blog. He continues refusing to pay the fine and hire a lawyer, which he says would be “no victory for parents.” In response to the many people asking how he would feel if something had happened to his kid, he wrote:
“I’d be just as sorry and remorseful as if I drove him somewhere and got in a car accident, or if I dropped him off at school and he was injured at a school shooting. But that certainly doesn’t make driving him in a car or dropping him off at school dangerous or illegal.”
Skenazy agrees with Tang’s last point: “Simply because some rare and unpredictable tragedy COULD happen literally anytime, any place, that doesn’t mean a parent is wrong to trust the overwhelming odds that everything will be okay.”
We need to start talking about the dangers of not leaving kids alone, of hovering constantly, of inhibiting the development of independence within reasonable limits, of potentially stunting the growth of resilience and what psychologists call “self-efficacy,” confidence in one’s ability to handle situations as they arise.
It’s easy to feel like there’s too much to keep track of when it comes to staying healthy.
Calories, fat, pounds, carbs, miles, steps — it’s easy to get overwhelmed with conflicting science and false health fads. So the more complicated things, like cholesterol, often get overlooked.
Cholesterol plays a surprisingly large part in your overall health, and knowing and managing your cholesterol level (plus your other three health numbers — blood glucose, blood pressure, and body mass index) can help prevent health problems down the line. We chatted with Dr. Christina Stasiuk, senior medical director at Cigna, to learn more.
Here are 13 interesting facts about the role cholesterol plays in your body’s health.
1. Cholesterol was first discovered in 1784, so scientists and doctors have been studying it for a long time.
There are two major sub-types of cholesterol: good (high-density lipoprotein, or HDL) and bad (low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, and triglycerides). Bad cholesterol is a fatty substance that can stick to the linings of your arteries and veins, whereas good cholesterol acts as a sort of broom that helps scrub away those LDL buildups in your body.
2. Your weight isn’t an indicator of your cholesterol level or overall health.
“There are thin people who are at higher risk of heart disease than people who may be overweight but who exercise, don’t smoke, and have normal blood pressure,” says Stasiuk. The only way to know your cholesterol levels for sure is through a blood test.
3. Your body makes all the cholesterol it needs on its own.
The body makes both good and bad cholesterol, as they’re both needed to help perform a lot of the body’s necessary functions. It’s only when we consume too much LDL and triglycerides that it becomes “bad” by forming harmful buildup in our veins and arteries.
4. Clogged arteries look like they’re coated in butter.
If your body doesn’t have enough good cholesterol to scrub away sticky buildups, your arteries become clogged with yellow plaque-like fat. If you could slice open a clogged artery and look inside, it would look like it was filled with a thick layer of frozen butter. Uh … yum?
5. You could end up with high cholesterol regardless of your healthy habits — thanks, genetics!
“Familial hypercholesterolemia” is a genetic condition that causes naturally high levels of bad cholesterol. A heart-healthy lifestyle can help, but people with a predisposition for high cholesterol usually also need medication.
Lots of other genetic factors affect heart health too, so the only way to know for sure that your heart is healthy is to consult your doctor.
6. Your body can generate good cholesterol with regular exercise.
According to Stasiuk, there are really no foods or drugs that significantly increase good cholesterol levels. Regular exercise, however, can help the body create the good cholesterol it needs.
7. When it comes to eats, the richest foods are usually the worst for you.
“Bad cholesterol is typically animal-source cholesterol,” says Stasiuk. “The solid stuff — the bacon fat, the fat around a steak. You’re better off having liquid fats, like olive or canola oil or the oily fats you get in fish.” Solid fats are the ones most likely to “stick,” while liquid fats can be cleaned out of the body more easily.
8. Look out for the cholesterol double-whammy: the trans fatty acid.
Two things to look for on nutrition labels are saturated fat and trans fats, both of which raise your LDL levels. But trans fats also lower your HDL, pulling double-duty against your cholesterol health. And both saturated fat and trans fats show up in manufactured foods you might not expect because they help lengthen shelf life. “Think about it this way,” says Stasiuk. “The amount of time that food lasts on the shelf is how long those lipids will be in your body.” Ack!
9. One surprising source of high cholesterol? Coffee.
Don’t worry. Only when it’s unfiltered, like in Turkish or French press coffee, does your morning joe contain a harmful substance called cafestol, which raises bad cholesterol. If you drink drip coffee, you’re good to go. The filter catches cafestol before it hits your cup.
10. Certain foods can help pull bad cholesterol out of the bloodstream and send it out of the body (and it’s not just Cheerios).
Salmon, oatmeal, berries, avocados, beans, nuts, and spinach are all power workers when it comes to scrubbing and flushing out all those sticky cholesterol particles.
11. Women are at a generally lower risk for bad cholesterol levels and heart disease than men — that is, until menopause.
Estrogen helps balance good and bad cholesterol levels in women’s bodies. Once menopause occurs and estrogen levels drop, women’s cholesterol levels and risk of heart disease rise.
Research suggests that laughter can trigger a variety of heart healthy reactions in the body. It decreases stress hormones, reduces artery inflammation, and increases good cholesterol. So if you can’t fit in a workout today, make sure you get in a laugh!
The most important part of maintaining good cholesterol health is to be aware of it and, where you can, make lifestyle choices that support it.
It’s not about counting milligrams or calculating intake levels — it’s about making lifestyle choices that benefit you and your body. “It all comes back to this: go, know, and take control,” says Stasiuk. Get your blood tested during annual checkups with your doctor and take the time to make sure you understand your results. Then make small, progressive steps toward better heart health. Nothing drastic and no special secrets — just little changes toward treating your body right!
© K Martinko — A casual outdoor gathering makes everyone happy
© BalloonsBlow
My Black Lab 