This Vending Machine Serves Up Fresh-Squeezed Juice
- Adele Peters posted in Food, Health and Juice
Step aside, candy bars. LA’s newest vending machine—technically, a “juice ATM,” serves fresh juices 24/7. Like the Sprinkles Cupcake ATM, but quite a bit healthier.
How MS Took One Woman From Public Interest Lawyer to Artist
- Alessandra Rizzotti wrote in Health, Research and Art
Elizabeth Jameson’s life mission has always been to make the world a better place. As a public interest lawyer in the 1980s, she made civil rights issues a big part of her career. So when Jameson was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1992, she made it an opportunity for advocacy. Rather than completely stopping her efforts to help others, she turned to art as an outlet to produce beautifully haunting public interest art. Her pieces explore the complexity of her changing brain and have the power to change the way others living with MS, doctors, and neuroscientists see the narrative of chronic illness. Creating vibrantly colored solarplate etchings, as well as digital and textile collages of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, Jameson makes MS accessible and approachable to those who know nothing of the disease.
This content was produced by GOOD, with support from The National MS Society. To read more stories about inspiring everyday heroes, check out the People are Awesome series.
Are stress and time-crunched days resulting in the more-than-occasional cold pizza breakfast or bowl of cereal dinner? Perhaps it’s time to freshen up your diet. In the GOOD Guide to Healthy Living & Eating, we outline all kinds of healthy and delicious ways to make sure you’ll get more nourishing meals in your life.
Because half the battle is just getting the good stuff on your plate, learn how to find (and afford) the most delectable fruits and veggies at the farmers’ market, keep them fresher for longer, and then get ideas for stretching one tasty, nutrient-packed ingredient into five different dishes. And, because most of us are parked on our caboose in front of a computer for hours a day, we even have the stretches and snacks that will allow you to extend your newly found healthy habits right on into your office.
Illustrations by Matt Chase
Sign the Petition to Repeal the Outdated FDA Ban on Gay Blood Donors
In tandem with this week’s Building Block of Citizenship—to Give Blood—join in helping continue the fight to repeal the 1985 FDA ban on the millions of potential blood donors who have every right to donate as anyone else. The petition, currently at 5,700+ signatures, has only increased by around 1,000+ since last year—a far cry from its 100k goal.
Let’s get another win for equality and continue to save more lives.
Clever 8-Bit Video Game Style Promo for Blood Donation
- Eli Kaufman wrote in Health, Living and Video
A retro video game-era campaign raises awareness about just how little plasma it takes to make a difference.
This post is part of the GOOD community’s 50 Building Blocks of Citizenship. This week: Give Blood. Follow along, join the discussion, and share your experience at #goodcitizen.
Citizen Building Block #6: Give Blood
- Meghan Neal wrote in Building Blocks Of Citizenship and Health
Not all of us have room in our wallet to donate to charity, or room in our schedule to volunteer weekly. Most of us will never find ourselves in that perfect place at the perfect time to be on the hero end of a heroic rescue. But there’s one thing we all have in equal abundance: blood. And every two seconds, somebody needs some. It takes just an hour to donate, and though it’s abstract to think about, it can literally save a life—at least one. Not to mention the free juice and cookies.
Illustration by Jessica De Jesus
—
In tandem with this week’s Citizen Building Block, join in helping continue the fight to repeal the 1985 FDA ban on the millions of potential blood donors who have every right to donate as anyone else. We wrote about it last year, but the petition, currently at 5,700+ signatures, has only increased by around 1,000+ since then—a far cry from its 100k goal.
Let’s get another win for equality and continue to save more lives.
A Stronger Bike Helmet, Made of Cardboard and Inspired by a Woodpecker
- Adele Peters wrote in Health, Technology and Sustainability
When Anirudha Surabhi was a grad student at the Royal College of Art in London, he was in a bike accident. Even though it was a minor crash, and Surabhi was wearing an expensive helmet, the next day he learned that he had a concussion. He spent three days in the hospital. He wondered why the helmet hadn’t worked—and decided to explore the problem for his thesis project.
It turns out that bike helmets are not as safe as they’re portrayed to be. Over the last few decades, Surabhi says, some helmets have gotten more aerodynamic and better-looking, but they haven’t gotten any better at protecting us from injuries.
As he began working on his design, Surabhi looked at the anatomy of a woodpecker for inspiration. When a woodpecker slams its beak into the trunk of a tree, the impact is cushioned by a special micro-structure between the beak and head. By mirroring that structure—after testing 150 different materials—Surabhi was able to create a helmet that can withstand three times greater impact than a standard helmet.
Special cardboard ribs inside the helmet are designed for flexibility. The cardboard itself has a honeycomb structure filled with air pockets to provide more cushioning. It’s stronger than a standard helmet liner, and lighter.
It’s also greener than the ubiquitous polystyrene foam liners. Foam, unsurprisingly, is not great for the environment; the manufacturing process is a health hazard, and it also creates hazardous waste. It’s also more energy-intensive to produce than cardboard. Surabhi used 100 percent recycled cardboard, which he says takes no electricity to produce at all.
For the full design story, watch the video below. The helmet’s in production now, and Core77 reports that the first U.S. version of the helmet will be out next year through ABUS.
Images courtesy of Anirudha Surabhi
Infographic: We’re Running Out of Doctors in the U.S.
Primary-care physicians—the ones who cover comprehensive health needs and provide continuing care for their patients—were once the foundation of a high-value American health care system. But now, family doctors are becoming an endangered breed. Why? Launch Infographic
A collaboration between GOOD + Column Five
Infographics: This Is Your Teen on Drugs
For nearly four decades, the University of Michigan has monitored the prevalence of smoking, drinking, and illicit drug use among eighth, tenth, and twelfth graders in the United States in its report “Monitoring the Future.” The most recent findings suggest that drug use among teens—particularly the consumption of tobacco and alcohol—is not nearly as prevalent as during the hard-partying (and DARE-saturated) 1990s.
Wire Actor Is Starting His Own Grocery Store Chain
After seeing most grocery chains refuse to set up shop in low-income New Orleans neighborhoods, actor Wendell Pierce—a New Orleans native best known for playing cigar-smoking detective Bunk Moreland on The Wire—decided to take matters into his own hands. Pierce is starting Sterling Foods, which will have locations exclusively in poor communities.
This week, our hippie living columnist investigated the science behind the juice cleanse craze. Austin dietician Jenny Leman served up some scientific real talk. “Your colon has been evolving for thousands of years,” she told us. “It’s completely capable of detoxing itself.” But if you’re set on joining the liquid lobby, “there are ways to do it where it’s not the worst thing in the world.”
Here’s our guide to going on a juice cleanse that won’t make you want to die.
The only thing worse than a hangover is the guilt and self-loathing that can come with it.
And where does that take most of us? Why, straight to the couch with a big bag of chips, or some other crap we’re craving that can leave us feeling worse than before—as we try desperately to fill that hangover hole in our hearts. This got us thinking: Short of avoiding hangovers altogether (genius!), there has to be a more holistic approach to dealing with them when they happen.
Bookmark this today so you’ll have it tomorrow morning: 10 Healthy Ways to Help a Hangover
These are incredible.
Prosthetics get the personal touch: Synthetic legs have become a medium for self-expression, thanks to customization made possible by sophisticated technology. It’s a bold melding of modern science and fashion statement.
Wow.
After 15 years and thousands of dollars in creams and gels and dermatologists and medications and microdermabrasion and infomercial impulse buys, I decided to go the full hippie and renounce all commercial skincare products. I gathered every bottle, tube, and pot of store-bought product (and there are a lot of them after all that trial-and-error) and put them in a drawer, then decided on a couple of ground rules: Nothing goes on my face that I wouldn’t eat. And the materials are cheap.
Learn how to make your own easy, cheap, and edible facial products at GOOD.is
Why Is It So Difficult for Food Companies to Go BPA-Free?
By the end of this month, Campbell’s, along with companies like Heinz and ConAgra (both of whom have promised to eliminate BPA at unspecified points in the future), might not have a choice in the matter: The Food and Drug Administration has promised to decide by the end of the month whether to prohibit companies from using the chemical in food packaging.
