A Greener Me: July 2013

Do you ever think about that juicy apple and wonder how it came to be? Sure it was grown on a tree and it needed sunlight and water. Do you think about the pollination of the apple tree’s bloom? You probably think much about it. Have you noticed you see a lot less bees floating from flower to flower in your yard? I have. I have a love hate relationship with bees. I know they are the great pollinator and that I can thank them for my fruits and veggies but I am allergic too. When we were kids we had a pool and the yard was covered in clover. Each year, at least once, I would get stung while running barefoot through the yard after a pool toy. I would spend the next five days lying on the couch with a swollen foot covered in meat tenderizer or ice to reduce the swelling. I am not upset about losing a few days of summer play to a bee sting each year. That is just part of life. No big deal. Now that I am older I fight the suburbian urge to treat my lawn with chemicals creating a solid grass carpet. I hate the smell of the pesticides the neighbors use.

I had heard that it was the pesticides that were killing the bees. So I have done a bit of research on the situation and I think it is a bit of everything, though the pesticides are making it worse. It is like cancer in us. It is typically not 1 thing that triggers cancer but a combination of diet, pollution, exercise and DNA that allows one person to develop cancer and the next to not. I think it is the same for the bees. The pesticides are definitely having the biggest impact but they are not the only thing that is killing them. Mites, viruses, bacteria and modern industrial bee keeping are weakling the colonies.

There are reports that Bayer’s neonicotinoid pesticides are killing off bees. Neonicotinoid pesticides is a synthetic chemicals derived from nicotine. It is reported that when a bee lands on and begins collecting pollen from plants sprayed with the pesticides they become disorganized, confused and often unable to fly off the plant. The bees fall from the flower and die. This is why in Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) results in abandoned hives with just a few dead infant bees and a queen inside. National Resources Defense Council, Greenpeace, Europe and many others are working to ban these products. We can’t rely on the government and organizations alone to stop the use of these products. We must do our part to help our great pollinators. Avoid using Bayer’s pesticides products and consider holistic garden practices, signing petitions and write Bayer and your congressmen.

Take a look at Change.org’s petition

http://www.change.org/petitions/epa-save-our-bees-and-the-food-we-eat-ban-bayer-s-chemicals-now

Resources:

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2012/01/bee-killing-pesticides-not-just-corn-fields

http://www.honeybeesanctuary.org/page7/page8/page8.html

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/eu-bans-three-bee-killer-pesticides-a-light-o/blog/45023/

Vanishing of the Bees Documentary

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jsass/the_scientific_evidence_agains.html/

http://www.honeybeesanctuary.org/page7/page8/page8.html

So I noticed over a few weeks that our oldest and laziest cat, Iggy, was drinking a lot more water, crying to drink the water in my showers and looked as if he lost weight. So a trip to the vet and I find the issue was diabetes. Yup I had given or allowed my kitty to develop diabetes. I can’t believe it. I asked the vet what this means for him. Basically it means regular visits to the vet for testing and increasing insulin shots. We started at .5 units (3/10 a milliliter) once a day and today we are at 4 units twice a day. Insulin runs at about $160-165 for 100 milliliters. The costs were adding up and Iggy didn’t seem like himself.

My Iggy

Iggy is about 8 years old and I hate the idea that this is cutting his life short. So I turned to the web to research the diagnosis and what the best way to get him healthy, and possibly off the insulin. There is a good deal of data out there on cat health and diabetes on a few great sites (listed below). Basically type 2 diabetes occurs in cats and dogs for the same reason it does in humans, poor diet. However, cats and dogs don’t have the same dietary need as humans do. They are 100% carnivores. Their digestive track is short to allow them to process and get the nutrition they need from the animals they eat quickly. They need to flush the meat from their system quickly so it doesn’t rot within them. They don’t have a need for many carbohydrates or fiber. Humans on the other hand have much longer digestive tracks. We use them to get as much nutrition out of our omnivore diets. We need the fiber to help us process and push the unused food out of our bodies. On a side note women have about 1 foot longer small intestine then men. I hypothesis this is due to our hunter gather history. As men went off on long hunting trips their bodies developed shorter intestines to process the animal meat they caught. And as women stayed back in the village they foraged the land for vegetation and to get all of the nutrition from the vegetation they developed longer small intestines.

A little on cat’s nutrition: cats require a high protein, low fat, low carb diet and they get most of their water from their food. They also require Taurine. Taurine is an amino acid that is found in animal’s digestive systems and is essential for metabolizing fat. It is found in many energy drinks for this very reason. Because cats don’t often seek out and drink water, many people say they feed their pets wet food. However, the dry food cleans their teeth better. Even some people make their own pet food. One lady I read about grinds up rabbit and chickens for her cats and freezes the meat for meals. As a vegetarian I knew I would not be handling animal carcasses anytime soon. The 3 articles from Cats.About are a really good read to help you understand what is and isn’t in cat food and what you want to look for and stay away from. Stay away from the byproducts, the meat meal (chicken meal etc), fiber and corn and soy. Also you want as much lean protein as possible. I researched a ton of different foods. I was feeding the cats Iams then the vet switched us to Hills Science Diet. I found that both are loaded in fillers and animal products. I compared all the name brands and those that advertise being healthier (Paul Newman and Blue Buffalo). The product I found is to be best is Orijen. It is food fit for people. All free ranged, free from antibiotics and no fillers and is processed within days of slaughter. It is a dry food that my local Jack’s carries at about $55.00 for 15lbs. This is about $10 more than the Hills Science Diet and more than twice the cost of the Iams. However, it should pay off in happy and healthy cats, reduced vet bills and, fingers crossed, no more need for insulin.

Here are my cat’s starting weights. I believe that Mya could lose at least a lb. She is sedentary and chunky. Nero is lean and athletic but could stand to lose a few ounces.

Kitty	Weight 7-7-2013
Iggy	12.1
Nero	13.9
Mya	13.3

Iggy is on insulin so I don’t want to make any dramatic changes to his diet. We are slowly mixing in the new food for about a week. Next week I take him to the vet to see if his numbers changed. We will begin to test his blood at home instead of going to the vet regularly. I know this is a bit more than what most people can handle. However, there is no easy way to know exactly how much insulin Iggy will need each day without testing his blood sugar. You can test your cat’s blood sugar with a home testing no different from the ones diabetic patient. I researched many different devices. The device is typically the cheapest part and the test strips tend to add up fast. Look for one that has cheap test strips, high level of accuracy and doesn’t require much blood. When looking at lancets you will want to find one that is not the largest gauge but not the smallest. Key is it will be hard to keep your cat still for long enough to get the prick and the blood you need. So below is what I found through my research. I chose Target’s Up & Up.