A Wake-Up Story has been out for quite some time now but it’s a nice reminder to keep us focused on our mission for the next generation – in sha’ Allah. Pass it along to your fellow family member, neighbor or friend and join the movement.

JOIN THE MOVEMENT & VISIT : A WAKE-UP STORY

P.S. You may watch the video on mute. The background music is not necessary.

Saturday March 26th at 08:30 PM marks the annual Earth Hour. At 0830pm (local time) cities around the world will be turning off their lights to stand against climate change! Get together with your family and friends to participate in the earth hour global movement!

For more information check out www.earthhour.org

Check out the article below:

Eating more tomatoes and tomato products is associated with increased health and decreasing the risk of conditions such as cancer, osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease, according to a review.
Not only that but cooking or processing tomatoes increases the potency of the disease-fighting nutrient lycopene.

The researchers found that tomatoes are the biggest source of dietary lycopene; a powerful antioxidant that, unlike nutrients in most fresh fruits and vegetables, has even greater bioavailability after cooking and processing.

They found a relationship between eating tomatoes and a lower risk of certain cancers as well as other conditions, including cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, ultraviolet light-induced skin damage, and cognitive dysfunction. Tomatoes also contain other protective mechanisms, such as preventing blood clots and anti-inflammatory functions.

Tomatoes are widely available, and are available in many forms:

“Leveraging emerging science about tomatoes and tomato products may be one simple and effective strategy to help individuals increase vegetable intake, leading to improved overall eating patterns, and ultimately, better health.” write the authors.

“Tomatoes are the most important non-starchy vegetable in the American diet. Research underscores the relationship between consuming tomatoes and reduced risk of cancer, heart disease, and other conditions,” the authors conclude.

“The evidence also suggests that consumption of tomatoes should be recommended because of the nutritional benefits and because it may be a simple and effective strategy for increasing overall vegetable intake.”

Lycopene is the most common carotenoid in the human body and is one of the most potent carotenoid antioxidants. As well as in tomatoes, it is also found in other red fruits like watermelon, papaya, pink grapefruit and pink guava.

Other studies have demonstrated that lycopene reduces the risk of prostate cancer and also has cardioprotective, antimutagenic, anticarcinogenic and anti-inflammatory properties.

Lycopene is insoluble in water and is tightly bound to the fiber in fruits and vegetables, that the bioavailability of lycopene is increased by processing. Therefore products such as tomato juice, soup, sauce, and ketchup (preferable home-made), produces the highest concentrations of bioavailable lycopene.

Cross posted article from HealthyMuslim.com, Read full article by clicking here

Community Members of All Ages to Participate:
THE 2011 EARTH DAY CONTEST

DRAWING: UP TO 5TH GRADE
ESSAY: UP TO 10TH GRADE
SHORT KHUTBAH/POEM/SPOKEN WORD: ALL AGES

Submission Deadline: Friday March 25, 2011
Thursday March 31, 2011 (NEW DEADLINE)

Award Ceremony & Display: Sunday April 10, 2011 at the IIOC Earth Day Festival

ENTRY GUIDELINES:
Drawing Contest:
Draw a picture, poster or collage that explains what it means to be eco-friendly and how it relates to Islam. Texts from the Quran and the Hadith may be included (**NO ARABIC TEXT as it raises an issue of storing posters). You may also include words, numbers and other inanimate objects that reflect eco-friendly topics and teachings, but MAY NOT include humans or animals.

Age Categories: Up to 1st Grade, 2nd and 3rd Grades, 4th and 5th Grades

Specifications: No larger than 11” by 17” in size. All entries MUST BE in a form of drawing. NO model, sculpture or other object will be accepted. All entries MUST HAVE a COVER SHEET that includes: full-name of the participant, affiliation (school or MSA/Youth Group name), name of parents/guardian and contact e-mail address.

Essay Contest:
Write a 2-3 page essay about the relationship between Islam and living green. Use examples from the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH). Any citations from the Quran or hadith must be referenced.

Age Categories: Up to 8th Grade, 9th and 10th Grades

Specifications: All essays MUST BE: Between 600 to 1,000 words in length, double-spaced. All essays must be accompanied with a COVER SHEET that includes: full-name of the participant, affiliation (school or MSA/Youth Group name), name of parents/guardian and contact email address. NO NAMES OR ID INFORMATION ON THE ESSAY.

Short Khutbah/Poem/Spoken Word Contest:
Write and deliver a short khutbah, poem or spoken word piece relating to Islam and a Muslim’s duty to live environmentally friendly. Draw connections between the lives of the Prophet (PBUH) and his companions. Also, use aya’s from the Quran. Any citations from the Quran or hadith must be referenced.
Age Categories: Up to 8th Grade, 9th and 10th Grades, 11th and 12th Grades, College and above.

Specifications: No longer than seven (7) minutes in length. All entrants MUST submit: a printed copy of a khutbah, poem or spoken word, and a video clip of your delivery in DVD. All entries MUST HAVE a COVER SHEET that includes: full-name of the participant, affiliation (school or MSA/Youth Group name), name of parents/guardian and contact e-mail address.

All entries from school and youth groups should be submitted to respective group leaders and all other entries should be directed to 1220 N. State College Blvd., Anaheim CA, Attn: The 2011 Earth Day Contest. ALL ENTRIES MUST BE RECEIVED BY MARCH 25, 2011 – POSTMARKS NOT ACCEPTED.

For More Information, Please Contact IIOC Administration Office at (714) 533-6271 or via E-mail at publicrelations@masjidomar.com

1) Eat brown rice: whole grains, especially brown rice, are high in fiber and phosphorous, which help remove harmful toxins from the body.

2) Eat seaweed, kelp, and other sea vegetables: Canadian researchers have reported that sea vegetables contain a polysaccharide that selectively binds radioactive strontium to help eliminate it from the body. According to this account, “In laboratory experiments, sodium alginate prepared from kelp, kombu, and other brown seaweeds off the Atlantic and pacific coasts was introduced along with strontium and calcium into rats. The reduction of radioactive particles in bone uptake, measured in the femur, reached as high as 80%, with little interference with calcium absorption.”

3) Eat miso soup: In 1945 when Dr. Tatsuichiro Akizuki, M.D., Director of Internal Medicine at a hospital in Nagasaki, had his staff eat a diet of brown rice, miso soup, seaweed, and pumpkin, and prohibited them from eating any sugar or sweets, his staff and patients were much healthier and did not succumb to radiation sickness.

4) Stop eating sugar or sweets of any kind: You’ve known forever that sugar, especially refined sugar and corn syrups, are harmful for you and your children. With this crisis in Japan it is a good time to go cold turkey and stop the sweets, which is another of Akizuki’s recommendations.

5) Consider iodine supplements: This might be the most important thing you can do in the longterm but I put it last on the list because I think whole food intervention should be our first defense and because I worry about the quality of supplements. Still, we want to make sure our thyroids don’t absorb radioactive thyroid. To do this, we must have adequate iodine levels in our bodies, but we also need to be careful not to take too much iodine and be aware that iodine is secreted into breast milk.

Cross posted from Eco-Child’s Play, to read full post click here.

(Click on here to register, click here to enlarge eflyer)

Last year, he went to Huntington, West Virginia in an effort to change the towns dietary habits for the better. Jaimie opened a free kitchen where citizens of Huntington could go to learn how to cook food that was healthy, economical and tasted good. He also played a crucial part in changing the type of food that was being served in local schools by getting rid of processed food and substituting it with food that fresh and free of preservatives.

This year, Jamie is in Los Angeles. His goal is to learn more about the type of food being served in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Unfortunately, however, the school district has, as Jamie told Kiis FM’s Ryan Seacrest “blocked [him] out.” Jamie has asked to see a list of ingredients being used in the food served in LAUSD schools, but no one in the school district has responded to his requests to meet.

Jamie is opening a free kitchen in LA to offer free cooking classes to residents of Los Angeles. The kitchen opens to the public tomorrow at 1230pm and is located at 1038 Westwood Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90024. Everyone is welcome to show support for this great campaign.

As a nurse, there isn’t a day that at least one of my patients is a diabetic or overweight or both. Some of it is genetic, but one cannot deny that a lot of it has to do with poor dietary choices early on. Such choices are taught at home and in school. And its about time that the trend is changed.

If you’re free, go out and show some support. If you can’t make it, at least sign the Food Revolution Petition and keep your eye out for the show on ABC.

This posting is part of a continuous effort of raising awareness about the issue of oil spill within the Muslim communities.  What roles can we take with the most positive manners? What can be done about this disaster facing upon us?

The following are just some quick facts about the oil spill which MANY of us are not too aware of.

The DEPTH of this spill –

• Massive oil clouds known as “plumes” have been detected 400 feet deep (other studies have found them over 1,000 feet deep).

• The argument that oil plumes could not exist deep in water because oil rises to the top of water due to its density does not necessarily cancel out the possibility of the plumes. The reason being that the source of the leaking oil is a well very deep under water that is spewing the oil out at very high pressures, causing the oil to mix with the water while it moves towards the surface, forming an oil-water combination. While water by itself is not as dense as oil, this oil-water mixture is actually denser and therefore could cause oil by itself to form plumes and remain deep underwater. It is extremely difficult to try to remediate at that depth (we need more microbes!?).

• Devastation at such depths is hard to calculate and fathom, as this level holds a great amount of very essential sea life and could therefore be the beginning of a serious impact on vital food chains for sea and land animals, as well as humans.

• Native wetlands are being destroyed, and water levels are rising against threatened levees due to the spill. All of this can and likely will lead to an intensified hurricane season (while issues such as oil spills and global warming do not necessarily CAUSE hurricanes, they can GREATLY intensify them, potentially shaping a minor storm into a deadly one).

• Since the spill, temperature readings in the basin have been up. Higher water temperatures are quite possibly the greatest intensifier for storms and hurricanes (which we witnessed in the last few years). The hurricane season in the area typically starts at the end of May and lasts until November.

• The spill is not necessarily limited to the Gulf area, as the Gulf is home to an amazing naturally occurring water movement known as a “loop current” that can carry the oil all the way to North Carolina. While, the loop current will likely stop there, other spin-off currents can carry it further, all the way to the East Coast of the U.S. So we should not consider this contained within this specific area as the oil and effects it carries can spread. All the more reason to push BP for a more active and costly (which IS  totally affordable!) clean up/remediation.

• Much of this can and should be blamed on the hazardous, destructive, and hopefully dated practice of offshore drilling.

• The Federal Govt and others are using this as a push for new “clean energy” (LNG or “liquefied natural gas”). BP was far ahead of ExxonMobil (who is now leading the way) and other major oil companies with the LNG project, heavily focused in Qatar. But, BP later dropped the plan in favor of other opportunities (e.g. offshore drilling – the cause of this disaster).

• Shell Oil is now headed to the Arctic for more offshore drilling similar to BP. Activists are already fighting to stop them and avoid another disaster.

• By the way don’t fall too quickly for the “clean energy” bit with ExxonMobil. We can save that for another day, insha’Allah.

DO: Make Du`a!!!

DO: Reduce your oil consumption. Cosmetics, paint & cleaning products – read the tabs/labels.

DO: Spread awareness.

DO: Push for legislative action 2010. Head to the polls and vote for local candidates who support environmental protection, including a new U.S. energy policy. You can also send a message to President Obama demanding a stop to offshore drilling through a form at the Sierra Club website.

DON’T: Boycott BP gas stations. We will be hurting the local station owners NOT BP.

Please add onto the list insha’Allah

Stay up-to-the-minute on the response to the spill at DeepwaterHorizonResponse.com

My soon to be cousin-in-law had just got back from the hair salon with a spiffy new hair cut. When I commented on how nice she looked she explained that she really didn’t want the cut, but when she heard that salons were collecting human and animal hair in an effort to suck up all the oil from the Gulf of Mexico, she just had to.

An organization by the name of Matter of Trust are collecting human and animal hair and nylon socks  to create hair mats to be stuffed into booms in an effort to soak up oil. All kinds of hair are accepted, even dyed hair, they ask that you please have your hair shampooed before donating it.

For more information, please visit the Matter of Trust website.