Archive for the ‘Doug’s Original Work’ Category

It’s clear to me that Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter has caused many people to leave the platform. While a lot of what happens on Twitter is useless, frivolous, and even harmful, there is a lot of good information being shared by people with similar interests. I’ve been on Twitter since 2009, when I started my blog DrDougGreen.com. I quickly connected with other like-minded educators who were using it to share free resources or advertise education products and services.

It was obvious to me from the start that educators using Twitter were a very small slice of the Twitterverse. If you look at who has the most followers, for example, you will find that they are all politicians, celebrities, athletes, or big organizations like NASA and Youtube. They have millions of followers, and none are considered to be primarily educators.

The top tier on Twitter uses it to promote themselves, their opinions, their causes, and their products. Some also engage in criticizing others. This later behavior often generates stories in the print and online news media. This can result in a common belief that Twitter is a bit of a “cesspool” rather than a place where people can share beneficial ideas and information and engage in meaningful discourse.

I find this unfortunate as, for me, Twitter is a rich source of the kind of resources that I share on my blog. It is also a way that I can spread the word about the important educational ideas that Twitter helps me find. It’s the rare link that I post that isn’t associated with one or more Twitter accounts.

As of this writing, I have 6233 followers. While I not in the millions, I am in the top one percentile when it comes to Twitter followers. Unfortunately for me and many others, Since Musk took over, I have sadly lost about 100 followers with a handful leaving every day. Say what you will about him, but he certainly is a lightning rod for media attention and as a result, people are leaving every day. Leaving is facilitated by the fact that when it comes to users, Twitter currently ranks 17th.

Right now, the fate of Twitter is uncertain. Since I find it so valuable, I hope that when the dust settles, Twitter is healthy and still allows people with common interests to share ideas, information, and opinions. This can only happen for education if parents and educators stay the course. I am asking, therefore, that you stick with Twitter and use it for this purpose. In the long run, it will certainly benefit our children and ourselves. Thanks for your consideration. If you have already left Twitter, please reconsider. It’s easy to return. If you never were on Twitter, give it a try. Also, be sure to follow me @DrDougGreen if you don’t already. THANK YOU!

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Smoothie Basics: Add Nutrition and Taste to Your Diet Now That You Have More Time at Home by Dr. Doug Green
With families staying home and preparing more food from scratch, consider making some breakfast smoothies. Kids should like these beverages and it’s easy to involve them in choosing the ingredients and pushing the button. Here is what you need to know.

Start With Your Goals

• You want something that is highly nutritious and good tasting. There are two basic kinds of smoothies, fruity and savory. I only make the former as the savory ones end up tasting like cold vegetable soup and at worst can seem a bit medicinal.
• If it’s going to be nutritious, all ingredients should qualify. Ideally, you have one or more from the berry group and at least one from the citrus group. For protein, I use no-fat plain Greek yogurt, but you should experiment with nuts. Walnuts and almonds are the best, but other nuts are fine and may even taste better. Cashews and pistachios work for me. You will also need some liquid as just using fruit and yogurt won’t spin too well and if it did you would have to eat it with a spoon. (Think humus)

Fruit Options

• I would start with strawberries and blueberries as my berry component. Raspberries and blackberries are fine too as long as your blender can pummel the seeds. For citrus I like oranges. Yes, I know they are a pain to peel but think of it as occupational therapy. Grapefruit is good too as are lemons and limes. If you use lemons and/or limes you may have to compensate by adding something sweet. If you need to add sweetness, try honey or maple syrup as they have as least some marginal nutritive value. You can also use jams or preserves. One of my secret ingredients is lingonberry jam.
• Just about any fruit works so go with what’s in season. Grapes are good as are apples (skins on no seeds), pears (skins on no seeds), peaches and apricots (skins on no pits), and kiwis (peeled).
• Another go-to ingredient is pineapple. I buy fresh uncut pineapples and process them myself. See YouTube if you need help. Also, consider more exotic fruits such as mangos or papayas. Don’t forget bananas. They always work well in smoothies and you don’t have to worry if they are a little too ripe. If you like them a little green they will add that taste to the finished product. Be sure to cut all fruit up to the size of a medium strawberry prior to adding it to your blender.

It’s Easy Being Green

• Just about all nutritionists recommend that leafy vegetables be a steady part of your diet. If you feel you need more than you are getting from your other meals, you can add some to your smoothie. If you add a small amount of greens to a fruit smoothie they will not change the taste much if at all. They will, however, impact the color of the final product depending on how much you use and what you mix them with.
• The king of smoothy greens is the trendy kale leaf, something that restaurants use to put on plates as an attractive garnish that no one ever ate. Other greens work too so if you have some kicking around for other reasons give them a try. Spinach looks like the second most popular green. One caution, adding greens to fruit-based smoothies can result in a final color that may or may not have great visual appeal. Think brown. It also might produce a drink that is bright green, a can’t miss item for St. Patrick’s day parties.
• If you search for smoothie recipes online you will find ingredients that go beyond fruit, juice, yogurt, and greens. Avocados are common as are items that will add some heat. Examples include cayenne pepper and jalapeño peppers. I’ve also seen rolled oats, but most things in your pantry are fair game.

Liquid Possibilities

• You need to add liquid to your smoothies to give them a drinkable consistency, just about any fruit juice will do. My list would include orange, cranberry, grapefruit, pineapple, and lemonade (already sweetened). There are many products on the market today that call themselves “Milk” but clearly do not come from a cow. Many are made from nuts like almonds and cashews. You don’t really milk a nut. You just boil them for a while and put them in a blender. Commercial outfits add other ingredients so check the labels to see what you are getting in terms of nutrition. Nutritionally, they are not a substitute for cow’s milk. You can also get coconut milk, which is easier to understand as it’s simply the liquid inside a coconut.

Slushies

• If you want a frozen drink you can add ice, but that might make the drink seem watery. Try freezing small fruits like grapes, blueberries, and small strawberries. Other fruits can be added frozen as well as long you cut them into smaller pieces (grape size) before freezing. You will need a heavy-duty blender for making slushy smoothies. The amount of frozen fruit you need will require some trial and error to get a drink that matches your preferences.

Nutrition Data for Any Item

• There is no dearth of controversy about what you should be eating for optimum health. Plant-based diets are becoming more popular and I have yet to see any smoothie recipes with meat in them. If you use yogurt, however, your smoothie won’t quality as vegan food since yogurt is made from cow’s milk. My goto site for checking the nutritional content of any food is NutritionData.self.Com. You can have it analyze a meal or any single ingredient. If you are looking to add or avoid something in your diet this site will help.

Your Blender

• If you have an inexpensive blender you can still make smoothies. Just don’t expect it to do as good a job as a more expensive model. It will probably have a problem if you try to put in ice cubes or frozen fruit. When my wife was diagnosed with ALS in 2006, I bought a Blendtec blender as it was powerful enough to blend any food and turn ice cubes into snow. They have competition in the high-end blender market, but I have been extremely satisfied with mine. I had a warranty issue and they made good on it with no problems. If you want a powerful blender they start around $300.
• There are a number of funny videos on YouTube where Blendtec demonstrates the power of their blender by blending none food items. Here is one where it blends an iPhone. In addition to the smoothie button, it also has buttons for ice cream, frozen yogurt, milkshakes, soups, syrups, fondues, sauces and dips, dressings, batters, and whole juice. I feel like it is smarter than I am, which is a good thing. (I am not being compensated by Blendtec for this post.)

One Sample Recipe

• As you gain experience you will know how much stuff to add to the blender and how much liquid to add. Blenders have volume marks on the side. If you want a 12 oz. drink, fill it to the 12 oz. mark. (duh) If you make too much you can keep the leftovers to start tomorrow’s batch. If I were to make one now based on what I have, here is what I would throw-in.
• One serving of yogurt, about half a cup. (I seldom measure anything.)
  Three medium-size strawberries stem included – Think of it as a green leafy vegetable. A decent blender can make them disappear.
  Two hand fulls of blueberries (the ratio of blueberries can impact the color of the finished product. The more you use the less appealing the color might be.)
  One tablespoon of crushed flax seeds (for your omega-3 fatty acids)
  One half of a medium-sized orange. I put the other half in my strawberry box for the next day.
  Enough juice of the day to just cover the above ingredients. (Cranberry? Be sure to get real juice and not some product that contains high fructose corn syrup.)

• Your blender should have a smoothie setting so put on the lid, hold on to it, consider using ear protection (I do), and let er rip. Smart blenders know when to turn off. From here on it’s trial and error. I have made some I like better than others, but I haven’t made one yet I didn’t drink. Let me know how it goes and be creative.
• Greger, Michael, and Stone, Gene, 2015. How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease, Flatiron Books: New York, NY.

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The Battle for New York Schools: Eva Moskowitz vs. Mayor Bill de Blasio by Daniel Berger portrays the battle between the person who runs the most successful charter school association in New York City and its Mayor. I’m left wondering why the public schools aren’t looking to build on the success of this group of charters that is having amazing success, at least in terms of the standardize tests. Your school might want to see what they are doing.

Daniel Bergner

• Daniel is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and the author of four books of nonfiction: What Do Women Want?, The Other Side of Desire, In the Land of Magic Soldiers, and God of the Rodeo.  In the Land of Magic Soldiers received an Overseas Press Club Award for international reporting and a Lettre-Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage and was named a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. God of the Rodeo was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Daniel’s writing has appeared in the Atlantic, Granta, Harper’s, Mother Jones, Talk, and the New York Times Book Review, and on the op-ed page of the New York Times. His writing is included in The Norton Reader. You can email him at bergnerdaniel@gmail.com and reach him on Twitter at @bergnerdaniel.

Eva Moskowitz

• With a degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in history from Johns Hopkins, Eva founded her first Success Academy in 2006 for kindergarteners and first graders in the Harlem section of New York City. Since then it has grown to the largest charter group in the city with nearly 9,500 students in 24 elementary schools, seven middle schools, and a new high school that opened in August. Most students are black and Latino and poor enough to qualify for subsidized meals. These are the same type of children that the city’s public school have had little success educating.
• The 2014 results from New York State Tests on English and math place her schools in the top 1% of all the state’s schools in math, and in the top 3% in English. At one school, where 95% of students are black or Latino, 98% scored at or above grade level in math, with 80% receiving the highest of four ratings. You would think the mayor would be thrilled with this performance, but he has chosen to engage Moskowitz in a ferocious political battle. While they are both liberal crusaders, they have profoundly divergent ideas about how the mission should be carried out. De Blasio has moved to block the expansion of the Success Academies, but Moskowitz is using her own political resources to move him out of the way. The outcome of this clash may determine education’s future.

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Why I got Vaccinated and You Should Too by Dr. Doug Green

• I published this prior to President Biden’s recent action on COVID where he said that all federal employees and anyone who works for an organization with more than 100 employees need to be vaccinated or tested weekly. As a result, I did an update. Please share with anyone you know who isn’t vaccinated. It may say a life.
• Everyone I know personally has been vaccinated, it’s clear that there are a lot of people in the US who have so far chosen not to. The purpose of this article is to explain why choosing the vaccine puts the odds way in your favor when it comes to avoiding serious illness and death. Good luck.
• 1. If you don’t trust the government, don’t worry. The government did not make the vaccine! The government is not forcing anyone to get vaccinated! The vaccines were created by the private sector with strong encouragement from the Trump administration. The entire Trump and Biden families have been vaccinated. Recently, however, President Biden took action that will require federal employees and anyone working for an organization with more than 100 employees to get vaccinated to show a negative test weekly. If you are determined not to be vaccinated you face the inconvenience and possibly the cost of weekly testing. You also run the risk of a false positive or a real positive followed by a week or two of quarantine for which you might not get paid. Failure to comply could cost you your job.
• 2. 99+% of people in hospitals with COVID are NOT vaccinated. (2) That alone should be the only reason you need to get vaccinated unless you really like hanging out in hospitals and the possibility of being placed on a ventilator or dying.
• 3. Vaccines have eliminated some diseases altogether like smallpox and polio. Almost all of us had a number of vaccines when we were young for a variety of diseases. Within the last decade, I also had vaccines for pneumonia and shingles. Many people actually die from pneumonia when their lungs fill with fluids caused by some other disease. Are you afraid of needles? It’s time to suck it up. There is little or no real pain and the process lasts a few seconds. Will the injection site be a little sore the next day? Probably, but on a scale from one to ten it’s more like a one.
• 4. Muslim terrorists are noted anti-vaxers. They have been known to murder medical personnel trying to bring vaccines for things like measles to people in rural communities. When it comes to vaccines do you really want to be on their side of the argument?



• 5. Are you shunning the vaccine because you think it’s the conservative thing to do? Note that every news anchor on the conservative Fox News Network has been vaccinated and encourages you to do the same. They are also quick to point out that the matter is your choice.
• 6. People with low levels of education are far less likely to be vaccinated. Poor people are far less likely to be vaccinated. Are these groups you identify with? With an earned doctorate and a generous pension, I am well educated and not poor. I got vaccinated. Even if you are poor and didn’t finish high school you can benefit from the decisions that well-educated wealthy people have made for the most part.
• 7. Vaccinated people who do get covid get a mild form. This happened to my daughter and her husband. Now they have natural immunity to go along with the vaccine.
• 8. While there are no long-term studies, there are millions of people who have been vaccinated for over ten months as of this writing. So far there is nothing to indicate that there is any long-term downside for vaccinated people. (9/14/2021)
• If you are a gambling person, all the information we have suggests that getting vaccinated is the way to go if you want the odds in your favor. Don’t forget that millions have died worldwide and many others suffer from the effects of what is called ‘long COVID,’ (1) It’s your choice, but it’s hard to argue that getting vaccinated isn’t the Smart Choice.

(1) Davis, Kayla. ‘Long COVID’ affects 1 in 10 kids, Israel survey finds, New York Post, 9/16/2021, @nypost @JournoRivas

(2) Fonrouge, Gabrielle T. The new 99%: These are the people who are getting serious cases of COVID-19, New York Post, 9/9/2021, @FonrougeGab @nypost

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