By: Express News Service | Pune | Updated: June 15, 2020 9:58:12 pm The proceeds from the sale of masks will be utilised to support the Covid-19 relief efforts of Concern India Foundation a public trust that supports various NGOs. (Express/Representational)

With face masks becoming part of the new normal across the world, Masks dArt, an online charitable initiative, has attempted to raise funds for the fight against the coronavirus pandemic by capitalising on the artistic potential of masks.

The initiative organised an online exhibition of face masks featuring 50 artists across India. The masks were sourced from a womens self-help group and couriered to artists across the country.

Michelle Poonawala, one of the artists, painted her masks with a butterfly motif. Art is a powerful voice and I always try to send a message through my work. We are living through a history in making and this is the best time to introspect about what we are doing and where we go from here. For me, the butterfly symbolises freedom, positivity, hope, peace and the fragility of life. For someone else, it might be the metamorphosis of the butterfly and perhaps the world around us is changing for the better, too, she said.

Madhuri Badhuri, another artist, said, I painted the masks streamlined with my recent Moon series. The aspect of art is that it documents history and the works of artists are the statements of that particular time. Art is an integral part of the movement, so years from now, people will look at the masks and know of the time when all were wearing masks due to the pandemic. It is a unique art memorabilia, a novelty piece created by an artist.

The proceeds from the sale of masks will be utilised to support the Covid-19 relief efforts of Concern India Foundation a public trust that supports various NGOs. The funds will be used to provide ventilators, ECG machines, portable X-Ray machines, protective kits with sanitisers, disposable gloves, masks, personal protection equipment as well as the distribution food grains to orphanages, old age homes, daily wage workers and migrant labourers.

It was challenging with amid the national lockdown and the cyclone in the east. However, in spite of these roadblocks, the artists were most patient and obliging, said Radhika Gulati, director of Secure Giving, which organised the exhibition.

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Pune: Exhibition of masks to raise funds for anti-Covid efforts - The Indian Express

The president of the Caseys convenience store chain based in Ankeny says they learned during restrictions brought on by the COVID-19 that customers like to help themselves.

Caseys president, Darren Rebelez, says people like to pick out their own slice of pizza or other food items. When we made the shift to full service our guests did not like that, Rebelez says. Although we had people with masks and gloves on handing them their food they didnt like having to wait they were accustomed to doing it themselves.

During a conference call to report quarterly earnings, Rebelez says he visited several stores, but didnt take a poll. I dont have any empirical data to share with you in terms of a percentage of like it, or dont like. All I can tell you is people were complaining when we made the change. People were happy when we changed it back, according to Rebelez.

Chief financial officer Bill Walljasper says they did see the impact in food sales. As we moved from a full service to a self-service model depending on the category thats a self-service we see an uptick from ten to 15 percent on a category, Walljasper says. So, definitely that seems to be an overwhelming desire to have that self-service. At least in our market area.

Walljasper says convenience stores are designed to get people in and out quickly and that was one of the issues with full service. Caseys has 2,154 stores in Iowa and seven other states

(Photo from Caseys website)

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Casey's finds during pandemic restrictions customers would rather help themselves - Radio Iowa

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Nearly a billion pounds of beef move through the JBS processing plant in Grand Island, Neb., every year. Except this year: Over the last two months, the company has had to slow production as meatpacking plants around the country have been roiled by coronavirus outbreaks.1

In late March, Nebraska state health officials, fearing such outbreaks, urged Governor Pete Ricketts to temporarily close the plant.2

After Ricketts rebuffed them, stories of missing hand sanitizer and soap, no personal protective gear, and insufficient safety precautions began to leak out of the plant, which as of April had 260 confirmed Covid-19 cases that can be tied back to it. Its difficult to know how many more among its 3,000 workers have been infected since then, because Ricketts has refused to disclose official plant numbers. Across the country, rural areas that contain meatpacking plants with outbreaks of Covid-19 have rates five times those of other rural areas.3

In a daily briefing on April 23, Ricketts dismissed those who thought the largely immigrant meatpacking workers in his state deserved relief by warning, Think about how mad people were when they couldnt get paper products.4

President Donald Trump issued an executive order five days later recognizing meat as a scarce and critical material essential to the national defense, adding that he would ensure a continued supply of protein for Americans under the Defense Production Act of 1950. Rickettsundeterred by the outbreaks in his state and emboldened by the White Houseissued a press release declaring May as Beef Month in Nebraska.5

Politically, this shows that meat is indispensable, said University of Notre Dame professor Joshua Specht, whose 2019 book Red Meat Republic recounts the history of American beef production. Shortages of meat will personalize the pandemic for everyone, and that is a major political problem when youre trying to say the country is open for business.6

The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the fragility of American supply chains, and nothing demonstrates that more acutely than the price spikes, depleted meat aisles, and imposed rationing on a food that weve come to expect in limitless quantities. The brutality of effectively sacrificing human beings to keep those aisles well stocked might be the breaking point in what was already the liveliest debate inside food: the future of beef in the American diet.7

Industrial beef is the most polluting, the most carbon-emitting, and the most resource-intensive form of protein. A 2018 study published in the journal Nature recommended that the average US citizen cut beef consumption by 75 percent if we want to keep the global temperature rise to less than 2degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. In the context of Covid-19, University of Minnesota biologist Rob Wallace has made the connection between global industrial livestock farming and the proliferation of superviruses.8

If youre reading this, youve probably already heard that you should be cutting down on beef. But Trumps and Rickettss decisions show that with beef so embedded in American culture, its not going anywhere without a fight.9

JBS: This Nebraska meatpacking plant processes nearly a billion pounds of beef a yearand is a Covid-19 hot spot for its workers.

Rickettss warning of riots if big government comes for our beef echoes the claim by former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka that the Green New Deal is a harbinger of authoritarian communism. They want to take away your hamburgers, he bellowed in a speech at the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved. Gorka made it explicit: To threaten the primacy of meat in the American diet is to threaten a pillar of what it means to be a free American.10

Sebastian Gorka: The former Trump adviser warned, They want to take away your hamburgers. (CC 3.0)

Gorkas ravings about government-mandated burger confiscation sound like some nefarious plot by the same postmodern cultural Marxists decried by the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson. In 2018 he revealed on the wildly popular Joe Rogan Experience podcast that he was following an extreme form of the now trendy high-fat, high-protein paleolithic and ketogenic diets: just beef and water. Thanks to the carnivore diet, as he called it, Peterson said hed lost 50 pounds, cured his 30-year gum disease, and seen his lifelong depression cease. Meat, manIm telling you, meat, reads an endorsement of the diet beneath an Instagram photo of him solemnly cutting through a steak.11

Jordan Peterson: Claims he lost 50 pounds, and cured depression and gum disease thanks to a carnivore diet. (CC-BY-SA-2.0)

Peterson first emerged in the public consciousness after protesting a Canadian policy about observing gendered pronouns, which he claimed as evidence of creeping authoritarian rule. He subsequently rode that wave of free-speech martyrdom to a best-selling book, 12 Rules for Life, full of banal self-help infused with social Darwinism. Peterson addresses feelings of real alienation in his audience, but instead of locating the structural sources of their misery, he harks back to an imaginary past when men could be men, before Western civilization became preoccupied with social justice and feminism. In recent years hes become a kind of soothsayer for the mostly young white male demographic that is the subject of worried fascination in the current age of homegrown extremism.12

Its been 30 years since Carol J. Adamss landmark The Sexual Politics of Meat connected the subjugation of animals with the subjugation of women. Studies have shown that men are less likely to embrace eco-friendly practices because we perceive them as feminine; a recent survey of men in the United States found that they were less likely to wear a protective face mask during the pandemic because they viewed them as a sign of weakness.13

Petersons promotion of the carnivore diet was met with scornful incredulity and ridiculed as a self-defeating attempt to own the libs. But defenders of the diet pushed back, reminding us that humans are meant to eat meat and that it provides essential nourishment in the wasteland of the standard American dietdefined by high-fructose corn syrup, refined grains, and industrial seed oils.14

We shouldnt project our politics onto people who are half-dead, trying to get their lives back. Thats what his daughter, Mikhaila Peterson, 28, told me when I asked her about the politics of promoting an all-beef diet in the 21st century. She put her dad on the diet after it helped her with a crippling autoimmune disease and has since rebranded it as her very own Lion Diet.15

You have to reach a certain level of desperation to try it, she admitted. But because of how the media has been portraying Dad, the diet has been unfairly associated with the alt-right. Assigning people a conscious political identity based on their diet would be unwise; Adolf Hitler, famously, was a vegetarian.16

Adrienne Rose Bitar: Diet books replicate the 19th century religious form of the Jeremiad. (Cornell University History Dept )

But it would be equally unwise to ignore the embrace of red meat by the far right. Diet books were among the best-selling literature of the 20th century. More than simply offering guidance on which foods to eat and which to avoid, they remain a way to construct grand narratives about who we are. Self-help gets trashed as being an opiate of the masses, said Adrienne Rose Bitar, the author of Diet and the Disease of Civilization. But very few dieters see themselves on an individual quest for bodily perfection. Rather they recognize societal problems like obesity or diabetes and think that theyre going to do their own small part, however impossibly, to create a better world.17

Rogan and alt-right icons like Mike Cernovich and Alex Jones are already established in the dude self-care space, selling skin serums and supplements that might otherwise be considered ladylike. In recent years soy boy has eclipsed cuck as a term to deride the tofu-loving, beta-male archetype. The same return to a past, forgotten glory of men that is central to the appeal of people like Peterson and the nostalgic project of making America great again can also be found among advocates of low-carb regimes like the paleo, keto, and carnivore diets, which stress a return to the natural and traditional foodways of a healthier past.18

Conservative radio host Dennis Pragers faux university PragerU released a video last year titled How the Government Made You Fat, in which the low-carb cardiologist Bret Scher critiques the US Department of Agricultures food pyramid. The antiBig Government message is clear: You are responsible for your own health. Dont rely on the government to take care of you. For the One America News Network correspondent and former Pizzagate enthusiast Jack Posobiec and the far-right commentator Stefan Molyneux, praising meat-heavy, low-carb nutrition is a way to draw a contrast with the crypto-vegetarian piles of birdseed at the public schools their children attend, and Molyneux speculated it could be a communist plot. For others, eating meat is a way to police the boundaries of masculinity. In 2017 the far-right Canadian commentator Faith Goldy asked whether our fridges were the reason men were all of a sudden signing up for womens studies classes. Alex Joness former sidekick Paul Joseph Watson wondered if soy was making Western men more likely to adopt left-wing beliefs. Anthony Johnson regularly hosts paleo nutritionists as part of his premier manosphere gathering, the 21 Convention.19

Even the onetime steak salesman Trump did some nutritional virtue-signaling when it was revealed that he regularly enjoyed two Big Macs at dinner. His former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski quickly clarified to CNN that Trump never ate the bread, which is the important part. The National Cattlemens Beef Associationwhich lobbied for meatpacking plants to remain open during the pandemicdispatched its former senior director of sustainable beef production research, Sara Place, to assure the conservative media host Glenn Beck that methane emissions from cow farts were fake news and that cattle are part of the climate change solution.20

Faith Goldy: The fault is not in ourselves, but in our fridges. (CC 3.0)

Contemporary right-wing politics survives on a diet of grievance, persecution, and misdirection. In the right-wing mind, feminists and social justice warriors have been joined by the CEOs of Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, creator of the Beyond Burger (the demand for alternative meat has skyrocketed but has not surpassed the demand for beef during the pandemic), Bill Gates, animal rights activists, Greta Thunberg, and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to carry water for the vegan agenda. Modern society has created the least masculine men in history, reads one tweet by the Internets mysterious self-described meat philosopher Carnivore Aurelius. Another proclaims, The Carnivore Diet is the red pill that wakes you up to reality. In these circles, the war on meat is a war on men. Red meat is the red pill.21

Even before the current once-in-a-century public health crisis, it was an anxious time to try to eat healthy. Chronic afflictions like obesity, cancer, heart disease, and diabetescommonly referred to as diseases of civilizationpersist at rates bordering epidemic levels. As populations around the world modernize and adopt something closer to the standard American diet, health outcomes worsen. Our understanding of nutrition hasnt helped.22

The Australian historian Gyorgy Scrinis coined the term nutritionism for a paradigm that allows food corporations to rebrand and remarket ultraprocessed food as health food. In 2007 he identified a nutritional loss of legitimacy that had opened the door to the construction of new nutritional worldviews.23

The paleo diet (the defining diet of the era, according to Bitar) is one example. Drawing on evolutionary biology and the caveman mystique, paleo mimics what was supposedly available to preagricultural humans, with a meat-heavy, grain-free, minimally processed diet. Its what we ate before everyones health went to shit, to quote John Durant, the author of The Paleo Manifesto. The framing is instructive. All diet plans are an attempt to mediate the transition from an agricultural, pastoral lifestyle to an urban, industrialized oneand the distance thats put between us and our food. Existential anxiety over what that change has done to our food and thus ourselves is what unites all diet literature.24

Diet books replicate the 19th century religious form of the jeremiad, Bitar said. They say we are fat, we are ugly, we are sinnersbut together we can lose the weight and regain our understanding of what nature and God can bring. In an essay for the food studies journal Gastronomica, historian Michael Kideckel noted that this understanding of food invariably launders a reactionary view of history.25

In this philosophy of the past, Americans must rediscover a primitive instinct from a time when women did more work within the home, immigrants and indigenous people were even more marginalized, and fewer people saw culture and tradition as the product of specific human decisions, Kideckel wrote. For Durant, our collective health went to shit when women left the kitchen, outsourcing the cooking to corporations. Their traditional role was always an important one and shouldnt be trivialized, he said in a 2017 interview.26

Dieting has been considered a feminine pursuit for so long that when Weight Watchers first marketed to men in 2007, said Tulsa University professor Emily Contois, the tagline was Real men dont diet. But the first diet plans emerged during the mid- to late 19th century, when the ideal man came to be embodied in muscular selves, nations, empires and races, wrote the essayist Pankaj Mishra, who drew parallels between the 19th centurys ideas of manliness and those that contaminate politics and culture across the world in the 21st century.27

Lord Salisbury: Inventor of the eponymous steak. Civilization is harmful to your health. (History Dept. Cornell University)

The earliest diet to go by that name was a meat-heavy, proto-low-carb plan credited to a wealthy Londoner named William Banting, who in 1863 published the pamphlet Letter on Corpulence. It was such a best seller that Bant became a synonym for diet. Dr. James Salisbury, the inventor of the steaks, was another diet pioneer. He experimented with periods of eating only a single food like bread, oatmeal, baked beans, or asparagus before landing onwhat else?beef. It was the food that is most easily digested and that we can subsist on exclusively the longest, wrote Elma Stuart, a follower of Salisburys, in her book What Must I Do to Get Well?28

Diet theorist Mose Velsor: better known as Walt Whitman, inveighed against confections, sweets, salads, things fried in grease.

Salisbury saw his book The Relation of Alimentation and Disease as a way to address the character and capabilities of Western men. Civilization, he wrote, was damaging their physical and moral health, making them more likely to sin and shirk responsibility. He may have been influenced by Mose Velsor, a columnist for the New York Atlas, who in the 1850s worried that city life was producing a generation of soy boys. When Velsors columns were rediscovered and republished in 2016 as Guide to Manly Health and Training, they bore the authors real name: Walt Whitman. Healthy manly virility, he wrote, was being depleted. To foster a more pure-blooded race, Whitman recommended an end to confections, sweets, salads, things fried in grease. Instead he advocated eating fresh meat with as few outside condiments as possible.29

The connection between eating meat and the superiority of Western men was drawn out further in an 1869 essay The Diet of Brain Workers by the neurologist George Miller Beard. What have the natives of South America, the savages of Africa, the stupid Greenlander, the peasantry of Europe, all combined, done for civilization, in comparison with any single beef-eating class of Europe? he wondered. Beard is better known for his theory that the Euro-American brain was so powerful that it could overwork itself into a condition called neurastheniastress or exhaustion. In his 1881 book American Nervousness, he wrote that the affliction that came to be known as Americanitis was caused by the technological advancements of modern civilization. One such advancement was the mental activity of women.30

To cure Americanitis, Beard prescribed that men harden themselves by working on cattle ranches, of course. Theodore Roosevelt would epitomize this transformation in American masculinity. He gained a reputation in the New York Assembly as an effeminate jane-dandy but returned from his time on the frontier with the stoic, aggressive cowboy bravado that would define and plague American masculinity for at least 100 more years.31

As president, Roosevelt popularized the term race suicide to describe the fear that excessively fertile immigrants would outbreed their racial betters. Calling it an unpardonable crime, in a 1914 article, Twisted Eugenics, he castigated women who chose to attend college or use contraception instead of focusing on repopulating the white race. Its not unlike the present-day fears of white genocide or the great replacement that youll find in the tweets of Iowa Representative Steve King or in the white nationalist literature uncovered on Trump senior policy adviser Stephen Millers e-mail server.32

Toughening up on the frontier also meant interaction with Indigenous tribes. Even Salisburys beef remedy was inspired by his observations of Native Americans. There is no reason why we of civilized communities should not live to an even greater age than man does in the wild state, he wrote. But its unlikely that Salisbury ever witnessed the healthy wild state of beef eaters, because cattle are not indigenous to North America.33

Beefs journey to the top of the American diet began with the near extinction of bison and the genocide and forced removal of Indigenous tribes who subsisted on hunting that animal. Cattle ranching becomes central to the dispossession of Native lands and the takeover of western ecosystems, Notre Dames Specht pointed out. Cattle are a tool of, and a justification for, taking that land.34

At the same time that American manhood was redefined as the strong, silent type roaming the western frontier, beef became hypercommodified, readily available and relatively inexpensive for the first time in history. The idea that beef is something you eat all the time is the product of industrial agriculture, its a product of cities, and its a product of the expansion of commodity markets, Specht continued.35

To have a seemingly limitless supply of beef was such a global novelty that it became a badge of Americanness. Immigrants would write home and say, Life in America is hard, but at least I get red meat all the time, Specht said. We can but wonder how the largely immigrant workforce at the JBS plant in Grand Island felt about receiving 10pounds of free ground beef as a coronavirus bonus.36

W here do you go these days to mingle with some of the thought leaders advocating for beef to remain a central part of the American diet? Out west. Last August, over 150 people came together for three days at the University of San Diego student center for the eighth annual Ancestral Health Symposium, a big-tent conference that encompasses paleo, keto, and carnivore people along with anyone else who wants to examine current health challenges through the context of our ancestral heritage, according to the Ancestral Health Societys website. Its a heterogeneous community with plenty of internal debate, but its members share an intense skepticism of the medical, nutritional, and scientific establishment and a celebration of real, natural, traditional food.37

This is the Wild West, man. This is the fringe that the mainstream poaches from, a sturdily built, sandy-haired chiropractor from Los Angeles told me as we looked out at a room of lean, mostly white attendees outfitted for functionalitywicking athletic shirts, yoga pants, five-toed shoes, Xero sandals, blue-light-blocking shades, and slick metal water bottles. He wasnt wrong. The ancestral health community has been on the front lines of reclaiming healthy fat from unfair criticism; despite critiques of the community as overly patriarchal, some feminists have praised ancestral diets as a respite from a culture that equates beauty with thinness, to quote Bitar. If you know about collagen peptides, circadian rhythms, gut microbes, or the dangers of inflammation, these people may have had something to do with it.38

Yet there remains the fact that humans must change our relationship to meat, especially beef, if we are to avoid ecological catastrophe, let alone improve the lives of meatpacking workers or help the animals themselves. But if meat is of essential value to human health, we seem to be in an existential bind, trapped between our perceived nutritional needs and the capacity of our ecosystem and labor force to meet them. In Can Seven Billion Humans Go Paleo? the writer Erica Etelson wondered, If theres not enough animal protein to go around without cooking the planet, who should be first in line? Thats the mostly unasked question at the heart of the meat debate: one of power and ethics, not fat and protein. Thats also the dilemma that many people grapple with (this soycialist writer included) as they eat the occasional burger, steak, or oxtail.39

Ive been called right wing for saying meat is healthy, said Diana Rodgers, a farmer and dietitian. Its very political, but it shouldnt be. Youre either a less-meat environmentalist or you eat a lot of meat and dont care about the environment. Rodgers was in the midst of debunking the EAT-Lancet Commissions planetary health diet, which aims to accommodate the growing global population and planetary limits. The guidelines allow for only one serving of red meat per weeka death sentence to the people in this small auditorium. Rodgers disclosed that the General Mills meat snack company Epic Provisions had paid her way to the conference to help promote her upcoming book and documentary Sacred Cow (the nutritional, environmental and ethical case for better beat, according to her website), which was cowritten by Robb Wolf, the author of the best-selling The Paleo Solution.40

Allan Savory: Former soldier, ecologist, rancher, and originator of the controversial holistic management approach to soil conservation. (CC-by-sa-4.0)

Rodgers argues that beef is the ideal food for the health of the planet because of the potential for holistic range managementan approach to cattle rearing popularized by Zimbabwean rancher Allan Savory and his namesake institute. To oversimplify, cattle are strategically moved around a plot of land in a way that mimics the millions of bison that grazed for thousands of years in North America. This grazing technique restores grasslands and revitalizes soil in a way that allows for substantialmaybe even earth-savinglevels of carbon sequestration. While holistic range management (and the prospect of carbon-neutral burgers) makes intuitive sense and has serious momentum, its also highly polarizing.41

There are credible scientists on either side of the Savory debate, including David Briske and Richard Teague, two professors in the same department at Texas A&M University. Savorys past as an officer in the Rhodesian Army hasnt done him any favors among his critics, who portray him as a delusional iconoclast with no respect for scientific rigor. But to his proponents, which include a growing list of farmers around the world, Savory is a misunderstood sage. The complexity and dynamism of his methods cannot be fully appreciated in summary form.42

If there is a middle ground between the dystopian reality of the beef industry and the unsettling vision of a world without animal agriculture posited by Impossible Foods CEO Pat Brown, holistic range management could be just that. It doesnt seem right that the Norwegian billionaire couple behind EAT-Lancet, Gunhild and Petter Stordalen, are allowed to prescribe diets for the rest of the world while they fly around in a private jet with their own carbon footprint unregulated. I was open to the possibility that the Shake Shack burger I ate the night before was not a personal moral failing but actually a righteous rebellion against the 1 percent. That would make life easier. Then an audience member asked Rodgers if there would be enough land to support a large population on the beef-heavy diet she recommends. She assured him there would be.43

And it could sustain the same population or more as an agrarian-based economy?44

Rodgers was visibly flustered. What I can tell you is that theres too many of us, she replied. Do we want lots of people fed like crap, or do we want healthy people? Our current system is completely failing and producing sick people and killing our environment. So regenerative agriculture is actually the only solution we have moving forward. And, you know, theres too many people.45

Perhaps Rodgers should have chosen an other title for her lecture than Feeding the World a Healthy and Sustainable Dietand other opponents than EAT-Lancet and Impossible Foods. At least their visions attempt to account for the worlds population as it exists. Only 3percent of the beef produced in the United States is designated as grass-fed; even less is raised by Savorys method. Any hypothetical solution in which factory farms transform into holistically managed ranges will ultimately have to confront the multinational agribusiness industry that has been consolidating power for decades. Eating beef is political, whether we want it to be or not. But what was most troubling about Rodgerss answer was her too many people declaration: In those thought experiments, its always the less powerful who count as extra. Its not necessarily right wing to say that meat is healthy, but to quickly revert to claims of overpopulation calls up the darkest strains of both the conservation movement and ancestral health diet literature.46

In 1975 a doctor named Walter Voegtlin self-published his foundational text, The Stone Age Diet, which told a story similar to Rodgerss about the lack of sufficient animal protein to feed a surplus population. Voegtlins solution included limit[ing] reproduction to superior types of individuals and practicing euthanasia of imperfect newborns. Rodgers and others who advise people to eat more meat surely dont endorse that approach, but its worth highlighting how similar their framing is: For some to thrive, others must disappear.47

The Blonde Buttermaker: This former vegetarian liberal has become an animal-fat-obsessed white nationalist.

I kept Rodgers and Voegtlin in mind toward the end of an interview with Tristan Haggard, the proprietor of the popular keto-carnivore YouTube channel Primal Edge Health, which is also the name of his diet brand. A gregarious former vegan, he had spent much of our two-hour Skype call building his case that the plant-based-food movement evolved out of the eugenics movement and is behind a conspiracy to depopulate the world by feminizing men through industrialized vegan kibble. His mantra, Eat meat, make families, is a response to what he sees as the growing cultural degeneracy of modern city life. Instead of being concerned with how you can feed your family or protect your community, men are taught about how cool they might look in a dress, Haggard said. Thats why he fled California to raise his family on a farm in the Andes Mountains in Ecuador. Now he lives like a 21st century primal maneating grass-fed steak, drinking raw milk, and creating content for his subscribers and clients about the dangers of modern soycial engineering.48

I told Haggard I had just heard Rodgers recite the same Malthusian talking points he attributes to vegans. Im glad you brought that up. Its important to read with nuance, he said. While he recognized that overpopulation arguments are usually directed at his neighbors in the Global South, hes appeared on the white nationalist publishing company Arktoss channel to talk up the carnivore diet as part of the fight against globalist hegemony, and hes also rushed to the defense of the Nazis kicked out of the farmers market in Bloomington, Ind. It seems that for Haggard, regardless of your political leanings, if youre on the side of more meat, youre part of the resistance.49

Haggard touts small-scale, local agriculture as a weapon against the globalists, yet he calls climate change a word game and factory farming a straw man argument. His fun-house mirror of inconsistent, repellent, and altogether weird beliefs is not uncommon among prominent followers of Weston Price, the godfather of the ancestral health movement. In 1939, Price published a flawed but compelling ethnography, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, describing traditional preindustrial diets from the Alps to the Andes. He found several constants, the most important of which are the vitality of animal fat and the degeneration of peoples health after exposure to the Western industrial diet. Today his followers have translated his work into contemporary diet guidelines. Rather than eschew any specific food group, they focus on minimally processed food and old-world farming and food-preservation techniques.50

In the vendor room at the Ancestral Health Symposium, I spoke with a disarmingly friendly volunteer from the Weston A. Price Foundation about the pleasures of bone marrow and roasting vegetables in duck fat and another who was in the midst of shooting a documentary about grass-fed beef. The foundation is best known for Nourishing Traditions, the best-selling cookbook by its founder, Sally Fallon Morell, which popularized Prices work. While the pandemic has shown the importance of local, organic farms, which Prices followers have supported for years, theyre still easily dismissed as cranks because of their opposition to the scientific and medical establishment, as demonstrated by their commitment to unpasteurized dairy.51

Unfortunately, thats not the most controversial claim the foundations leaders have made. In 2018, Morrell wrote on her blog that the Earth stopped warming in the late 1990s and now is in a cooling trend, so we dont have to feel guilty for driving an SUV or eating bacon. The foundation doesnt have an official position on climate change, and when some of her followers protested in the comment section, she replied that the discourse around global warming reminded her of the relentless propaganda against animal fats. Like Haggard, she seems willing to embrace anyone sympathetic to her cause.52

In 2015, Morrell appeared on Red Ice Radio, a Swedish media platform that the Southern Poverty Law Center called one of the most effective white nationalist outlets on the Internet. Before it was banned from YouTube, Red Ice unveiled a cooking and lifestyle show hosted by a neo-Nazi domestic goddess named the Blonde Buttermaker. In an interview on the white nationalist channel NoWhiteGuilt, she spoke of how influential Prices work had been on her journey from former liberal vegetarian to animal-fat-obsessed white nationalist. In the wrong hands, emphasizing ancestral wisdom can be reinterpreted as a permission to embrace ethnonationalism.53

But Prices research does have value if read critically. In Diet and the Disease of Civilization, Bitar analyzes his work using the anthropologist Renato Rosaldos concept of imperialist nostalgia, in which agents of colonialism long for the very forms of life they intentionally altered or destroyed.54

Nowhere was such nostalgia more evident than during the symposium presentation by Paul Saladino, a young, charismatic, and totally shredded carnivore MD. Saladino described the uphill battle in consciousness to convince the world that plant fiber is unnecessary for human consumption. Repeating the ancestral health movements dictum that Indigenous cultures prized fat as a symbol of health and fertility, Saladino encouraged the audience members to swap their kale salads for rib eye and organ meats. He closed by invoking an Andean tribal saying, Wiracocha, which he translated as I wish you a sea of fat.55

Wiracocha was also used to describe Spanish conquistadors, whose white skin was foamy like fat. Its a coincidence that reveals the historical revisionism pervasive in this community. Throughout the weekend there were photographs of healthy, happy, well-fed preindustrial Indigenous groups. But there was no acknowledgment that the rise of cattle ranching depended on eliminating the means of subsistence for Indigenous tribesor that the destruction of foodways has been a deliberate strategy of colonial powers. The slideshows simply showed beautiful people victimized by the forces of nature, whose wisdom was now bestowed on us. A young woman asked Saladino what he would say to someone curious about the carnivore diet. Welcome to the tribe, he replied.56

A sympathetic look at this confused yearning for tribal belonging would take into account what Bitar discovered as the main recurring theme in paleo diet books. Surprisingly, it has little to do with food or nutrition. Our ancestors enjoyed a balanced life of working, playing, relaxing, and worshipping. They felt closeness to one another and everyone had purpose, Bitar said, quoting from Living Paleo for Dummies. Its a human need as basic as food: meaning and connection, especially in a country defined by loneliness and living through a second gilded age of economic inequality.57

This was made even clearer during the last presentation I attended, by a naturopath named Nasha Winters. She informed us that in the past three years, American life expectancy rates declined. The diseases of civilization now have companyopiate addiction, alcoholism, and suicide, the diseases of despair.58

Nowhere is the degeneration of the quality of life in the United States more acute than in the communities surrounding the meatpacking plants that dot rural areas. Americans do need better diets, but we also need to realize that while consumer politics might be transformative for individuals, as public policy, it amounts to window dressing. As University of CaliforniaSanta Cruz professor Julie Guthman noted in her book Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism, the artificially low price of food has long functioned as a replacement for a living wage and a social safety net, and it comes with serious environmental and public health consequences.59

Over the past 100 years, from Upton Sinclair to Michael Pollan, many Americans have been curious about how the sausage is made. But what most of them really want to know is whether they can keep eating it. The public became concerned with the conditions inside meatpacking plants not out of a concern for workers health but out of worry for what meat shortages might do to their own. Sinclairs famous regret was that he aimed for the publics heart with The Jungle but hit them in the stomach instead. He hoped that exposing the horrifying conditions in meatpacking plants could spark a socialist uprising, but all he got was the Meat Safety Act of 1906.60

The logic that consumer prices are the highest good in terms of social policy, thatcomes from beef, said Joshua Specht. Any movement to reduce meat consumption must address the role that cheap beef has played in providing meaning and nourishment to the masses, or else that ground will be ceded to the Sebastian Gorkas and Donald Trumps of the world.61

The coronavirus pandemic and the looming global ecological crisis are collective problems that individual solutions wont be able to solve. But as Bitar writes, the best way to approach the question of diet is not to call out ignorance but rather to understand myths. When we examine these myths, we can see them truly as the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, and, perhaps, a story for which we can write a better plot. As difficult as it is to forecast what America will look like after the pandemic, it could be enough of a ground-shifting historical event to spawn new storiesabout why we eat, what we eat, and what we must change to survive.62

Food is so much about who we are and who weve been. To just change that overnight is not really that easy, actually, said Specht. But food isnt just a building block for who we are, its a building block for the kind of society we want to live in. If we can ground our food system in a more rigorous understanding of history, perhaps then we can remake it as a reflection of the society we want to live in. That would be the real red pill, waking us to a new reality.63

More here:
How Red Meat Became the Red Pill for the Alt-Right - The Nation

TUCSON, Ariz. These days we are trying to touch as little as possible especially if theres an extra chance its going to be a little bit germy. Thankfully, theres technology to the rescue.

Watching a toilet seat lift itself can be sort of hypnotic but its more than a novelty. Since the virus hit and people started thinking more about what they touch, Benjamin Plumbing Supply has been selling more and more touchless technology.

Tina Roesler says people are buying toilets that do more than lift their lids, some of them clean themselves.

A lot of this combination of hygiene and high tech comes from Japan.

It used to be something that people who travel to Japan knew about or people who followed high tech gadgets knew about but now, more and more people realize there's a big swell of sports players who like investing in the toilets that are customized to them as far as height and warmth and oscillating levels and all that.

She says at first the high demand item was to clean yourself. When toilet paper got scarce, bidets that help you rinse off --- that area instead became hot sellers.

Now the trend to touchless has people realizing the sort of hands-free faucets theyve seen in commercial buildings can be in their homes, but without the industrial look.

Tina Roesler says, You can find a price point around $400 and up. And some of the toilets go in the thousands. But again, it's personalized, it's customized, it's a room you spend a lot of time in, and it leans on the side of hygiene which - that cost is incalculable. If it keeps you from getting a deadly germ then it's worth any price.

Go here to see the original:
The Rebound: COVID concerns fuel boom in touchless technology - KGUN

Many organisations view customer engagement as a key USP to distinguish themselves from their competition. However, as the number of communication channels and devices increases manifold, so does the challenge of engaging them effectively to deliver contextual, consistent and personalised service. The Customer Engagement Centre Workforce Optimization market helps companies enrich customer interactions, optimise their workforce and thereby improve business processes. By doing this, they benefit from greater customer loyalty, improved performance and revenue and lesser risks and operating costs.

The comprehensive overview of the global Customer Engagement Centre Workforce Optimization Market has recently been published by Research Trades to its extensive database. It compiles exhaustive information that has been sourced by using data exploratory techniques such as primary and secondary research. Due to the usage of scientific investigation methods, it offers an accurate analysis of business perspectives.

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Customer Relationship Management is the biggest driver of the Customer Engagement Centre Workforce Optimization market. Customer relationships are the main competitive differentiator making it absolutely essential for companies to engender loyalty. An actively engaged customer is far more likely to participate with the organisation through multiple channels including online self-help tools, mobile Apps, community participation or user group involvements. They would be more willing to provide feedback if asked, utilise the products and services to the fullest and also make valuable suggestions on how to improve them.

Customer Engagement Centre Workforce Optimization Market Market segmented By Service Type

Hardware

Software

Customer Engagement Centre Workforce Optimization Market Market segmented By Applications

BFSI

Manufacturing

Healthcare

IT And ITES

Utilities

Others

It has been curated by using extensive research methodologies such as primary and secondary research methodologies. It takes a closer look at different dynamic aspects of businesses such as trends, technologies, tools, and methodologies of the global Customer Engagement Centre Workforce Optimization Market. It has been analyzed using industry analytical techniques such as SWOT and Porters five techniques. It helps to identify the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities within the businesses.

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Objectives of this research report:

In This Study, The Years Considered To Estimate The Size Of Customer Engagement Centre Workforce Optimization Market Market Are As Follows:

History Year: 2015-2019

Base Year: 2019

Estimated Year: 2020

Forecast Year 2020 to 2026

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Research Trades is a prime destination for your business aptitude and analytical solutions because we provide qualitative and quantitative sources of information that are proficient to give one-stop solutions. We skillfully syndicate qualitative and quantitative research in exact proportions to have the best report, which not only gives the most recent insights but also assists you to grow.

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CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT CENTRE WORKFORCE OPTIMIZATION MARKET 2020 RAPIDLY INTEGRATING INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS AND SERVICES TO ENHANCE THE BUSINESS FUNCTIONS...

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused millions of Canadians to lose their jobs or have their hours cut, but the situation for women is especially dire. In what has been dubbed the She-cession, Women have seen proportionately steeper job losses than men. In May, Statistics Canada reported that 1.5 million women lost jobs over March and April, a 17% drop in employment from February levels.

Why has this time been more economically difficult for women? There are a few reasons. Women are more likely than men to be employed in part-time or precarious work, make less money than men do, and work in sectors that were impacted early on by the pandemic. Women occupy only 31% of senior management positions in North America, and as a result, there are more women in non-leadership positions that are more at risk of being eliminated. Women also make up about half of Canada's workforce, so an economic recovery is not possible without them being able to work again.

The mission of Dress for Success is to empower women to achieve economic independence by providing a network of support, professional attire and the development tools to help women thrive in work and in life. Dress for Success Orillia and Barrie have been making changes to go virtual, as they anticipate being busier than ever with serving their clients needs during this catastrophic pandemic.

Their Suiting Program, where volunteers and staff assist women in selecting professional attire for job interviews and workplaces, has been adapted to become completely contact-free and virtual. The programs new moniker is Pick & Pack: Virtual Professional Clothing Assistance Program. How does it work? Clients receive a form to use for measuring themselves in addition to a form for stating their colour and style preferences. The client then has a virtual appointment with a volunteer or staff via GoToMeeting/Webinar. Preferences are discussed further in that appointment, and the client is shown what has been picked for them based on those initial forms.

If none of the clothes selected for that appointment are suitable for the client, the staff and volunteers pick other clothes based on their conversation. The clothing is then packed in a bag. Clients in Simcoe County can pick up clothes from the Dress for Success Orillia and Barrie office, and clients in Orillia can have the clothes delivered to them. Once the clothes are received, a follow up phone call with the client is made to make sure the clothes fit and are appropriate for them to wear. There is a large selection of business-casual clothing available in sizes 0-26, as well as non-slip shoes, steel-toed boots, and un-used scrubs.

Dress for Success Orillia and Barrie is also adapting their Breakfast Club program to a virtual model, which will be beginning in July. The 9-week program will run online via Go To Meeting/Webinar, with one meeting each week for all their clients. The content of the meetings will be delivered via PowerPoint presentations, videos, webinars run by volunteers, and with the guidance of the facilitators. Topics covered will include goal setting, professionalism, communication skills, confidence, motivation, mental health and self-care, personal branding and job interviews.

The COVID-19 pandemic has already been and will continue to be a difficult time for employment. Dress for Success Orillia and Barrie is more committed than ever to ensuring that women in Simcoe County have the professional clothing, confidence and support network they need to help them thrive and succeed in obtaining employment.

Dress for Success Orillia and Barrie is going to be settled in to a new location as of August 1st. The new address is 320 Bayfield St. Unit 79, Barrie, ON L4M 3C1. Please note that clothing donations are on hold until September. Lists of what we do and do not accept with regards to clothing is available at our website on the donate page.

For more information on Dress for Success Orillia and Barries programs, contact program coordinator Samantha Sceviour at samantha@dfsorilliebarrie.org or 705-252-9200.

Interested in volunteering with Dress for Success Orillia and Barrie? Contact volunteer coordinator Agnes Pec at agnes@dfsorilliabarrie.org.

Continued here:
Dress for Success Orillia and Barrie is Helping Women Virtually - simcoe.com

Over the years, training and upskilling in-home care workers has been a key strategy to improve retention for providers struggling with turnover. But as the COVID-19 public health emergency continues, providers who are actively recruiting will now have to navigate new obstacles when preparing recently hired caregivers to work in the home setting.

Since mid-March, some states began mandating shelter-in-place orders and implementing social-distancing measures as methods to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Such preventative actions made it more difficult for in-home care providers to recruit and train workers, but it didnt stop those things entirely.

We have a lot of clients that continue to need our, Kim McGraw, vice president of HR, talent acquisition and client care services at FirstLight Home Care, told Home Health Care News. We want to be in a position to provide that care, so weve continued to recruit throughout COVID-19.

Cincinnati-based home care franchise company FirstLight operates in more than 30 states, providing companion care, personal care and dementia care services, among others.

The franchise system has hired between 450 to 500 new caregivers per week over the past several weeks in order to meet the increased demand for its services, Jeff Bevis, co-founder and CEO of FirstLight, previously told HHCN.

FirstLight isnt alone in its recruiting efforts. In April, Brookdale Senior Living Inc. (NYSE: BKD) announced plans to hire 4,500 health care workers with 10% of the positions in the companys home health and hospice segment.

When it comes to training, FirstLight has worked to shift existing processes into the virtual realm, according to McGraw.

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We do training virtually, she said. We have a learning management system that helps us do this. This helps us not only train the caregivers, in general, but also in specific things that are most relevant to COVID-19.

The COVID-19 emergency has resulted in many providers leaning on some form of virtual training. CareAcademy a Boston-based training platform for home care professionals recently saw this first hand.

Weve seen agencies really have to reimagine what it takes to train and scale their workforce, turning to us [more often] and relying on us, Helen Adeosun, founder and CEO of CareAcademy, told HHCN. Weve had a number of hospitals [also] reach out to us for help supporting their direct care worker opportunity. We are seeing companies who have never even considered training technology do so in this moment.

In March, CareAcademy made one of its training courses publicly available. To date, the class has over 80,000 views.

Thousands of people have completed certification through that publicly available class, Adeosun said.

In addition to online courses, some FirstLight owners doubled down on training by having new caregivers connect with company veterans.

Theyll have the [new] caregivers go through the courses and then set up a call with a [our current] caregivers and then have them dialogue, in terms of what they learned and how they can apply it, McGraw said. This allows for a virtual element, but it also allows the owners and trainers to have more of a direct line and an opportunity for interaction with the new caregivers.

During the COVID-19 emergency, FirstLight began emphasizing additional topics during its training of new caregivers. Those topics included a focus on hand hygiene, infection control for health care professionals and self-care practices.

From a compliance standpoint, some in-home care providers must follow local, state or federal policies on training new hires. On its end, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has made a handful of moves to waive regulations around training.

In April, for example, CMS announced a number of blanket waivers, including the postponement of the 12-hour annual in-service training requirement for home health aides.

At the end of March, CMS provided flexibility around the Conditions of Participation (CoPs) related to on-site home health aide supervision, allowing caregivers to complete this remotely.

Plus, under the CARES Act, the 14-day home health aide in-person supervisory requirements are waived.

For Selfhelp Community Services, the coronavirus brought recruiting to a temporary standstill in March. When Selfhelp Community Services eventually began recruiting again, the organization turned to digital tools like Zoom for interviews, Amy Leshner Thomas, the organizations vice president of home care, told HHCN.

When it comes to training, Selfhelp Community Services hasnt fully made the move to virtual services. The organization still partly utilizes in-person training.

The Department of Health hasnt approved any total online training, Thomas said. Weve done a lot of the functions in an online capacity, but we still have a skeleton crew of staff. Weve had situations where we make sure that only one person at a time comes, or weve done small orientations where we never have more than a few people in a room. They are socially distancing and wearing personal protective equipment (PPE), and weve taken their temperatures at the door.

Founded in 1936, Selfhelp Community Services is a Brooklyn-based nonprofit organization. The organization has a home care services line that serves over 1,000 clients, as well as a Medicare-certified home health agency.

Additionally, Selfhelp Community Services offers New York State Department of Health-approved home health aide and personal care aide training programs. As a workforce investment program, the Selfhelp Community Services training programs serve caregivers throughout the state not just the organizations caregiver hires.

While Selfhelp Community Services potentially looked to move its personal care aide training program online, this proved challenging.

In May, the organization slowly began to return to in-person training while making sure to adhere to health department guidance, according to Thomas.

We did it like an experiment, she said. We had two training rooms that meet the square footage requirement to train 20 students each. We had these folding doors between the rooms, we opened the folding doors, and a class that would have fit 40 students and we worked with 13. We had plenty of space to social distance, and only took small groups of three or four students into the lab portion.

While Selfhelp Community Services does some aspects of training online, Thomas stresses that it will never be a complete substitute for hands-on training.

Think of your own grandma, she said. Would you really want an agency to send someone to care for her that they only knew through online training? I believe a lot of the class can be taught online, but how do I evaluate what the person is learning, if I cant see how they interact with people?

See more here:
Recruiting in a Crisis: Why Home Care Agencies Are Overhauling Their Onboarding Programs - Home Health Care News

17 soothing products for self-care at home(Photo: Amazon/Da Bomb)

Recommendations are independently chosen by Revieweds editors. Purchases you make through our links may earn us a commission.

These are stressful, uncertain times live in, as the world grapples with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and thousands of Americans protest police brutality after thedeath of George Floyd. With everything going on in the world, the nonstop coverage and seemingly endless stream of negative news can be overwhelmingand, as a result, it's easy to feel more stressed or more emotional than usual.

In moments like these, it's important to stay informed on the latest updates and to continue having meaningful discussions about what's going on. However, it's also important to look after your own mental (and physical) health. That's why self-care is such a hot topic these days. It's not about ignoring the news and current events, but rather finding ways to cope unwind when you need it.

Here at Reviewed, we're devoted to helping you find the best things for every aspect of your lifeincluding self-care. We've rounded up 17 of the best products for self-care and relaxation below, including the popular Gravity weighted blanket and an inspiring journal from Michelle Obama. These are products that our own staff have personally tested and loved or that have hundreds of five-star reviews onlineand that will help you take care of yourself during this difficult time.

Choose 15, 20, or 25 pounds for the Gravity Blanket.(Photo: Gravity)

2020 is the year of the weighted blanket. Not too heavy, not too light, the Gravity Blanket (which is the best weighted blanket we've tested) provides just the right amount of pressure that some say helps you fall asleep or calm your anxiety. Plus, ithas a super soft velvety cover that's perfect for snuggling up.

Get the Gravity Blanket from Gravity for $189

Let the First Lady guide your journaling.(Photo: Amazon)

No matter who you are, where you live, or what you believe in, we all have a lot of thoughts on our mind right now and we're all experiencing a lot of emotions. One way to process those feelings is by writing them out in a journal like this one, which is based on Michelle Obama's best-selling book, Becoming. The journal is filled with prompts and inspiring quotes to help you put pen (and emotions) to paper.

GetBecoming: A Guided Journal for Discovering Your Voice from Amazon for $9.99

Skin care = self care.(Photo: Dr. Jart/PTR)

Showing yourself a little TLC can start with showing your skin a little TLC. Enter this pumpkin face mask, which multiple Reviewed staff members swear by and say it leaves your skin feeling fresh and glowy (plus, it smells like fresh-baked pumpkin pie!). Another great optionthat's also more budget-friendlyis a Dr. Jart sheet mask. The brand has a cult following for its masks that do everything from hydrate to brighten to soothe.

Stop, drop, and roll (out your mat).(Photo: Lululemon)

As a yoga teacher, I might be a little biased but there is nothing that helps my mental health as much as spending some time on my mat, breathing and flowing. And speaking of yoga mats, here at Reviewed, we recommend the Lululemon Reversible Mat. I own this mat myself and love that it has a non-stick surface (so you won't slip around) and enough padding to keep you comfortablewhile you're in down dog.

Get the Reversible Mat from Lululemon for $68

It hurts so good.(Photo: Theragun)

There's a reason people can't stop talking about (or buying) the Theragun. The battery-powered handheld massager claims to relieve muscle pain and sorenessand our staff can confirm it does just that. When we tested out the Theragun, we liked how powerful it is and how it can get to even the hardest-to-reach spots.

Get the Theragun Elite from Theragun for $399

Headspace can help you channel your inner zen.(Photo: Headspace)

Meditating may seem intimidating but it doesn't have to be thanks to Headspace, an app that thousands of people are obsessed with. Ithas a whole library of guided meditations, relaxing sounds, and daily bedtime exercises that you can access directly from your phoneand all you need is 10 minutes. Our experts even dubbed it the best meditation app of 2020.

Download the Headspace app for your iPhone

Choose from scents like lavender, lotus flower, and white orchid.(Photo: Da Bomb)

No list of self-care ideas would be complete without taking a bubble bath. And for that, you'll need one of these top-rated bath bombs. With a 4.5-star rating from nearly 1,000 reviewers, these glittery bombs come in a bevy of delicious (and relaxing scents) and, according to happy shoppers, last longer than other bath bombs. Perfect for a long, luxurious soak after a stressful day.

Get Da Bomb Bath Bomb from Amazon for $4.99

You can feel the benefits in as little as 5 minutes.(Photo: ProSource)

One of my personal favorite ways to decompress when I'm feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or anxious, is by lying on this acupressure mat (which has over 7,300 positive reviews on Amazon, too!). I love that the needles instantly relax my muscles and that when I stand up, I feel refreshed and rejuvenated.

Get the Prosource Fit Acupressure Mat and Pillow Set from Amazon for $19.99

You and your skin will feel so much better.(Photo: Roselyn Boutique)

For a quick burst of self-care in the evenings, one of our Reviewed writers 10/10 recommends a face roller like this one from Amazon, which has over 4,300 rave reviews. While she uses it on her face (specifically her jaw, where we all tend to hold tension) for five minutes each night, other users say they've rolled other areas of their body that tighten up when stressed or need a little boost of circulation.

Get the Roselyn Boutique Jade Roller from Amazon for $19.95

So comfy, so relaxing.(Photo: Moon Pod)

If kicking back on the couch just isn't cutting it when it comes to your stress levels, you might want to try a Moon Pod instead. The uniquely-shaped beanbag chair claims to mimicthe sensation of anxiety-reducing flotation therapyand our home editor, who tested it out for herself, says it does just that. She also likes that it's the perfect balance of supportive yet soft and that it helps her destress

Get the Moon Pod for $299

Choose from 30 different sounds.(Photo: Reviewed/Jess Rose Photography)

While you shouldn't ignore your feelings or ignore whatever is going in the world, sometimes you just need to press pause and tune everything out for a few moments. That's where a sound machine like this one comes in. It's our experts' favorite because it's loud enough to drown out any outside noise and has a wide variety of soothing white noise and nature sounds to choose from.

Get theSound + Sleep by Adaptive Sound from Amazon for $71.21

Don't knock this quirky massager until you try it.(Photo: Body Back)

I bought this massager as a gift for my then-boyfriend a few years agoand ended up buying one for myself after we broke up because I had become hooked! It's so easy to use (simply move it up and down gently over your head) and it feels absolutely amazing (like the scalp massage you get whenever you go to the salon). I use it every single night after work and it relaxes me in just a few seconds.

Get theBody Back Scalp Massager from Amazon for $6.49

This unisex robe has a traditional design and high-quality materials.(Photo: Parachute)

There's something about wrapping yourself up in a warm, luxuriously plush bath robe that instantly makes you feel better. One of the most popular robes right now is this one from Parachute, which is made from soft Turkish cotton. Our writer who owns it herself says it delivers on both comfort and quality, so it will last for years to come.

Get the Classic Bath Robe from Parachute for $99

You can adjust the height and heat for maximum comfort.(Photo: Amazon)

Sticking your feet in this massager does more than just soothe your tired toesit also gives you a few moments of much-needed "you time," which is important when you're stressed out or feeling anxious. With over 3,700 reviews, the massager is praised for how well it gets rid of any pent-uptension and the fact that it has a heat setting for even more relief.

Get theNekteck Foot Massager from Amazon for $65.99

Essential oil diffusers are safer than candles but still fill your home with smells that make you happy.(Photo: Reviewed / Jackson Ruckar)

If you're a believer in the powers of aromatherapy, an essential oil diffuser is a must-have. Of all the ones we've tried, we like the InnoGear the best because it has such a large capacity that it can run for up to 11 hours straight and it's easy to switch out the scents of your choosing (like lavender or eucalyptus for calming).

Get the InnoGear Upgraded 150ml Diffuser from Amazon for $15.99

Like a foam roller but smaller and more targeted.(Photo: Pro-Tec)

If working out is your form of self-care, then you know that taking care of your body is important to keep it functioning (and to keep you feeling good). Plus, dealing with an injury or not being able to go out for your daily run certainly won't help your mental health so recovery is key. One of our staff members uses this massage ball daily to relieve stress and tension in his body (and mind) and it has a 4.7-star rating for how well it increases flexibility and massages your muscles and deep tissues, too.

Get thePro-Tec Athletics Orb from Amazon for $13

For when you aren't sure what you need.(Photo: Uncommon Goods)

You know you need something to feel better but you aren't sure what. Yoga? Journaling? A bubble bath? If you aren't sure where to start with your own self-care, this "bucket list" can help. The deck contains 100 cards broken into three categories (life, love, and laughter) with ideas for all different mood boosters and mental health aids, from unplugging from social media for a day to volunteering to doing a random act of kindness.

Get the Self-Care Bucket List from Uncommon Goods for $50

The product experts at Reviewed have all your shopping needs covered. Follow Reviewed on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for the latest deals, product reviews, and more.

Prices were accurate at the time this article was published but may change over time.

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/reviewedcom/2020/06/05/17-things-self-care-and-relaxation-home-theragun-gravity-blanket-and-more/3136160001/

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17 things to help with self-care and relaxation at home - USA TODAY

The artist Celos paints a mural in downtown Los Angeles on May 30, 2020 in protest against the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

The artist Celos paints a mural in downtown Los Angeles on May 30, 2020 in protest against the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.

Protests against the violent deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and others are emboldening and expanding the movement to fight racism. But to make progress, many of us may need to adjust our thinking and our actions. We talked to several African American and Hispanic psychologists and leaders for strategies to fight racism.

You know that old adage: "Don't talk about race and politics at the dinner table. Well, we've got to get out of that," says Polly Gipson, a clinical psychologist and associate professor of psychiatry at Michigan Medicine, University of Michigan.

And while many African Americans have the talk with their kids about how to avoid altercations with the police or what to say if they are stopped, it's important for white parents to talk to their kids about racism too.

"Yes. It's uncomfortable," Gipson says. "But we can't avoid things that are uncomfortable because this is part of the problem of why we're not as far along as we should be," in eliminating racial injustices. And the more people who join the conversation, the better.

"A lot of people of color are tired. We're tired of being the unseen and misunderstood," says Inger E Burnett-Zeigler, a psychologist and associate professor at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. She'd like to see more voices at the table.

"I think it's important for everyone, regardless of race, to ask, 'What is my role in this system?' " she says. Ask yourself, 'Have I been a passive bystander, and how can I change that?'

"Perhaps it's simply speaking up in situations where you may have been disinclined to speak up before," Burnett-Zeigler says.

These tragic events of recent weeks can also create an opportunity, because people are fired up. Given all the anger and frustration, experts say there are strategies to channel these emotions into action.

1. Listen To People Closest To You, And To People Of Other Races

Whether it's your work colleagues, teammates, your children or extended family, one way to change hearts and minds is to listen. When we stop talking and start listening, we validate others' feelings and emotions. And, we may find opportunities to educate.

For instance, "People will say, my kids don't see color, and kind of wear that as a badge of honor," says psychologist Gipson. But if a white person says this to a black person, it can be offensive. And, though it may be well-intended, the idea that people are colorblind is false.

"All kids, even infants, discern differences in race," Gipson says. "It also invalidates people of color who have a 'lived experience' that is not like their white counterparts," she explains. People don't want important parts of their identity to be erased, they want to be recognized and respected for the entirety of their person.

2. Use Your Voice In Your Community And Work Place

We don't all have the audience that sports figures have when they speak out against racism, but we all have a voice.

For instance, millions of people signed a petition posted by Color of Change, one of the nation's leading racial justice organizations, demanding charges against the officers involved in the death of George Floyd.

At the local level, identify a policy that disproportionately affects people of color. Pick an issue in your community whether it's access to healthy food, school boundaries, or bail reform.

Rian Finney, 17, grew up hearing gunshots from his bedroom window, and he witnessed the aftermath of the unrest following the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore in 2015.

"If I don't speak up and do something, who will?" Finney asks.

He's now involved with several youth organizations, including GoodKids MadCity and Baltimore Ceasefire, which recruits youth ambassadors to help raise awareness of gun violence. It has always been young people who push the civil rights movement forward, Finney points out.

And for adults, "look at your specific position and reflect on what power you might have to shift change to promote diversity and equity," Burnett-Zeigler says. If you're a manager, have you promoted or hired people of color? If you're a teacher, have you incorporated messages of racial diversity and civil rights into your curriculum?

3. Give Your Time

If you've thought about signing up to be a tutor or mentor, now's the time to do it.

"Tutoring is a great example, mentoring is a great example," Burnett-Zeigler says. "These are ways you can use your personal influence in private ways for good."

If you're looking for a way to get started, check out the many national civil rights organizations -- or find a local, grass-roots group, says Janet Murguia, president and CEO of UnidosUS, a group that aims to empower Latinos to make change.

"We've partnered with organizations like Color of Change, National Urban League, Black Lives Matter and Race Forward, [which] are all doing incredible work in this space," Murguia says.

For instance, Race Forward offers interactive racial justice training courses and classes. And she points to the race and healing collaborative supported by the Kellogg Foundation, which sponsors an annual National Day of Racial Healing event.

4. Speak Up By Using Your Creative Talents

"There are so many ways young people can use their talent and gifts," says Gipson. On social media, we see examples of artists, from painters to jewelry makers, selling their wares and giving proceeds to an organization pushing for change.

"I love that idea," says Wizdom Powell, a psychologist and associate professor who directs the Health Disparities Institute at the University of Connecticut.

"The idea here is to leverage your gifts and leverage your privilege, because we all have some of that," Powell says. She points to an art competition that her institute organizes around visualizing health disparities. Art can play a role in healing and activism for health equity and social justice, she says.

Andre Rochester created Next In Line following the killings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling two African American men shot by police in 2016. Rochester uses his art to raise money for positive solutions to create change. Andre Rochester hide caption

"The arts have long been a vital and important way to process emotions, especially difficult ones, into something tangible," says Jeremy Nobel, a physician who founded the Foundation for Art and Healing. "Expressive artifacts that make sense of the moment, bear witness and catalyze change."

In times of distress, people can use art to access and communicate difficult thoughts and feelings, especially ones that are hard to talk about," Nobel says. "[Art] offers a unique and powerful way to speak up, be heard, and be witnessed."

5. Self-Care Is Important

For people who are reeling from the recent spate of deaths and racial trauma, it can feel overwhelming, says GiShawn Mance, a psychologist at Howard University. She says, she feels it personally.

She leads healing circles, which can help people connect and grieve. She also facilitates restorative justice circles which aim to bring people who are trying to settle a conflict together.

But Mance says, in recent days she's needed to take some time for herself. "It's been hard to concentrate on work," she says. In addition to the national unrest and the COVID-19 epidemic, which has hit communities of color the hardest, she is pregnant and a close friend recently died. "It's a lot, and there have been tears," she says.

This is a traumatic and stressful time especially for African Americans and people of color. "People put a lot of pressure on themselves to act or do something in this moment," Mance says. So, her advice is this: "The fight for equity and justice is an ongoing effort; thus, do not put pressure on yourself to act or do something in this moment." And she says, "I'm particularly talking to people of color and black people who are experiencing this."

"It is difficult to help others when you are not OK," she says. So, though self-care strategies will vary, take care of yourself and your mental health first, she says. Then "you can move forward in action to help others."

Read more:
Beyond Protests: 5 More Ways To Channel Anger Into Action To Fight Racism - NPR

Faced with the uncertainties of life under lockdown, is it any surprise that many people are turning to methods of fortune telling such as tarot cards? Journalists are often tempted to ask whether this is a resurgence of pseudoscience. The history of tarot suggests not.

Tarot cards are decks that include four suits, much like standard playing cards, but with an additional set of trump cards, known as the Major Arcana, which depict mythological figures or archetypes such as Death or The Magician. Different tarot decks, such as the Tarot de Marseille or the Eteilla Tarot, contain different numbers of cards, Major Arcana and different illustrations.

These different forms of tarot have been many things for many people: a system of occult meaning or a dangerous fraud, but also a form of therapy, a source of practical advice and even of entertainment.

The history of tarot is overshadowed by two mythologies. The first, and more positive, was popularised by occultists in the 18th and 19th centuries in France. Men such as the pastor Antoine Court de Gbelin and the occultists Jean-Baptiste Alliette and liphas Lvi believed the cards were of ancient Egyptian or Jewish magical traditions.

Such theories are groundless. The earliest Tarot decks date from 15th-century Italy. Yet these myths inspired occultists to argue the cards encoded hidden ancient mysteries, and that understanding these complex meanings would give cartomancers card readers powers to tell the future.

At the same time, a negative myth of tarot was developed by the authorities in countries such as France. After the revolution of 1789, new provisions against fortune telling were introduced. The press, police and politicians agreed that the very use of tarot cards was evidence that an individual was defrauding people.

These twin myths of ancient wisdom and modern fraud still play a large role in how people respond to the cards. But they are not the only stories we can tell about the history of tarot.

Rather than the writings of occultists or the judgements of the authorities, historians can turn to what cartomancers and their customers said. As part of my research into witchcraft in France from 1790-1940, I have come across several hundred cases of cartomancy that reveal different sides to the cards.

For a start, tarot never dominated cartomancy. Fortune tellers were as likely to use standard decks of cards that lacked the Major Arcana. Clients often preferred these plainer methods of fortune telling, not least since they were cheaper.

Even when they did use full tarot decks, fortune tellers were unlikely to embrace the complex systems of symbolic meaning proposed by occultists. Instead, they stuck to simpler schemes. Two of the four suits were normally positive, and two were negative.

Fortune tellers might write quick reminders on the cards about their significance. The cards pictured below are from a set said to have been annotated by the famous cartomancer Mademoiselle Lenormand. The Wheel of Fortune signified a marriage will bring wealth, while the Tower of Destruction symbolised too much generosity.

Fortune tellers also developed their own interpretations of the images from the cards. In a case from Fougres, north-west France from 1889, for instance, the fortune teller pointed to two cards she had drawn and declared to her client:

Well now, the Queen of Spades is your wife, and the Ace of Clubs is money so your wife is stealing from you.

Other interpretations are harder to make sense of. In Besanon, eastern France in 1834, a fortune teller interpreted a card that looked like a monkey as evidence that the client was bewitched. Was it the monstrous, almost-human associations of the monkey image that connected it to sorcery? Some forms of historic symbolism are impossible to fully recover.

Although most of these examples are drawn from cases where the authorities actively tried to suppress scams, the fraud cases did not always go as the police hoped. Many clients proved reluctant witnesses in court. While the authorities saw them as naive victims, many demonstrated a more flexible understanding of what they were paying for. For instance, a young woman in Rouen in 1888 told a court:

I dont believe in all that nonsense. I went to the fortune teller just to please my friend.

Above all, clients thought of fortune telling less as a method of predicting the future and more as a way to address problems in their present.

In some ways, tarot could work as a form of psychoanalysis. In 1990, the writer Jose Contreras and the ethnologist Jeanne Favret-Saada drew on experiences with a cartomancer to argue that these methods of divining worked in the same way as modern therapy.

Many of the problems that tarot was used to address remain familiar today. Clients sought stolen and lost objects, the causes of mystery illnesses, news on employment prospects, and reassurances on romantic relationships.

There has been no shortage of scammers in tarots history who have used fortune telling to dupe clients. However, the cartomancers customers are not as naive as the critics of fortune telling have sometimes assumed, and the act of reading the cards has been more practical than mystical.

For the great majority, the cards have never been a misguided attempt to predict the future. They are a creative means of re-interpreting and coming to terms with an uncertain present.

More:
Tarot resurgence is less about occult than fun and self-help just like throughout history - The Conversation UK