Whole Life Times: A Mouthful on SIGG

February 2008 | Letters from Readers

A Mouthful on SIGG

I appreciated your breakdown of non-plastic beverage containers in “Portable Potables” (Dec. ’07), but felt a little more research might have made for a more informed article. As a concerned citizen who works in the preventive health education arena, I try to keep my plastic-container drinking to a minimum, using glass and stainless steel bottles instead. I was disheartened to see SIGG’s products included as healthy options for fellow concerned consumers. SIGG bottles have an aluminum exterior with a baked-on interior liner. Read the report on SIGG.com; it’s VERY selective about which chemicals don’t end up in your drink. There is a possibility that undetectable levels of liner-chemicals leach into liquids stored in these containers.

Furthermore, SIGG will not reveal its recipe for its liner so as to retain a “competitive edge.” From what any old Joe can gather, aluminum needs a liner to enable “safe” drinking. Aluminum liners are either the breakable ceramic, or the unbreakable (a feature SIGG prides itself on), baked-on epoxy, which is toxic. Also, I know SIGG bottles feature awesome designs by tons of different artists, but that still doesn’t change what’s going on inside the bottles!
— Erika Herman, Los Angeles

Happy Place Show and Tell

I enjoyed your January issue, especially the “Happy Place” article. Mine is trail running in the East Bay Hills [outside of San Francisco], particularly Redwood Regional Park.
— Jeff, via email

Google “Godwin’s Law”

I am a 26-year vegan originally from Kentucky (still today not a hot bed of vegetarianism). I now live in San Francisco and your publication has become my source to the “enlightened world.” But, after your senseless article on head to toe eating, I must reconsider!!! Was that a joke on a “CONSCIOUS CHOICE”... your magazines theme??? Are you not aware of the Wild Law for our earth? Which states every creature has the right to exist, fulfill and thrive! What choice did the animals that are eaten “head to toe” have!!!!!! Obviously you are not a vegetarian!!!

Even more dis-concerning was your response to letters blasting the terrible article. You used the term “sincere thanks,” very condescending for a very emotional subject to all herbivores [as well as] a short and rude way to describe humans that are truly trying to live a Consciously Aware Life!!! You go on to say that your magazine is a “platform” for and about conscious choices. But, then in your “From the Editor” you say you “hate” (again a strange word to use) the word “conscious” because it implies that people not thinking this way are somehow comatose. Finally, you used the word “intrigued” by the choice of the chef to eat head to toe... intrigued by death, slaughter and abuse??? I am sure Josef Mengele used the exact same word, “intrigued” by his terrible research done on Jewish concentration camp prisoners!!!!

You and your publication are Shaman’s to the public and if you dilute our message we will never be able to bring about the healthy, clean, peaceful world for our children you so passionately refer to. I will give your publication one more chance, but if you continue to bastardize our wonderful progress, you can count me out!
— Anonymous, via email

As a meat eater, I applaud your acknowledgement that we exist, despite the hypocritical and sanctimonious tones of some anti-meat readers. Kristina Cahill comments that she “felt sorry for Consentino himself. How sad to have to kill a defenseless animal for food.” People who butcher animals don’t do so with any more malice than any carnivore. Does Ms. Cahill make the same adverse judgments of other species of predators? Are cats morally deficient because they kill rodents? I don’t knock vegetarianism. My palate is diverse enough to appreciate the panoply of grains, legume and assorted soy products. I don’t, however, appreciate the inference that meat eaters are morally inferior. When someone makes categorical adverse moral judgments about people they don’t know, I have to think it’s the accuser’s karma who takes the hit, not mine.
— Laura R. Standley, Des Moines, WA

A “Conscious” Call and Response

I appreciate your comments on what is happening all around us and your inspiring role (“From the Editor,” Dec. ’07). You are right to point out that there is a divide between the words “conscious” and “unconscious.” To say someone is unconscious is not only wrong, it demonstrates our lack of consciousness. In the end, there may not be too much better of a word, but I am of the belief that we will not be conscious until everyone is. I look forward to us becoming more conscious in 2008. Thanks.
— Roland Aranjo, via email

You’ve done a great job reshaping the magazine, and I look forward to it each month. I too have never liked the word “conscious” to be used in anything other than a physiological sense: awake and aware. I think your request for an alternative cannot be fulfilled, because “conscious” in our community is used in several senses. Chopra’s sense, I think, is that of attitudinal change; “change your mind, recognize love and spirit, change your priorities, and new behavior will follow.” There’s also the use of “conscious” to mean “environmentally and politically aware.” A third variation is used by marketers to target the tastes of “Cultural Creatives” or “Bourgeois Bohemians” (ie. Whole Foods shoppers).

The normative term I would use to describe evolution I’d like to see is something like an evolution of life-focus to “humility” or “modesty,” humble and grateful about our place in the global ecosystem and the universe. Beingness, but in community. Co-beingness? Whole beingness? Essentiality? Authenticity maybe. An evolution TO authenticity. If we are who we really are, we know what’s really important (not more things), and we’ll live our lives in a harmonious and spiritual way. Whatever term you choose, it’s going to get corrupted by the marketers ASAP...
— Danila Oder, via email

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