I
t all started with an experiment. Last October, the 6th graders at Marymount of Santa Barbara took a pledge to try and live off of $1.50 a day. The challenge was in honor of UN World Food Day, which was created in 1945 to highlight food scarcity and the dire nature of the world poverty line. “Over 1.1 billion people live off a dollar or less a day,” said 6th grade teacher Kate Burris last week as she reflected on the experience. “The kids were all game to try it. They prepped. They donated their lunches. But by 10 o’clock they were crashing. We all collectively fell apart.” With the realities of hunger laid before them, Burris’s students started digging around for ways to help. Together, they discovered that one in four people in S.B. County are food insecure. “We all hear the numbers, but it’s actually happening right here,” said Burris. After some deliberation, the students decided to throw their collective weight behind the Casa Esperanza homeless shelter, and the fundraising efforts began. They erected lemonade stands, held plant sales, took pledges for basketball hoop-a-thons, hosted a chili cook-off — and raised more than $4,800 in the process. The grand finale comes this Tuesday, May 20, at SOhO, when Marymount’s 6th graders hold Rock the Casa. The benefit concert will feature a headlining set by Diamond Dave Somerville of The Diamonds, who also happens to be the grandfather of 6th grader Chae Somerville. Also on the bill are Marymount teacher Matt Kustura and 7th grade rockers Stolen Thunder. It’s the students’ hope that the concert will bring in enough money to allow Casa Esperanza to hire a new parttime employee. “There are so many things about this that have been so rewarding on so many levels,” said Burris. “In the past year, I’ve seen a whole shift in their mindset and the way they Rock the Casa takes place look Tuesday, May 20, 6:30 p.m., at at the SOhO Restaurant & Music Club world. (1221 State St.). For info and And the tickets, call 962-7776 or visit whole sohosb.com. To donate, visit school casaesperanza.org. has been moved by it; the example that these kids are leading by is inspiring. It’s ultimately the reason why I’m an educator.”
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— Aly Comingore
COURTESY
Back Pain No More The Gokhale Method Comes to S.B.
E
sther Gokhale is on a mission to help you rediscover the
started having problems kinesthetic wisdom of your youth that has gotten lost in today’s at age 26 during her first computer and smartphone lifestyle. Her technique, called the pregnancy. “Eventually Gokhale Method, is a natural posture solution to back pain that I could not lie down for has been heralded as an extraordinary application of ancient wisdom more than two hours to solve modern back problems and one of the greatest contributions at a time,” she writes in ever made to nonsurgical back-pain treatment. the preface of her bestDespite the fact that 31 million Americans experience low-back pain selling book, Steps to a at any given time and that more than 60 percent of all adolescents by Pain-Free Back. “I spent age 15 have complained of back and neck pain, we’re not born with the midnight hours skeletal trouble. In fact, children initially have naturally good posture. walking to alleviate (Look at your toddler pictures and you’ll see.) “Unfortunately, we’re the pain.” She opted poorly molded by misguided furniture design and modeled by inadfor surgery to quell the equate or extreme examples in the media and public life,” Gokhale said. discomfort, but shortly STANDING UP: “Posture is the missing corBased on anthropological evidence from back-pain-free cultures, the after the operation, the nerstone of well-being,” said Esther Gokhale Gokhale Method has helped an exceedingly diverse range of people of pain returned. So she (pictured), founder of the Gokhale Method all ages and cultures, with clients that include Desmond Tutu, Joan started doing research for alleviating back pain. Baez, Paul Erlich, Billie Jean King, most of Silicon Valley, and found that and even conservative pundit Matt Drudge. “It’s like the back pain we experience is a relatively recent developA free remembering a forgotten language that you spoke ment in our evolutionary history. In her travels, she workshop is on Saturday, May 17, when you were 2 years old,” she explained. noticed that workers in Portugal and potters and at 10 a.m., at CenterPoint Pilates, “Posture is a missing cornerstone of wellweavers in Burkina Faso and India maintained 1 West Victoria Street. The Gokhale being,” Gokhale continued. “We understand straight-arrow postures without lower-back aches Method Foundations Course will the importance of diet, exercise, and emothat plague most office workers. “These people live begin later that day at Brasil Arts Café tional relationships, but posture tends to be by their bodies. They didn’t have Advil or sick days (1230 State St.) and run through the trivialized or made unattainable.” She feels or Workers’ Comp,” she said. weekend. Visit the Gokhale Method humans are capable of being naturally elegant, With a desire to share her method, Gokhale Institute website at gokhale graceful, and pain free. “It took us a long time developed a foundation system that she teaches in method.com and click on classes to understand the value of diet and exercise. six one-and-a-half hour, hands-on sessions and has for Santa Barbara for Posture belongs on that list.” laid it out in her book. And although she is based in specific details. Gokhale’s method isn’t just a healing strategy; it Palo Alto, Gokhale is making a considerable effort to is also a daily therapeutic practice — everyday activities introduce her method to Santa Barbara and is scheduled to such as walking, sitting, stooping, and sleeping become a teach a course next weekend. (Although that event is already sold form of exercise and remedy instead of contributing to wear and tear. out, she plans to return in the fall. Private sessions are also available.) “We’re used to the idea that you have to take time out from your life to She hopes to find and train teachers from this area. Even if you can’t exercise,” she said. “This is a different philosophy — [using] your everytake the workshop, there are free videos and interactive web sessions day life to move and feel better.” available online on her website as well as her free newsletter and book. Like many healers, Gokhale’s technique was born from her own “It’s never too late to change,” she said. “The principals are universally expe ex peri r ence. She Sh was working w — Mitchell Kriegman experience. as a yoga teacher and dancer when she relevant.”
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Lifestyle
Culinary Medicine
COURTESY
PAUL WELLMAN
Casa Esperanza
TEACH IT, PREACH IT: Instructor Kate Burris (center left) and Diamond Dave (center right) lead Marymount’s 6th graders through a planning meeting for their upcoming benefit concert for Casa Esperanza.
living cont’d
Health
Fundraiser
John La Puma Focuses on Food and Health
S
anta Barbara is home to many doctors, chefs, authors, and
entrepreneurs. Dr. John La Puma is all four. A UCSB grad who attended Peabody Charter School, La Colina Junior High School, and San Marcos High School, La Puma now operates his own clinic downtown. The physician’s focus on lifestyle measures extends to other areas and stems from his years spent working concurrently as a cook at Chef Rick Bayless’s restaurant Topolobampo and as a medical professor in Chicago. (La Puma also graduated from the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago.) He has since written numerous books on nutrition and founded his own company, ChefMD. La Puma, a boardmember of the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County, recently chatted with The Santa Barbara Independent about the mingling of medicine, food, and health. Below is an edited version of our conversation: You talk about the concept of “culinary medicine.” What do you mean by that? I define it as blending the art of cooking with the
science of medicine to give restaurant-quality food that helps to prevent and treat disease. Here in Santa Barbara, some of the best food is really being cooked at home. We’re so lucky to have the bounty of ingredients that we have that grow locally. … Culinary medicine is something that doctors ought to know and patients should be able to ask about. Why does our society seem to prioritize prescription fixes over food fixes? Pharmaceuticals are overvalued. But there is
some evidence that’s changing, too. We’re seeing a lot more interest in approaches that try lifestyle first. … The shift in the demographic
enrollment in medical school is now a slight majority of women. … I think women have improved communication in medicine — less prescribing and more interest in what caused this problem and how can we get at its root.
When you lived in Chicago, you worked as BEING WELL: John La Puma (pictured) a doctor and as a chef combines medicine and nutrition as a at the same time. How? means to a healthy lifestyle. Why? I worked from 9 p.m.-
midnight [as a chef] on Fridays for almost four years. What I loved about it: the flavors and textures and colors. I got to be part of a restaurant community and part of a team. In medicine, teams are undervalued and not appreciated. In restaurants, unless there is a fluid working team, the whole ship sinks.
How can restaurants make food tasty and healthy at the same time? Chefs are often better teachers than doctors about food.
… What’s the next new superfood? I see restaurants trying to lead people out of obesity. They can educate and tantalize with the same kind of healthy cooking techniques used for millennia around the world, with cuisines that are naturally healthy, such as Asian and Latin food. I have — Lyz Hoffman really high hopes for restaurants. may 15, 2014
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