According to photographer Peter Menzel and his wife Faith D’Aluisio, their new book, What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets, is a display of daily diets that has gotten people thinking.

Their goal is to get readers to compare and contrast — to situate one’s personal diet.  How does your diet compare to the butter-rich 4,900 calorie diet of a Tibetan monk — or the scant 800 of a Maasai herder in Kenya?  One soda-guzzling subject decided to cut back after seeing the sheer quantity put before him. And “The Snacker Mom,” as Jill McTighe of Great Britain is called in the book, has been making a concerted effort to trim her binge diet of 12,300 calories.

I am always open to gaining a broader perspective on the seemingly complex subject of what we eat.  From a unique cultural context, Menzel and D’Aluisio expand on the idea that we are all unique in our biological needs, daily routines and cultural practices.  Therefore, our diets vary as much as people and cultures do.  It’s all about understanding our own needs and making better decisions for ourselves.

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Books can be a source of inspiration for the new year.  One of my favorites is a book called Meditations from the Mat by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison.  It’s a book that any new or experienced yoga practitioner can enjoy.   The book includes 365 meditations that integrates yoga teachings into everyday life.  Get off your mat and cozy up with a good yoga book!

If you’re like me this year, in effort to save money, I am getting creative and crafty with my gifts.  A simple idea is making a lavender sachet.  You can purchase lavender buds (naturally organic) and make your own sachet to hold the fragrant lavender flowers to scent your linens, drawers and pillows. Lavender has many uses.  If applied to the temples, lavender oil soothes headaches. In pillows, lavender seeds aid sleep and relaxation.  I like to place the sachets in my drawers to add a soothing scent to my clothes.

How to make Lavender Sachets

This season, enjoy shopping and crafting… and always remember to give yourself a little time and self-love.

Light on Yoga by BKS Iyengar

Light on Yoga has become the bible for hundreds of thousands of people who practice yoga daily for exercise, meditation, or simply relaxation.  It is a comprehensive source, with more than than 600 photographs of yoga postures and breathing exercises.

Heart of Yoga by TKV Desikachar

Sri Krishnamacharya, who lived to be over 100 years old, is one of the most well respected and well known yogis of the modern era.  TKV Desikachar is Krishnamacharya’s son, who lived and studied with him his whole life.  The core of his teachings is based on adapting yoga practices to individual’s changing needs to achieve maximum benefit. In The Heart of Yoga, Desikachar offers his father’s system as well as his own practical approach which he describes as “a program for the spine at every level – physical, mental and spiritual.”  Included in this book is Desikachar’s complete translation and commentary on the Yoga Sutras.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

The Yoga Sutras are a complete manual for the study and practice of yoga.  In this translation, Sri Swami Satchidananda shares his practical, down-to-earth advice on mastering the mind and achieving physical, mental and emotional harmony in life .  There are may translations of the Yoga Sutras.  I suggest finding a translation that speaks to you.

The Bhagavad-Gita

The Bhagavad-Gita is a conversation on a battlefield between the god Krishna and the warrior Prince Arjuna, as he confronts a life or death moral dilemma.  What is the purpose or justice of war?  Where does the right path of action lie when one duty conflicts with another?  Arjuna is led to a higher understanding of the spiritual nature of man and the world.

Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit by Donna Farhi

Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit is a comprehensive guide using universal movement principles that may be applied to all styles of yoga.  Donna Farhi provides detailed instructions, practice tips, and inspiration for students at all levels.  The book includes 75 illustrated asanas with descriptions of executions and benefits.

Anatomy of Hatha Yoga by H. David Coulter

The Anatomy of Hatha Yoga is the first modern source that combines the study of hatha yoga with anatomy and physiology.  It is a manual for students, teachers and practitioners.

Food, Inc.

The book explores challenges raised by the movie in 13 essays by experts featured in the film including…

Eric Schlosser on the industrialization of our food supply.  Michael Pollan on the benefits of locally-sourced, organic eating.  Marion Nestle on sorting out food facts from fictions.  Anna Lappe on how the U.s. food system promotes global warming.  Muhammad Yunus on the global impact of food industrialization.

Are you hungry for change?

10 Simple things you can do to change our food system:

1. Stop drinking sodas and other sweetened beverages.
2. Eat at home instead of eating out.
3. Support the passage of laws requiring chain restaurants to post calorie information on menus.
4. Tell school to stop selling sodas, junk food and sports drinks.
5. Meatless Mondays – go without meat one day a week.
6. Buy organic or sustainable food with little or no pesticides.
7. Protect family farms, visit your local farmer’s market.
8. Make a point to know where your food comes from – READ LABELS.
9. Tell Congress that food safety is important to you.
10. Demand job protections for farm workers and food processors, ensuring fair wages and other protections.

For more information Food, Inc.

Foer argues that there’s no difference between the value of the lives of pets and the lives of the animals that we eat every day.

“If our next-door neighbor kept a dog in the conditions that well more than 90 percent of pigs are kept in, we would call the police.  We wouldn’t just be offended.  We wouldn’t just think it was wrong.  We would be compelled to take action,” Foer says.

Eating Animals, is more than just a case for vegetarianism and an anti-meat lecture.  It’s a book that challenges America’s meat-dominated diet.

Foer says his problem with meat isn’t that some people make the decision to eat it; instead, it’s that people don’t think about the decision.  And that, he argues, is just how the American factory farm system want it: “What does it say that there’s an entire industry… that asks us to give them money, asks us to ingest in our bodies and to feed to our children a product whose production they won’t let us see?”

Foer says overconsumption of meat – and the factory system that produces it – cause multiple health problems and contribute hugely to global warming and other environmental disasters.  These factors make the purchase of a cheap breast of chicken much more expensive than it might initially seem.

“More than anything, I want people to come away with the idea that meat matters,” Foer says.  He believes the decisions we make when ordering at restaurants and when we shop at supermarkets, are some of the most important decisions we make each day.

Eat Less, Live Longer

The first tip is something we can all learn from the diets of centenarians.  Most centenarians, people who are 100 years old and older, eat less than the average amount.  Some fasted at time because they were poor and simply had no food.  Most centenarians follow the “three-quarters” rule: stop eating when you are three-quarters full.  Studies have shown that a reduction in caloric intake can increase life expectancy in animals – why not humans?

Because most of what we’re consuming today is not food, and how we’re consuming it — in the car, in front of the TV, and increasingly alone — is not really eating. Instead of food, we’re consuming “edible foodlike substances” — no longer the products of nature but of food science. Many of them come packaged with health claims that should be our first clue they are anything but healthy. In the so-called Western diet, food has been replaced by nutrients, and common sense by confusion. The result is what Michael Pollan calls the American paradox: The more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we seem to become.

In Defense of Food

Eat food, not too much, mostly plants

The best way to fight poverty and extremism is to educate and empower women.

Half the Sky lays out an agenda for the world’s women and three major abuses: sex trafficking and forced prostitution; gender-based violence including honor killings and mass rape; maternal mortality, which needlessly claims one woman a minute. We know there are many worthy causes competing for attention in the world. We focus on this one because this kind of oppression feels transcendent – and so does the opportunity. Outsiders can truly make a difference.