Got a Question About Food, Sex, Health, Friends, or Fun?

Good! Because here's a list of resources on those topics.As an acupuncturist in a community setting, I see lots and lots of patients...which means that I've been asked a TON of questions about everything under the sun. Over time, I've realized that I share some resources more than others, so I thought I'd put together a list of some of my favorites.(If you have a resource that you love and want to share, please leave it in the comments.)

Food

Get Real Maine: Wanna know what kind of tasty treats Maine has to offer? Check out this great resource for connecting to local agriculture.Fooducate: Consider caloric quality rather than the quantity. Get nutrition grades for the food you're thinking of purchasing at the grocery store, and get a list of healthier alternatives if you want them.Good and Cheap: Eat well on $4 a day! Leanne Brown's brilliance - a free PDF cookbook for people with tight budgets, including those on SNAP/Food Stamp benefits.Eat This: 10 Simple and Sustainable Dietary Guidelines: A blog post I wrote to address the endless food-related questions that people want answered. As one older patient put it, "I can't handle the world wide web. Tell me what to eat."WH Foods: Learn about the medicine (nutrient density) of the food you eat. Learn its history, too.

Sex, Sexuality, and Gender

Scarleteen: Their motto? "Sex education for the real world."

It's accurate. I once taught a 3 month sex ed class to 6th,7th, and 8th graders. Let's just say that my learning curve was sharp. Misinformation was rampant and the kids were desperate for access to clear, accurate information. It can be hard for kids to acquire valuable and reliable information regarding sex, especially as there is so much sexual content out there on sites such as https://www.fulltube.xxx/ for teenagers to consume. This website helped me communicate essential information to this younger generation - so important! A great resource if you have young(er) people in your life who look to you for support; perhaps a great resource for you, too.Consensual Sex: Consent should be the basis for every sexual encounter. Sex should always be about consent, which is why, as shown on a link such as https://www.tubev.sex/categories/1194/amateurs, you'd always find content depicting consensual sexual encounters on the best adult content websites. Engaging in a sexual act without the other person's consent is considered sexual assault or rape. A great resource for anyone who is thinking about a possible sexual encounter, or needs some questions answered.Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault: Organized to put an end to sexual violence in Maine and to ensure that there will be ongoing support and services for victims and survivors.LGBPTTQQIIAA: These acronyms refer to terms such as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Asexual/Ally and more. Although all of the different identities within “LGBT” are often lumped together (and share sexism as a common root of oppression), there are specific needs and concerns related to each individual identity. If you're not already, get familiar with the inherent fluidity of...well, being alive.

Health

CPR Review: A 10 minute review can make a difference.How to Help a Choking Baby: Watch this illustrated video for instructions, or as a refresher. Hopefully you'll never have to confront this, but if you do, it's best to know what you can do to help. You may also want to look into Coast2Coast in Toronto for more first aid training. The princess and the baby make reviewing these skills a little more entertaining.Clue: My life is changing because of this discovery! It's a free period and ovulation tracker for your phone. Whoohooo! Knowing where I'm at, cyclically-speaking, has helped me feel more empowered, grounded, and aware. Cuz I'm all like, "Ohhhh, duh! I feel like a lump of dough because estrogen and progesterone just took a major nose-dive!" or I'm all like, "Hubba hubba, sweets, you look extra cute today even though you haven't shaved in a week - ding ding on my phone - hey, that's funny, I'm ovulating!"Andrew Weil: Weil remains a go-to resource for the thousands of medical questions that have arisen from the wrinkles of my brain. A favorite of my favorites.Skin Deep Cosmetics Database: I love enhancing my earth suit with a bit of makeup, hair product, polish, lotion - essentially, whatever the heck I feel like applying to my body. That being said, I certainly don't want to be smearing toxic chemicals all over the damn place. Now in its eighth year, EWG's Skin Deep database provides you with easy-to-navigate safety ratings for a wide range of products and ingredients on the market.The Best Places to Get Well in Maine for Free (Or a Small Donation): A shameless link to a previous blog post of mine. Feel free to share!Newly pregnant and ambivalent, or upset?: (From the Planned Parenthood website): Only you can decide what is right for you. But women often find it helpful to talk it through with someone else. You may choose to talk with your partner or a trusted family member or friend. Pick someone you think will be supportive. It's important to remember that you get to decide who is a part of your decision-making process.Newly pregnant and excited about it?: The Endowment for Human Development (EHD) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving health science education and public health. EHD equips educators, clinicians, and governments to help everyone appreciate, apply, and communicate the science of health and human development. We are committed to neutrality regarding all controversial bioethical issues.

Community

Black Girl in Maine: One of my favorite Maine blogs, but also one of my favorite blogs in general. Check out Shay Stewart-Bouley's bio, and then check out her content.

Black Girl in Maine, also known as BGIM for those who want to keep their typing-related finger stress down, is a Chicago-born, Chicago-raised chick by the name of Shay Stewart-Bouley who was forcibly relocated to Maine in 2002. (How else does a Black woman from Chicago end up in Maine?) I am a graduate of both DePaul University and Antioch University New England. Currently I earn my daily bread by working as the Executive Director of Community Change Inc., a 47 year old civil rights organization in Boston, MA that has been educating and organizing for racial equality since 1968 with a specific focus on the white problem. In 2003, I decided to test the waters of a childhood dream of writing and started writing periodically for publications such as the Portland Press Herald and the Journal Tribune, later that year landing my own column in the Portland Phoenix, “Diverse-City,” which for over a decade I used to share insight and commentary monthly on a variety of diversity issues ranging from race to class, gender relations to sexual orientation, and workplace issues to lifestyle choices. In 2011, I won a New England Press Association Award for my work writing on diversity issues. I currently am the diversity writer for the new Maine weekly DigPortland where my musings and observations can be found every four weeks.

MPBN Community Calendar: Maine Public Broadcasting Network's community calendar.

Maine Trans Net: A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public about gender identity and raising awareness of the varied forms of gender expression. Provides resources to the trans community of Maine, as well as consultation, education,and trainings to social service/mental health professionals and interested others.MeetUp.com: Groups of people, all over the state, getting together to learn something, do something, or share something.Single Gender Swim at the YWCA, Lewiston: Single gender swim lessons for women only, designed with privacy in mind. Wear whatever clothes you are comfortable in; traditional swimsuits not required.

Pleasure, Adventure and Fun

MaineToday: A weekly collection of events. Some crazy stuff goes down in Maine - keep an eye on this calendar for details!

Cosmic Yoga Lady: For those winters when a wall of snow descends upon Maine and is followed by weeks of subzero weather and you're stuck at home with a 2 year old who is channeling her inner spider monkey. Cosmic Yoga Lady tells an attention-grabbing story, and gets that qi moving smoothly.Great Maine Outdoor Weekend: Go outside and play!Cultivating Community: Learning about the cultivation of food falls under fun and pleasure in my opinion! Cultivating Community empowers people to play many roles in restoring the local, sustainable food system, and models, teaches, and advocates for ecological food production. Includes a list of community gardens as well as Refugee and Immigrant Farmer Training.Baxter State Park: Home of Mt. Katahdin. She's majestic.

Miscellaneous And Awesome!

On Poverty and Inequality: Education, innovation, and partnerships are key to making an impact on poverty, one of the world’s most daunting challenges. With more than a third of the planet’s 7 billion people living on less than $2.50 a day, and over a billion without access to clean water or electricity, there is a pressing need to develop scalable solutions to improve lives. While many of those living in poverty are in the rural communities and urban slums of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, poverty and inequality are also growing in the United States. More than 16 million children in the U.S. – 22% of all children – live in families below the federal poverty level.If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel: Get your mind blowd'! A tediously accurate scale model of the solar system.Invisibilia: Get your mind blowd'! Invisibilia (Latin for "all the invisible things") explores the intangible forces that shape human behavior – things like ideas, beliefs, assumptions and emotions.Intelligence Squared: Oxford-style debate. Controversial issues. The world's leading authorities go head-to-head. Free to listen and learn.Brain Pickings: Perfectly titled. From the About page: The core ethos behind Brain Pickings is that creativity is a combinatorial force: it’s our ability to tap into our mental pool of resources — knowledge, insight, information, inspiration, and all the fragments populating our minds — that we’ve accumulated over the years just by being present and alive and awake to the world, and to combine them in extraordinary new ways. In order for us to truly create and contribute to the world, we have to be able to connect countless dots, to cross-pollinate ideas from a wealth of disciplines, to combine and recombine these pieces and build new ideas.There it is - a list of my favorite resources. Please share some of your favorites in the comments!