My partner recently saw an ear, nose and throat doctor. He was looking for an explanation for the chronic sinus issues that have lingered for most of his adult life. In addition to a CT scan, and a DIY nasal rinse, the doctor requested allergy testing. To our surprise, the results indicated significant intolerance for wheat, eggs, peanuts, dairy and brewer’s yeast. I’ve got another friend who can’t eat Stevia without breaking out in hives, and yet another who treats gluten like the plague.

It seems like food allergies have moved from the realm of little kids into the mainstream, and it’s not all a weird diet bandwagon. Research confirms that food allergies are on the rise, and are currently the fifth leading chronic illness in the United States.

Read more at Care2.com

Care2 is the largest online community of people passionate about making a difference.

The post Food allergies are on the rise first appeared on Lesbian.com.

That special connection you feel with your dog is all in your mind — quite literally. A brand new and innovative Hungarian study compared human and dog brains in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner and discovered some surprising similarities when it comes to the area of the brain that processes vocal information. In a nutshell, what they found was that dogs and humans process and respond similarly to vocalizations, including speech, suggesting that people who talk to their dogs aren’t total weirdos. Dog owners will be pleased to hear that after thousands of years of cohabitation!

Numerous researchers have looked at how dogs respond to human vocalizations, with some research being done vice-versa as well (other species, such as the cat, have also been profiled: for example, a recent study showed that cats vocalize in a range similar to human infants to get attention from their people). While researchers agree that dogs cannot understand human speech, they definitely respond to it, and can learn basic voice commands. Dogs also appear responsive to vocalizations like crying or laughter, indicating that they can understand emotions among their human companions.

Read more at Care2.com

Care2 is the largest online community of people passionate about making a difference.

The post Study reveals connection between human, dog brains first appeared on Lesbian.com.

It used to be a given that large corporations allied with right-wing groups that were hell-bent on oppressing the LGBT community. Recent headlines, however, have made it clear that things are no longer “business as usual” – companies are now rescinding their usual donations to such groups.

As Care2 has addressed previously, while corporate America’s political clout is dangerous for the country, on the rare occasion that it does support a progressive value, it is certainly beneficial to the activist community. Fighting a moneyed opposition is often a losing battle, so corporate support (or even just indifference) will definitely accelerate the route to LGBT equality.

Read more at Care2.com

Care2 is the largest online community of people passionate about making a difference.

The post 7 companies that stopped giving to anti-LGBT groups first appeared on Lesbian.com.

In the wake of Uganda making law its “Jail the Gays” legislation, it’d be easy to be alarmist about the situation. That said, there really is reason to believe that Uganda’s attack on the LGBT rights is turning deadly. Just hours after President Yoweri Museveni signed Uganda’s Jail the Gays bill into law, Ugandan tabloid the Red Pepper published a front page completed by the headline:

“EXPOSED! Uganda’s 200 Top Homos Named”

This headline appeared alongside head shots of some of the “homos” the paper aimed to out, including two well known LGBT rights activists.  Reports say that since Museveni signed the bill into law, there have been at least two confirmed arrests, with several more remaining unconfirmed but highly likely. In tragic addition to that, there are stories that people have in fact taken their own lives rather than risk being mercilessly oppressed under Uganda’s new anti-gay law.

Read more at Care2.com

Care2 is the largest online community of people passionate about making a difference.

The post High stakes: Gay Ugandans suffer tabloid fall-out first appeared on Lesbian.com.

We know that vegetarian and vegan aren’t synonymous with healthy. Junk food vegans and vegetarians do exist. After all, you can technically get a vegetarian burger at Burger King.

Many new vegans flock to PETA’s Accidentally Vegan Food List (which may or may not be entirely vegan — it depends on your personal definition of vegan) and rejoice! Per PETA’s list, Mambas, Oreos and Jujubes are vegan fair game.

Like many people, just because you are a vegetarian or vegan doesn’t mean that you are eating enough fruits and veggies. Delectable (and usually processed) plant-based temptations abound. Good thing vegetarians and vegans have updated food pyramid guidelines to help.

Read more at Care2.com

Care2 is the largest online community of people passionate about making a difference.

The post Food pyramid updated for vegetarians, vegans first appeared on Lesbian.com.

A new study from Indiana researchers tells us what most even minded people will already have assumed to be true: that sex and romance in gay relationships are closely linked.

The research, published this month in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, is based on an Internet survey of almost 25,000 self-identifying gay and bisexual men from the United States and delves into a question that science actually has little concrete data on: whether sex and romantic love are linked among same-sex partners in the same way that it is for straight people.

Read more at Care2.com

Care2 is the largest online community of people passionate about making a difference.

The post New study reveals gay love really is ‘same love’ first appeared on Lesbian.com.

When it comes to the health food industry, there is a lot of promotion of “superfoods.” Slap the superfood label on a product and it’s sure to sell. In fact, considering that there is no legal definition of the word “superfood,” it’s more of a marketing term than anything. Superfoods are essentially foods that do just a little bit more than their counterparts. They go above and beyond, packed full of nutrition, from protein to vitamins to antioxidants. Basically all the foods you know you should be eating.

But while superfoods are good for us, just as their name would have us believe, if we’re thinking about the footprint of our eating habits, not all superfoods are created equal. As the locavore movement grows and there are more and more advocates for eating seasonally and locally, it’s important to consider where our so-called superfoods come from. If you want foods that are packed with nutrients and good for you, you don’t have to buy the stuff that’s marketed as exotic.

Read more at Care2.com

Care2 is the largest online community of people passionate about making a difference.

The post Are superfoods healthy for the environment? first appeared on Lesbian.com.

if I remember correctly, being a teenager is hard. I found that cloaking yourself in ironic detachment helped, but still. People can be jerks and it can be hard to just be yourself.

I felt this way, and I’m a straight, cis, middle class, white girl from the Midwest. I can’t even begin to fathom what it must be like for kids who are somehow different from the average. I’m not sure I could have coped on my own.

Read more at Care2.com

Care2 is the largest online community of people passionate about making a difference.

The post Gay-Straight Alliances help decrease teen suicide first appeared on Lesbian.com.

You know that Oscar Wilde quote, “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life”? Well sometimes life imitates The Onion and makes you want to Hulk-smash everything.

In response to a court decision that held that it was illegal to ban marriages between same-sex couples in Oklahoma, a state lawmaker wants to get rid of marriage for everyone in the state. Apparently, Rep. Mike Turner’s constituents are ready to have this discussion. This is 100 percent real. In order to keep gay people from marrying, actual lawmakers are proposing we eliminate marriage entirely.

Turner isn’t just blowing smoke, either, though critics are calling it a publicity stunt. He submitted a bill. Turner has also called for a second vote to ban same-sex marriage, even though, as mentioned previously, a court ruled that the ban was unconstitutional. He said it would give anti-marriage equality lawmakers “an arrow in the quiver.” I’m guessing that means that he wants to give an opportunity for their bigoted bona fides to shine in time for the next election.

Read more at Care2.com

Care2 is the largest online community of people passionate about making a difference

The post Oklahoma lawmaker proposes ban on all marriage first appeared on Lesbian.com.

BY STEVE WILLIAMS

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has refused to sign Uganda’s infamous Anti-Homosexuality bill, returning it to parliament. Museveni had previously told parliament he would not sign the bill until the government had been given an appropriate length of time to study the issue. This was widely interpreted to mean the bill would not be allowed to pass until international attention had died down.

In an eight page letter to MPs that was released this week, Museveni again rejected the bill. He challenged  that the chamber passed the bill without quorum, or the minimum representative number of lawmakers in attendance. Museveni, terming homosexual citizens as “abnormal” hasn’t changed his opinion of gay people, but: “The question at the core of the debate of homosexuality is; what do we do with an abnormal person? Do we kill him/her?” At the same time, he rallies against gay rights, saying, “You cannot call an abnormality an alternative orientation. It could be that the Western societies, on account of random breeding, have generated many abnormal people.” Museveni also made it known he believes women may become lesbians due to “sexual starvation.”

Read more at Care2.com

Care2 is the largest online community of people passionate about making a difference

The post Ugandan president rejects anti-gay bill first appeared on Lesbian.com.