A Bird’s Eye View of the Tahoe Rim Trail is how the Sept. 12 trek past Galena Falls to Mt. Rose Meadows is being billed.
The interpretive hike is rated difficult and is 8-10 miles.
The climb is a maximum of 1,865 feet.
Meet at the Mt. Rose trailhead and parking plaza at 7am.
Unity at the Lake will join Silent Unity, an international, trans-denominational 24/7 prayer ministry, and spiritual communities worldwide on Sept. 13 for the 19th annual Unity World Day of Prayer.
Unity at the Lake will be having a silent prayer vigil from 8am-5pm. The entire community is invited to come by during that time (for however long) and center in an energy of love and peace.
At 5:30pm, there will be a labyrinth walk for world peace.
For more information, call (530) 544.2266.
Unity is at 1195 Rufus Allen Blvd., South Lake Tahoe.
By BBC
An additional 12,000 people who stayed at a remote campsite in California’s Yosemite National Park are at risk from the deadly hantavirus, officials warn.
The warning comes as a West Virginian who visited the park in June became the third person to die from the virus.
Eight cases have been confirmed so far. There is no known cure for the virus, spread by infected rodent droppings.
Symptoms can take up to six weeks to show and one third of cases are fatal.
Yosemite National Park said it was getting about 1,000 calls per day to its hantavirus hotline from frightened visitors.
The hantavirus virus is carried in rodent faeces, urine and saliva. When it dries out and mixes with dust, it can be inhaled by humans, especially in small spaces.
The disease can also spread if people touch or eat contaminated substances, or are bitten by an infected animal.
Publisher’s note: Sherwin Manalo and his brother, Ariel, and sister, Noreen, were all raised in South Lake Tahoe and graduated from South Tahoe High School. Sherwin Manalo was valedictorian of the class of 1993.
By Bay City News Service
A 37-year-old man who was killed in a crash on Highway 92 in Hayward on Monday has been identified as Sherwin Manalo of San Mateo, the Alameda County coroner’s bureau said.
According to the California Highway Patrol, Manalo was driving a 2001 BMW in the left lane of Highway 92 near Clawiter Road at about 11:30am when he abruptly turned right and crossed all four lanes of traffic.
Manalo’s vehicle struck a 2001 Acura in the slow lane, causing both cars to veer off the roadway.
The Acura driver, a 25-year-old Fremont man, crashed his car into a fence and suffered minor injuries, the CHP said.
Manalo’s car struck a tree and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The crash remains under investigation by the CHP.
South Lake Tahoe police have released the name of the person killed Aug. 14 after he was hit by a vehicle.
Paul Plasencia, 49, of South Lake Tahoe died when he walking along Highway 50.
— Lake Tahoe News staff report
By Mandy Kendall
I had to entertain some guests last weekend and there were some particular dietary requirements that I had to be aware of and cater for. This meant scrutinizing food labels in the supermarket in much more detail than I usually would, and it reminded me what a minefield of numbers and strange words the food-labeling world really is.
First, you have the nutrition facts and then the table with all the percentages and food groups. Then you have the list of ingredients. What’s most important? What should we look at first?
Mandy Kendall
So I decided this week to highlight some of the main aspects of food labeling with Qwik-e tips on what to consider when deciding on your food product choices.
Zero doesn’t mean zero – Labeling laws allow foods, with less than 0.5 grams per serving of an ingredient, to state that they contain zero grams of that ingredient. So for example, if you eat a food that says trans fat free, but you have 10 servings of it over a period of time you may actually be consuming up to 5 grams of trans fat without realizing it. The only way to check is to read the ingredients.
Reduced versus low – Be aware that these don’t mean the same thing. Reduced means that the food contains 25 percent less of the stated ingredient than it used to. Also reducing an ingredient is not always a good thing. Reduced fat peanut butter tends to contain the same calories but more sugar and you end up going without the goodness found in the nut fat.
Serving sizes – Before you look at anything else get an idea of what all the figures on the label relate to by checking how big the serving size is. Sometimes manufacturers will state a very small serving size to make the calorie count or something else appear to be unrealistically smaller than it is.
Calorie conundrum – We all need calories to survive and there will be variations on how many we need each day depending on such things as body size, muscle mass (muscle needing more calories that fat to sustain itself) etc. However, it is generally recommended that an averagely active male should consume 2,000-2,500 calories a day with an equally active woman requiring about 1,500-2,000 calories per day. General rule of thumb is to aim to get as much nutrition rich food for your total calorie intake per day as possible. (For example, 2,000 calories of whole grains, vegetables and fruits is much better for you, and will constitute a whole days food, whereas 2,000 calories of fast food will probably only amount to one large meal and provide little or no nutrition). Once you know how big the serving size is you will have a much better idea if the calories per serving are worth it.
Fiber and sodium levels – Basic rule of thumb is the more fiber and less sodium (salt) the better. Less fiber means it’s probably been over processed. More sodium tends to mean it’s been so processed that more salt has had to be added to make it more palatable. More than 500 milligrams of sodium is worth considering as too high.
Check the number of ingredients – The greater the number, the less healthy the food is likely to be (unless all the herbs and spices are listed separately). The more processed a food is the more likely it is to be full of stabilizers, preservatives and flavor enhancers — which trick our bodies into wanting more.
Check top and bottom ingredients – Check what is at the top (because food manufacturers must list the ingredients by the percentage they are in the pack with the largest listed first, and so on) and then check the ingredients at the bottom (where a lot of the preservatives and additives will be listed), if the ingredients at either end of the list don’t look great chances are the ones in the middle won’t either.
Do you know what each ingredient is? – Some people try to work on the premise that if they don’t recognize all of the ingredients (or can’t pronounce them), or couldn’t reproduce the food themselves in their own kitchen, then they think twice before putting it in their shopping cart.
Avoid as many additives as possible – Many additives and preservatives have been linked with life threatening diseases. Potassium bromated (sold as bromated vegetable oil), a potentially harmful human cancer causing agent has been banned in many countries but not in the US. Other ingredients that have had negative press will be listed using other names not so easily recognized. For example trans fats may be listed as hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Also be aware that monosodium glutamate is often listed as autolyzed yeast extract, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, yeast extract, natural flavoring, spices, soy extract, protein isolate, disodium inosinate or disodium guanylate.
Look for whole grains – If a grain has been processed (as in white flour) then all the bran and germ are taken out along with many essential vitamins and minerals. Try and chose whole grains like brown rice or whole kernel rye. Be aware that many package labels will state ‘whole grains’ on the front but may still contain a large quantity of processed grains. Where they are on the list will indicate what quantity there are.
Heart.org has a more details list of what food labels really mean.
Until next time.
Mandy Kendall operates Health Connective in South Lake Tahoe, which aligns wellness seekers with their ideal wellness provider. If you have questions, would like some advice, or would like to request some Qwik-e tips on any health and well-being topic, drop her an email at connect@healthconnective.com or keep an eye out on Lake Tahoe News for regular Qwik-e tips on how to make healthy changes one Quick and Easy step at a time.
Who should be elected to the South Lake Tahoe City Council? Voters will answer that question Nov. 6.
Five people are running for two positions.
Beginning Sept. 10 and for the four Mondays after that Lake Tahoe News will be running a profile of sorts on each of the candidates. All have been asked the same questions, with some of the candidates receiving questions specific to them. The candidate responses will run in the order they were returned.
The third annual Iron Girl Triathlon is coming to the South Shore on Sept. 16.
Volunteers are needed to support these athletes in their Tahoe challenge. All volunteers receive a logo T-shirt and healthy Iron Girl snack. Go online, select “Lake Tahoe”, and click on “Volunteer”.
Call (530) 545.0698 with any questions.
By Ed Perkins, Tribune Media Services
“Stop hotels from hiding part of their true prices from consumers and business travelers.” That’s the message Kevin Mitchell of the Business Travel Coalition and I sent to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Aug. 27, 2012.
Our target, of course, is the mandatory “fees” that hotels add to the room rates they post as supposedly independent fees rather than as integral parts of their true prices. The most common are “resort,” “housekeeping,” and “Internet access” fees, but business travel columnist Joe Sharkey recently identified mandatory fees for grounds-keeping and a “bell captain” fee.
Our objection to these fees is simple: If they’re mandatory, they should be included in the hotel’s base room rate. As it works now, these fees are yet another case of “split pricing,” or as the FTC calls them, “drip pricing.” You know how it works: A hotel that wants to collect, say, $200 a night for a room, instead posts a phony rate of $170 a night, then adds one or more mandatory fees to make up the $30 difference.
The problem, of course, is that it’s the phony $170 price the hotel posts online and submits to the online pricing sites; you don’t find out about the true $200 price until later — maybe not until you’ve made a nonrefundable purchase. Hiding the fees from their initial price displays, even when shown before final purchase and sometimes not even then, is clearly deceptive. A related deception is failure to include a value added tax (VAT) in displayed prices for European hotels.
As we note in our submission to the FTC, mandatory artificial “fees” and hidden VAT make a hotel’s posted rate appear to be below its true price often enough to drive consumer choices in the travel marketplace. This widespread drip pricing damages almost all important stakeholders in the marketplace for hotel/resort accommodations.
By Kathryn Reed
El Dorado County voters on Nov. 6 will be asked if they want a countywide assessment that would tax people equally.
The library system is divided into five zones, with all but one having passed a tax. That area is in the middle of the county, which includes Placerville, Pollock Pines and Cameron Park.
The taxes that are currently collected stay in the zone where the money comes from, with the general fund filling in a substantial part of the library budget. The countywide tax is estimated to bring in an additional $180,000 to the library system. That is a small amount based on what the overall library budget is.
How the additional money would be distributed would be up to the Board of Supervisors. However, library Director Jeanne Amos will come up with recommendations for the board.
The goal isn’t so much to raise more money, but instead make funding of libraries fair and equitable, as well as have a more solid base.
“The library funding is literally all over the map. It makes it difficult to run an effective library system because the funding is uncertain,” Mike Applegarth, principal analyst in the county’s Chief Administrative Office, told Lake Tahoe News.
The proposed tax rate would be the same as what single-family residences in the Tahoe basin pay today — $17.58 a year, with a potential increase of 3 percent based on the Consumer Price Index. County supervisors picked the lowest fee that was being collected and opted to put that amount on the ballot. So, for some areas their library fee would be decreased if this passes in two months.
If two-thirds of the voters agree to the tax, it would replace any library tax currently in place. It would be good for 15 years.
If it does not pass, the South Shore and Georgetown taxes are set to expire in 2015. However, it is likely voters would be asked to renew those initiatives down the road.
Total library operations are $3,334,010 for the 2012-13 fiscal year. Most of that money is from library taxes, with about 45 percent – or nearly $1.5 million – coming from the general fund.
Branches also have “friends of the library” groups that help put on all the programs that are outside of a book being loaned.
Library usage in El Dorado County has increased through the years. In 2007-08, there were 85,000 library cards – 91,000 in 2011-12; there were 745,000 checkouts in 07-08 and 880,000 in 11-12; and in 07-08 there were 697 children’s programs and 1,027 in 11-12.
The county operates six libraries – in South Lake Tahoe, El Dorado Hills, Cameron Park, Placerville, Georgetown and Pollock Pines – and a bookmobile.