Abby Freeman

I looked into what to avoid in terms of buying seafood, and I found out that one of my diet choices did not fall within guideline. If I buy and eat fish (rarely), I would get salmon from Trader Joe's. I just looked up where it is from, and it is Atlantic Salmon from Norway. On the seafoodwatch.org site it says specifically to AVOID Atlantic Salmon from Norway. I rarely ever make salmon bowls, but I occasionally crave them, so I found the proper alternate which would be U.S. wild-caught salmon from Sprouts.

I remember Randy saying that Trader Joe's was bad at a lot of things (such as the unnecessary plastic wrap), which I hadn't noticed before, but have been noticing now, and that Sprouts did a much better job. I am registering this even more fully now because I was trying to avoid the plastic problem (which was already horribly difficult), but now it is a sourcing issue as well. I will be taking steps to look into sourcing and plastic usage, and since I am moving to a location where a Sprouts is very close to me post grad, this will be easier to make it more of a go to store for me! Anyway, that is one step I will take to assure my diet choices fall within these guidelines.

I visited Santa Monica State Beach a while back (4/9/25) and meant to post this then, and I was very concerned about something I had read in the news that my roommates had sent me: the Domoic Acid Crisis. They had joked in our groupchat about not sunrise swimming anymore because they were scared, and so I visited a coastal site one evening with friends.

I read about the Domoic Acid Crisis on the walk over because I grabbed a newspaper from a bin nearby, and to my surprise it addressed the topic with an article on a whale that had recently been beached/ died, which also frightened me. I learned it was because an algal bloom puts out a harmful neurotoxin that harms animals. I also later found out that it is linked to climate change.
I separately looked up if humans could be harmed from swimming in the water, which humans are not, so we went for a late night swim. However, humans can be harmed from potentially eating an affected animal (ie a crab). Although I had a fun moment with friends, this experience still taught me so much I did not know about this crisis and showed me another real-world and devastating impact of climate change.

I overall felt grateful to learn so much (even if it is frightening in the big picture) from one small, spontaneous fun idea with friends.

I learned that use by is the last recommended date for peak quality to use it, but it is not an expiration date (EXCEPT when it is on infant formula). Similarly to use by is sell by, - this is the last day for a store to have it on it's shelf because it can last for awhile longer after being sold. Best by is also speaking on quality - this is the last date the item will be of best flavor or quality, but it is not a flavor/ sell by date.

Knowing these differences empowers me to make better decisions regarding food waste. I feel like in the past, I thought they were all expiration dates and that bums me out. Although, I have always still been fairly loose with what I thought were "expiration dates" I now know I was never eating any expired food. This brings me a lot of comfort when it comes to purchasing food and will assure that I completely minimize food waste.

I made spam musubi with some of my fellow club members (Active Minds), and it turned out SO GOOD - better than in the restaurants I have bought it at. I saved a leftover pack of seaweed and a can of spam for shaping the spam musubis to make it again.

TW: talk of sexual violence.

I think that some of the most pressing issues for women, girls, and trans/nonbinary people in my community include exclusion from many spaces when it comes to making decisions. One huge example of a space is how we are seeing a massive lack of female representation on topics such as women and queer people's health in government and resulting from that a discontinuance in grants to topics including them. Another issue includes sexual assault, violence, fear, and public response when a woman comes forward with her story. And another issue specific to trans and nonbinary people are attempts at erasure toward their existence such as taking the T away in LGBTQ+ on government websites or calling it a "mental disorder." Another pressing issue that women are facing is a lack of reproductive health education.