…tunafish migrating from Japan are carrying radiation…but the “experts” are quick to assure the public that the fish is safe to eat.
bwahahahaha…just like the “experts” that told us the radiation from the meltdown wasn’t *that* bad, either…what the heck, the mercury and heavy metals will do you in quicker…
…as California goes, so goes the Nation (she says hopefully)… (hat tip to organic consumers)
I wasn’t as impressed with this article as Ronnie Cummins. It failed to note the Purdue University scientist, Dr. Huber, who sent a letter of concern to Vilsack. But it was sure to get in GMO advocates that have nothing to back up their assertions that this *stuff that resembles food* is safe.
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By now, you have heard of the *cough* research that says people who buy organic food are….jerks. Um-hmmm…
Organic Consumers states that reason.com is a part of the Reason Foundation, a libertarian “think tank”, which is…wait for it…a member of ALEC.
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Another link organic consumers had was to a movie trailer about the coming water crises. However, it was made by the folks who brought us “Waiting for Superman” a smear piece on the public school system that was used as a prop to promote charter schools…so yeah, I’m not linking to it.
While I was out jogging this morning, I was thinking about the GAPS diet and how Dr. Campbell-McBride advocates nuts in the diet…and it flashed in my head about how much land is used to grow wheat and corn and soybeans…and I wondered about how much more food, as in nuts, could be grown and if that was more ecologically sound?
I found this page advocating that very idea–it says that nut trees require very little chemical intervention, if any at all…not to mention the benefits of increased oxygenation by the trees and providing a home for the birds and squirrels.
I also found this resource for the re-foresting agriculture.
I also found this dedicated to permaculture. I really like the Vajra farm–I could picture myself taking a stroll through there…I could just feel the cool breeze and the serenity of the forest. It doesn’t look like any farm that I’ve been acquainted with…
I’m looking at that and thinking about the dry, windblown fields in Indiana, and how much better having this type of agriculture would be for the Earth. And it would be better for us, as well, with eating nuts and berries again instead of stuffing our faces with bread, cakes, and the like…
Here’s yet another take on growing trees in “alley ways” along with the usual. I don’t get a good feel for this–I’d have to see it in operation. My thinking is that the trees will eventually grow enough to block most of the light for the other crops…unless that is the purpose–to grow crops between them until they are large enough to use for lumber? The site doesn’t really explain the process very well.
Anyway, there you have it. I think this would really take off if it were promoted as a healthier alternative for diet, for the Earth, for the animals…
…but that’s just crazy talk 🙂
More from the book Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride….
p.321
Top Ten Influences which boost immunity:
1. Fresh animal fats (from meats and dairy) and cholesterol-rich foods (particularly raw egg yolks). [Dr. Campbell-McBride emphasizes that cholesterol is very beneficial, despite the false promotion of junk science saying otherwise.]
2. Cold-pressed oils: olive oil, fish oils, nut and seed oils.
3. Onions and garlic.
4. Freshly pressed veggie & fruit juices. [the fresh foods have enzymes that help your body to digest them properly. ]
5. Regular consumption of greens: parsley, dill, coriander, spring onion and garlic, etc. [word of caution: coriander has an effect on mercury mobilization, and it’s not been researched so there is no reliable info. on whether it carries it out of the body, too.]
6. Probiotic supplementation and fermented foods. [She explains that gut flora is seriously compromised in most of the population, and these will help restore normal flora.]
7. Contact with animals: horses, dogs, etc. Having a pet in the family can do a lot for children’s immune status.
8. Swimming in unpolluted natural waters: lakes, rivers, sea.**
9. Physical activity in the fresh air.
10. Exposure to sunlight and sensible sunbathing.
**These are non-chlorinated swimming pools. Pretty cool, eh?
…and if you prefer to do it yourself, Mother Earth News has this for you. They lose me with advocating man-made materials, however, but you’ll get the basics from the article.
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Next, Dr. Campbell-McBride has a list of the Top Ten Influences that damage immunity:
1. Sugar and everything containing it: sweets, soft drinks, confectionery, ice cream, etc. [she does, however, allow natural honey…whew]
2. Processed carbohydrates: cakes, biscuits, crisps, snacks, breakfast cereals, white bread, and pasta.
3. Chemically altered and artificial fats: margarine, cooking and vegetable oils, processed foods with these. [basically, the more they change the structure of the food, the worse it is for you–raw and fermented being the best foods.]
4. Lack of high quality protein in the diet, from meats, fish eggs, dairy products, nuts and seeds. [Dr. Campbell-McBride writes quite a bit against the vegetarian diet. She says that the proteins in the plants are not easily absorbed/digested by our digestive systems. I was a vegetarian from 1998-ish to 2006, when I was advised to start eating meat because of severe anemia, so I understand what she’s saying, but I had hopes that once I was well again that I could go back to vegetarian, but it doesn’t look promising.]
5. Exposure to man-made chemicals: cleaning and washing chemicals, personal care products, paints, fire retardants, petrochemicals, pesticides, etc.
6. Exposure to man-made radiation: electronic screens: TV, computer, play stations; mobile phones, high-powered electricity lines, nuclear stations, nuclear waste, anti-cancer medication, anti-viral drugs.
7. Drugs: antibiotics, steroids, antidepressants, painkillers, anti-cancer medication, anti-viral drugs.
8. Lack of fresh air and physical activity.
9. Lack of exposure to sunlight.
10. Lack of exposure to common microbes in the environment. […] Living in too sterilized environment is strongly associated with compromised immunity.
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More from the book:
p.71 […] In an old Textbook of Psychiatry by Henderson and Gillespie, published in 1937, it is clearly stated: “A thorough physical examination is absolutely essential in every case–schizophrenics are commonly poorly nourished”. […] Deficiencies in vitamins (such as niacin, or B3, B6, B12, B1, folic acid, Vitamin C)and many minerals (such as magnesium, zinc, manganese, etc.) are routinely recorded in schizophrenic patients.[…] U.S. professor Curtis Dohan, M.D., devoted many years to researching what connection digestive abnormalities in schizophrenic patients may have with their psychological state.
…Dr. Dohan found that symptoms of schizophrenia could be dramatically relieved by cutting all grains…
He also found that some cultures in the South Pacific which never consumed grains, had no schizophrenia. Only when they adopted a Western diet full of grains did they stat getting cases of schizophrenia. Another good example is Ireland, where people did not consume wheat until the potato famine in 1845. Before then there were no cases of schizophrenia or coeliac disease recorded in Ireland.
(I can’t find it now, but I had seen a link a while back where Germans also suffer from gluten intolerance. They observed that schizophrenia went down dramatically during WWII, when grains were scarce. So, yeah, I have both German/Irish genes, so I’m pretty much SOL in the gluten department.)
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I know this diet is spot on–but it’s not easy. Dr. Campbell-McBride has a list of allowed foods and non-allowed foods. She eliminates ALL grains, so I was correct in my thinking that I couldn’t eat rice nor potatoes (carbs).
On the non-allowed foods, I got to…chocolate. Read it again to make sure that I hadn’t misread it….
Chocolate? She wants me to give up chocolate? Was she freaking crazy? I didn’t think I could do it….*anything* but chocolate…
…so I ate a bunch of chocolate…
…and felt so awful that I thought I’d have to at least give it a shot.
I’m at day five…and holding my own. I have a fear that closer to *that* time of the month, however, I’ll be craving it like crazy and will lose the battle…
On the more positive side, I have lost fifteen pounds since March. And my gut is less swollen. It’s freaking amazing. 🙂
The stroller brigade went to DC to protest the non-transparency of chemicals on our health and the environment. Link to info here.
Glad to see it. I am dumbfounded on a daily basis at the apathy by those around me to the onslaught of toxins and how much damage they are doing not only to us but the environment.
People will tell me they’re taking x amount of prescription drugs, while drinking cokes, eating junk food, etc., while their bodies are already being assaulted. One resident of the building came outside, saying he wanted to “get some fresh air”….while dragging on a cigarette…
…I had to stifle myself to keep from cracking up laughing…
It’s just mindboggling how they don’t see any connection between how poorly they feel and the chemical soup we’re in.
I’ve noticed a change in people’s behavior when they saturate the skies with chemtrails…is anybody investigating that?
Here is a link exploring that. There aren’t a lot of credible sources out there on this issue–but just from my personal observation, I think they are affecting people’s health. Mercury poisoning makes one much, much more sensitive to toxins–car exhaust, perfumes, chemical cleaners, electro-magnetic fields (at one point, I couldn’t talk on a cell phone without getting a migraine the next day)etc.–and when they spray this junk in the air, I have a reaction to it.
One link I read said that the chemtrails contain aluminum and barium–those two metals are hazardous to one’s health–so I went looking for more info on it and found this.
I’m afraid that it will be like the onslaught of diseases after introduction of chemicals–mainly cancer that takes many years to manifest. I can say, as a canary in the coal mine, my reaction is a warning of how it is affecting folks who are not mercury toxic…
Environmental Working Group’s take on Farm Bill 2012. (hat tip to organic consumers)
Instead, legislators created an expensive new entitlement program (called “shallow loss”) that guarantees nearly 90 percent of the income of farm businesses already enjoying record profits. It also leaves untouched a bloated $9-billion-a-year crop insurance program that pays about 60 percent of farmers’ crop insurance premiums, no matter how large the farm, and sends billions to crop insurance companies and their agents.
Most of the benefits of these proposed programs would flow to the big five commodity crops (corn, soy, cotton, rice and wheat) that provide feed for livestock, raw material for processed food and corn ethanol fuel for our cars. Not only would these proposals be highly inequitable and wasteful, but the new revenue guarantees, combined with unlimited insurance subsidies and high crop prices, will create powerful new incentives for growers to plow up fragile wetlands and grasslands and erase many of farming’s recent environmental gains.
I like that it at least adds monies for food stamp recipients to purchase locally grown food at farmer’s markets. Great idea. I actually made the suggestion to our housing authority folks to help us get some land to plant our own vegetables to raise organically. *crickets*
Link to Craig Cox, of Environmental Working Group’s statement on it here.
I happened upon this book at the library–Donna Klein has been trained in Paris, and it shows in the recipes she has created. Not a recipe for sorghum in the bunch. 🙂
My greatest grief over going gluten free is letting go of the favorite foods. Klein has a recipe for zucchini-crust pizza. I know, I know, it doesn’t sound like it would be tasty, but I can assure my dear readers that it is.
I made it according to the original recipe, which includes eggs in the zucchini “crust”. I’m not a fan of quiche, which is what this recipe reminded me of, so I wondered if I could substitute Vegenaise (gluten-free, soy free version, which has a lime-green top) for the eggs. Wow, I loved the result. Vegenaise has this tang to it like Miracle Whip, and it comes through rather well in this recipe. It is a little on the oily side, because it is, basically, oil, so perhaps cutting back just a little on the vegenaise will produce a less oily result. Oil or not, it came out well, at least to me. 🙂
Other recipes in this book have also came out with good results. Klein has quite a variety and she includes some delicates like crepes. Her Arrowroot cake has piqued my interest and I’ll be making that tonight.
I’ve had to completely cut out potatoes, rice, and corn from the diet, as I’ve become very sensitive to *everything*…others on the support group state that this was their experience, too. It’s something to do with the gut starting to heal–becomes more sensitive at first, but then as it heals, allows one to put potatoes and such back in the diet. God, I hope so—I’m down to about two things I can eat…
Eat Shit. Because we’re going to cut food stamps by 11 percent. Never mind that you can’t afford to buy food for an entire month on what you’re given right now–you’ll have to resort to eating shit to survive….
One of the commenters mentions the Titanic. I watched it over the weekend on the anniversary of the ship’s sinking. I couldn’t help but picture Mitt Romney as Billy Zane’s despicable character, a wealthy sociopath…
…and how much today’s economic times reflect those of that period. And people talk as if those times were permanently relegated to history….ignoring what is happening all around them.
And I don’t believe for a second all the glowing reports of a recovery. I don’t see it where I sit. And I find it a little too convenient now that we are in an election year–that suddenly we’re in an upswing of jobs? And jobs alone aren’t the total answer–GOOD PAYING jobs are the answer. Martin Luther King was promoting the idea of a guaranteed income before he was murdered…everyone would have a minimum income. Of course, he preferred that everyone have a decent-paying job.
I found this living wage calculator from Pennsylvania State. I went to Allen County, Indiana, and found their low allowance for food: $236 per month for a single adult appalling. Only if you eat unhealthy food: processed meat like bologna, hot dogs, etc., and if you stay away from organic and fresh vegetables can you afford that piddly amount. Indiana only allows $200 per month in food stamps as it is…if the republicans get their way, it will be $178.
I was listening to the radio over the weekend, with agriculture reports, and an employee of the USDA was enthusiastic about the increase of sales of food overseas.
They’re pouring $$$ into it- $234 million in 2007. Two hundred thirty-four million to promote it.
Another link here: http://www.agri-pulse.com/uploaded/Jan2610H2.pdf
The same amount–$234 million was allocated in 2010.
This bothers me because of Tom Vilsack’s connections to Monsanto. It also bothers me because of the tone of the radio program–
They were saying that exports of U.S. food were expected to continue to rise through 2020. The biggest reason cited was the growth of the middle class in China, India, and Russia.
It popped into my head that their middle classes were swelling while ours was shrinking into oblivion. This left me with a feeling of dread of empty pantries here in the U.S. because our folks are no longer able to afford food, while ships sail across the ocean to folks who could pay $$. Not a pretty thought…
I was listening to our local radio station over the weekend, and heard this radio ad of “America’s Farmers”. My ears immediately perked up and I listened for the reason behind the ad…political? PR? Raising awareness?
I found it at the end of the ad, when they quietly disclosed it was brought to you by….Monsanto. Um-hmmm…
Here’s the website: http://www. americasfarmers .com/ I’m not linking to it for obvious reasons. I’ve made spaces in the addy, so you’ll have to close them up to look it up in your browser.
The website is just *this close* to equating farming with patriotism…
I clicked on the “Hear their stories’ link, and to the right is a paragraph with the sentence “They get up everyday just to ensure we have food on the table and clothes on our backs. and they do it without being asked.” They do it because they get PAID for their work. They do it so they can put food on the table and clothes on their own families’ backs. They do it without being asked? WTH does that mean, really?
I clicked on the “Meet the Families” link. The first family are the Boyds: Will and Wendy, and their children Wilson, Weston, Waylon, and Wenslie….(I already don’t like them because of being cutesy while naming their kids.) Let’s see…they’ve had the farm for five generations…that would put them back in the times of slavery… and the farm is in Georgia….hmmmm….and they are politicians with being a County Commissioner, along with being deep in the Farm Bureau, which is no longer representative of the farmers, but a part of the political machinery….kind of like the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA–or Bossy Indian Around). So…yeah, don’t see a lot of free thinking here who would question Monsanto or their motives.
The rest of the families basically all say the same thing–Farming is not a job, but a way of life. Yep. Anyone around here (Indiana being a big corn producing state) knows somebody who’s a farmer and how farming IS a way of life. What they don’t understand is how they are destroying that very life by supporting an organization that couldn’t care less about messing with nature.
Four years ago, I worked on an organic farm for one summer, and if my adrenals didn’t start crashing, I would have loved to have gone back and worked on another farm the next summer. It’s great being outdoors tending to the plants. No one is around–just you and the quiet….and the birds perched nearby singing or the occasional grasshopper or flutterby’s that happen in your path. Watching clouds form and wondering how long you can push it until you need to run for cover…being caught in a rainstorm… or at lunch time, sitting by the “wild” pond (i.e., it’s not been made “pretty” by landscapers…nature “scaped” it).
Farm families know their survival depends on the family working together. I fail to see how Monsanto ties into that. If anything it’s the opposite— Ask Percy Schmeiser, or any farm family that has been sued by Monsanto. What Monsanto means to say…is that they support chemical farmers, but sue organic farmers…
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organicconsumers.org has this up–more legal tactics by Monsanto. Their legislators need backbone transplants….
More here on the changes in tadpoles after exposure to RoundUp.
Here’s another link from organic consumers about an organic farmer and their trials. It sounds like a good book. From the little tidbits mentioned in the article, she “gets it”–that all things are connected–the earth, the animals, etc.
Eagle 
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