Do You Want Pesticides With That? 14 Organic Foods. Round-Up in Food. First Time Zones. Winterizing Porch. La Niña.

 

"If we aren't supposed to eat animals,

why are they made of meat?"

_________________

14 Foods To Buy Organic

"The growing consensus among scientists is that certain doses of pesticides and other chemicals can possibly cause lasting damage to human health, especially during fetal development and early childhood. Some scientists are warning of the long-term consequences of ingesting these powerful chemicals and advise that we minimize our consumption of pesticides.

According to the Environmental Working Group, consumers can reduce their pesticide exposure by 80 percent by avoiding the most contaminated fruits and vegetables and eating only the cleanest.

If consumers get their USDA-recommended five daily servings of fruits and veggies from those that are most contaminated, they could possibly consume an average of 10 pesticides a day. Those who eat the 15 least contaminated conventionally grown produce will likely ingest fewer than two pesticides daily.

EWG has been publishing guides to the "dirty dozen" of the most pesticide contaminated foods since 1995, based on statistical analysis of testing conducted by the USDA and the FDA.

The dirty dozen list only reflects measurable pesticide residues on the parts of the foods normally consumed (i.e. after being washed and peeled).

Below is the latest EWG guide to the "dirty dozen," along with recommendations for foods other than fruits and vegetables that are best bought organic, along with information about antibiotics, hormones and the impact of producing food on the surrounding environment. "

A recent USDA Inspector General report found that the government is failing to even test meat for the harmful chemicals the law requires.

Raising animals with conventional modern methods often means using hormones to speed up growth, antibiotics to resist disease on crowded feed lots and both pesticides and chemical fertilizers to grow the grain fed to the animals.

Additionally, it takes many times the water and energy to raise one meal's worth of meat than it does one meal's worth of grain.

To meet USDA standards, certified organic meat can come only from animals fed organic feed and given no hormones or antibiotics.

Searching out cuts from grass-fed animals ensures that you're eating meat from an animal that was fed a more natural diet, and looking for a local source of meats lets you question the farmer directly about the animal's diet and the farmer's method of raising it.

It cuts down on the environmental cost of transportation, too."

__________________

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joanna-dolgoff-md/foods-to-buy-organic_b_863914.html#s280979&title=Meat

_________________

 

Corn and Soybeans are genetically modified with Round-up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup_(herbicide)

_______________

Roundup Birth Defects: Regulators Knew World's Best-Selling Herbicide Causes Problems, New Report Finds

WASHINGTON -- "Industry regulators have known for years that Roundup, the world's best-selling herbicide produced by U.S. company Monsanto, causes birth defects, according to a new report.

The report, "Roundup and birth defects: Is the public being kept in the dark?" found regulators knew as long ago as 1980 that glyphosate, the chemical on which Roundup is based, can cause birth defects in laboratory animals.

But despite such warnings, and although the European Commission has known that glyphosate causes malformations since at least 2002, the information was not made public.

"They say that the approvals of numerous pesticides rest on data and risk assessments that are just as scientifically flawed, if not more so," the authors added. "This is all the more reason why the Commission must urgently review glyphosate and other pesticides according to the most rigorous and up-to-date standards."" More at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/07/roundup-birth-defects-herbicide-regulators_n_872862.html

_____________________

EWG's 2010 Shopper's Guide to Pesticides™

"The Shopper's Guide to Pesticides is a key resource for consumers aiming for healthier diets. Since many shoppers can't find or afford organic produce, they can use the Shopper's Guide to avoid those conventional fruits and vegetables found to be highest in pesticides – the Dirty Dozen – and, instead, choose items from the Clean Fifteen list.

"Making healthy food choices is simple, especially if you have the right tools to guide you down the produce aisle. I'm thankful that there is an organization like EWG that can provide this easy-to-use list so we can all shop smarter, save money and be that much more healthy — and happy." Andrew Weil, M.D.

Get the Guide

These are too large to copy and paste here, so if you get your own copy, you can print it out:

Enter your email address to download a PDF version of the guide or the iPhone App."

Free at: http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary/

Non-GMO Shopping Guide, pdf,  created by the Institute for Responsible Technology

____________________

 

In the Dark about GE Food? Just Label It!

 

"Without labels on genetically engineered food, you have no way of knowing what you're eating for dinner. You have the right to know what's in your food. Tell the FDA to label genetically engineered food. Just Label It! http://www.justlabelit.org/takeaction"

___________________

 

 

Many "All Natural" Foods Are Actually Heavily Processed

"The real problem here is that while the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulates the use of the "all natural" label on animal products like beef and poultry, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) fails to provide any kind of definition on what constitutes an "all natural" food item. Because there's no definition, food manufacturers can feel free to slap the phrase on any food item they choose, even neon-colored "fruit" snacks that spew sugary goo when you bite into them. 

Many consumers fail to realize that the "all natural" label means nothing, so they seek out these products thinking they're choosing a snack that's good for them and the planet. It's yet another deceptive marketing strategy created and perpetuated by the FDA and unscrupulous food manufacturers.

If you think a food is "all natural" just because the label says it is, think again. So which foods really aren't as natural as they claim they are?

When it comes to ice cream, as reported by Change.org, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has outed Ben & Jerry's as having ingredients that are hardly natural, but Edy/Dreyers, Breyers, and Turkey Hill do, too.

"And it's not just ice-cream makers who mislead consumers with an 'all natural' label," Change.org said.

"Food products from cookies to yogurts to sauces to cereals come with glowing, 'all natural' labels, but actually contain ingredients that are decidedly man-made in a weird science-type of way."

While CSPI has asked Ben & Jerry's to remove the "all natural" from their labels. "

More at: http://news.change.org/stories/many-all-natural-foods-are-actually-heavily-processed

___________________

 

On This Day….

Railroads create the first time zones, Nov 18, 1883:

"At exactly noon on this day, American and Canadian railroads begin using four continental time zones to end the confusion of dealing with thousands of local times. The bold move was emblematic of the power shared by the railroad companies.

The need for continental time zones stemmed directly from the problems of moving passengers and freight over the thousands of miles of rail line that covered North America by the 1880s. Since human beings had first begun keeping track of time, they set their clocks to the local movement of the sun. Even as late as the 1880s, most towns in the U.S. had their own local time, generally based on "high noon," or the time when the sun was at its highest point in the sky.

As railroads began to shrink the travel time between cities from days or months to mere hours, however, these local times became a scheduling nightmare. Railroad timetables in major cities listed dozens of different arrival and departure times for the same train, each linked to a different local time zone.

Efficient rail transportation demanded a more uniform time-keeping system. Rather than turning to the federal governments of the United States and Canada to create a North American system of time zones, the powerful railroad companies took it upon themselves to create a new time code system. The companies agreed to divide the continent into four time zones; the dividing lines adopted were very close to the ones we still use today.

Most Americans and Canadians quickly embraced their new time zones, since railroads were often their lifeblood and main link with the rest of the world. However, it was not until 1918 that Congress officially adopted the railroad time zones and put them under the supervision of the Interstate Commerce Commission."

_______________

 

Why?

Q: Why do men's clothes have buttons on the right while women's clothes have buttons on the left?

A: When buttons were invented, they were very expensive and worn primarily by the rich. Since most people are right-handed, it is easier to push buttons on the right through holes on the left. Because wealthy women were dressed by maids, dressmakers put the buttons on the maid's right! And that's where women's buttons have remained since.

Q: Why do ships and aircraft use 'mayday' as their call for help?

A: This comes from the French word m'aidez -meaning 'help me' -- and is pronounced, approximately, 'mayday.'

_____________

Yesterday: 

Ray and I spent a couple of hours moving the plant shelves on the screen porch and re-installing the clear vinyl inside, ready for Winter.

Last Spring, Jay had taken that panel down completely, instead of rolling it to one side.  Ray and I usually just roll it so that the shelves don't have to be moved as they are anchored to the posts. 

Many of my aloe plants are all bent over, as the kittens think that they are their toys, and break the juice-filled leaves.  We had to give the porch a good clean as the kittens had been knocking plants over, and there was potting soil under the shelves.  While we were at it we installed all new screen molding on the vinyl's edges, and really tried to make it draft free. 

Finally, we had that side done, but didn't have enough time to do the other side.   It took a while to put up all the tools that we had drug out to get this done, as usual.

 

It had turned into a nice warm sunny day, so I let all the cats out there while I had lunch.  

Blow me down!  I heard some loud bumps, and the kittens had knocked over some top shelf plants.  I put the kittens back in the grooming room, and it took me a while to get the plants re-potted, and the floor swept again.  I hate to leave the kittens in the grooming room 24/7, but this plant destroying has got to stop.  Usually, I sell the aloe plants online, but I haven't been able to this year.

 

I tried out my 'new' little centrifugal juicer, and I didn't expect it to be as powerful as my big machine, but it is adequate for making one glass of veggie juice, easy to clean, and doesn't take up much room.  It will be great in the motor home.

 

Now they said on the news that La Niña is back.

"What is La Niña?
La Niña is characterized by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific, as compared to El Niño, which is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific. Click here for a whole list of frequently asked questions.

What does La Niña mean?
La Niña means "The Little Girl." La Niña is sometimes called El Viejo (Old Man), anti-El Niño, or simply "a cold event" or "a cold episode".

Typical La Niña Impacts:

La Niña tends to bring nearly opposite effects of El Niño to the United States — wetter than normal conditions across the Pacific Northwest and dryer and warmer than normal conditions across much of the southern tier. The impacts of El Niño and La Niña at these latitudes are most clearly seen in wintertime.

In the continental U.S., during El Niño years, temperatures in the winter are warmer than normal in the North Central States, and cooler than normal in the Southeast and the Southwest. During a La Niña year, winter temperatures are warmer than normal in the Southeast and cooler than normal in the Northwest." http://www.elnino.noaa.gov/lanina.html 

 

But the news says that will cause a continued drought in TX.  

 

But if the winter is warmer here than it has been the last two years, that is good news today.