Pefood_offPenotablesgossip_offPepolitics_offPehistory_offPetravel_offPenews_offPefarming_off

Fourth Estate

Going 'All Natural' Gets Old: Organics Faltering

Going 'All Natural' Gets Old: Organics Faltering ABC News Take a look at an interesting article we found.

Organic tastes good, but better for us? No

Organic tastes good, but better for us? No Globe and Mail Take a look at an interesting article we found.

Success is sweet and growth is so organic

Success is sweet and growth is so organic Daily Express Take a look at an interesting article we found.

Yesterday's Discussion

Glorifying outlaws is one of our national pastimes. The question is why.

 

Read More 87 comments


Subscribe to The Eye
(Daily Updates)

Delivered by FeedBurner

Ads_top 15-mar-10_wsk-2724
12-mar-10_mow-2619
11-mar-10_msh-1530
Follow-twitter Join-facebook

 

I've gone to my farm in Kentucky for the weekend. It's a great place to relax, do a little hard physical labor, and forget about the rest of the world. If you don't have such a place, I highly suggest you get one.

In the meantime, here's a little something that I found for you to read that raises some interesting questions.

See you on Monday.

J.Peterman

From: The Mother Nature Network

 

 

   Print

 

35 Members’ Opinions
July 18, 2009 12:45 AM
4224 10photoviews10videoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoFirst-videoHr-1 RoadYacht said...

Eat a fresh raw vegetable, or live fruit, each morning,at least 15 minutes before your first coffee and toast. Your body needs to digest and take apart these enzymes, so as to utilize the living component to repair at the cellular level. Then have your coffee,tea,whatever, that satisfies your hunger/habit. But most important is that unadultrated fresh food,first.        And remember, eat an apple every day for a hundred years,and you'll live to be very old...

July 18, 2009 12:49 AM
1058 10photoviews10videoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoFirst-videoHr-1Hr-10Hr-5 Olivia said...

Organic is the way to go, and should be supported. I've been tracking my grocery purchasing for years, and I've found that frequently organic is actually CHEAPER than poison-sprayed produce. Incidentally, the foodstuffs that always register the highest levels of pesticide residues are peanuts and grapes. The traditional PBJ that our kids love are little cancer packets if we're not more picky about who produces the peanut butter and jelly. The price difference is negligible, but even if it were dollars instead of cents, I'd gladly pay extra to keep my kids a bit safer. You save money in the long run with quality food, anyway. Less illness, fewer doctor visits and antibiotics, more time saved with a strong immune system that keeps you well. And organic tastes better. Food grown as it should be has more nutrients and more flavour.
We have only a rudimentary knowledge of the nutrient value of foods, but much research is being done, and our knowledge grows apace. The vitamins and minerals of which we are aware are only a tiny fraction of the value inherent in natural food. We don't know why some foods are healthier than others, why some actually function medicinally, why they boost our immune system, but we do know that we have evolved with these foods for thousands of years, and that we are dependent upon them for our health. Not the denatured foods grown on depleted fields sprayed with nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium, then soaked in carcinogenic herbicides, pesticides, and bizarre hormones that essentially are experiments in human survival tolerance.
The same holds true for animal products, which we can only tolerate in small amounts to begin with. Milk is full of recombinant bovine growth hormone, untested on humans, the long term effects of which are as unknown as the dope we give kids so they'll settle down in class without recess or art or music or physical exercise. So, we're allowing dairy producers to experiment on our children for their profit. Dairy also acidifies the body, because it contains alien protein, bovine immunoglobulins and other humoral substances that we don't need and cannot deal with, and is the subject of the biggest and most hateful lie of all advertising campaigns-the pernicious claim that milk is good for humans, and helps prevent osteoporosis, which is totally false, and has been the subject of several lawsuits now for false advertising brought by consumer protection, physician and nutritional groups against the dairy industry. Milk drinking actually accelerates osteoporosis, and any number of studies have shown that societies that minimize or do not take dairy at all have no osteoporosis. A little, used as a condiment in coffee or for cooking, won't hurt us, but three or more glasses a day surely will. The body removes calcium from the bones to buffer the acidic effects of lactoproteins, and the kidneys filter it out, and you essentially pee your bones down the toilet, molecule by molecule, for the benefit of the dairy industry.
Such is the fate of an undereducated, advertising-ridden populace. It's our responsibility to know what we eat, and we'd better get damned picky about the quality of the foods we allow into our, and especially our children's, bodies.
They're worth our best efforts, and a few dollars more when we shop.

July 18, 2009 1:13 AM
4224 10photoviews10videoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoFirst-videoHr-1 RoadYacht said...

Olivia,right on!  You want calcium? Get it like the cows do, eat vegetables.  The entrenched medical/diatary studies are on caprolites-poop-and they do not show on the cellular level what we actually absorb and use-transmogrify-to the minerals/nutrients we need. Food serves two purposes, repair/health/growth, and to keep us from being hungry(which drives us to look for food at the cost of paying attention to other drives)as well as the social aspects of communuty.

July 18, 2009 1:27 AM
4224 10photoviews10videoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoFirst-videoHr-1 RoadYacht said...

Omnivore's dilemma is such a good book,and I emailed Mr Pollan about the planting of corn;he contended that it was only done by us people of the corn, and I offered up that squirrels had replanted my garden to their blueprint.

July 18, 2009 1:56 AM
1058 10photoviews10videoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoFirst-videoHr-1Hr-10Hr-5 Olivia said...

Pollan's books are good, but for even greater depth you should read John Robbins' Reclaiming our Health, Diet for a New America, and so on. Eric Schlosser, Greg Critser, and Morgan Spurlock have good books out too, on diet and polypharmacy (the overmedicating of Americans). There's a lot of information, easy and even fun to read, but also a lot of white noise created by industries with vested interests in feeding us crap and keeping us sick and confused. Good health isn't complicated: eat right and get moderate exercise. That's it. But so called "health" magazines (Women's/Men's Health, Shape, Muscle and Fitness, etc) participate in confusing the issues and take advertising from those aforementioned interests, and the media in general say this is good/no it's bad/no it's good so often that people who rely on corporate media for information eventually throw up their hands and are delivered to the terminal mercies of fast food purveyors. It shouldn't even be called fast FOOD, it should be fast FOOD-LIKE SUBSTANCES. It's not real food, and it is in no way healthy, regardless of what they might claim.
We MUST take some responsibility for what we do-what we eat, how much activity we engage in, how we teach our children to live, how we interact with our doctors when we need them. We cannot abuse our bodies until they become ill, then expect our limited medical system (it's not a HEALTH care system, we have a SICKNESS care system that waits until you become ill and then sells you expensive band-aids to mask symptoms rather than effect any cure) to fix the problem, because it just can't. There is no pill that can reverse a lifetime of Cheetos and twinkies and hot dogs and beer and sodas and sedentary lifestyle. Soft drinks are liquid candy that pack on the fat-even diet sodas are turned to fat by your body-it doesn't know the difference between sugar and aspartame, despite all the advertising. See? You have to LEARN about what you put in your body! You can't trust the producers-they are not your friends. They want your money, the way the tobacco companies do, and your health is irrelevant to them.
The body is a biological machine designed to move, and to eat mostly plants. If you ignore your body's needs, you will sicken and die. It's that simple. Feed it good food, and move it every day, and you will feel good and look right. Those who have lost their health will quickly tell you how important it is, and how hard it is to regain it.
We are out of touch with our bodies, with our nature, and with nature itself. It's time to take that back.

July 18, 2009 4:47 AM
2631 10photoviews10videoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoFirst-videoHr-1 korthal said...

I'm only up because a neighbor's car alarm has been going on and off for the last hour.
 
OLIVIA:
 
I always learn from you.
 
In order to think I'll need coffee with just a touch of milk.
 
My Mother is always trying to get me to drink more milk. She claims that is why her bones are so good. But I don't really like the stuff. I guess my body knows what I didn't till now.

July 18, 2009 7:31 AM
175 10photoviews10videoviewsCom-100Com-300First-comFirst-photoFirst-videoHr-1 Andy said...

That article tells me what I've been saying for some time now -- get Government out of every day living.  A deer walking through a garden cannot, and must not be treated the same as the appalling conditions under which peanuts were stored (dirty rainwater running through harvested peanuts; animal feces and more being washed through).  The article illustrates a very good example of over-kill. 
 
As Olivia says; we must take responsibility for ourselves,  Wash, wash and wash again any fruits and vegetables that you purchase or even grow yourself.  But the conditions under which the farmers are bound to grow can only raise already too high prices and will ultimately put yet another farmer out of business.
 
Is organic better for you?  Don't know.  I only know that I want that choice.  I want the diversity of grocery store that offers both and the opportunity for a farmer to grow organic if that's what he/she believes.  I don't want it to become so cost-prohibitive, as it will if the government keeps meddling. 
 
Again, Olivia -- yes, we're responsible for ourselves.  We mustn't blindly go along whistling a tune believing what is told and thereby being able to cast blame, but listen to ourselves and our bodies.  Rant over........
 
now let's mourn the loss of Walter Cronkite....a man who was one of a kind.  A man who has been missed long before he died; none other like him. 

July 18, 2009 7:47 AM
4080 10photoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoHr-1Hr-5 Bert said...

I  wonder  if   The  Great  Pumpkin  in  Charles  Schultz's  "Snoopy"  cartoons  was  organic?  My  guess is  that  organic  produced  the  giant  pumpkin,  which  was  not  deformed,  only  big  enough  to  make  anyone  swear  off  drinking.....

July 18, 2009 8:51 AM
3905 10photoviews10videoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoFirst-videoHr-1 cuukoo1 said...

morning all ya'll !!!!!! it's a truly organic sunrise...soul food.

July 18, 2009 9:04 AM
4080 10photoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoHr-1Hr-5 Bert said...

Cuccoo1:  Good  Morning  2  U  as  well.....when  you  think  "soul  food,"   visualize  the  Blues  Brothers  singing  "Soul  Man"  {conclusively  challenging  the  premise  that  white  men  can't  dance}.
I  feel  quite  inept  thinking  about  today's  topic,  nevertheless  I  will  enjoy  my  role  as  a  forward  observer  .....   you  rascals  stimulate  this  brain  to  return  to   functional  mode,  even  on  a  sleepy  Saturday  morning.

July 18, 2009 9:28 AM
3905 10photoviews10videoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoFirst-videoHr-1 cuukoo1 said...

re reading.   
c.g. jung on nature, technology & modern life....'the earth has a soul'. 
"natural life is the nourishing soil of the soul",
j.d.
{conclusively  challenging  the  premise  that  white  men  can't  dance}. it's a conspiracy.  note:   it doesn't take a subversive act to find that some just simply have no rhythm,  

July 18, 2009 9:44 AM
141 10photoviews10videoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoFirst-videoHr-1Hr-10Hr-5 Peter Lake said...

Shared knowledge from our hummingbird who hath the wisdom of an owl... what could be nicer I say.

I've already thrown out half of my refrigerator and pantry and feel better about myself already..... but there will always be a slice of cheesecake out the with my name on it and I will not be denied.

Other than that I'm down with it......

Have a grand day all of you. Peace out.

 



July 18, 2009 10:01 AM
2452 10photoviewsFirst-comFirst-photoHr-1Hr-5 Kristina said...

This article sure makes the backyard garden make more and more sense.

I planted my first one this year, and I don't expect a miracle crop, but I am learning a lot about how it grows. I know for a fact, for example, that many animals have visited my garden. The bare patches that appear overnight and the small excavations bear testament. I'm also "organic," so yes, I have a lot of bugs. But the idea is that a functioning ecosystem is the cleanest environment. When we try to "control" it, we destroy some aspect of the natural order, which destroys the entire system.

We need to learn to live WITH the other inhabitants of this planet instead of trying to eliminate anything that annoys us. There are limits to this philosophy, of course. I'm not going to invite a smallpox virus to come and vacation in my home. But deer? squirrels? how about birds?! They carry all kinds of unfriendly-to-humans germs. And you know what? They poop. All over.

So should we bring back DDT? A silent spring is so... sterile. Wasn't that the siren that went off some 40 years ago? Do we need to sound it again?

July 18, 2009 10:47 AM
1198 10photoviews10videoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoFirst-videoHr-1Hr-10Hr-5 Doc Nolan said...

Hey, guys... we're at the end of the food chain (or is it at the end of the alimentary canal?). Decisions in our dinosaur society are being made not at our level, but inside the walnut-big brain, and the signals (garbled) are VERY slowllllyyyyy transmitted to the clumsy and ill-conceived legs of our Brontasaurus society. Envy the tiny mammals as they run circles around the dinosaur.....  

I'd like to imagine that 'We' are in charge of events but it's obvious that 'They' are in charge.... So, if 'We' want to effect changes, it might be best by picking up shovel, axe, hoe (or rototiller) and ignore the antics of the dinosaur down the block.

July 18, 2009 11:52 AM
Com-100Com-300Com-500First-comHr-1Hr-5 Georgia said...

Good timing: I'm reading Barbara Kingsolver's excellent book, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," the tale of her family's decision to leave home (Tucson, Arizona) and move to where they could eat food locally grown, and grown much of their own. It was, as our Cynthia described when her family made a like move, a long-planned and every-member-of-the-family decision. Ultimately her teenager and her younger daughter were as enthusiastic, surprisingly, as were Kingsolver and her husband; she'd anticipated reluctance, especially from Camille, her 'teen. The book is written beautifully by wife, husband, and 'teen (Kingsolver explains the younger girl wasn't old enough to sign a book contract), and covers their first year in Appalachia. I shan't spoil it for you, but must add that it is enriched by her husband's sidebars (in his field, this is, as luck or Fate would have it) giving precise facts about how fruits, vegetables, meats in stores are planted, harvested, born raised, treated, biologically engineered, and what is done to them to enable them to travel from point of origin to point of purchase and consumption.

I have long read labels -- before it was chic or, as now, essential -- simply because I don't like overly-salty food. So even before the FDA (finally) took action, I knew a bit about what to look for. And because I like food, and once conscientiously fed two growing children, I've ever been suspicious of long lists of words whose meaning is inscrutably buried in letters, and which I cannot find in any of my dictionaries. Naturally I buy certain things whose origins I don't know: Say I need peaches for a recipe; I'll buy what Fresh Market or Publix offers -- their produce men can tell you where they're from; often they have a sign. Equally, signs reading 'LOCAL' where appropriate.

I'd thought myself a wise shopper. Until this book, from which I've learned more than I can get my mind around -- names of companies here and abroad who make millions by engineering foods, thus altering their properties. Too, from the farmer's perspective, such magna-companies (they're named in the book) present a problem. 'Heirloom' plants and seeds, whose long genealogy guarantees quality as well as perennial growth patterns, are increasingly rare, replaced by genetically-altered seeds or plants that are (1) annuals and (2) prepared in utero, as it were, to withstand cold storage and a long shelf life. Hence the plastic tomatoes we buy when tomatoes are out of season. What's been done to them guarantees no-taste and strange feel.

Scary, but in the best way, this book. Because Barbara Kingsolver is a fine fiction writer with many books to her credit, this is well-written; because her husband knows his field and did considerable additional research, the facts supporting her straightforward telling-of-the-tale are trustworthy. I like especially daughter Camille's chapter on asparagus; the book is filled with good surprises. And essential knowledge.

July 18, 2009 11:54 AM
4220 10photoviews10videoviewsCom-100Com-300First-comFirst-photoFirst-reviewFirst-videoHr-1Hr-10Hr-5 Daniel Zev said...

Organic? All-Natural? No thanks. I'll take home-grown or farm-fresh anytime. I want to know exactly where my fiood came from and how it was grown. Besides, nothing is truly organic, unless it is grown indoors, with special dirt and pure, filtered water. Outdoors, it gets whatever contaminants are found in the soil as a result from the percipitation passing through the polluted skies. Even more detrimental is, around here, organic and all-natural equals more expensive. Even the farmer's market, usually a bastion of cheap eats, now rivals in price the supermarket, with it's bad lighting, air-conditioning, hard floors, and traffic-jam of people. But I am ranting on a Saturday and there's no call for that nonsense on a week-end. It's an unseasonably cool day here in southwestern PA, I think I'm going outside. Already had my blueberries this morning so I guess it's on to coffee and a long walk.

July 18, 2009 1:29 PM
4121 10photoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoHr-1Hr-5 PARK4 said...

I don't want to ever see the end of Farmer's Markets, and that's what will happen if Big Government has it's way.  I want choice.  I want to decide whether organic and "green" are as good as the current (and past) touting wants me to believe -- I want to decide, I don't want government to tell me.  (but then I don't want government to tell me much of anything, that's just how I am).    ...As for cow milk and its evil hormones, maybe that will kill me, but so for so good, I've been drinking milk all my life, it's my favorite beverage, and I'm not stopping now.  I think yogurt is better than Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia, and I've been eating it all my life (made it at home before Dannon arrived on the scene) -- anyway, I've given up most of the Deadly Sins of Ingestion, so when I want my Ovaltine in low-fat cow milk, I'm going to have it.... ...With a side of rhubarb.  Well-washed. 

July 18, 2009 1:32 PM
186 10photoviews10videoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoFirst-videoHr-1Hr-5 Jonathan Isles said...

If anybody's jonesing for their organic grapefruit juice wake-up call, I spent the morning juicing (okay, it took, like, 9.5 minutes) all of the g-fruits in my Community Supported Agriculture box. We get a weekly bushel of whatever's growing in the nearby organic farms, and we have had a LOT of g-fruit lately. So today, I'm going to drink a lot of juice. Straight juice for the morning. Maybe mixed with sumthin' as the day moves along.

July 18, 2009 1:35 PM
1058 10photoviews10videoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoFirst-videoHr-1Hr-10Hr-5 Olivia said...

The fact is, eating well and healthily is not as hard as some would have us believe. John can have his cheesecake (I love it too), meat eaters can eat their meat and dairy, but the key is moderation. As Aristotle and many others have said, moderation in all things is a key to living well and maintaining health. In any grocery store, right beside the bad stuff, there is a healthier alternative, if we just read the labels, if we choose wisely, if we eschew that which we know is bad for us, we can prosper in any milieu.
Try to feed an animal something that is bad for it, and watch them sniff and walk away. You might get a dirty look too. We have lost that instinctive discriminatory knowledge somehow, and routinely take in toxins without thought. The fix for that is self-education. The government is disorganized and pulled this way and that by politics and money, public education is concerned with teaching tests instead of life skills, and families are often too busy with day to day concerns to instruct children in the basics of safer habits. But it's at the family level that we have to start, and maintain instruction in self-reliance, because at no other time since we roamed the savannahs and jungles have we been at greater danger from predators. Corporations have replaced lions and tigers at the top of the food chain, and will consume us without remorse if we allow it. First they wring us dry of assets, then toss us away as unusable human detritus, unless we take control. We cannot, we MUST not trust corporations and corporate-controlled government to protect us from our impulses and advertising-engendered artificial desires. We are programmed from childhood to stay children in our lack of self-discipline; our confusion in discerning that which is good and bad for us is cultivated, our inability to save, to conserve, to manage is promoted, because in this way we are easy prey. The television, movies, and media of all sorts contain subtle messages, sometimes not-so-subtle messages, to consume, to just do it, don't think, eat, drink, smoke, and buy this or that electronic toy and JUST PLAY. And many people buy into that.
We don't need a nanny state, and that's unlikely to happen anyway. But we do need a strengthened sense of self-reliance, of personal responsibility, that many lack now because it's being bred out of us for economic gain. Many agents of our corporate controlled society, and our government, view us in much the same way as a dairy farmer views his cattle. We are to be drained of our resources as long as possible, then (symbolically) we're only good for dog food. Witness the way hospitals dump patients who are too sick to give profitable care to, or they don't have insurance. There's no profit in taking care of them, so they are given a cab ride across town to the public hospital-patient dumping is a largely hidden national scandal that no other country, however mean or poor, indulges in-but we do it, because our dysfunctional system is based on profit from human misery, and it is appalling to me that there are those who would use scare tactics to maintain this travesty. 
The lesson is one that our grandparents knew well: self-reliance and education gives us control. We won't be given that. We have to find it, to take it, for ourselves. The information is out there, easily available, but we have to put forth some effort to fight our way through the confusion and white noise designed to keep us dependent and vulnerable to the varied attempts at mind control that we encounter every day.
The question, in my mind, is do we have the national strength of character to make a decision anymore? I'm optimistic, but there's no easy solutions. 

July 18, 2009 3:09 PM
4121 10photoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoHr-1Hr-5 PARK4 said...

Self reliance and personal responsibility: music to my ears.  There's so much freedom inherent in those two ideas, and I embrace that wholeheartedly.  If I can't take care of me and own up to it, then I deserve what I get even if it doesn't suit me. 

July 18, 2009 6:30 PM
4080 10photoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoHr-1Hr-5 Bert said...

Park4:  Is  that  the  cry  of  the  imbedded  Lbertarian  in  you?  Self-reliance  &  personal  responsibility  are  good  things,  and  we  should  pull  ourselves  up  by  our  own  bootstraps.  Unfortunately  some  in  our  society  for  no  fault  of  their  own  do  not  even  have  boots,  let  alone  bootstraps.

July 18, 2009 6:53 PM
4121 10photoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoHr-1Hr-5 PARK4 said...

I guess it might just be JD.  Although I'm not much for being tagged as one thing or another either.  Thing is, more and more I hear myself saying to no one in particular, on television mainly, I hear people sing this "it's not my fault" sing-song song beneath their words and I want to do my own version of Howl.  Yes it is your fault, yes it is and you are responsible. (I say to the television).  Or here on the Internet in forums that seem more and more to draw those who are not at fault -- and I tell them, oh yes, you made that decision, and it's you who bears the responsibility for the outcome.  Oh holy cow you'd think I was telling them they were going to hell in a handbasket without a fire extinguisher and a note from their priest.  Not my fault?  Well, who's fault is it then? I've been asked.  And that one stumped me.  The world's fault, I guess.  The world is at fault for all of your bad luck. ...I've never heard so many people singing this song so often about so much -- where did this come from, this childish attitude?  And how did the idea of personal responsibility become a bad thing?  And self reliance?  You mean I got it wrong, and folks still want to be, god forbid, owned?  ...I know JD that you fight the good fight for the underdog, that is your life's work.  That is an admirable career, to represent those who for whatever reason, cannot speak or represent themselves.  ...But why the shirking of responsibility by some of those people, by many, I'm guessing?  Why do I hear way too much:  It's not my fault.  Some other dude did it.   ...Why?  For another time JD, perhaps.  This is the weekend, and I've heard it said that even god took a break from work on one of these two days.

July 18, 2009 6:59 PM
141 10photoviews10videoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoFirst-videoHr-1Hr-10Hr-5 Peter Lake said...

"Well" said Peter Lake in a voice that only he could hear" "I've been confronted with wisdom and I've looked it in the eye. I know in my heart of hearts that not only are their intentions noble, but there is no denying the truths they profess, and since I claim to be master of my own ship and as such, I am to be held accountable for all that I do to and for it.... I'd better be getting' to doin' instead of just thinkin' about it" 

"I will, however, continue to seek sanctuary from all laws of nature and cause & effect, and continue to order whatever I please off of the menu while traveling on thesepia train A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do don'tcha know, especially if he is what he eats"


July 18, 2009 8:07 PM
4080 10photoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoHr-1Hr-5 Bert said...

Cuccoo1:  Notwithstanding  my  career  and  my  liberation  theology  philosophy,  I  hate  it  when  my  clients  tell  me  that  "some  other  dude  did  it."  The  exception  is  when  they  actually  are  the  wrong  arrestee.  But  on  a  domestic  violence  charge,  "bitch deserved it"  is  no  excuse.  "I was too high to realize what I was doing" doesn't cut it.  And "I only was selling crack cocaine to support my kids"  dos not cut it either....I especially hate that one.  Other people's kids buy their poison.  My new strategy = 6 months "tough love" bootcamp style rehab, or pack your toothbrush for prison.   I am not put on this planet to enable people to keep drugging, drinking, sleeping all day while their kids are trying to exist on welfare & food stamps.  Get your s___t  together or get yourself on the bus with bars on the windows.  OK, OK, now you can forward this email to the Democratic National Committee,  and have me thrown out.....lol   

July 18, 2009 8:09 PM
4080 10photoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoHr-1Hr-5 Bert said...

Park4:  The last comment was addressed to you as well,  just so you don't feel ignored.  I listen intently to everything everyone here says.

July 18, 2009 8:33 PM
4121 10photoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoHr-1Hr-5 PARK4 said...

I don't feel ignored.  What I feel is relief, reading what you wrote.  "The bitch deserved it" gives me shivers, and when the shivers pass, I want to hit something, or someone.  And I'm not a hitter, not usually.  But I'd make an exception if someone said that to me by way of explanation.  You have much self control, JD; either that, or you sit on your hands a lot, to keep them from striking out...
  ...And PeterLake, eat that cheesecake.  Absolutely, a man's got to do what he's got to do, and it has your name on it.  Go to it...

July 18, 2009 8:58 PM
4080 10photoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoHr-1Hr-5 Bert said...

Park4:  Another  classic  from  the  "Lowlife's  List  of  Excuses":   "If  I  woulda  really  wanted  to  hurt  her,  I  woulda  closed  my  fist."   That  one  just  steams  my  onions......grrrrrrrrrr.  

July 18, 2009 9:33 PM
4224 10photoviews10videoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoFirst-videoHr-1 RoadYacht said...

Ahhh, my friends, much to think about,for these subjects; does the domestic violence, and crack cravings come about because of twinkees?!?     I remember that defense strategy; craziness brought on by sugary food, or sugary food cravings.....Could such a thing actually be?   I will hazard a guess, yes. I quit cigarettes in '83, but there are some folks that just can't.  So, I am betting certain human animals are more susceptibleto suggestion and habit,than others. Marketers of products bet on it too. There are exquisite reactions to some substances in nature that bring massive results;alergic reactions that swell the toungue to the point of suffocation, or just goosebumps,or a rash. So many different things can happen when ingesting things that are not simply food,pure and simple. In the pollan book, Omnivore's dilemma, there is a farmer that has it figured out simply; the 'leavins'from one set of animals are the source for a whole chain of reactions that end up feeding other stock. And culling part of that is what feeds people. Cheesecake is not a staple, but a delicious prize to be savored on occasion. Like das that end in the letter "Y"

July 18, 2009 9:43 PM
1198 10photoviews10videoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoFirst-videoHr-1Hr-10Hr-5 Doc Nolan said...

The single most important sentence today (from Olivia): "The body is a biological machine designed to move, and to eat mostly plants." --- I may be a shameless suckup but she's nailed it.... 

July 18, 2009 10:17 PM
4224 10photoviews10videoviewsCom-100Com-300Com-500First-comFirst-photoFirst-videoHr-1 RoadYacht said...


Yup,Doc....most of our food comes from plants, Dole,Hormel,Swift,ConAgra,Kraft,Corn Products,ArcherDaniels,and the tobacco companies under different names

July 18, 2009 10:50 PM
3374 10photoviewsCom-100Com-300First-comFirst-photoHr-1 Penn said...

Hey PARK?  My money is where I can see it.  And, I more than broke even...

July 18, 2009 11:51 PM
4170 10photoviewsCom-100First-comFirst-photoFirst-video Dzrtldy said...

Quite an interesting range of interpretations today.  We've gone from organic foods to personal responsibility.  That's what fascinates me about this forum..........reading everyone's feedback.  Well, I guess I'd have to insert what I know.  And that would be this:  Yes, "Moderation is the Key."  Something my mother touted throughout her life.  Unfortunately, the "fates" had a different plan for her, as she was taken at 72 years young with a malignant brain tumor--GBM--glioblastoma multiforme.  "Other than THAT, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"  She was extremely healthy up until that last day--we dined on a mostly Mediterranean diet.  No organics for us........and her parents, my maternal grandparents, live well into their 90's.  My grandfather smoked, had a shot of whisky daily, ate bacon, eggs, and cornflakes most every morning.  Of course, we had our pasta, little beef...........but I could go on about the diet.  Moderation WAS the key, and to this day, though I am the dessert baker, I do, in fact, eat minimal desserts.  Enjoy, people.  This is our only go around.  Every trip around the sun brings us closer to the end, and I, for one, am enjoying this trip.  I hope it lasts a good, long time.  Organic..........or otherwise. 

July 19, 2009 12:28 PM
Com-100Com-300Com-500First-comHr-1Hr-5 Georgia said...

Fervent was I when I made my earlier (and continuing, for information) comments about Barbara Kingsolvcer's book. I wasn't speaking from a soapbox, however; it's not my style, ever.

In my effort to Stay On Topic, for I tend to woolgather and wander (as longtime Eyesters know), however, I failed to say further that I, like John, continue to eat, yea, to bake cheesecake. And relish it. Chocolate-chip cookies are now in my oven. The key is comm on sense, and knowing our own bodies, their problems and what they need.

I should have added I'll NEVER turn down a lovely something bearing absolutely no nutrition -- simply because I'm passionate about it. Reason enough for me.

July 19, 2009 12:46 PM
Com-100Com-300Com-500First-comHr-1Hr-5 Georgia said...

Seems the time to say I'm not above mixing Ghirardelli's sweet cocoa powder (less bitter than Hershey's) and sugar to eat, if I've a craving but no time to bake. You dip your finger in, and revel.

DOES ANYONE KNOW where useful, delicious German's Sweet Baking Chocolate has gone? Favorite recipes of thirty years await, and I find it nowhere. When 'German's Chocolate Cake' was ubiquitous some years ago -- and since -- German's was ever there, on the store's baking-chocolates shelf. As coconut is the one food I've tried all my life to like -- because it makes pretty dishes -- but have failed, I'd pick around that coconut-filled frosting and eat just the cake, moving remains around on the plate so my host wouldn't notice.

A favorite cookie recipe and several more require it, and I'm now trying to find the company's address so I can tell them they've torn my life.

July 19, 2009 1:09 PM
4170 10photoviewsCom-100First-comFirst-photoFirst-video Dzrtldy said...

Georgia:
 
It still exists....it's carried in our local supermarkets, but here's the Kraft food website:
http://brands.kraftfoods.com/bakerschocolate
 

Prime Web

How organic is organic food? Author Mischa Popoff questions the industry

How organic is organic food? Author Mischa Popoff questions the industry nationalpost.com Take a look at an interesting article we found.

Luther Burbank

Luther Burbank sonoma.net Take a look at an interesting article we found.

 Understanding Organic Agriculture: The History and Benefits of Organic Food

Understanding Organic Agriculture: The History and Benefits of Organic Food biodelice.com Take a look at an interesting article we found.

Honor Roll



still thinking about today...


Classified_ad_heading Botswanasafaris-1
Saskatchewanlodge-1
82morgan
36mercedes-1
Safricahotel-1
Orientexpress-1
Frenchbed-1
54hrgcar-1
Schooner
30craftcockpit-1
Ramona
Polishsteamship-1
Italianfarm-1
Lorangerie-1
Belizeresort-1