Do I REALLY want to know?

My apologies for my extended break! I recently found this article posted at Yahoo! news. I just had to share. Check it out.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelysanders/dark-secrets-how-food-groceries-are-made


One awesome alternative I've recently found is an online whole foods option. I took advantage of an opportunity to visit with some of their folks recently, including CEO Rod Smith. They are really focused on providing non-GMO products at reasonable pricing, delivered via FedEx directly to their customer!

http://www.greenpolkadotbox.com/

I'm looking into some really HighTech garden projects!

Check this out........http://futuregrowing.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/green-polkadot-box/

A company most of you may not have heard of (yet) is moving its entire operation to Mount Pleasant, Utah and is planning to make a major impact across the nation. Green PolkaDot Box is an online membership club, focusing on natural non-GMO foods. As part of their operation, they are developing a Living Produce operation in nearby Spring City, Utah to grow and ship regionally via FedEx, fresh produce directly to 40,000 households in the Intermountain West. The operation, as described in the link above, is expected to include 30,000 verticle growing towers capable growing more than a million plants per month. Over the next couple of years, Green PolkaDot Box plans to expland this project to 15 such farm operations around America to have the ability to deliver to every household in the nation.

Ever Considered Beekeeping?

Recently I reviewed an interesting article about honeybees. This particular discussion was not about the benefits of beekeeping. Rather, it was discussing the effect of small and simple efforts to produce an important effect. It did, however, get me thinking of other beneficial aspects of beekeeping! The article was spiritual in nature, based on how great things are brought about and burdens are lightened through the efforts of many hands anxiously engaged in a good cause:

“Honeybees are driven to pollinate, gather nectar, and condense the nectar into honey. It is their magnificent obsession imprinted into their genetic makeup by our Creator. It is estimated that to produce just one pound (0.45 kg) of honey, the average hive of 20,000 to 60,000 bees must collectively visit millions of flowers and travel the equivalent of two times around the world. Over its short lifetime of just a few weeks to four months, a single honeybee’s contribution of honey to its hive is a mere one-twelfth of one teaspoon.

Though seemingly insignificant when compared to the total, each bee’s one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey is vital to the life of the hive. The bees depend on each other. Work that would be overwhelming for a few bees to do becomes lighter because all of the bees faithfully do their part.” (M. Russell Ballard)

Excellent message...and interesting insight in the work of honeybees! Let's look a little deeper at the working side of their job! Among the resources that I reviewed, I found an organization promoting urban beekeeping... http://honeylove.org/bees/ . HoneyLove.org shares the following:

Fun Facts About Honeybees

• Bees pollinate 80% of the world’s plants including 90 different food crops.
• 1 out of every 3 or 4 bites of food you eat is thanks to bees.
• The honey bee is responsible for $15 billion in U.S. agricultural crops each year.
• Honey is the only food that does not spoil (bacteria can’t grow in it, and because of it’s low moisture content and low pH – honey can last indefinitely).
• Bees maintain a temperature of 92-93 degrees Fahrenheit in their central brood nest regardless of whether the outside temperature is 110 or -40 degrees.
• The honey bee is the only insect that produces food eaten by man.
  

Online beekeeping courses, such as the Penn State Beekeeping 101 course, http://beekeeping101.psu.edu/?gclid=CPTL_6TQ7bUCFfBDMgodpBIAmw , are also available. You have access to great learning opportunities online. These were just a couple of hits on a Google search for “Urban Beekeeping”.

It's hard to imagine any food closer to the source!

"Healthy Eating Choices......

Food Marketing phrases to watch out for:

 

1. No preservatives
   Who needs preservatives, when other ingredients cause the same effect? An example might be soda pop. It's made with phosphoric acid. The level of acidity takes care of the “preservative” function
2. No trans fat
   Does this mean that the oils used were “healthy” oils? Trans fats are byproducts of the hydrogenation process. Removing the trans fats does not make the oil healthy, just less harmful.
3. No sugar added
   Maybe no sugar. But, when you read further, will you find artificial sweeteners, or high fructose corn syrup?
4. Made with 100% fruit juice
   Is this telling me that it contains only 100% fruit juice? Or, is it “made with 100% fruit juice” (along with 50 other ingredients)? Remember, if it has 5% real juice in the fruit punch, it still was made with “100% fruit juice”!
5. Enhanced with.....
   The food was over-processed, they replaced a few nutrients lost in processing.
6. Flavor enhanced
   What did they use to accomplish this “enhancement”? Usually it's MSG, used heavily in processing, and in restaurants. Some pretty strange “natural” substances are used as flavor enhancements. Wholesome foods do not need “flavor enhancement”.
7. Made with whole wheat
   As we discussed with Fruit Juices, any amount of whole wheat makes this a true statement. This does not make this a “whole wheat” product! Rad the label to determine what else it includes.
8. Fortified with.....
   When a product is fortified with vitamins or minerals (iodine in salt, vitamins in cereal and milk, etc) do you consider the source of the additive? Natural vitamins would drive the cost of the product through the roof...it's a marketing tactic.
9. Kid approved
   Throw enough sugar into dog poo, and it would be “kid approved”! Does the ingredient list pass YOUR healthy-eating requirements?
   
   
   As you get more experienced at sharpening your skills, you will get some pretty good laughs at what you find marketed as Healthy Eating!

The Great GMO Debate

How can we really know what we're getting from our grocery store? How can our store owners even know?

While about 93% of our food supply is heavily processed, seriously depleting nutrient values, is that (or the remainder) even safe? Check out the discussion at KSL.com on the lack of requirement in my state to disclose any genetic tampering.

We've discussed GMO a bit earlier. It is my opinion that we need to be aware when our food producers are modifying their products. Somehow this is telling us they are improving on what God created. Perhaps improving our farming practices and education might make their farms both profitable and more natural. Additionally, the more of us that get serious about producing our own foods, the closer we all will come to the source!

View the story at:
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=24070586&nid=757&title=opinion-labeling-genetically-modified-food-not-required-in-utah&fm=home_page&s_cid=featured-4

America's Best Snack Foods!

 

NO! Twinkies are NOT our best snacks food ever! Our food supply has become so overly processed, that it’s not uncommon for a simple snack food to contain a list of 20-30 ingredients of additives, chemicals, flavorings, colorings, high fructose corn syrup, MSG, artificial sweeteners, and more.  Sure, we all love to snack. However, as we've discussed before, can we identify all the 'yummy' things we consume with snacks such as Twinkies (and that's before we deep-fried it)? I'm changing my paradigm regarding munching. 

In my sidebar quotes, you will find a comment that if your great-grandma wouldn't recognize it as food, you perhaps would not want to eat it.

Another consideration is............Try this on for size.....How many ingredients in apple slices?.....or nuts?....or veggie sticks? (How long can you make this list?)

Kinda basic, common sense logic. It really can be that drop-dead simple!

Winter Heating Options!

We quit using our gas furnace in the winter of 2007/2008! Our home is heated by firewood in our woodburning stove! It's great to not need to pay the gas utility! The nature of the heat is different, much more comfortable. The ash from the stove goes back into the ground with my mulch.  Our home is located seven miles from the forest boundry. I enjoy spending time in the summer and fall harvesting wood from our nearby mountains with my kids. One autumn day, we found a geocache crafted from the stump of a large tree. It had a tiny swing near its front door. It even had an upstairs window with two elves behind the window. Below the window was a "Keebler" sign! Every time we head up to that same area, my kids want to hike out to the "Keebler" tree.

That sounds "Closer to the Source" from multiple levels!

Check this out....Back to Eden Gardening

Last spring we looked at information from a gentleman in Washington state who has been very successful in his gardening methods. His information resonates strongly with me! We live at the edge of a national forest. I have often commented about how I much I would love to have the kind of dirt found in our forests! In his video presentation, Paul tells how he has created such a soil in his own acreage. We began preparing our ground, covering about 1/4 to 1/3 of our non-lawn ground with a thick layer of either wood chips or old hay, over newspaper or cardboard. The paper creates a dark weed barrier over the dirt, and the ten-inch mulch layer feeds the soil. The method requires no tilling. Our results last summer and fall were much better than previous efforts. We did not spend the summer fighting weeds, we used less water, and harvested much greater amounts of produce! We are currently preparing to increase our coverage (as soon as we can see the yard). We certainly will keep you posted as things thaw out here!   Check out Paul's video at http://backtoedenfilm.com/

Can You Tell From the Label?

Do you read labels? This label is from a popular oven-ready frozen lasagna dish. What can you learn from the label? This particular package looks better than some!

We should each be able to know several things about these ingredients:
   *  Can I pronounce it?
   * Why is it in my dinner? (flavor enhancement, preservative, etc.)
   *  Does it have any cummulative health effect?    +/-
   *  If I was making this dish, would I be able to indentify each ingredient?


 

The Terrible Tragedy of the Healthy Eater

A friend shared a very humorous blog post with me this evening. I'll not repost the entire entry....just a couple of snippets. I will share the URL for you to enjoy....... http://www.nwedible.com/2012/08/tragedy-healthy-eater.html . There is a minimal usage of some language, causing a PG rating.

"I know you. We have a lot in common. You have been doing some reading and now you are pretty sure everything in the grocery store and your kitchen cupboards is going to kill you......All you want to do is eat a little healthier. Really. Maybe get some of that Activa probiotic yogurt or something. So you look around and start researching what “healthier” means.

That really skinny old scientist dude says anything from an animal will give you cancer. But a super-ripped 60 year old with a best-selling diet book says eat more butter with your crispy T-Bone and you’ll be just fine as long as you stay away from grains. Great abs beat out the PhD so you end up hanging out on a forum where everyone eats green apples and red meat and talks about how functional and badass parkour is.

You learn that basically, if you ignore civilization and Mark Knopfler music, the last 10,000 years of human development has been one big societal and nutritional cock-up and wheat is entirely to blame. What we all need to do is eat like cave-people.

You’re hardcore now, so you go way past way cave-person. You go all the way to The Inuit Diet™.

Some people say it’s a little fringe, but you are committed to live a healthy lifestyle. “Okay,” you say, “let’s do this *!#@,” as you fry your caribou steak and seal liver in rendered whale blubber. You lose some weight which is good, but it costs $147.99 a pound for frozen seal liver out of the back of an unmarked van at the Canadian border.

Even though The Inuit Diet™ is high in Vitamin D, you learn that every disease anywhere can be traced to a lack of Vitamin D (you read that on a blog post) so you start to supplement. 5000 IU of Vitamin D before sitting in the tanning booth for an hour does wonders for your hair luster......" (more at
http://www.nwedible.com/2012/08/tragedy-healthy-eater.html )

Reconnect with Mother Earth!

At some level, we should reconnect with Mother Earth. If we have land (from a small yard to a few acres) we can provide some of our own food. Some cities and towns are allowing, even encouraging limited urban farming, including chickens and more. Even in an apartment, one can grow some produce! Many cities are sponsoring Community Gardens, where local residents subscribe to membership and actually prepare a garden plot, work it, and harvest the crops for the season. A bit larger of a project (overall) is Community Supported Agriculture, or CSA, where members subscribe to the project run as a regular farm operation. Their membership allows them a share of the farm's bounty (or loss), without the time and labor investment.

Here is an excerpt from USDA's website on CSA......
 

Community Supported Agriculture consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community's farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production. Typically, members or "share-holders" of the farm or garden pledge in advance to cover the anticipated costs of the farm operation and farmer's salary. In return, they receive shares in the farm's bounty throughout the growing season, as well as satisfaction gained from reconnecting to the land and participating directly in food production. Members also share in the risks of farming, including poor harvests due to unfavorable weather or pests. By direct sales to community members, who have provided the farmer with working capital in advance, growers receive better prices for their crops, gain some financial security, and are relieved of much of the burden of marketing.

As we get closer to spring, we will be discussing many opportuntunities to renew our relationships with our food source including gardening at many levels.

Can Anyone Define "Natural Flavor"?

I really find it interesting when I read labels on food products in my pantry....(you should try it sometimes!)....items notifying us that this item or that may have been packed on a line where milk products or tree nuts, or peanuts may have been handled. And yet, on the same package, a product contains "Natural Flavor" (you mean, like Beaver Anal Juices?)!  Why the "truth in labeling" when the food producers can put in what they want, and simply call it "Natural Flavor"?  Just some Food For Thought!

Is Your Food Storage Safe?

Have you ever considered the source of your food storage? It has recently come to my attention that most long-term emergency storage foods are based upon genetically modified resources. So, I've begun research in that question. I'll keep you posted!

Deceivingly "Diet" .....Pop quiz

I've actually spent years trying to convince my wife and doctor that my beverage of choice had to be healthy....it actually says "Dr." right in its name!

Deceivingly "Diet" 

 (from Prevention Magazine)

Pop quiz! What’s the single biggest source of calories for Americans? White bread? Big Macs? Actually, try soda. The average American drinks about two cans of the stuff every day. “But I drink diet soda,” you say. “With no calories or sugar, it’s the perfect alternative for weight watchers…. Right?”
Not so fast. Before you pop the top off the caramel-colored bubbly, know this: guzzling diet soda comes with its own set of side effects that may harm your health—from kickstarting kidney problems to adding inches to your waistline.
Unfortunately, diet soda is more in vogue than ever. Kids consume the stuff at more than double the rate of last decade, according to research in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Among adults, consumption has grown almost 25%.
But knowing these 7 side effects of drinking diet soda may help you kick the can for good.

Kidney Problems

Here’s something you didn’t know about your diet soda: It might be bad for your kidneys. In an 11-year-long Harvard Medical School study of more than 3,000 women, researchers found that diet cola is associated with a two-fold increased risk for kidney decline. Kidney function started declining when women drank more than two sodas a day. Even more interesting: Since kidney decline was not associated with sugar-sweetened sodas, researchers suspect that the diet sweeteners are responsible.

Messed-Up Metabolism

According to a 2008 University of Minnesota study of almost 10,000 adults, even just one diet soda a day is linked to a 34% higher risk of metabolic syndrome, the group of symptoms including belly fat and high cholesterol that puts you at risk for heart disease. Whether that link is attributed to an ingredient in diet soda or the drinkers’ eating habits is unclear. But is that one can really worth it?

Obesity

You read that right: Diet soda doesn’t help you lose weight after all. A University of Texas Health Science Center study found that the more diet sodas a person drank, the greater their risk of becoming overweight. Downing just two or more cans a day increased waistlines by 500%. Why? Artificial sweeteners can disrupt the body’s natural ability to regulate calorie intake based on the sweetness of foods, suggested an animal study from Purdue University. That means people who consume diet foods might be more likely to overeat, because your body is being tricked into thinking it’s eating sugar, and you crave more.

A Terrible Hangover

Your first bad decision was ordering that Vodka Diet—and you may make the next one sooner than you thought. Cocktails made with diet soda get you drunker, faster, according to a study out of the Royal Adelaide Hospital in Australia. That’s because sugar-free mixers allow liquor to enter your bloodstream much quicker than those with sugar, leaving you with a bigger buzz.

Cell Damage

Diet sodas contain something many regular sodas don’t: mold inhibitors. They go by the names sodium benzoate or potassium benzoate, and they’re in nearly all diet sodas. But many regular sodas, such as Coke and Pepsi, don’t contain this preservative.
That’s bad news for diet drinkers. "These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it - they knock it out altogether,” Peter Piper, a professor of molecular biology and biotechnology at the University of Sheffield in the U.K., told a British newspaper in 1999. The preservative has also been linked to hives, asthma, and other allergic conditions, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Since then, some companies have phased out sodium benzoate. Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi have replaced it with another preservative, potassium benzoate. Both sodium and potassium benzoate were classified by the Food Commission in the UK as mild irritants to the skin, eyes, and mucous membranes.

Rotting Teeth

With a pH of 3.2, diet soda is very acidic. (As a point of reference, the pH of battery acid is 1. Water is 7.) The acid is what readily dissolves enamel, and just because a soda is diet doesn’t make it acid-light. Adults who drink three or more sodas a day have worse dental health, says a University of Michigan analysis of dental checkup data. Soda drinkers had far greater decay, more missing teeth, and more fillings.

Shop the Perimeter of your Grocery for the Real Foods!

I've worked in the retail industry most of my life. I've also been through many "Healthy Eating" type workshops (otherwise known as WeightWatchers, TOPS, etc.). I've also read a book or two on the topic. They all seem to suggest to skip the interior aisles of the store.  You can conjure up an image of almost every store you've been in - west wall - Fresh Produce; north wall - Fresh Meats & Seafoods; east wall - Dairy; south wall - checkouts! Some variation of this pattern exists in almost every standard grocery (or grocery department of your mega-corporate retailer). Of course, the Frozen Foods are often in those interior fixtures. So, there are always some allowances for modifying the basic rules. However, most of the excessively over processed packaged foods are in the aisles.

Factory Farming vs. Family Farming

I recently read an article from American Farm Bureau that shares a perspective that seems fair to my understanding and experiences. This is not discounting or disclaiming the effects of those companies operating corporate mega-farm systems. The article is two years old and some of the number need updating.  We have the opportunity to live in a region that is primarily agricultural...Norbest Turkeys, numerous sheep & cattle growers, a major hay processor, shipping their products throughout the world. Many of these growers are friends of mine. We all need to be aware and directly involved in our food supply, so, at least our kids know where their BigMac came from! I had to laugh when I came across this image recently....

Factory Farming vs. Family Farming

There's a guy in Illinois who's a farmer. He farms 5,000 acres of corn and soybeans over several areas. He is responsible for all of the business decisions for the operation, including which varieties to plant, when to sell what he harvests and for how much. His tractors and combines are huge machines. They are equipped with laptop computers and the latest GPS technology. As part of his income, he sells seed and cattle equipment to other farmers. He sits on the board of directors for a statewide farm organization, often traveling to meetings and providing input on the operation of county Farm Bureaus in his district. During busy times, he hires outside employees to help get the job done around the farm.
There's another farmer, also from Illinois. As a fifth-generation farmer he takes environmental stewardship seriously, maintaining buffer strips next to water sources on his land. He uses contour planting and no-till farming. He and his kids drink water from the well on his farm. He tends to his animals daily, taking special care when they're sick. He's up in the middle of the night - every night - during calving season to check on birthing cows and heifers and their newborns. Hundreds of school kids visit his farm each year for personal tours to understand how their food grows. Three generations of his family work on the farm.
If you were forced to label one of these farmers as a "family farmer" and one as a "factory farmer," which would be which?
Here's the catch: these two real-life farmers are brothers, in charge of different operations on the very same farm.
How can that be, when everything about the first farmer appears to describe what many believe to be a factory farm? The answer is simple - the term "factory farm" doesn't mean anything. It's a term used by activists to make people assume facts not in evidence. They know you'll hear or read the term and assume it means something bad. But do you know what they mean? Do they mean a farm over a certain size? If so, what is that size? A hundred acres? Five hundred? Is it a farm that raises animals for meat, instead of just milk, eggs and companionship? A farm that plants biotech crops? Is it a farm that makes a certain amount of money? Does it have to be all of the above - or just any one of the above?
If you do a Google search for "factory farm" you get about 260,000 results. The first entry, from dictionary.com, defines a factory farm as "a farm in which animals are bred and fattened using modern industrial methods." Conjures up the image of robots forcing animals to mate on a conveyor belt while they're being stuffed full of food, doesn't it?
Wikipedia's definition is this: "a systematic effort to produce the highest output at the lowest cost by relying on economies of scale, modern machinery, biotechnology, and global trade." By this definition, a farmer trying to maximize efficiency to turn a profit - and using anything but horses and oxen to work the fields - is a factory farmer. But, as Russ Parsons of the Los Angeles Times wrote earlier this year, "farming without a financial motive is gardening."
We are blessed in this country to have plenty of food and many options...conventionally-produced food, organic, locally grown. The truth is that no matter the size of the producer or the type of food produced, a profit must be made so that money can be re-invested and the farmer can provide for his or her family.
Activists would have you believe that because someone farms a large number of acres or raises a lot of animals, he does a bad job; he endangers the environment and mistreats his animals. Not true. Quality assurance programs, regulations and inspection programs keep farmers accountable. And when someone tells you that America is being over-run by "factory farms," know that 98 percent of all farms nationwide are owned by farm families. Beware of labels. They can be misleading, vague, even meaningless.

Who Controls Our Food Source?

Way back when I was in my youth, I recall a visit to Disneyland. A star of the Tommorowland exhibit was Monsanto, taking guest into a microscope to tour their microscopic modification...improving the “health and nutrition” of a growing world population, selling the youth of America on the benefits of genetic modification. Today the concept of genetic modification is reality. Monsanto today holds 90 percent of all genetically modified seeds in the world. You may ask how a private partner of the federal government owns such a stunning percentage control over our food supply.

That’s right, Monsanto. Millions of stories have been written about that company, hundreds of thousands of farmers have felt what it is like to deal with Monsanto – either as its ally or its enemy. Whatever your personal stand is, many are passionate in their belief regarding Monsanto trying to take over the world seed supply, nation by nation! He who controls the seed controls the food supply; and he who controls the food supply controls the world. There is no question that Monsanto is on a mission to monopolize the conventional seed market. In fact, the company is steadfastly working towards the goal of creating a world where 100% of all commercial seeds are genetically modified and patented – basically a world where natural seeds are extinct.

Over the years, Monsanto convinced the world's growers of the safety and benefits of using their patented seed source, got the contracts signed. Now, if your neighbor is using their patented seed, and you are not, you may find yourself in the gunsights of the mega-corporation for damaging their client's crop................just some Food For Thought!

Define "Single Ingredient Food" !

How might you define "Single Ingredient Food"? Something like the Cabbage Soup diet? Maybe the Grapefruit, Negative-Calorie, or Apple Cider Vinegar diet?

 

Actually, NO! However, can you identify each ingredient in your meals? I've read that if you go to Ronald's place...the one with arches, and buy a BigMac meal, including fries and a soda, you've consumed over 110 different ingredients (many of which you can't even pronounce). And reports claim that the Subway at the other end of the mall serves up a similar (or greater) number of unidentifiable substances!

If you make a green salad, with lettuces, cucumbers, tomatos, radished, etc., each ingredient is known to you. When we make mashed potatoes, we begin with fresh, whole spuds, and can actually identify what's in the finished product.

My quest in this is to learn and apply in our family, and then share what we are learning! Some of you are aware that we are changing our approach to preparing and managing our home gardening methods. We will discuss over time how all this drives us "CLOSER TO THE SOURCE"!

Do We Read Labels?

We, as thinking people, should be reading product labels. Whether cleaning products or food labels, do we have any clue what we are exposed to on a regular basis.

When you carefully wash Baby's high-chair tray, set her into the chair and buckle the safety belt, then proceed to place her carefully prepared food directly on the tray, is it still safe? Or, is there a residue of the cleaning solution putting those cleaning chemicals on her food?

Have you ever seen the 1981 movie with Lily Tomlin...The Incredible Shrinking Woman? When an ordinary woman is exposed to a broad mix of chemicals in hair products, cleaning solutions (everyday household stuff), she begins to uncontrollably physically shrink.....funny stuff!

Dr Oz reports that BEAVER ANAL GLAND JUICE (or castoreum) is used in Hard Candy and other food products, and is simply listed as "natural flavor". (There’s a joke in there somewhere.)

I was looking at the nutrition label of a bag of shredded cheese at the store this morning. All the cheese ingredients were the same as a brick of the same unshredded product, except for the sawdust (I mean "cellulose" for anti-caking)!

Evolution in Blogging!

A little over a year ago, someone decided that they needed our Sun Oven more than we did. We were actually using it to cook lunch on a job site when it, along with its contents disappeared! We miss it.

However, we're redirecting this blog to the study of "Single Ingredient Foods" and an overall improvement in our production, preparation, and consumption of the goods we use (both food and nonfood items). We have not removed the "SunOven" content, as it still has merit to the topic of healthy methods of food preparation.