Are you a meat lover? Then you better read this!

    I'm a meat lover that flirts with being a vegetarian. I just love those juicy nibblets of delectable meat that is liver and fatty meat that you should only eat in small portions, after all "pork fat rules" as the saying goes. I also know that eating a diet of mostly raw fresh foods with lots of color and fiber is best for you and over the years have tried to include more and more vegetables and fiber in my diet.  Now after what I heard on the radio a couple of days ago and after a little more research I might stop eating any kind of meat except for what is considered organic or free range. I just found out that on April 15, 2011 a study came out that tested 136 samples of meat in grocery stores. Of those tested 47% tested positive for staff bacteria. Of that 47% , 52% were the strain that is resistant to antibiotics. Further study shows that since 1982 there have been 30 major outbreaks of e coli. I find it interesting that also in 1985 mad cow disease showed up for the first time.  Seriously! Am I the only one that thinks our meat industry might be going down  the wrong road? There seems to be a direct correlation between the growth of big industrial farms and giant feed lots with the outbreaks of these potentially very harmful bacterias. I ask you, Is our food supply safe? Is the way our food  handled, grown and managed in the best interest of the health of the people? Or is our food supply managed with just consideration for the dollars and cents? Do you know where that tomato, cut of beef or fruit that is in your refrigerator comes from? 

Libraries A Great Institution

           One of the greatest institutions in this country is its library system. I’ve been in libraries all over the country. All have internet, most are free and don’t ask for any kind of ID. If your out on the road and lonely you can spend a day in a warm toasty place with smiling people, clean bathrooms and get lost in books and magazines that take you anywhere you want to go. The library in Boulder has aquariums. Grand County which is where I know reside has very small towns. They are not doing the best. Store fronts are empty a lot of houses and business for sale. The libraries are mostly new and refreshing. In Granby the library has chess boards . All the libraries have comfortable sitting areas and the staffs are very friendly. The library in Kremmling has an after school program and the librarian walks the children the two or three blocks from the school to the library. They all have free programs and free movies. You can check out a guitar or key board and a video or book to go along with it.  Starting in May there is an online program called “prospector”. With it you can request just about any book or video made. There can not be enough good things said about our library system and we should all support it when ever possible. 

Crop report

  If you read my blog on "Monsanto" being the devil, you may recall I mentioned the danger of our present system of big farms and monoculture. I get a produce report emailed to me by one of my food suppliers. the most recent tells me that there will be a shortage of potatoes. It seems the farmers in Idaho didn't plant as many potatoes as the had in the past, then they had a bad year for their crop resulting in less yields of potatoes. The shortage actually started with the larger baking potatoes but now everyone is trying to compensate by buying the smaller potatoes which has created a shortage in them. It will only affect the consumer in the pocketbook but I suspect some of the smaller growers, even with crop insurance and government subsides, will be driven out of business. this would be less likely to happen with a diversified farm.

Given the present state of our governments finacial situation, I think this is a valid question

    If  pro is the opposite of con. Is congress the opposite of progress???????????

Arms Merchant or Peace Merchant

     I was happy when I heard that President Obama wasn't going to let our involvement in Libya turn into another Iraq. Yesterday I heard a snip of one of his speeches on the radio and was disturbed to hear him say we might supply the rebels with weapons. We don't know who these rebels are or their background. If you look at our history , our government doesn't have a great record of who we support. We trained and armed Osama Bin Laden. we supported the Sha of Iran and the list goes on.
     Why do we have to be the arms merchant and police force of the world?  I say we need a new mission, a new direction. We need to be the merchant of peace. We need to start being the merchant of education, of seeds and trees. In this age and time dictators run their course and eventually a new crowd comes along and throws that dictator out. The only way to break the cycle is for the people to want our way of life. All the bombs in the world didn't bring down Communism. It was the desire of the people to want our way of life. That's what the people of Mexico want that are coming over here illegally. A better way of life. why not instead of building walls and fences we spend that money on education and helping the people build better lives in their own countries. Why don't we build bridges instead of fences? Why don't we export peace instead of weapons?    

"Monsanto" is the devil and corn is the devil's diet

Or at least that’s what these three video’s I just watched would make you believe.
        I just watched: “King Corn”
                                “Food Inc”
                                 “The Future of Food”
       Very eye opening. Working in the food industry, I knew of some of these things but these videos really bring to light and make you think about how our food and farms, like all other areas of our lives are being corporatized and manipulated by big business. "Monsanto" is going after small farmers whose crops have been pollinated with their genetically engineered seeds by the wind for patent infringement. While our government is subsidizing large corporate farms to grow just one crop, mainly corn. Its pushing the small family farm out. While they put corn syrup in EVERYTHING , even batteries giving us cheap unhealthy food that is making us fat and sickly. The facts these videos give about the diabetes rate and the obesity rate and the time table at which it all coincides with the corn syrup entering the food supply is a real eye opener. I know from my own experience of trying to get high fructose corn syrup out of my diet,  it is almost impossible. Next time you go to the grocery store read some labels on the stuff you are buying. Its crazy, even bread and yogurt.
      Then there is the possibility of crop failure, all those millions of acres of corn gone, farmers losing their farms. Can you picture something worse then the “Great Potato Blight” of Ireland, it could happen, I really don’t know the chances, maybe they are small, but its still a chance.
      I suggest supporting your local food co-op, supporting your local farmers market, buying from your local farms when ever possible. Buying grass fed beef, free range chicken, naturally raised and wild meats when ever possible. READ the labels on the products you buy from the store. Look for brands that don’t have corn syrup or sucrose. Support “Farm Aide”
    Watch these videos
      

A Law I Can Get Behind

“In our every deliberation we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”
        From the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy
     I love that! What if everyone and all nations lived by that?
I’ve been using “Seventh Generation” products for some time now. I just love that whole philosophy.
     Consider this: If every household in the U.S. replaced just one roll of 112 sheet virgin fiber paper towels with a 100% recycled product we could save:
                                                                                            568,000 trees
                                                                                             205 million gallons of water, a years supply for over 1,600 families of four
                                                                                             1.4 million cubic feet of landfill space, equal to over 2100 full garbage trucks.
        This is not hard to accomplish folks. The recycled is not any more expensive then the virgin fiber. We just need to be mindful of what we are buying and what we can accomplish by what we buy.