Happy Harvest

Liver detox

I am doing my annual liver detox this week - it is the week of Unleavened Bread, so I am already not eating much white flour -- a built in excuse to skip gluten right there. The detox is easy in the spring, because of the abundance of fresh greens, asparagus, strawberries, and other necessary foods. Follow the links at the end of each post for the full instructions. I always feel so much better after a detox - I am really looking forward to next week and the boost in my energy level!

More "food safety" bills before Congress

HR875 - ways to take action

HR875 is currently in committee in the House. The committees which are researching it, and their members, are listed here. You can also keep checking the current status of the bill on this website. There are a few petitions started, and other ways to track and network about this bill.

Don't stop with just contacting the committee members, although that is a great first step. We all need to let our own Congresspeople know our thoughts about this bill, so that when it comes up for a vote, he or she will know a significant portion of his constituents are opposed, and are paying attention to his vote on this bill. Also, we need to be spreading the word on the dangerous nature of this bill to everyone we know.

Blogkeeping

I have been going through the links on the sidebars, since I noticed some of them were broken. So I have repaired all of them on the left sidebar. There are so many, that it took time! Next I will do the links on the right sidebar. I think I will print out a bunch of the info I have linked to, and bind it in a notebook, in case the Internet ever goes down just when you think it might be handy to know how to do a few things.

I just want to highlight some of the changes I made to the left sidebar. Under :: home business ::, I found a great website which lists CPSIA compliant suppliers, for artisan and home- based businesses. Each of the suppliers has had their raw materials tested and has certified proof of their compliance with the law. Under :: natural healing ::, I added a link to the Healthier Talk Forum, which is a regular discussion board, but which also features articles from the giants in nutritional healting, such as Dr. Mercola and Dr. Gittleman. There is always interesting and informative discussions going on over there!

I have more links waiting in the wings, which I will highlight once I get the right sidebar done. Stay tuned.

Stopping HR875

I have been blogging about HR875 since February. Here is a recap of my post and the news and opinion articles I have been able to find about it:

Monsanto's Dream Bill (HR875) at Dr Joseph Mercola's site
Change we can believe in? (HR875) at Cryptogon.com
Glenn Beck on the food safety modernization act (HR875)
and commentary on Hot Air.com
Lose your property for growing food? World Net Daily
Is HR875 set to wipe out organic farming?

So now what do we do? If we flood Washington DC with calls and letters voicing our extreme displeasure, if ENOUGH of us call, over and over again, Congresspeople are still enough in love with their cushy life at taxpayer's expense to not do something if they believe that We the People will make them pay at re-election time. Start by calling your local Congressman. After you have let him know that you are opposed to this bill, and why, ask his staff to direct you to the committee looking at this bill. Your Congressman's office should be able to give you the names and phone numbers of every Congressman on that committee. Call them and let them know why you are opposed to this bill. It could be, like CPSIA, that they are rushing something without thinking through all the ramifications, merely for the sake of seeming to be doing something about the peanut butter contamination. Don't get me started, LOL. In the old days, haste was considered the mark of a fool.

And as I discover more and more about this bill, I will keep everyone informed as best I can. And if you discover something I have missed, leave me a link or a comment or send me an e-mail, and I will get the word out. And please, tell everyone you know about this bill. We need it go viral and the opposition to come from the grassroots.

HR 875, again

More and more media outlets are beginning to sound the alarm about HR 875, the misnamed Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009. This bill is designed to do to small farmers what the CPSIA has the potential to do to small business. This article is good because it delves into Monsanto, the GMO seed giant whose executives are all over this bill, and who stands to benefit the most from the destruction of organic and small family farms.

HFCS in ice cream

I promised I would follow up on high fructose corn syrup in ice cream shop ice cream, and this is what I have found out:

Dairy Queen: contains sugar and corn syrup.

Cold Stone Creamery: Sweet Cream Ice Cream is a base for most of their flavors. It contains sugar and corn syrup. Chocolate Ice Cream is the base for their chocolate flavors. It contains sugar. Those are the safest flavors. Some of the additions to their flavors (fudge swirl, cinnamon bun, cake batter) do contain HFCS, and many of the candy and cookie add ins also contain HFCS.

Baskin Robbins: many of the flavors have only sugar and corn syrup, but some of them have HFCS.

Ben & Jerry's: an ingredient list was not available on their website; but I imagine it is the same as the ingredients on their pints in the grocery store.

Next I am going to have to look into coffee flavorings that Starbucks uses ...

Proof high fructose corn syrup turns immediately to fat

This is the best explanation I have read on the connection between high fructose corn syrup and obesity, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes. I never buy anything with high fructose corn syrup in it, but I just got to thinking -- does ice cream such as Dairy Queen or Coldstone Creamery or one of those places where you stop in for a cone, have HFCS in it? I wonder if it does. I have ice cream vary rarely, and never from the grocery store, but once in a while my husband and I will stop at a local ice cream place and get a cone. If so, that might be my last source of HFCS in my diet. I am going to investigate this, and I will let you know what I find out.

Cure for the common cold

Yes, a cure does exist: vitamin D, that is made in your body in response to sunlight. A new study finds that people with the lowest blood levels of vitamin D, also had the highest incidences of colds and flu, and the findings were dramatically increased in people with asthma. This new evidence confirms a theory published two years ago in the medical journal Epidemiology and Infection, which postulated that the flu was simply a symptom of vitamin D deficiency.

I would like to add a hearty AMEN! I used to suffer with colds every winter, however my husband and I moved to Florida at the beginning of the winter season, and I have not had a single cold or respiratory illness this winter. But I have also been out walking in the sunshine every day. The outdoors is good for your health, get as much of it as you can!

HR 875, again

Back in February, I asked Is HR875 set to wipe out organic farming? I looked for other media outlets sounding the alarm on this bill, without success. But now, WND has taken up the issue: Lose your property for growing food? Yes, it is this bad. Call the Congresspeople. Let's stop this monstrosity in its tracks. Let's not end up with another CPSIA boondoogle that ends life as we know it.