Today's Scenic View

30 Days: an Experiment in Something New

Time to check in.  How are those New Years Resolutions?  Do you remember them?  Are you still going strong, slowly adding in something new every 6 weeks or so as I had suggested way back when?  Well if you feel you have stalled out and even though summer is just around the corner, here is a great little talk from TED Talks about how to change your life 30 days at a time.  I hope you enjoy and maybe, try something new.

Monsanto bringing Agent Orange back from the dead

I received this very important and rather disturbing email this morning.  While genetically modified foods have silently slipped by under our noses and on to our plates.  There is a point where we as consumers need to say STOP!  Read the article below, do your own research if you are not that familiar with Agent Orange, and please if you care even the tiniest bit about what goes into your food that will eventually go into you, your children, the soil, rivers, and drinking water; please go to the link below and sign the petition to stop this from happening.

http://sumofus.org/campaigns/24-d/?akid=374.482998.JUedcg&rd=1&sub=fwd&t=3

Next week, the USDA will decide whether to allow Monsanto and Dow to introduce one half of the chemical mixture Agent Orange into our food supply. Wide scale use of Roundup has led to a new generation of resistant weeds, and the next step in the pesticide arms race is 2,4-D — a chemical linked to cancer, Parkinson’s and reproductive problems. [1]

Farmers that sign up to use genetically-engineered 2,4-D-resistant corn will be required to spray down their fields with both 2,4-D and Roundup, double-dosing our food, our soil and our waterways with the toxins. Some experts estimate this will increase the use of 2,4-D 50-fold, even though the EPA says the chemical is already our seventh-largest source of dioxins — nasty, highly toxic chemicals that bioaccumulate as they move up the food chain and cause cancer, developmental damage, and birth defects.

We can stop this. The use of 2,4-D is banned entirely in parts of Canada and Europe, and right now the US Department of Agriculture is accepting public comments on 2,4-D to decide whether or not to approve the widespread industrial use of the toxin.

This is part of a growing problem, an escalating herbicide war going on across America’s heartland. From 1996 to 2008, herbicide usage increased by 383 million pounds. Nealy half of this took place between 2007 and 2008 after the introduction of another strain of herbicide-resistant plant pushed by Dow. Like Roundup before it, 2,4-D is only a temporary solution that will require more and more tons of toxins and more and more potent chemicals leaching into our food supply.

2,4-D is nasty stuff and has been linked to a number of health problems, such as tripling the rates of non-Hodgkins lymphoma in Nebraska farm workers exposed to it and causing reproductive problems — birth defects and high rates of miscarriage — in both mice and men exposed to it in the lab and field. [2]

-Kaytee, Claiborne Taren and the RestOfUs

Citations and further reading:

Overview of the toxic effects of 2,4-D, Sierra Club, January 2005.
A Case-Control Study of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and the Herbicide 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic Acid (2, 4-D) in Eastern Nebraska, Epidemiology, 1990.
Reregistration Eligibility Decision for 2,4-D, EPA, June 2005
chemicalWATCH Factsheet, Beyond Pesticides, July 2004
GM Crops Increase Herbicide Use in the United States, Institute of Science in Society, January 2010
Study Links Weed Killer to Reproductive Problems, Los Angeles Times, September 2002
Agent Orange in Your Backyard: The Harmful Pesticide 2,4-D, The Atlantic, February 2012
'Agent Orange' Corn: The next stage in the chemical arms race, The Center for Food Safety, February 2012

Quote of the day

“The food you eat can either be the safest & most powerful form of medicine, or the slowest form of poison.”

~ Ann Wigmore

Juice of the Month or Spring & the Allergies it Brings

I cannot believe that it is spring time already; and where did March go?  Life certainly ran away with me -so- to all those who were diligently reading along -I apologize.

Spring in this Northern Midwest City has certainly come earlier than usual with an arrival of about 5 weeks premature; great for the growing season, for getting outside and enjoying the mild temperatures, the budding leaves, and abundance of spring flowers.  Alas this also means spring allergies, for those who suffer, have started early and will probably linger as spring stretches on for possibly the next few months leading into summer.

I had thought about the best spring juice to portray; one full of fresh baby leaf lettuces; lettuce requiring the cooler temperatures of spring and mid fall to really pack a powerhouse of growth and nutrients.  Yet, while I was perusing through the facebook page of my favorite Juice Guru, Jay Kordich, I ran across a recipe of two wonderful juices that boost the body’s natural ability to protect against those awful spring allergen irritants.  While the quantities of the three ingredients in his juices may seem daunting, and will certainly produce enough for two, like all recipes with diligence and care they can be reduced down to an amount suitable for just one person.

So without further delay: Here are two juices that will help you fight back!

Carrot/Beet/Cucumber
10 carrots + 1 small beet + 1 cucumber

Carrot/Dandelion/Cucumber
10 carrots + 6 dandelion leaves + 1 cucumber

A side note on the use of dandelion greens.  Make sure that you buy them organically from your local grocer or co-op.  You want to avoid the ones that grow proliferously in your own yard or along the side of the road due to contamination by pesticides, herbicides, road de-icer chemicals, and other random car pollutants.

Recipe and photo provided by Jay Kordich.

Today's Scenic View

A plate full of happiness!

Juice of the Month

With the citrus season coming to an end and the first spring produce still off in the distance; I would like to focus on root vegetables.  Often forgotten, except maybe in the occasional salad, as a side dish of mashed and fattening creaminess, or only at holidays in pickled form, root vegetables comprise more than the traditional potato -sweet or russet- or the bright orange hues of carrots, there are also beets, yams, onions, garlic, radishes, and a wonderful spicy root -ginger.

Edible roots were often left in the ground to keep over the winter, and as long as they could be found beneath the snow added much needed minerals and some vitamins when fresh fruit and delicate greens were gone.  So in honor of these troopers of the earth the juice for February will be a rich one comprised of beets and a hint of sweet apple.

Beets, once believed in ancient times that the color of these ruby-red roots would benefit the blood.  And with the wonderful mélange of minerals they weren't far off in that thought.  Beets contain iron, calcium, sulfur, potassium, and chlorine as well as beta carotene and vitamin C.  Because of the wealth of minerals beets are great additions to any meal or juice in that they promote a healthy liver and gall bladder as well as building blood corpuscles and cells, and stimulating the lymph glands.

Simply Beet

The simplest beet juice includes one beet with the green tops with two apples (preferably organic).  Since beets are a very hard root vegetable if you do not have a juicer you will want to slice them and lightly steam them before placing them in a blender, you'll want to add a little fresh water as well so your juice is more juice and less chunky smoothie.  Be careful with pure beet juice the deep red color which is full of carotene will stain cutting surfaces, clothing, your fingers ... you get the idea.

[Serves 2]

Some other variations include:

AAA Juice -a great combination of ingredients that will give your immune system a boost, keeping you healthy while everyone else gets sick.

3 carrots, 1 stalk of celery, 1 apple, 1/2 beet (with the greens), 1/2 a handful of wheatgrass, and 1/2 a handful of parsley.

[Serves 1]

Note: This juice definitely deserves a juicer

The Red Roar -the sweeter the apple the tastier the drink

5 carrots, 1 apple, 1/4 beet (with greens)

[Serves 1]

Juice recipes courtesy of:

Kordich, Jay (1993).  The Juiceman’s Power of Juicing. New York, NY: Warner Books.