Category Archives: organics

organics

Sweet potato experiment!

Posted on March 12, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Sometimes a short video can sum up what might have been a rather boring blog post…

→ Leave a comment

Posted in organic farming, organics, real food, toxic chemicals, wellness

Got milk (with or without hormones?)

Posted on October 23, 2011 by | Leave a comment

There is one food you may be surprised to learn, that is directly linked to breast cancer—and that is pasteurized dairy in the form of milk or milk products.

The risk lies in consuming milk from cows treated with a synthetic, genetically engineered growth hormone called rBGH, and unfortunately, this applies to about one third of the dairy cows in America.

When you consume dairy products from these cows, every product made from their milk is contaminated with this dangerous hormone—be it cheese, ice cream, yogurt, butter—or just plain milk.

Cows are injected with rBGH to boost their milk production.

But science has proven this practice, although profitable to the industry, comes at a high price to you, as well as to dairy cows. RBGH, or recombinant bovine growth hormone, is a synthetic version of natural bovine somatotropin (BST), a hormone produced in cows’ pituitary glands.

RBGH is the largest selling dairy animal drug in America.

But it is banned in Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and in the 27 countries of the European Union because of its dangers to human health. Many have tried to inform the public of the risks of using this hormone in dairy cows, but their attempts have been met with overwhelming opposition by the powerful dairy and pharmaceutical industries, and their government liaisons.

In our house we do try to always buy hormone free and/or organic milk.. and raw milk when I can get to the farm.  We try to choose raw  milk cheese when we can and organic, hormone free yoghurt.  But I cannot count the number of times we eat out and all this goes out of the window.  It seems impolite to ask what milk or cheese they use when we are in a restaurant, but I should really try hard to put my English-ness aside sometimes and demand to know where the get their dairy products.  Likewise, the next time I buy ice-cream I will try to remember to ask for the record, if they know whether it contains growth hormones.  If we all did the same, we might eventually get the industry to change it’s ways.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in animal foods, cancer, dairy, nutrition, organic farming, organics, raw milk, real food

Tagged , , ,

What should we eat… and why?

Posted on September 16, 2011 by | 5 Comments


Over the past few years I have read some fascinating nutrition books that discuss the essential ingredients required to live a long and healthy life. I finally woke up to the reality that we are what we eat, not so much for my own health as for the growing baby in my belly.  One of my first thoughts when I saw that positive test (after OMG) was I need folic acid!  Since I was in Mexico at the time and about to sail across the pacific, I had only enough time to run into Walmart and buy a pre-natal multivitamin!  I had no idea what I should be eating whilst pregnant – except that I was eating for two, woohoo!  Beyond my awareness that folic acid was somehow important, my nutritional knowledge was fairly limited (I ate sushi whilst sailing, which apparently isn’t very wise).  I knew I should eat less cakes and more vegetables, and had the idea that lean chicken breast was better for you than bacon, but I equated that more to calories than anything else.

About a year into motherhood, having exhausted all there was to read about breastfeeding and attachment parenting,  I happened to see a friend of mine reading Alicia Silverstone’s The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet
and bought myself a copy. I was less than half way through the book before I decided I must become a vegan. It was the only sane choice for the planet and instant health and vitality for me and my kids (I was pretty sure that my husband would be less than keen – breakfast for him was either 4 eggs with butter and salt or nothing). So I started presenting the family with tasty risottos and experimental couscous concoctions, stocking up on tahini, miso, tofu burgers and soy milk. I even resorted to trying vegan cheese, which went immediately in the bin with a small bite out of it, bleurgh! After a few weeks of successfully refusing animal products and trying to think of new and interesting ways to cook lentils, I discovered a book called Real Food, by Nina Planck. Call me fickle and easy swayed, but this made a lot more sense! Nina grew up on a farm in Virginia, eating piles of fresh fruits and vegetables every day, along with plenty of fresh raw milk from the family cow. She opened the first farmer’s markets in London and tempted by England’s finest producers of roast beef and raw milk cheddar, she wondered about the advice most Americans get about diet. After what she describes as some dutiful, dull, and unhealthy years in the vegan, vegetarian, and non-fat wilderness, she came back to real food.

It made me think back to a holiday I went on with my parents to Normandy, northern France when I was maybe 10 years old.  My sister and I learned our first words of french as we went to the farmer each morning and asked for ‘un litre de lait s’il vous plait’.  The milk was thick and creamy and usually still warm, a delicious treat.  I also remember that as a kid we used to have to shake our glass milk bottles when they arrived from the milkman because the cream would rise to the top.  These days the pasteurised, homogenised milk available in the supermarket is barely recognisable and we’re all encouraged to buy the lowest fat milk we can tolerate if we haven’t already switched to almond, soy or rice milk.

Nina Planck’s book inspired me to shop at our local fortnightly farmer’s market in Stamford, Lincolnshire which had a raw milk & cheese seller as well as a couple of local meat farmers offering grass-fed beef and pork products.  They were more expensive than Tesco of course, but very tasty, great quality products.  Before we moved to the US, I was trying to incorporate these items into our weekly shop, but convenience often prevailed as I resorted back to our weekly delivered supermarket groceries.  Now that we live in Massachusetts, we have discovered other great sources of these products.  Trader Joe’s have grass-fed ground beef and raw milk cheese, though I doubt we will see any raw milk offered in supermarkets anytime soon!  We are lucky enough to have a fabulous raw milk dairy about 15 minutes from where we live and I must make more effort to get over there and buy it regularly.

The next book I read on my nutritional journey was Cure Tooth Decay.  Here I discovered the work of Weston A. Price (1870-1948), a prominent dentist known primarily for his theories on the relationship between nutrition, dental health, and physical health. In 1939 Price published Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, a book that details a series of ethnographic nutritional studies performed by him across diverse cultures, including the Lötschental in Switzerland, Native Americans, Polynesians, Pygmies, and Aborigines, among many others. In the book, Price claimed that various diseases endemic to Western cultures of the 1920s and 1930s – from dental caries to tuberculosis – were rarely present in non-Western cultures. He argued that as non-Western groups abandoned indigenous diets and adopted Western patterns of living they also showed increases in typically Western diseases, and concluded that Western methods of commercially preparing and storing foods stripped away vitamins and minerals necessary to prevent these diseases.

The Weston A. Price Foundation is a charity founded in 1999 to disseminate the research of the nutrition pioneer whose studies of isolated peoples established the parameters of human health and determined the optimum characteristics of human diets.  Dr. Price’s research demonstrated that humans achieve perfect physical form and perfect health generation after generation only when they consume nutrient-dense whole foods and the vital fat-soluble activators found exclusively in animal fats.

Kaayla Daniel (aka the Naughty Nutritionist) writes for the Weston A. Price Foundation.  “As to the vegan myth that animal foods cause the diseases of modern civilization, you gotta be kidding! The 20th century saw a decline in the consumption of meat, dairy and butter but a sharp increase in the consumption of sugar, corn syrup, white flour, liquid and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, artificial flavorings, preservatives and other known health hazards of processed, packaged and fast foods. All health problems associated with animal products — as well as cruelty to animals and threats to the environment – are the result of factory farming and other commercial and non-sustainable farming practices. In other words, The Naughty Nutritionist is not recommending factory farms or supermarket products.”

You can find the full version of Kaayla’s latest blog post at:

http://www.westonaprice.org/blogs/kdaniel

→ 5 Comments

Posted in animal foods, attachment parenting, dairy, health, nutrition, organics, plant foods, raw milk, real food, vegan, wellness, weston price

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to calculate your healthy eating score

Posted on September 15, 2011 by | Leave a comment

This is another interesting video from nutritionfacts.org

Trying to calculate an average score is probably quite difficult without writing down everything you eat for a week.. because we all do better on some days than others, right? Yesterday, for example I was probably on target for at least a 75, I had a fruit smoothie for breakfast, lentils and a salad for lunch.. and then we went out for dinner! Even though my fish and vegetable pasta dish wasn’t the worst thing on the menu, it wasn’t very leafy or green. And dessert, though apple-related, wasn’t exactly a healthy option!

Today got off to a bad start.. well how can you be expected to resist a luscious lemon cupcake when it’s on offer?! I shall try to make up for it with a lentil lunch and lots of organic chai.

Leave me a comment and let me know what your score is (at least for today!).

→ Leave a comment

Posted in antioxidants, health, nutrition, organics, plant foods, real food, vegan

Avoiding the dirty dozen – those fruits and vegetables most contaminated with pesticides

Posted on September 7, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Environmental Working Group has released the seventh edition of its Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce with updated information on 53 fruits and vegetables and their total pesticide loads.  EWG highlights the worst offenders with its “Dirty Dozen” list and the cleanest conventional produce with its “Clean 15” list.

Analysts at EWG synthesized data collected from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration from 2000 to 2009.  Produce is ranked based on a composite score, equally weighing six factors that reflect how many pesticides was found in testing of on each type of the produce and at what levels.  Most samples are washed and peeled prior to being tested, so the rankings reflect the amounts of the chemicals likely present on the food when is it eaten.

Notable changes in the new guide included apples’ rank as the most contaminated produce, jumping three spots from last year to replace celery at the top of the “Dirty Dozen” list.  According to USDA, pesticides showed up on 98 percent of the more than 700 apple samples tested.

1 Apple Apples
2 Celery Celery
3 Strawberries Strawberries
4 Peaches Peaches
5 Spinach Spinach
6 Nectarines Nectarines  – imported
7 Grapes Grapes – imported
8 Red Pepper Sweet bell peppers
9 Potatoe Potatoes
10 BlueberriesBlueberries  – domestic
11 Lettuce Lettuce
12 KaleKale/collard greens

Making an appearance in the guide for the first time is the herb cilantro, which had never been tested by USDA until now.  The data showed 33 unapproved pesticides on 44 percent of the cilantro samples tested, which is the highest percentage of unapproved pesticides recorded on any item included in the guide since EWG started tracking the data in 1995.

Also appearing in the guide for the first time are green onions, cranberries and mushrooms.  Mushrooms made the “Clean 15” list, while honeydew was the only item to drop off that list this year.  Cherries dropped off the “Dirty Dozen” list, but lettuce, which has made the list in previous years, were back on.

“Though buying organic is always the best choice, we know that sometimes people do not have access to that produce or cannot afford it,” said EWG President Ken Cook.  “Our guide helps consumers concerned about pesticides to make better choices among conventional produce, and lets them know which fruits and vegetables they may want to buy organic.”

Pesticides can be extremely toxic to human health and the environment. U.S. and international government agencies alike have linked pesticides to nervous system toxicity, cancer, hormone system disruption and IQ deficits among children.

“I really worry that pesticides on food are unhealthy for the tender, developing brains and bodies of young children,” said Dr. Harvey Karp, MD, FAAP, creator of the book/DVD The Happiest Baby on the Block.  ”Parents don’t realize they’re often feeding their little ones fruits and veggies with the highest pesticide residues.  Studies show even small amounts of these chemicals add up and can impair a child’s health when they’re exposed during the early, critical stages of their development.  When pesticide sprayers have to bundle up in astronaut-like suits for protection, it’s clear parents want to feed their families food containing as little of these toxic chemicals as possible.”

“Pesticides, while designed specifically to kill certain organisms, are also associated with a host of very serious health problems in people, including neurological deficits, ADHD, endocrine system disruption and cancer,” said Andrew Weil, MD, Founder and Director, Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine and a renowned medical expert on natural health and wellness. “My advice to consumers is to whenever possible avoid exposure to pesticides, including pesticide residues on food.”

Consumers who choose five servings of fruits and vegetables a day from EWG’s Clean 15 list rather than from the Dirty Dozen can lower the volume of pesticides they consume by 92 percent, according to EWG’s calculations.  They will also eat fewer types of pesticides. Picking five servings of fruits and vegetables from the 12 most-contaminated products would result in consuming an average of 14 different pesticides a day.  Choosing five servings from the 15 least contaminated fruits and vegetables would result in consuming fewer than two pesticides per day.

The health benefits of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables outweigh the risks of pesticide exposure, and EWG strongly recommends that everyone follow USDA’s recommendation to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables every day. The Shopper’s Guide makes it easy to meet that goal while reducing your exposure to pesticides.

EWG’s Shoppers Guide is available for fee as a PDF download at http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in antioxidants, nutrition, organic farming, organics, plant foods, vegan

Tagged , , , , ,

Is chocolate good for your heart?

Posted on September 2, 2011 by | Leave a comment

I can’t get enough of John Robbin’s blog lately. If you’ve never heard the name, his father is one half of the famous Baskin-Robbins ice cream empire. He turned down the opportunity to follow in his father’s footsteps, instead taking off to a tiny island with his wife, where they grew 90% of their food for ten years. I have some of his many books on my Amazon wishlist right now, but for now the blog is a wealth of interesting reading.

This post highlights some of the many health benfits of my favourite indulgence. So grab yourself a small bar of dark, fairtrade, organic choclate and enjoy!

Chocolate’s Startling Health Benefits

March 16th, 2011

The food police may find this hard to take, but chocolate has gotten a bad rap. People say it causes acne, that you should eat carob instead, that it’s junk food. But these accusations are not only undeserved and inaccurate, they falsely incriminate a delicious food that turns out to have profoundly important healing powers.

There is in fact a growing body of credible scientific evidence that chocolate contains a host of heart-healthy and mood-enhancing phytochemicals, with benefits to both body and mind.

For one, chocolate is a plentiful source of antioxidants. These are substances that reduce the ongoing cellular and arterial damage caused by oxidative reactions.

You may have heard of a type of antioxidants called polyphenols. These are protective chemicals found in plant foods such as red wine and green tea. Chocolate, it turns out, is particularly rich in polyphenols. According to researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, the same antioxidant properties found in red wine that protect against heart disease are also found in comparable quantities in chocolate.

How does chocolate help to prevent heart disease? The oxidation of LDL cholesterol is considered a major factor in the promotion of coronary disease. When this waxy substance oxidizes, it tends to stick to artery walls, increasing the risk of a heart attack or stroke. But chocolate to the rescue! The polyphenols in chocolate inhibit oxidation of LDL cholesterol.

And there’s more. One of the causes of atherosclerosis is blood platelets clumping together, a process called aggregation. The polyphenols in chocolate inhibit this clumping, reducing the risks of atherosclerosis.

High blood pressure is a well known risk factor for heart disease. It is also one of the most common causes of kidney failure, and a significant contributor to many kinds of dementia and cognitive impairment. Studies have shown that consuming a small bar of dark chocolate daily can reduce blood pressure in people with mild hypertension.

Why are people with risk factors for heart disease sometimes told to take a baby aspirin every day? The reason is that aspirin thins the blood and reduces the likelihood of clots forming (clots play a key role in many heart attacks and strokes). Research performed at the department of nutrition at the University of California, Davis, found that chocolate thins the blood and performs the same anti-clotting activity as aspirin. “Our work supports the concept that the chronic consumption of cocoa may be associated with improved cardiovascular health,” said UC Davis researcher Carl Keen.

How much chocolate would you have to eat to obtain these benefits? Less than you might think. According to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, adding only half an ounce of dark chocolate to an average American diet is enough to increase total antioxidant capacity 4 percent, and lessen oxidation of LDL cholesterol.

Why, then, has chocolate gotten such a bum reputation? It’s the ingredients we add to it. Nearly all of the calories in a typical chocolate bar are sugar and fat.

As far as fats go, it’s the added fats that are the difficulty, not the natural fat (called cocoa butter) found in chocolate. Cocoa butter is high in saturated fat, so many people assume that it’s not good for your cardiovascular system. But most of the saturated fat content in cocoa butter is stearic acid, which numerous studies have shown does not raise blood cholesterol levels. In the human body, it acts much like the monounsaturated fat in olive oil.

Milk chocolate, on the other hand, contains added butterfat which can raise blood cholesterol levels. And it has less antioxidants and other beneficial phytochemicals than dark chocolate.

Does chocolate contribute to acne? Milk chocolate has been shown to do so, but I’ve never heard of any evidence incriminating dark chocolate.

Dark chocolate is also healthier because it has less added sugar. I’m sure you don’t need another lecture on the dangers of excess sugar consumption. But if you want to become obese and dramatically raise your odds of developing diabetes, heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, foods high in sugar (including high fructose corn syrup) are just the ticket.

Are chocolate’s benefits limited to the health of the body? Hardly. Chocolate has long been renown for its remarkable effects on human mood. We are now beginning to understand why.

Chocolate is the richest known source of a little-known substance called theobromine, a close chemical relative of caffeine. Theobromine, like caffeine, and also like the asthma drug theophylline, belong to the chemical group known as xanthine alkaloids. Chocolate products contain small amounts of caffeine, but not nearly enough to explain the attractions, fascinations, addictions, and effects of chocolate. The mood enhancement produced by chocolate may be primarily due to theobromine.

Chocolate also contains other substances with mood elevating effects. One is phenethylamine, which triggers the release of pleasurable endorphins and potentates the action of dopamine, a neurochemical associated with sexual arousal and pleasure. Phenethylamine is released in the brain when people become infatuated or fall in love.

Another substance found in chocolate is anandamide (from the Sanskrit word “ananda,” which means peaceful bliss). A fatty substance that is naturally produced in the brain, anandamide has been isolated from chocolate by pharmacologists at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego. It binds to the same receptor sites in the brain as cannabinoids — the psychoactive constituents in marijuana — and produces feelings of elation and exhilaration. (If this becomes more widely known, will they make chocolate illegal?)

If that weren’t enough, chocolate also boosts brain levels of serotonin. Women typically have lower serotonin levels during PMS and menstruation, which may be one reason women typically experience stronger cravings for chocolate at these times in their cycles. People suffering from depression so characteristically have lower serotonin levels that an entire class of anti-depressive medications called serotonin uptake inhibitors (including Prozac, Paxil, and Zooloft) have been developed that raise brain levels of serotonin.

Since I am known as an advocate of healthy eating, I’m often asked about my food indulgences. One of my favorite desserts is a piece of dark organic chocolate, along with a glass of a fine red wine.

I do have a policy, though, to eat only organic and/or fair trade chocolate. This is because of what I have learned about child slavery in the cocoa trade.

May your life be full of healthy pleasures.

Click here to visit John Robbins website

→ Leave a comment

Posted in antioxidants, nutrition, organics

Tagged , , , , , , ,

10 foods that are bad for the planet

Posted on August 29, 2011 by | Leave a comment

We know what foods are bad for us, and we know that we should eat them in moderation to stay healthy. However, there are also many foods that are bad for the Earth’s health. Check out these 10 foods that are hurting the environment and learn how you can eat a more planet-friendly diet.

healthy eating, healthy planetMeat

According to the Environmental Defense Fund, if every American substituted one meal of chicken with vegetarian food, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off U.S. roads. Here are some of the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization’s findings on meat and the environment:

• 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from livestock — more than from transportation  • 70 percent of previously forested land in the Amazon was cleared to pasture cattle  • The world’s largest source of water pollution is the livestock sector  •  Livestock are responsible for a third of the nitrogen and phosphorus in U.S. freshwater resources  •  Livestock account for about 20% of land animals, and the 30% of Earth’s land they occupy was  once inhabited by wildlife.

Genetically modified foods

As with human health risks, it’s unlikely that all the potential environmental harms of genetically modified foods have been identified, but here are some of the main concerns about GMOs.
• Lower level of biodiversity: By making a crop resistant to a certain pest, the food sources for other animals could be removed. Also, the addition of foreign genes to plants could be toxic and endanger the animals that consume the plant.
• Creation of new diseases: Some GM foods are modified using bacteria and viruses, which means they could adapt and create new diseases.
• Spread of altered genes: Novel genes placed in crops won’t necessarily stay in designated agricultural fields. The genes can easily spread via pollen and share their altered genes with non-genetically modified plants.

Sugar

More than 145 millions tons of sugar are produced in over 100 countries each year, according to the World Wildlife Fund, and production on such a scale takes its toll on the Earth. Sugar may be responsible for more biodiversity loss than any other crop, according to a 2004 WWF “Sugar and the Environment” report, due to its habitat destruction, its intensive use of water and pesticides, and the polluted wastewater discharged during the production process.
Thousands of acres of the Florida Everglades have been compromised after years of sugar cane farming — subtropical forests became lifeless marshland after excessive fertilizer runoff and irrigation drainage. Waters around the Great Barrier Reef are also suffering due to the large quantities of pesticides and sediment from sugar farms.
.

ANYTHING CONTAINING High-fructose corn syrup

High-fructose corn syrup is one of the most environmentally damaging ingredients for several reasons.  Firstly, corn is grown as a monoculture, meaning the land is used solely for corn and not rotated, which depletes soil nutrients, contributes to erosion and requires more pesticides and fertilizer.  The use of such chemicals contributes to problems like the Gulf of Mexico dead zone, an area of the ocean where nothing can live because the water is starved of oxygen, and atrazine, a common herbicide used on corn crops, has been shown to turn male frogs into hermaphrodites.  Milling and chemically altering corn to produce high-fructose corn syrup is also an energy-intensive practice.
.

Fast food

Fast food is hurting more than just our health.  A typical fast-food meal often comes with overly packaged food, straws and plasticware, and an assortment of individually wrapped condiments. According to Californians Against Waste, less than 35 % of fast-food waste is diverted from landfills even though most of it is recyclable paper and cardboard.  So it’s no surprise that litter characterization studies have identified fast-food restaurants as the primary source of urban litter.
But it’s not just the packaging that’s a problem.  A recent Hong Kong study found that a fast-food restaurant making four hamburgers emits the same amount of volatile organic compounds as driving a car 1,000 miles!  If you calculate the carbon footprint of a burger, you’re in for a real shock: The greenhouse gas emissions arising each year from the production and consumption of cheeseburgers is roughly the amount emitted by 6.5 million to 19.6 million SUVs.
.

Processed and packaged food

The majority of the food you’ll find in the grocery store is processed and packaged, which is bad news for the planet.  Processed food contains multiple chemicals and often involves energy-intensive production processes.  Plus, all that packaging typically ends up in a landfill, where plastic poisons the environment and can take thousands of years to break down. In fact, in 2006 the U.S. generated 14 million tons of plastic through packages and containers alone, according to the EPA.  Unfortunately, even those eco-friendly packaged items made from cardboard are coated in a thin layer of plastic. The solution?  Buy local, eat fresh fruits and vegetables, and buy foods like rice, oats and pasta from the bulk bins.
.

Many non-organic or conventionally grown foods

Organic produce is grown without pesticides, which keeps chemicals from entering the water supply and helps prevent soil erosion. Organic farming also uses fewer resources than traditional farming. According to a study by The Rodale Institute, organic farming practices use 30 percent less energy and water than regular growing. In fact, a study by David Pimentel, a professor at Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, found that growing organic corn and soybeans produced the same yields as conventional farming and used 33 percent less fuel. However, not all produce needs to be bought organic.
.

Palm oil (and foods that contain it)

Palm oil is found in an estimated 10% of U.S. groceries — it’s in chips, crackers, candy, margarine, cereals and canned goods.  About 40 millions tons of palm oil, which is considered the cheapest cooking oil in the world, is produced each year, and 85 percent of it comes from Indonesia and Malaysia.  In these countries, 30 square miles of forests are felled daily, and palm oil plantations account for the highest rates of deforestation in the world.  When the rain forests disappear, so does almost all of the wildlife, including bears, orangutans, tigers and other endangered species.
.

Certain types of seafood

Fisheries analysts at the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization report that 70 percent of the world’s fisheries are fully or overly exploited, depleted or in a state of collapse.  Fish like bluefin tuna and Atlantic salmon are severely overfished, and environmental groups are working to get them endangered species status. The overfishing of a particular species doesn’t damage that population alone — it can have serious effects further up the food chain and decrease biodiversity. Check out the Environmental Defense Fund’s seafood eco-ratings to determine what fish is safe for both you and our oceans.
.

White bread

It’s well known that whole grain and wheat breads are more nutritious than white bread, but brown breads are also less harmful to the environment. Wheat flour must be refined and go through a series of alteration processes to make white bread, but whole wheat flour spends less time in production. Any ingredient that requires extensive refining requires more energy and resources and has a greater impact on the planet.
.
.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in monoculture, nutrition, organic farming, organics, plant foods, vegan

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

New MLM company: Is Organic Acres a scam?

Posted on August 24, 2011 by | 1 Comment

organic mlm company

So I’ve been looking into this new MLM company called Organic Acres who claim to be running a number of organic farms over on the west coast.  The idea seems to be that they sign up members, much like a local CSA in order to purchase a share of their harvest.. although this one would run 48 weeks of the year as opposed to the usual 4/5 months that most CSAs can offer.  Members in turn would apparently have some input into the sorts of vegetables they would like to see grown – described as having your own garden - and they then sign up with one of the various membership plans to purchase boxes of organic vegetables and have them shipped to their home.  I love this idea, an online CSA-cum-MLM-company where you get to choose when and what they send you – they even offer to buy back boxes that you have paid for but don’t need.. for a profit!  And the bonus for me was going to be the chance to make small commissions and ultimately a residual income by referring other people to sign up.  All too good to be true I guess.. and that’s when you know to be wary, which is why I had not parted with any cash yet.

They are also offering what they call pioneer positions to the first few thousand members and claim they will receive a small percentage of the profits as the company goes forward.  Despite their rather infuriating website and slightly steep sign up costs, it all sounded great to me, I was very excited.  Until I started to read a few threads on a couple of forums that suggest Organic Acres are not delivering.  Not delivering on their promises, not even delivering boxes for the most part.  They have been going since 2009, so they must be working out some of their teething problems by now, so I dare not give them the benefit of the doubt.  Many people have posted that they have received no vegetable boxes and no customer service.  They want their money back and are not getting it.  The BBB has a complaint against the company that has not been answered and no they have an F rating.

All very disappointing.  So its onwards with my search for the perfect network marketing business to operate online.  I just want to find a company that treads lightly on the earth, offers customers real products that they want to buy regularly without wasting their hard earned money and offers small commissions to marketeers for promoting their business.  Is that too much to ask?

Should I be saving my energy and forget about MLM and network marketing all together?

Perhaps I should be learning to knit instead and start a little etsy business.

Or maybe I should be looking Beyond Organic?!

→ 1 Comment

Posted in business opportunity, MLM, nutrition, organic farming, organics

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Campaign for raw milk

Posted on August 24, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Why do we need a campaign for raw milk?  To give you a comparison, back in the 1970s, a couple of blokes were sitting in an English pub, as English blokes often do..  bemoaning the consolidation of the brewing industry in England and the decline of British beer and ale. A commodity that represented the soul of
Britain – carefully brewed ales from countless small-scale manufacturers, each
with a distinctive color and taste – had been edged out by the insipid canned
beers of a few large monopolistic breweries. What was needed, they decided, was
a return to traditional brewing methods.  They launched A Campaign for Real Ale, which soon became the force that turned back the mega-brewers and reinstated varied and delicious ales to English tables and pubs.

Back in the 20s, it was possible to buy fresh raw whole milk, real clabber and
buttermilk, luscious naturally yellow butter, fresh farm cheeses and cream in
various colors and thicknesses.  Today’s milk is accused of causing everything
from allergies to heart disease to cancer, but when we could buy Real Milk, these diseases were rare.  What’s needed today is a return to humane, non-toxic, pasture-based, grass-fed dairying and small-scale traditional processing, in short . . .

Click on the logo above to read more about the Campaign for Real Milk and to find sources of raw milk in your area.

Real feed for cows is green grass in spring, summer and autumn; stored dry hay, silage, hay and root vegetables in winter.  It is not soy meal, cottonseed meal
or other commercial feeds, nor is it bakery waste, chicken manure or citrus
peel cake, laced with pesticides.  Vital nutrients like vitamins A and D, and Weston Price’s ‘Activator X’ (a fat-soluable catalyst that promotes optimum mineral assimilation now believed to be vitamin K) are greatest in milk from cows eating green grass, especially rapidly growing green grass in the spring and fall.  Vitamins A and D are greatly diminished, and Activator X disappears, when milk cows are fed commercial feed.  Soy meal has the wrong protein profile for the dairy cow, resulting in a short burst of high milk production followed by premature death.  Most milk (even most milk labeled “organic”) comes from dairy cows that are kept in confinement their entire lives and never see green grass!

→ Leave a comment

Posted in dairy, nutrition, organic farming, organics, raw milk, weston price

Tagged , , , , , ,