MAKE 2012 THE YEAR TO PATRONIZE INDEPENDENT BUSINESS OWNERS.

MAKE 2012 THE YEAR TO PATRONIZE INDEPENDENT BUSINESS OWNERS.

German TV exposes the horrors of toxic GM soy

Learn more here:
Genetically Modified Soy

Can Mushrooms Save the World?

Regardless of how and why the spill happened, it happened. And now we are faced with the question, " How do we clean up this mess?" Well, a mushroom company, Fungi Perfecti, LLC, has come up with a solution that has peeked our interest. Go to their web page to read more.


Also, watch this video by Paul Stamets:

Use Only Organic Fertilizers on Earth Day 2010 - And Every Day

photo & article from earthday.org


"Craig and I only use organic fertilizers and soils for our gardens. Not only are they good for the environment but they keep our soil and wildlife ALIVE. Pick TODAY, Earth Day 2010, to start green gardening. Stop by the shop for everything you need for success"
Annette

Green Your Gardening

This Earth Day, April 22, even while you’re gardening in your very own backyard, you can make a big difference in the health of the ocean. Fertilizers and other chemicals used in conventional gardening are washed into watersheds and eventually to sea, where they can harm coral reefs and other marine life.

Hear from Conservancy marine scientist Stephanie Wear about the impact of fertilizers and pesticides have on our oceans and about steps you can take to reduce the chemicals in your garden.

Learn about square foot gardening — a method of organic gardening that can be done anywhere. It’s a great way to get your family involved in growing your own food — without chemicals!

The Nature Conservancy of Michigan’s director of science Patrick Doran shares step-by-step instructions on how to make your own compost.

Share your green gardening tips with the Conservancy’s online community and help others do the same.

Go HERE for more information.

Join Millions Against Monsanto

If you're talking about PCBs, Agent Orange, Bovine Growth Hormone,water privatization, biopiracy, untested/unlabeled genetically engineered organisms, or persecuting small family farmers, you're talking about the Monsanto Corporation.

Join OCA's campaign to mobilize one million consumers to end Monsanto's global corporate terrorism.

Send an instant fax to Monsanto, demanding the corporation:

• Stop intimidating small family farmers.
• Stop force-feeding untested and unlabeled genetically engineered foods on consumers.
• Stop using billions of dollars of U.S. taypayers' money to subsidize genetically engineered crops--cotton, soybeans, corn, and canola.
• 
  

Read more here

• 
  
• Join the FaceBook group here

Michael Pollan On Oprah!!

Before You Grocery Shop Again: Food 101 with Michael Pollan

Be sure to tune in on Wednesday 1/27 to watch ! Craig and I have been aware of the dangers in food for years and we are quite excited that Oprah is doing a show on it. It is an excellent chance to reach masses of unsuspecting consumers :-) Annette

Tune In Do you know where your food really comes from? Food guru and best-selling author Michael Pollan helps clear up the confusion. Tune in on 01/27 to watch this show Check out more on Michael Pollan and GMO foods HERE and read more in our "Eyes Wide Open" section.

Better dying through chemistry- Pesticides loom large in animal die-offs

by Tom Laskawy Author of http://weaversway.coop/blog/
Yale’s Environment 360 has a new must-read report by Sonia Shah linking pesticides to the high-profile die-offs among amphibians, bees, and bats. What makes this news timely isn’t necessarily the toxicity of the pesticides per se, it’s the indirect effects on these animals of chronic, low-dose exposure to chemicals:

In the past dozen years, no fewer than three never-before-seen diseases have decimated populations of amphibians, bees, and—most recently—bats. A growing body of evidence indicates that pesticide exposure may be playing an important role in the decline of the first two species, and scientists are investigating whether such exposures may be involved in the deaths of more than 1 million bats in the northeastern United States over the past several years.
... The recent spate of widespread die-offs began in amphibians. Scientists discovered the culprit—an aquatic fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, of a class of fungi called “chytrids”—in 1998. Its devastation, says amphibian expert Kevin Zippel, is “unlike anything we’ve seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs.” Over 1,800 species of amphibians currently face extinction.
It may be, as many experts believe, that the chytrid fungus is a novel pathogen, decimating species that have no armor against it, much as Europe’s smallpox and measles decimated Native Americans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But “there is a really good plausible story of chemicals affecting the immune system and making animals more susceptible,” as well, says San Francisco State University conservation biologist Carlos Davidson.
Shah goes on to explain a mechanism whereby pesticides applied to fields in California’s Central Valley drift into the Sierra Nevada mountains “where they settle in the air, snow, and surface waters, and inside the tissues of amphibians.” A scientist who studied the matter “found a strong correlation between upwind pesticide use ... and declining amphibian populations.”

Meanwhile, bees and bats have suffered a similar fate—killed off by powerful pathogens that in theory could be novel but in practice seem to have taken advantage of animal populations immuno-compromised by pesticides.

One of the most interesting aspects of the piece was the description of an Italian scientist’s unpublished research that suggests the “missing link” between neonicotinoids, a powerful pesticide already banned in Europe but still in use in the U.S., and bee colony collapse. It relates to the practices of using neonicotinoids-coated seeds planted by machines that kick up clouds of pesticide as they work:

... In as-yet-unpublished research, [University of Padua entomologist Vincenzo] Girolami has found concentrations of insecticide in clouds above seeding machines 1,000 times the dose lethal to bees. In the spring, when the seed machines are working, says Girolami, “I think that 90 percent or more of deaths of bees is due to direct pesticide poisoning.”
Girolami has also found lethal levels of neonicotinoids in other, unexpected—and usually untested—places, such as the drops of liquid that treated crops secrete along their leaf margins, which bees and other insects drink.
But Shah concludes by observing that this accumulating evidence comes with challenges and caveats that, I would point out, industry ruthlessly exploits:

Proving, with statistical certainty, that low-level pesticide exposure makes living things more vulnerable to disease is notoriously difficult. There are too many different pesticides, lurking in too many complex, poorly understood habitats to build definitively damning indictments. The evidence is subtle, suggestive.
Subtle and suggestive though it may be, it’s extremely unlikely that these chemicals aren’t also acting on us. This news plus the data surrounding the consequences to human health of low-dose exposure to chemicals like atrazine, BPA and phthalates should have us in a panic and our government in a regulatory frenzy. Instead we get paralysis and promises of “further study.” As we wait for a chemical “smoking gun,” I wonder what animal population will die off next. Anyone care to wager?

Michael Pollan The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Michael Pollan
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Incentive to grow your own vegetables and fruits! A humerous clip on a serious subject.

The Big GMO Cover Up!

This is a repost from Urban Garden Magazine

Having trouble reading this email? Click Here. Home • GMO Dangers • Take Action • Buy Non-GMO • About Us • Contact Us • Donate Spilling the Beans | December 18, 2009 Good News! New Article Published inUrban Garden Magazine If you haven’t yet, be sure to catch my article in the November issue of Urban Garden Magazine: The Big GMO Cover-Up It looks the same—the bread, pies, sodas, even corn on the cob. So much of what we eat every day looks just like it did 20 years ago. But something profoundly different has happened without our knowledge or consent. And according to leading doctors, what we don’t know may already be hurting us big time. Read on...

Screening of "Fresh" the movie tonight in Geneva, Il.

TONIGHT!!!!

COME SEE ON THE FOX RIVER! TONIGHT SEPTEMBER 19, 2009 Community Screening of FRESH the Movie
September 19, 2009
7:30 PM - 10:00 PM
The event is for the purpose of educating the general public on the importance of eating healthier, locally grown food.

Those in attendance will learn why this is such an important movement and how they can participate.

Date: September 19, 2009
Time: Sitting starts 6:30, Movie will be shown at 7:30 pm
Location: RiverPark, 75 North River Lane, Geneva IL, 60134

On Saturday, September 19, 2009, the Geneva Green Market will hosting a free outdoor presentation of the documentary "Fresh" for the Fox River Valley (Elgin, South Elgin, St Charles, Geneva, Batavia and Aurora, IL) at RiverPark in Geneva.

The GGM invites the public to come at 7:00 p.m. to get settled in with blankets. Desserts will be available for purchase by the Inglenook Pantry. Proceeds from the dessert sales will go to the Geneva Green Market, NFP.

Address
75 North River Lane
Geneva, IL 60134

Healthy, Local & Organic School Food Now

Healthy, Local & Organic School Food Now

School food: It's never had a reputation for being good, but these days, it's downright unhealthy. Obesity and a host of diet-related diseases are linked to the school lunch menu, which is loaded with over-processed starches, fats, genetically modified ingredients, and meats laced with hormones, antibiotics and pesticides. Squeezed into buying on the cheap, school districts buy milk that has been produced with the use of genetically-modified bovine growth hormone and beef that gets recalled for the E. coli contamination that is inevitable in factory farm operations where corn-fed cattle wade in their own waste all the way to the slaughterhouse. Very few vitamin-rich fresh fruits and vegetables are part of the lunch menu, even though it's universally understood this is the key to improving childhood and long-term health. The 2009 Reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act is an opportunity to change what kids eat at school and raise a generation of kids who understand good nutrition and value locally produced, fresh, organic food.

Watch Video

TAKE ACTION NOW

Dr. Seuss' The Lorax and Cat Stevens

"Where Do the Children Play?" This video is an interesting combination of Dr. Seuss and Cat Stevens so I wanted to share.

Woodman's- Stupefied in the Cheese Isle

Yesterday, Craig and I went to Woodman's to fill up Ethel ( our suburban) with E-85. We didn't have much time and thought that we would kill two birds with one stone and do some grocery shopping at the same time- save the trip to Wholefoods and maybe a little $. They have a pretty good organic section. We also needed some cheese for the kids lunch sandwiches.


We found ourselves standing in the middle of the huge cheese isle almost comatosed. Not by the large selection of cheese but by the many packages marked with labels of "Wisconsin Fresh", "Farm Cheese", "Local". But there were no organic cheeses. We were flooded with visions of "The Meatrix" movie in our heads. What were the cows fed? Did they eat GMO corn? Stale junkfood? Were they fed hormones and antibiotics? We thought that we might be safe with a foreign cheese because most countries other than the USA have banned hormones and GMOs. But, the selection was poor.We realized that we were both standing there stupefied and frozen. Since one of the reasons we went there in the first place was to save time we decided to leave- cheese less. We will need to make a visit to Curds and Whey!

Then the thought had occurred to me just how sad and stressful it is to shop at ones local grocery store. And, in today's economy it is almost a luxery to strictly shop at a health food store. When I was a child, eating cold cuts, cheese, tomatoes, and lettuce on my lunch sandwich was only as bad as the fat content. Nowadays, there is BHT, BHA, radiation, pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, GMO's, artificial colors and flavorings and more! I don't want my children to eat school lunches because they are bad for them. And, it is mind blowing to pack their lunches with safe meals. I need to schedule a ton of time to grow veggies, bake cookies and bread, popcorn treats, etc..

It is a sad statement that we as consumers need to be so on the ball and informed in order to provide our families and ourselves with something so basic as safe, healthy food to eat. And there are so many people that are not even aware of the dangers of food that is going onto their plates.

There is much work to do! And then there is this....

Home Grown Vegetables Ruined by Toxic Herbicides

Home-grown veg ruined by toxic herbicide

Gardeners across Britain are reaping a bitter harvest of rotten potatoes, withered salads and deformed tomatoes after an industrial herbicide tainted their soil. Caroline Davies reports on how the food chain became contaminated and talks to the angry allotment owners whose plots have been destroyed.

What's the solution? Join the debate and find out more on this food blog

"... It appears that the contamination came from grass treated 12 months ago. Experts say the grass was probably made into silage, then fed to cattle during the winter months. The herbicide remained present in the silage, passed through the animal and into manure that was later sold. Horses fed on hay that had been treated could also be a channel...."

Is Cow Manure Bad?

Craig and I do NOT sell cow manure at The PURE Gardener because we have not been able to locate anyone that can determine what the cows have eaten IE: free range, locked up and corn fed, hormones, antibiotics, chemical free hay or alfalfa, grass and the like. Until we can find a good source of cow manure, one that traces exactly what their source is and how the cows are raised, we will continue to NOT carry it.

Please read

The following was taken from AOL Health...

Leafy, green, healthful - but contaminated

Content provided by the Faculty of the Harvard Medical School

Leafy, green, healthful - but contaminated

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The E. coli outbreak from bagged spinach is a reminder that fruit and vegetables can harbor harmful bacteria.

If you're to count yourself among the nutritionally virtuous, you eat plenty of fruit and vegetables, and spinach is the standard-bearer for the leafy, green vegetables that are most virtuous of all.

But sometimes it seems that, like good deeds, no act of good nutrition goes unpunished. As we went to press in September 2006, three Americans had died and almost 200 had gotten sick from eating spinach that had been contaminated with the O157:H7 strain of the Escherichia coli bacterium. For several weeks the FDA contradicted the timeless nag "eat your spinach" with an advisory that we should avoid the stuff altogether if it was bagged. This isn't the first time that E. coli–contaminated spinach has made people sick. In a 2003 outbreak in the United States, 16 illnesses were reported and two people died.

A bad tenant

Most strains of E. coli are welcome, indeed essential, residents of the gut. In exchange for intestinal food and lodging, they keep out harmful bacteria and synthesize vitamins. E. coli O157:H7 is a rogue strain that spews out toxins similar to those produced by Shigella dysenteriae, a source of epidemics of deadly diarrhea in the developing world.

Health officials estimate that roughly 70,000 Americans get sick every year from eating food contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, and perhaps as many as 60 die. Symptoms include bad abdominal cramps and diarrhea, which is usually watery at first before turning bloody. Most people recover after several days of gastrointestinal misery without any special treatment (antibiotics are useless). A small proportion of people, usually young children and older adults, are vulnerable to developing severe complications that include kidney damage and death.

Cow manure as the culprit

Cattle carry E. coli O157:H7 in their roomy intestines, so considerable amounts of the bacteria wind up in cow feces. In the past, most cases of E. coli illness were the result of tiny specks of fecal matter getting mixed into meat, chiefly ground beef, during meat processing. You may remember the Jack in the Box restaurant outbreak in 1993 when people got sick eating E. coli–contaminated hamburgers.

But now cow manure is being used heavily as a fertilizer in organic farming, which may have moved the problem of E. coli contamination from the slaughterhouse to the farmfield. By October, FDA and California officials had narrowed their investigation to four ranches in Monterey and San Benito counties. Furthermore, genetic tests had shown that the E. coli in cow feces taken from one of those ranches matched the strain of the bacteria responsible for the spinach outbreak. The investigation wasn't finished as of this writing, but the evidence was pointing to cow manure as being the source of the outbreak. Other possibilities included wildlife or poor worker hygiene.

A corn-fed problem

Some research suggests that the way cattle are raised and fed these days is making the E. coli problem worse, perhaps even creating it. The study results are by no means uniform, but there's good evidence that the intestines of corn-fed cattle are more hospitable to the O157:H7 strain than those raised on grass. USDA researchers reported in 2005 that certain compounds (phenolic acids) contained in grass killed off E. coli O157:H7 in large numbers.

But the cattle industry is increasingly dominated by huge feedlots where the animals are kept in close quarters and fed mainly corn. It's not likely to switch back to grazing cattle for long periods of time soon because cattle grow faster if they are fed corn. An excellent book on agricultural practices and the problems they're creating is The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

Give it a good soaking

So far, the advice to consumers has been about what you might expect. Cooking isn't an option for lettuce, but it is for spinach. Temperatures of 160º F will kill any O157:H7 in about 15 seconds. Otherwise, the main message has been to be extra careful about washing fruits and vegetables. Some official Web sites recommend removing the outer leaves of leafy vegetables because bacteria are "sticky." Even if there is rind or outside skin that you're not going to eat, you're supposed to clean it off because studies have shown that a knife can transfer bacteria from the inedible outer portion of a fruit or vegetable to the flesh inside.

Mostly we're told to just rinse off our produce. A lot of people don't even do that, so keeping the advice to a minimum is a good idea. But if you want to be on the safe side, you should probably soak your produce in water for a couple of minutes first and then rinse it off, according to findings reported by researchers at Tennessee State University in Nashville in 2006.

Their experiment involved contaminating apples, broccoli, lettuce, and tomatoes with a harmless, experimental bacterium, Listeria innocua. For apples, lettuce, and tomatoes, but not broccoli, a good two-minute soak and then a rinse washed off more bacteria than just a rinse. They soaked the lettuce in vinegar and lemon juice solutions and in a commercial product, Veggie Wash, but the results were no better than when they used cold tap water.