The Future of Food

[Sassy]

I ran across a great site today stating "Liberty & a healthy planet are inseparable."  Check out the link!
Liberty Garden

Also watch this video about what is happening to our farms & foods
The Future of Food

[glenn-k]

Free PDF on Private Property and it's gradual loss.

http://www.libertygarden.com/documents/LG_private-property.pdf

[Sassy]

Debate rages over genetically modified crops.  Reports from key groups have much different conclusions

[Amanda_931]

Treehugger has had a couple of contests for dinners with all (nearly all) the food from a 100 mile radius of the house.  Made for fun reading.  And probably eating.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/01/local_means_nut.php

Alissa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon of the 100 mile diet have been quiet lately, we think working day and night on the new book 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating that is coming out this spring. However they are not forgotten. Jeff Nield recently wrote an article on what every locavore in the north worries about at this time of year, which James MacKinnon called "the war vegetable season."- turnips, onions, potatoes, maybe cabbage. Tough foods for hard times. Well it ain't so, there is lots of good eating to be had. According to Vancouver nutritionist Paula Luther: "If we look at what's in abundance right now, we have lots of squash, carrots, things like that, which are actually beneficial at this time of year," she says. These winter foods are rich in beta-carotene, antioxidants, vitamin A — just the sort of nutrients our bodies need to fight off colds and maintain energy levels for the season.

[glenn-k]

How about information about the effects of microwave ovens on food.  I assumed just high speed friction heating from radio waves -- harmless?  I now hear different.  Anybody know anything other that has any solid foundation to it?

[Amanda_931]

I don't know.  Probably something we'll find out in a generation.  Maybe two.

[bayviewps]

   "Of course, if microwave ovens were really harmful, our government would never allow them on the market, would they? Would they?"

http://www.curezone.com/foods/microwave_oven_risk.asp

http://www.curezone.com/

[glenn-k]

Thanks, bayviewps.  I think that is some of the stuff I heard mentioned.  

[glenn-k]

I don't see people dropping like flies from it or growing extra appendages, and I haven't stopped using it due to the speed of life, but I'm still interested in finding out more.

Here's a bit more info covering some of the previous posted info also.

http://www.life.ca/nl/103/microwave.html

Least helpful of all seems to be the USDA info.

Here is one that seems to make sense -- they don't eally know but some weird things happen and are being studied.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/050506.html

[Amanda_931]

Some of the cure zone report is kind of--not exactly bogus, but not due to the properties of microwaves either.

Especially--

Most microwave ovens don't heat evenly.  Turntables help, but....  Therefore some at least of  the recommendation on baby's milk bottles (and presumably human blood) is based on the fact that some parts of a container may be at cooking temperatures while other parts are still cold.  In the case of baby's milk it could cause a scalded mouth and maybe farther down into the digestive tract.

But somehow I doubt that cooked human blood ought to be transfused into you.

And it's kind of old--I've had thousand watt microwave ovens since the mid-nineties.  And they were definitely home models, not recycled commercial ones.

The strait dope guy sounds a lot more believable.

(But a microwave can make even store-bought corn on the cob taste good--and it's sooooooo convenient)

[glenn-k]

DO NOT dry wet kittens in a microwave, :-?

[Amanda_931]

Or, I gather, even your clothes.  Although the person on this forum tells you how you might get by with it.

And, there are apparently honest to gosh microwave clothes dryers on the horizon (also heat pump ones).

http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/24205

Yes, you can. You SHOULDN'T, but you can. I've done it... but I don't recommend it. (It was an hour of desperation--cold winter and me without any warm dry socks!)

It's really just a bad, bad idea. I set one sock on fire. Another one warped into an interesting, decidedly non-foot shape. I noticed that all the socks I microwaved wore out and developed holes quicker than my other socks. So don't do it. No matter how desperate you are. Hop down to the laundromat and use the clothes dryer.

Repeating my admonition about absolutely not doing it, here's how I did it--and I accept no responsibility if you try this and ruin your clothes/microwave/burn down your house/etc.:
Don't even think about nuking dry anything with metal on it--buttons, fasteners, underwire, etc.
Put your microwave on 50% power.
Every 15 seconds--and I do mean EVERY 15 SECONDS--stop the microwave, take out your clothes and swing them in the air to shake off excess water and cool them down. They'll kind of steam when you take them out. If you don't do this, they will burn.
Repeat until dry.

[Amanda_931]

I'm enjoying that site I listed above.  Here is somebody are on microwaving metal.

http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/10851

[Sassy]

The Silent War on the People of India  article about the experimentation & spread of GM seeds & crops

I also read a couple articles today that speculate that the GM crops might be weakening & killing of the honeybee populations...

[Sassy]

Amanda, that is a great website you posted - some funny & crazy stuff  

[Amanda_931]

We'd love to blame everything on GM foods, up to and including the pet food problems, although that one seems to be turning out to be rat poison.

But somewhere not too long ago I read that the honeybee die-offs may have more to do with the kind of migrant factory lives they are living.  Not the guy with ten or twenty hives, but the ones that truck their bees all around the country--pollinating almonds in California in February, then hitting a handful of other crops (and states?) until they get back there.

[jwv]

Coming Home to Eat  http://www.garynabhan.com/books.html  is a great book about eating within the 100 mile radius in the Sonoran Desert-not an easy task.  I was all fired up to try it but my lack of wilpower won.

Also, I heard yesterday that there are some preliminary retrospective studies showing that men whose mothers ate a lot of beef during pregnancy may have a lowered sperm count.  Possibly due to the hormones in the meat. I've always thought that someday we might find that all those hormones were not such a good idea.  We've known for years about the reproductive problems of women whose mothers were injected with diethylstilbesterol during pregnancy.  I don't think we should make health decisions based on early studies like these but I do think it deserves more study.

Here's the link:  http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-reproduction/news/20070327/study-links-beef-to-lower-sperm-count

Judy

[Amanda_931]

Or we could declare that

[size=36]Grass Fed Beef is Good[/size]
the way that some friends that raise a few cows for their personal consumption do.

(I'd send the article to them, except that they would just send the message in the marquee back to me--they tend to think that everyone can live their life)

There might be enough problems with feedlots--and incidently, grain-fed beef that there might be a convergence of reasons to fix the beef industry.

I enjoyed that Gary Paul Nabham book.

[Sassy]

When organic isn't organic... seems that the GM crops are infecting the organic crops - good article...

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1599110,00.html

[Amanda_931]

Well, yes.  Very little care taken about the spread of the GM genes--unless of course, it means that a farmer can plant his own farm-grown seed and take "advantage" of Roundup ready crops.  Then, of course it's all the farmer's fault and he can be sued.

In addition "the organic food industry" may be, if not an oxymoron, at least not all it's cracked up to be.  

Michael Pollan tends to be instructive here.  Haven't read the Omnivore's Dilemma yet, but he starts talking about monoculture (huge fields of the same damned thing) in the Botany of Desire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Pollan

[Sassy]

Another theory on why the bees are abandoning the hives http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece

[Amanda_931]

Interesting.

Who knows.

[Sassy]

Was really surprised to read this article on Prince Charles criticizing genetically modified (GM) crops...

Prince Charles warns GM crops risk causing the biggest-ever environmental disaster

By Jeff Randall

The mass development of genetically modified crops risks causing the world's worst environmental disaster, The Prince of Wales has warned.
   
Prince Charles warns GM crops risk causing the biggest-ever environmental disaster
Listen: The Prince of Wales speaks out

In his most outspoken intervention on the issue of GM food, the Prince said that multi-national companies were conducting an experiment with nature which had gone "seriously wrong".
con't at link

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/12/eacharles112.xml

[glenn kangiser]

...but who will protect us from Prince Charles? hmm

[StinkerBell]

I know glenn.....The Queen.....Why do you think she has not retired yet? To save us!