Life gets scarier every day, help yourself to health

I watched Dr. Oz on the 23rd of this month, I don't watch often, but he did a show on GMO growing and I wanted to see it. When this process started, much less was used in the way of chemicals on our crops. But constant use has done just what antibiotics have done to us. We have overused them to the point of creating super bugs. And now we are using 15 or more times the poisons on our food, it requires cocktails of heavy chemicals to kill the resistant weeds and bugs that have been created and learned to survive the stuff. Bugs and weeds have now become immune to the original amounts. I know, most people go shopping and grab boxes and cans and convenient stuff, fast to fix, but it's dangerous to your health. I told you about the tomato growing last week, corn , soy, wheat, sugar, all are grown with sprays. These sprays are especially bad for children and the elderly. They affect you brain and nervous system. They cause leukemia and cancer, not to mention Alzheimer, allergies, arthritis, you name it. I am going to give you some information for shopping. Avoid the dirty foods, the worst are apples, celery, tomatoes, grapes, peaches, potatoes, cucumbers, spinach, strawberries, peppers, all kinds and greens. Washing will not remove the poison. If you buy these, look for organic. The safe things are asparagus, avocado, cantaloupe, corn, eggplant, mango, kiwi, mushrooms, papaya, pineapple, sweet potato and cabbage. These have thick skins or do not require sprays to grow. And then there is meat, animals are kept in cage like surroundings, fed hormones and antibiotics and you get large amounts of that in all meats. Unless again, they are raised in safe fields and given proper care. When you are shopping in the produce department, write this down and take it with you: organic produce is marked with a 5 digit code starting with 9, GMO crops are marked with a 5 digit code starting with 8, and conventional crops have a 4 digit code. Most things are conventional and are not very good for you. Leaner cuts of meat are safer as the fat seems to soak up the additives more. It seems that most folk think cooking from scratch takes longer and is harder, but if you try it for a while, you will find its not so. Why would you want to put yourself, and worse your children at risk for all the ills that come with processed foods? And then there are medicines. Statins in particular. Now they want 1 of every 3 people to be on them. And it is not needed. If you have high blood pressure or diabetes, statins do not help those, and can cause you kidney and liver failure to boot. 38 people have to be treated with statins for 10 years to prevent 1 death from cholesterol. Treating the underlying problem is better. Smoking makes all these problems worse, and destroys your lungs. Guess it boils down to how you want to feel, and how many aches and pains you want to put up with. I am hoping not to end up needing someone to feed, diaper and shove meds down me for months at the end of my life. God help me to die fast, however that happens. Want to make your own mustard? SO easy, mix 1/2 cup of mustard powder(spice section)with 2 T white wine vinegar, 1 T water and 1 t salt. If you want a bit of spice, add garlic or dill, a bit of sweet, add a little honey. We are not getting much rain here, but they sure are catching it up in MN and the Midwest. Been out watering this morning, have been picking yellow beans every 3 or 4 days, and the zucchini and yellow squash are doing well now. Ran out of pickles so waiting for a new crop of zukes to make more. They are good as dills or bread and butter pickles, even relish. The pears look good, not sure about the peaches, never seem to harvest any of those, they rot before they get ripe. Not sure why that happens. It's cloudy this morning and not so hot, very quiet on the mountain except for birds, and once in a while my son's dogs let us know something is going on in the area. Love the stillness. Having the windows open at night is soothing, makes me claustrophobic to shut the house up. So tis next week will be fun as 90s are forecast. Will be shutting windows and curtains by mid morning to keep the heat out. Hope you are enjoying this summer weather, beats snow. The Mimosa trees are blooming, I love their delicate beauty and the Crepe Myrtles are opening now so the mountain will be splendid with color soon. Take care, see ya next time.

My first blog, the dangers of canned tomatoes, lets rehash

I live on a beautiful mountain in Tennessee. Just as I come down to the end of it, I am surrounded by tomato fields. What started this blog was a question. Why are they picking the tomatoes when they are green? Do not vine ripened ones taste better? Well a little research found that they do not ship well when ripe. SO they are picked and packed while green, shipped to their destination, placed in an ethylene gas chamber and ripened. That gas is deadly, if a man was in the chamber during the process, he would die. And all that is soaked up into your tomato products, sold in cans. To make it worse, many are packed in white lined(BPA) cans, which is also deadly. This is the tip of the iceberg, if you could see what happens in these fields, you would never touch a canned tomato again. In the early spring, the ground is mounded and plastic raised runs are installed, holes poked into them and the tomatoes planted. There is an irrigation system from the Pigeon river into those raised runs that keeps them watered. They are sprayed with bug killer, big tanker trucks go through and spray, likely weed killer too. After they are picked, the ripe tomatoes still on the vines, they are sprayed with a poison so potent they die in one day. Plants are now all brown and dry. Signs are posted to the effect that if you pick and eat these, they will kill you. Then all that poison is turned back into the ground, the basis for next years planting. Its known now that growing in this way causes cancer, Alzheimer's, allergies, arthritis and on and on. If you know this, why would you continue buying them? There are canned ones that are organic, please look for them and save yourself much pain and illness. Any tomato product is the same, sauce, paste, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, catsup, scary indeed. I am giving you two links so you can check this out for yourself, but just putting the words in your search engine will bring up many pages of warnings and information. Try these: http://abcnews.go.com/health/w/parenting for the BPA article, and http:// voices.yahoo.com/howdangerousisethylene for the gas . I am glad we grow most of our own tomatoes, and other produce now. I picked my first round of yellow beans yesterday, son brought me beets this morning. Been out and watered early, the only time of day it's cool right now. We have hit the heat and humidity already, but the produce loves it and is doing well. Lunch most days is a salad of fresh garden greens, garlic etc. With home made dressing. We could use a good rain, but the humidity is helping keep the ground a little moister than it would be with no humidity Made some hair spray this week, not as strong as store bought but much safer and it does hold. If your hair is on the darker side, use an orange, lighter, a lemon. Mine is grey so chose the lemon. Wedge it and place in a pan with 2 cups of distilled water, reduce by half, strain, cool, add 3 T vodka and 8 drops essential lavender oil. I think I will add more vodka next time as that seems to be the part that does the "holding". maybe an extra tablespoon. It holds for 3 or 4 hours which is not bad. I think the lavender oil could be changed too, if you have a favorite scent, like rose, lemon whatever else, it would work. Have you heard of oil pulling? Very simple and a boon to your health. Use sesame or olive oil, put a good spoonful in your mouth and swish for about 20 minutes while you exercise, wash dishes or whatever grabs ya. Then spit the oil out in the trash, not down your drain, and rinse with clear cold water. I am still reading up on all the benefits of this process, but it helps keeps you teeth whiter and healthier and other things too, will try and update this more as we go. Need to get out and do some weeding before it gets hot, hope you have a great week, take care, stay well.

Ice Wraps, Rocky bars, other good info

Was up at 5:30 this morning, quick breakfast and off to town. Got my shopping done, back home and all put away before 8 am. The store was quiet except for stockers so made it easy. I always have a list and stick to it. And I seldom venture into the mid section of the store, only for cat supplies. Got my organic soy milk and yogurt, then headed for the produce aisle. Fresh peaches and apricots are there now, and the smell is incredible. Have to say, fresh fruit and veggie season is my favorite time of year. We already have ample amounts of salad greens, so with some cooked up garbanzo beans for protein and a few other things, a big salad for lunch is the pick of the day. Did you know, if you switch to safflower oil, it helps maintain your blood sugar level and shrinks belly fat. So when you cook that egg for breakfast, use that. Verify it from Dr. Oz's 6/6 show. And if you buy large containers of parmesan, the lids fit mason jars, so you can convert them to sprinkle jars after the cheese is gone. If the holes are too big for your usage, put a piece of screen over the top, and you are good to go. Found an idea I am going to try out. Grab some bandana or regular men's hankies from the drawer, wet them down well, squeeze out all the extra moisture. Then lay them out and from corner to corner, roll them into long tubes. Fold slightly and put in plastic bags and freeze. When you have to face the hot outside to mow or garden, grab one and tie around your neck, will keep you cool for a good hour. Says four hours, but not so. You may want to make up a few so you can swap out as they cool off. Have a recipe for some bars I know you will like, and they are good, and good for you. 3 cups rolled oats(organic) 3 tbsp water 1 tsp vanilla 1/2 tsp salt, 1 cup dried cherries 1 cup dried apricots 3/4 cup sunflower butter(peanut butter in a pinch) 3/4 cup wild honey 1/2 c sunflower seeds Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put 1 c of the oats in a food processor with the apricots, cherries and sunflower butter, honey, salt and vanilla. Pulse til finely chopped, will be thick. Add a little water if needed. In a bowl, put the rest of the oats, sunflower seeds and your pulsed mix. Combine well. Spray your cookie pan and spread mix onto it. Wet your hands to press it down. Bake for 20 minutes. Cool for 1 hour, then cut. Oh yes, line that pan with aluminum foil, lightly sprayed. I might use parchment instead. Cut into bars and enjoy. This is an adaptable recipe, you can use cranberries, dates, whatever dried fruit you have, experiment til you get a taste you love. We have had some rain this last week, the garden is doing well. Plants are getting big and blooming. Should have beans soon, and the squash will not be far behind. Time to start buying up canning jars while the store has a good supply. We will have pears, not sure about the peaches, they never do well, and look like they were hurt by the late freezes we had. Time to get off the rear and to work, nice cool day, rain later so need to work before it starts. Have a great week.

Save on Air conditioning bills, spot remover, grand kids

Sorry I missed you last week, but was having an incredible week with my NE kids, youngest son, daughter in law and their two little girls, 18 months and 4 years old. Living alone is ok, I am quite happy with having no demands on my time. Eat , sleep, work when I want and spend my time doing what seems right at the moment. But having a house filled with bubbly, energetic babes, laughing and playing was just wonderful. We did some sightseeing, visited the aquarium in Gatlinburg, and saw the dam and took a drive into NC. All fun. When the week was over and they headed home, this place was as quiet as a tomb. It was a week of memories to stay with me for a long time. Did you know that we (Americans) spend 15 billion dollars a year on air conditioning? And in so doing, we emit 140 million tons of CO2. Not good for our world. There are a lot of things we can do to cut that back. Let the cool air into your home early, then before the sun is high and hot, shut the house up and close your curtains early in the day. Turn off lights, unplug any electric appliances you are not using. Do your laundry and cooking during the cool part of the day. Running the dryer is not a good thing mid day. If you beef up your insulation and weather strip windows and doors, you save even more. I do not use AC, just fans. And if the house gets cool then shut up, most days are bearable. Electricity seems quite pricy these days, and will be going up as the Pres is trying to pass bills against using coal in producing our power, this is supposed to lessen emissions that are causing climate change, but will also increase our bills. Seems we never can win. Guess all we can do is keep trying to be good citizens, and protect our planet as much as we can. Here on our mountain we recycle just about everything but glass, the place we take our trash does not accept that yet. But paper, cardboard, tin and aluminum cans all get sorted out, and food scraps all go into the compost pile. My son seems to have a use for everything possible, his chipper shredder makes mulch for our yard from all the trimmed tree and bush debris. It's nice to know so many things can be repurposed. If you have not tried this yet, I do recommend it. I have had stains from years back on clothes that made them un-wearable anywhere but home, but the stains are now gone with this simple recipe. In a spray bottle put 2 tablespoons of peroxide(hydrogen) and 1 tablespoon of Dawn. Shake, spray, let sit overnight and wash. I usually triple the recipe so I don't have to make it as often. If you are working on improving your health, try adding good fats, like avocados, olives and YES chocolate. These are unsaturated fats, and do your body good. They are called MUFA's. You also need to eat 2 servings a day of fiber rich foods. And if you have eaten things you should not have, add some yellow mustard, (which also helps back pain) spinach, figs sesame seeds or sardines. Night before last we finally got some rain, just over 1/2 inch. I went out early and picked chives and basil, and lettuce. I grow these on my deck railings in long planter boxes that fit over the rail. Keeps the rabbits from eating it before I do. Had a great salad for lunch with some feta cheese added to it. Nice to have fresh produce again, get spoiled. Always tastes so much better than store stuff. Time to head out for some yard work, have a great week, see you next time.