How can you tell Real food from Modified? Plus deck cleaner, softer towels and more

It's a lovely cool morning, just a light rain falling and will stay in the 70's. We have had a wonderful week of much cooler and less humid weather, enjoyed every day of it. Looks like the lower temps hold for another week, hurray!. Praying for God to watch over my traveling kids today, they are all in or heading to their dad's house, he lost his wife last weekend. It's a long trip, by car or air. And with the latest Malaysian mishap, things are not feeling real great. Hope we do not have a big to do over this, like another war or some such. Our world is certainly an insane place these days. Good Housekeeping magazine has an excellent article on modified foods this month. Fully 70% of food in super markets is modified. And now there is proof that those products hurt your kidneys and liver among other health hazards. How do we know what to pick? Vegetable oils, beet sugar, animals raised on modified feeds, even ice cream contain GMO's. This is termed "lab food" as opposed to real food. I have done a couple of blogs on the tomato growing in our area, they are truly bad to eat. Most of us would like to know what we are eating and asking for labels that define that. We need to avoid the Frankenfoods that are being pushed on us more and more. GMO foods are engineered with DNA from other plants, animals and insects. Even your tortilla chips are bad. Any thing from corn, cornstarch,(look for arrowroot) corn oil, sorry Mazola, contain bacterial toxins. Can GMOs harm your health? You bet, studies are showing they cause sensitivity to foods, like celiac and gluten disorders. Also allergies. A few non GMO crops for now are strawberries, tomatoes(fresh) and bell peppers. Asparagus is bug resistant so its good too. We want to know so we are hoping for labeling laws soon. Just do it! Mean time, shop the perimeter of the store, look for organic fresh produce, try farmers markets and ask questions. Better than being sick down the line. Got mold on your siding or deck? The back of my house faces north and never sees sun, so I use 1/2 gallon of white vinegar to 1 gallon of water and a good squirt of dawn, put into a spray bottle and coat the affected area. Do not wash off, leave for the rain, it will clean it up slick as a whistle. An alternate recipe is 1 cup of borax to 1 gallon of water, don't like it as well. TO clean a grungy deck, mix 1/2 gallon of Clorox to 2 gallons of water and 1/4 cup of dawn, mix in bucket and use broom to scrub. Rinse well. This will kill plants so keep away from flower beds. Are your towels and washcloths a bit older? Loosing their softness and absorbent qualities? I did this and like the results. Use hot water and add 1 cup of white vinegar to a load of just towels, no soap. After it washes and drains, set it back to wash again and add 1/2 cup of baking or washing soda and let finish as usual. Dry completely. Any moisture left in can get mildowy and smell funny. Lets make some safe hand soap. Hope you are avoiding anti bacterial ones, many studies say they are not good, we need to build up resistance to germs and won't with them. Start with 16 ounces of castile soap. I have been buying this from Swanson Vitamins, but Amazon also carries it as does Mountain Rose Herbs. I like the ones scented with rose or lavender. To that add 1 T aloe Vera gel, 1 t vegetable glycerin and a few drops of your favorite essential oil for scent. It cleans and softens, you will like it. Pump containers work well, hope you have saved one from before.. There is an ad on tv for Scott toilet paper, saying we toss 17 billion cardboard tubes a year from the center of the toilet paper roll. Enough to build two Empire state buildings. Well, Scott now offers a tubeless roll of tissue, great idea. Hope other companies pick up on this, need to cut down on waste as much as we can. So many things are "over packaged." Hope you have a wonderful week, hard to think they are pushing back to school and fall things already, seems like summer just got here. Take care, read labels and stay well.