Yo, Step away from the Ding-Dong!
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, three-fourths of health care spending now goes to treat “preventable chronic diseases.” Not all of these diseases are linked to diet — there’s smoking, for instance — but many of them are.
We spend $147 billion to treat obesity, $116 billion to treat diabetes, and hundreds of billions more treating cardiovascular disease and the many types of cancer that have been linked to the so-called Western diet.
Cheap food is going to be popular as long as the social and environmental costs of that food are charged to the future. There’s gobs of money to be made selling fast food and then treating the diseases that fast food causes. One of the leading products of the American food industry has become patients for the American health care industry.
Take for example the market for prescription drugs and medical devices to manage Type 2 diabetes, which the Centers for Disease Control estimates will afflict one in three Americans born after 2000.
So you might be thinking, what about the insurance companies? Where’s the incentive for them to encourage prevention over disease management?
As for the insurers, you would think preventing chronic diseases would be good business, but, at least under the current rules, it’s much better business simply to keep patients at risk for chronic disease out of your pool of customers, whether through lifetime caps on coverage or rules against pre-existing conditions or by figuring out ways to toss patients overboard when they become ill.
Maybe if they made it so you can’t deny pre-existing conditions for new customers and not charge exorbitantly higher fees, then the insurance companies might be enthusiastic fans of healthy lifestyle choices.
The status quo is slow to change and to entertain the idea of expulsion of those currently running the show is a bit ridiculous and likely to cause too much mayhem and chaos in the process.
True education and the desire to own and rediscover each of our divine personal power and use our waning ability to think and question for ourselves is a much more long term solution to this epidemic.
The secret to saving the world (assuming that it even needs to be saved) is to start with yourself first and don’t worry about what the other person next to you is doing. Get your own house in order. If these words are heeded by a majority, then we’ll be in pretty good shape.
and Hey! Put that Twinkie down!
Vertical Farming, or more definitive, Vertical Hydroponic Organic Urban Farming is coming to a town near you. Or it should be, in my opinion. Yes, I know I’ve been on a farming bender lately with my blog, but hey, after air and water, food is pretty important to staying alive.
Even though I currently reside in a condo and don’t currently fancy myself possessing a green thumb unless it’s from paint, thanks to my mother and grandfather et al, I’ve got farmer’s blood in me. And it is true that I’ve always been into quality food, health and nutrition.
Before I get into the cool pics and advantages of Vertical Farming, I need to bring up something else about our relationship with . . .
Now of course, this ties in directly to the elephant in the room many people try to avoid confronting. And that is the horrendously unhealthy typical American diet and its catastrophic effect on the out-of-control health care in this country. Wait, we’re still calling this Health Care? More like Disease Management.
It’s the quality of food we eat – mostly processed and devoid of enzymes and basic nutrients in adequate levels. It’s the quantity too – most of us eat way too much food, much of it garbage.
It’s also when we eat. Too many people skip breakfast or think a cup of joe is a sufficient breakfast. This is followed by eating the biggest meal of the day at dinnertime – often much too late in the evening.
Finally, lack of quality fresh food, effective, bio-available nutritional supplements, and eating while under time stress and other stresses creates the inability to absorb and digest what we DO end up shoving in our mouths.
There are a myriad of ‘pie in the sky’ artist conceptions and designs.
Perhaps a smaller model would be more easily created in a shorter amount of time.
Here’s a few interesting ideas:
As the world’s population has already surpassed 6 billion and billions more on the way, before we know it the traditional soil-based farming model developed over the last 12,000 years will no longer be a sustainable option.
Irrigation of crops uses 70 percent of the fresh water that we use. The excess agricultural runoff, contaminated with silt, pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, is unfit for reuse.
VF food production will take advantage of hydroponic and aeroponic technologies. Both methods are soil-free. Hydroponics allows us to grow plants in a water-and-nutrient solution, while aeroponics grows them in a nutrient-laden mist. These methods use far less water than conventional cultivation techniques, in some cases as much as 90 percent less.
For every indoor acre farmed, some 10 to 20 outdoor acres of farmland can return to their original ecological state (mostly hardwood forest).
A vertical farm will behave like a functional ecosystem, in which waste is recycled and the water used in hydroponics and aeroponics is recaptured by dehumidification and used over and over again. The technologies needed to create a vertical farm are currently being used in controlled-environment agriculture facilities but have not been integrated into a seamless source of food production in urban high-rise buildings.
High rises aren’t the only structures that could house vertical farms. Farms of various sizes and crop yields could be built into a variety of urban settings — from schools, restaurants and hospitals to the upper floors of apartment complexes. By supplying a continuous quantity of fresh vegetables and fruits to city dwellers, these farms will help combat health problems, like Type II diabetes and obesity.
Vertical farming can finally put an end to agricultural runoff, a major source of water pollution.
City dwellers will also be able to breathe easier – literally. Vertical farms will bring a great concentration of plants into cities. These plants will absorb carbon dioxide produced by automobile emissions and give off oxygen in return
One estimate for proof of concept: constructing a five-story farm, taking up one-eighth of a square city block, will cost $20 million to $30 million.
An actual indoor farm developed at Cornell University growing hydroponic lettuce was able to produce as many as 68 heads per square foot per year. At a retail price in New York of up to $2.50 a head for hydroponic lettuce, you can see how profitable this and other similar crops can be.
Learn more about Vertical Farming @ http://www.verticalfarm.com/
I would love to see Monsanto be destroyed by it’s own corruption and greed – and any other company with equally diabolical plans and schemes such as theirs. Patenting life and trying to own and control the world’s food supply. The way they conduct their business makes me extremely distrustful of anything they say as being accurate or truthful.
With that bit of zing, I want to share with you an article I was sent today by a friend.
02-04-2010
When we consider the rogue’s gallery of devilish, over-sized, greedy and disproportionately powerful corporations, we generally come up with outfits like Microsoft, Bechtel, AIG, Halliburton, Goldman-Sachs, Exxon-Mobil and the United States Senate. Yet somehow, Monsanto, arguably the most devilish, over-sized, greedy and disproportionately powerful corporation in the world has been able to more or less skulk between the raindrops — only a household name in households where documentaries like Food Inc. are regarded as light Friday evening entertainment. My house, for example. But for the most part, if you were to ask an average American for their list of sinister corporations, Monsanto probably wouldn’t make the cut.
It should.
Founded by Missouri pharmacist John Francis Queeny in 1901, Monsanto is literally everywhere. Just about every non-organic food product available to consumers has some sort of connection with Monsanto. Anyone who can read a label knows that corn, soy and cotton can be found in just about every American food product. Upwards of 90% of all corn, soybeans and cotton are grown from genetically engineered seeds, also known as genetically modified organisms (GMOs). These genetically enhanced products appear in around 70% of all American processed food products. And Monsanto controls 90% of all genetically engineered seeds. In other words, Monsanto controls — and owns patents on — most of the American food supply.
When you consider, as Walletpop originally reported, that one-in-four food labels is inaccurate, that the F.D.A.’s testing is weak at best, then how can we trust one corporation to have so much control over our produce? The answer is, we can’t. Recently, a study by the International Journal of Biological Sciences revealed that Monsanto’s Mon 863, Mon 810, and Roundup herbicide-absorbing NK 603 in corn caused kidney and liver damage in laboratory rats. Scientists also discovered damage to the heart, spleen, adrenal glands and even the blood of rats that consumed the mutant corn. A “state of hepatorenal toxicity” the study concluded.
This hasn’t slowed down Monsanto’s profit machine. In 2008, Monsanto cleared over $2 billion in net profits on $11 billion in revenues. And its 2009 is looking equally as excellent.
Author and food safety advocate Robyn O’Brien told me, “Monsanto is expecting gross margins in Q2 2010 of 62%, its corn and soy price mix to be up 8-10% and its glyphosate revenue to expand to an estimated $1 billion in gross profit by 2012, enabling Monsanto to further drive R&D into seeds and to price those seeds at a premium – further driving price increases on the farm and in the grocery stores.”
This, O’Brien says, in the same year when farm income declined by around 34%.
Because Monsanto claims that its GMOs create higher yields and therefore comparatively higher revenues per acre for struggling American farmers, they’re certainly a tempting option. On the surface, that is. Monsanto controls its seeds with an iron fist, so even if you happen to own a farm next to another farm upon which Monsanto seeds are used, and if those seeds migrate onto your land, Monsanto can sue you for royalties.
Additionally, if you use seeds from crops grown from Monsanto seeds, a process known as “seed cleaning,” you also have to pay royalties to Monsanto or it will sue you. All told, Monsanto has recovered $15 million in royalties by suing farmers, with individual settlements ranging from five figures to millions of dollars each.
Back in 2004, farmer Kem Ralph served eight months in jail and was fined $1.3 million for lying about Monsanto cotton seeds he was hiding in his barn as a favor to a friend. They weren’t even his seeds (yeah, that’s what they all say!). By way of comparison, the fine in Ralph’s home state of Tennessee for, say, cocaine possession, is $2,500.
In keeping with the Orwellian nature of modern marketing, one of the first phrases you see on the front page of the Monsanto website is “we help farmers.” Funny. In a cruelly ironical way, that is.
In fairness, the argument in support of Monsanto is generally “it makes more food for lower prices.” Of course this is a red herring. Basic economics proves that choice and competition create lower prices. Not monopolies. This applies not only to American grocery stores, but also in terms of feeding developing nations where food is scarcer.
Moreover, stronger Monsanto herbicides, compatible with herbicide resistant seeds, are giving rise to mutant Wolverine-ish super weeds that have adapted and are rapidly spreading through the air to farms that don’t use Monsanto GMOs, destroying obviously vulnerable crops. Say nothing of the inevitable mutant bugs that will adapt to the pesticides that are implanted into the Monsanto Mon 810 genetic code. And if further studies indicate similar organ damage in humans, the externalized costs to health care systems will begin to seriously out-weigh the benefits of cheaper food.
Ultimately, there are better, healthier ways to make cheaper food. Until then the best thing we can do is to demand further investigations and buy organic products whenever practical.
And if you can’t afford to buy organic, O’Brien recommends, “A great first step, given how pervasive these ingredients are in processed foods that often use these ingredients to extend shelf life, is to reduce your exposure to processed foods and stick with pronounceable ingredients and foods that your grandmother would have served her kids.”
Meanwhile, let’s endeavor to make Monsanto a household name. But not in a good way.
On January 15, the Obama Justice Department launched an anti-trust investigation against the corporate behemoth over its next generation of genetically modified “Roundup Ready” soybean seeds. The very next day, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case Monsanto v. Geertson Seed Farms, which challenges the safety of genetically modified agricultural products — the centerpiece of the Monsanto empire. If the investigation fails, farmers will have to switch over to the next generation of Roundup Ready seeds in 2014. And the cycle of corporate abuse and monopolization will continue.
Back in August of 2009 I was visiting Santa Fe, New Mexico with a friend and we stopped by the new Farmer’s Market at the old Railyard. They have a special train that comes up from Albequerque every Saturday.
The Santa Fe farmer’s market is one of the top 10 farmer’s markets in the US. It was quite impressive to visit. Plenty of variety of foods, fruits, veggies, herbs, crafts, bakery goods.
There’s also an adjoining Artist’s Market next to the park – hey, this is Santa Fe – home of more artists per capita than any place I’ve been – and I should add, not just run of the mill art or south western art but stuff that comes from California to New York, Europe, Asia and beyond.
Inside one of the buildings I noticed these posters on the wall talking about this Slow Money concept. You can click on the gallery pictures to read the gist of it. I also wrote out the main parts below.
Santa Fe Farmers Market in the Railyard – sept 9-11, 2009
Since late 2008, thousands of Americans in dozens of cities and towns have participated in the launch of the slow money movement. Is it the beginning of the nurture capital industry? A new vision of seed capital?
Join thought leaders, entrepreneurs, investors,donors, farmers and activists for Slow Money’s inaugural national gathering, bringing together people from across the country, and also featuring a focus on New Mexico’s regional food system.
Let’s fix America’s economy ‘from the ground up’ . . . starting with local food.
LEARN MORE @ http://www.SlowMoneyAlliance.org
that was a funny movie….
yes, it’s blog pee time again, even though we just went… and I’m not sure if it’s still groundhog day or not… each tomorrow seems the same as yesterday’s spilt milk.
COFFEE – TEA – SODA POP – PEE
The caffeine found in tea leaves is not the same as the caffeine in coffee beans.
For one, tea is much lower in general, rich in anti-oxidants and balanced verses the highs and lows caused by coffee.
Coffee caffeine perpetuates the physiological symptoms as seen in anxiety and stress – racing heartbeat, insomnia, sweating, nervousness, agitation and palpations. This is all associated with one’s Sympathetic Nervous System or the fight or flight instinct.
Tea on the other hand stimulates the Parasympathetic Nervous System, or the “rest and digest” response.
So the message is, drink coffee and freak out. Drink tea and feel relaxed, happy and healthy. It encourages a clear mind, improves concentration and helps digest food properly.
****808****
Things that were better when my parents were growing up.
No microwaves.
The ground soil that we grow our food in wasn’t so depleted.
GMO foods didn’t exist.
Fast food was a rarity.
Feel sorry for the Chinese youth…. ignorance may seem blissful but to me they seem like brainwashed little sheeple who don’t know or apparently care about freedom. What they don’t know does hurt them. They don’t even know they’re being subjected to excessive censorship.
They think they have choices, but like cable tv, there’s 57 channels of crap. sure there’s different flavors to ‘choose’ from, but it’s all crap in the end.
Clueless Ignorant Chinese
upon watching slobama’s 2010 SofU address… what comes to mind is this:
joining dar cast of idiots, morons & baffoons >> joe biden dar bobblehead und nancy palosi clap happy jack in dar box clown
I love reading comments on youtube – it confirms that one can be an ignorant douchebag but still be just smart enough to use a computer and surf the internet.
A comeback for when someone calls you crazy:
_
Crazy? There are many who will dub me a ‘nut’ for what I have written and spoken.
My reply is this: Today’s mighty oak is just yesterday’s nut that held its ground.
This is possibly not as crazy as it sounds. Granted, the notion of devoting valuable city land to agriculture would be unfathomable in New York, London, or Tokyo. But Detroit is a special case. The city that was once the fourth largest in the country and served as a symbol of America’s industrial might has lately assumed a new role: North American poster child for the global phenomenon of shrinking postindustrial cities.
Nearly 2 million people used to live in Detroit. Fewer than 900,000 remain. Even if, unlikely as it seems, the auto industry were to rebound dramatically and the U.S. economy were to come roaring back tomorrow, no one — not even the proudest civic boosters — imagines that the worst is over. “Detroit will probably be a city of 700,000 people when it’s all said and done,” says Doug Rothwell, CEO of Business Leaders for Michigan. “The big challenge is, What do you do with a population of 700,000 in a geography that can accommodate three times that much?”
Whatever the answer is, whenever it comes, it won’t be predicated on a return to past glory. “We have to be realistic,” says George Jackson, CEO of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. (DEGC). “This is not about trying to re-create something. We’re not a world-class city.”
If not world class, then what? A regional financial center? That’s already Chicago, and to a lesser extent Minneapolis. A biotech hub? Boston and San Diego are way out in front. Some think Detroit has a future in TV and movies, but Hollywood is skeptical. (”Best incentives in the country,” one producer says. “Worst crew.”) How about high tech and green manufacturing? Possibly, given the engineering and manufacturing talent that remains.
But still there’s the problem of what to do with the city’s enormous amount of abandoned land, conservatively estimated at 40 square miles in a sprawling metropolis whose 139-square-mile footprint is easily bigger than San Francisco, Boston, and Manhattan combined. If you let it revert to nature, you abandon all hope of productive use. If you turn it over to parks and recreation, you add costs to an overburdened city government that can’t afford to teach its children, police its streets, or maintain the infrastructure it already has.
Faced with those facts, a growing number of policymakers and urban planners have begun to endorse farming as a solution. Former HUD secretary Henry Cisneros, now chairman of CityView, a private equity firm that invests in urban development, is familiar with Detroit’s land problem. He says he’s in favor of “other uses that engage human beings in their maintenance, such as urban agriculture.” After studying the city’s options at the request of civic leaders, the American Institute of Architects came to this conclusion in a recent report: “Detroit is particularly well suited to become a pioneer in urban agriculture at a commercial scale.”
And I would add, this is a great opportunity to explore the potential of vertical hydroponic farming models – even though they point out that there is plenty of land – horizontally speaking. But that shouldn’t be a reason to ignore future tech.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE
I love gum. Or I used to. Back before they ruined them all. Or so I thought they did.
Except for those 25 cent gum balls that you can find in the malls and shops – you know, the ones that loose their flavor in under 60 seconds or second rate Double Bubble that is popular around Halloween, or bubble gums with unpalatable and bizarre new flavors, I’m left with nothing to chew that won’t poison my body and rot my brain.
Yes, I read labels dammit. And one by one, all the major gums have switched to the DARK SIDE and put that fucking nutra sweet aspartame shit into their bits of inedible chewing wax.
As a kid I remember looking forward to getting a piece of Bazooka bubble gum when my dad would take us kids for a haircut at the local barbershop. Sure, that Bazooka gum was hard as rocks and the cartoon on the wrappers was lame, but nevertheless, we looked forward to our reward for a job well done – that being managing to sit still while getting our hair chopped.
Then there was the time when I was visiting my grandparents on Long Island as a kid where there was still an old Woolworth’s five and dime that was within walking distance from their house. I remember buying this bubble gum that was like a foot long for just a quarter. I imagined I was going to get into the Guiness Book Of World Records for World’s biggest bubble blown and this gum was going to be my vehicle to success.
Oh sure, Hubba Bubba, Bubblicious and Bubble Yum were fun to chew back in the days when I didn’t have to shave and the taste buds in the back of my mouth [inside the cheeks] hadn’t worn away yet, but now it seems like they are my only option today if I want to chew some gum without getting sick. But the urge to blow a bubble is too great and I don’t want to deal with the issues of getting it off my face.
In high school I moved onto more mature chewing pleasure in the form of chain chewing Dentyne cinnamon flavored gum. I preferred it over Wrigley’s Big Red as tasting more natural, also I thought it kept my breath fresh. Plus the rush of the cinnamon burn was an unrealized precursor to my love affair with hot sauces and wasabi.
Later I would move to Wrigley’s gums [minus Big Red] until one day I noticed they had made the switch to the Dark Side as well.
WTF? Can’t ONE company keep making it the old, simple way with just sugar? I figured it was either an aspartame infiltration conspiracy or maybe it was just plain cheaper than using sugar.
Just like the majority of major chocolate makers are using more and more crap in their ingredients. At least with chocolate, there’s plenty of available natural and organic options. And boy do they taste great! But I digress…
fresh-en up bubble gum
One gum that I hadn’t seen in years and figured it was a casualty of the gum wars, was a gum called Fresh-en Up gum. Fresh-en Up came in a square pack of 6 or 7 pieces in a variety of flavors like bubble gum, spearmint, cinnamon and peppermint. But what made this gum really fun was it’s liquid center ‘bursting with flavor’ goo. Chew time wasn’t the best, but it was a softer chew than most and it was different – it had style for a gum and gave you a broader experience … like Pop Rocks do for candy.
Chicklets was another fun sounding gum. Though even as a kid, I never really cared for the microscopic pieces in those little bags. A better gum in my opinion was Beechies. Beechies came in spearmint and peppermint gum that came 2 pieces to a box.
Beechies Gum 2lb Bag
Well, after a quick search on Google, I come to find out that both Beechies and Fresh-en Up live on to this day and can be had for a reasonable price… so long as you are willing to buy in bulk. Hey, no problem. Gum keeps for a really LONG time. Most important, they still make their gums with the ingredients they always have. NO artificial sweeteners to melt my brain.
You can buy Beechies Gum here.
And Fresh-en Up Gum here.
Today’s Pick: Shaklee’s Performance Sports Drink
My Favorite - The Big Can - 70+ servings
When it comes to staying hydrated and rehydrating, nothing else comes close. As a personal observation, an added benefit seems to be quick available energy that keeps you going long after you think you’d be spent.*
I like to buy it in the Performance Team Pack size to save a few bucks, plus it lasts for quite a while. Lately I’ve been sticking with the Lemon-Lime flavor, but I like to mix it up and switch to the Orange now and then. I tried mixing the two together half and half but found it didn’t really taste as good as each on their own.
A few years ago, I just bought a Trikke 8 and finally figured out how to make it go. So being the over achiever I am, I decided I would conquer the entire Pinellas Trail - 34+ miles from end to end running the length of Pinellas County with the addition of a few extensions which of course I had to do. [Note to self: share embarrassing story of Trikke 8 experiences]
I mixed up a double dose in a 20 oz water bottle, grabbed a few granola bars and set out on the Pinellas Trail for the first leg of what would be several different sessions to finish it.
Mind you, I had not been doing much cardio at all prior to taking this on. Sipping on the Performance, I managed to go almost 5 hours and wasn’t even tired or sore. Not even the next day. I couldn’t believe I went that long and far without paying for it later.
I really like the fact that Shaklee doesn’t put crap [chemicals, artificial colors/sweeteners/additives] in any of their products, so you know you are getting the best there is. Chalk up another glowing testimonial to the power of Shaklee, lol! I tell you, this stuff works!
The smaller can of Performance makes 19 servings @ 100 calories per.
*Independent peer reviewed and accepted published research has proves this to be true.
With the United States Congress pushing to pass questionable ‘health care’ bill thru the House and Senate, it is crystal clear that the government is clueless and unwilling to go after real POSITIVE CHANGE…
Sure, the president built his whole campaign on the concept of CHANGE… but I never heard it phrased as Change for the BETTER.
For far too long we have had a system of disease management. Waiting for people to get sick and THEN try to make them well again… Health Care as it is today is mislabeled… IT should be called, Disease Management. Most of the money spent on health care is spent AFTER people are sick.
What we need is to switch to PREVENTION and Proactive healthy lifestyle living. If we don’t, the aging Baby Boomer population will bankrupt our nation. We need to shift from “wait till you get sick and then try to make you healthy” to “keeping you healthy so you don’t get sick.” This is where Billions of new dollars are going to be spent.
Shaklee’s clinically proven, patented natural products are how you and I can live this new paradigm.
It’s also a phenomenal way to earn a great living and help the world be a better place at the same time.
YOU don’t have to feel excluded from the American Dream… watch this video from Shaklee’s CEO, Roger Barnett and then click on the link to see how You can Take part.
Roger Barnett Shaklee 2010 Highlight
Learn more about how you can be a part of the Shaklee Family.
F-N-F: Friday Night Film for October 30, 2009
If you are at all concerned (and I don’t know why you wouldn’t, other than ignorance of the fact) about what has been going on in the world’s food supply, this will be an uncomfortable eye-opener for you. Thank our Maple Loving friends to the north for this one.
After researching this on my own, I have come to the conclusion that the real culprit or cause behind this whole thing is an unconstitutional ruling by the US supreme court that allowed anyone the right to patent life : i.e., genes, modified seeds, and thus, the underlying natural product.
In other words, the entire food supply will be owned by a select few corporations owned by the elite ruling families of the world as part of their plan for total domination and control.
Yes, that’s pretty sick, but so long as people are aware of what’s going on and decide to DO SOMETHING about it, then their plans will fail.
UPDATE 2-12-2010 – youtube version has been removed due to copyright claim.
Here’s the video on Veoh – you might have to download a free media player to watch, not sure. Watch The World According to Monsanto in Educational | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
This is part one of 10. Parts 2 thru 10 are listed below as hyperlinks that will open in a new window.
World According To Monsanto Part 2
World According To Monsanto Part 3
World According To Monsanto Part 4
World According To Monsanto Part 5
World According To Monsanto Part 6
World According To Monsanto Part 7
World According To Monsanto Part 8
World According To Monsanto Part 9
World According To Monsanto Part 10
