Health and Food Links:

Wal-Mart move ‘tipping point’ for non-hormone milk – Reportonbusiness.com

How Safe is the U.S. Food Supply? – Mercola.com

USDA Admits Sick & Diseased Cattle Are Regularly Being Slaughtered for Human Consumption – OrganicConsumers.org

The FDA Approved A Natural Cure? What?

The FDA doesn’t like natural cures and herbs at all cause they do not put any money into their pocket. Natural cures would eliminate a lot of jobs as well. With Natural remedies, you wouldn’t need scientists creating another supposed cure that’s just like the old cures already on the market but has a set of new draw-backs and serious side-effects.

It’s just so hard for me to believe that in creating our own medicines from chemicals and genetically altered substances is better then using what God had created for us in the beginning. I guess God made a mistake and wasn’t able to get it right and needed man-kind to make the corrections for him. That’s it….

It blows my mind that Christians of all people are the ones that discredit herbal medicine the most and look to doctors and scientists to fix all of our problems and illnesses. It would make more sense to me that the Christian would believe in what God has made and had the faith to use them for preventative or healing medicines, knowing that God had a purpose in everything he had created. Maybe Christians and others would believe in natural cures if the FDA and others profiting from chemical medicines weren’t trying to dis-credit the natural cure and making people believe that natural cures do not work. My understanding was that the FDA doesn’t test natural cures and herbs so how would they know if they work or not? They don’t care if they work or not. All they know is natural cures are not profitable so therefore; they don’t want to believe in them and will make damn sure we don’t believe in them as well.

That brings my point back to money. Herbs, natural cures, roots, barks and leaves will not make much money because they do not have to be created but only used by the consumer. What would happen to the FDA if we had the knowledge of natural herbs and actually used them knowing they were meant for curing our diseases and allowing us to live a better, natural life. We will never know as long as the FDA, Pharmaceutical companies and medical facilities are in the business for profit. Our sickness is money in their pocket.

Anyway, with all that said, this the real reason for this blog.

Using honey to treat wounds is nothing new; even ancient civilizations used it in this manner. However, this is the sort of thing that usually gets relegated to “folk healing”. It seems scientifically obvious: honey is very acidic (antibacterial), and it produces its own hydrogen peroxide when combined with the fluid which drains from a wound! The extremely high sugar content of honey means it contains very little water. So, it draws the pus and fluid from the wound, thereby speeding the healing process. Furthermore, the honey contains powerful germ-fighting phytochemicals from the plants that produced the pollen harvested by the honeybees. Having already been accepted by the overseas mainstream medical community for some time, North America finally caught on. MEDIHONEY is, according to Derma Sciences’ website, “the first honey-based product cleared for use by Health Canada and also the first cleared for use by the FDA.”

Honey source: NaturalNews.com

$50 Million Awarded to Heather Mills

Heather Mills is $50 Million dollars richer today.  According to Heather, she was happy with the final settlement dollar amount after the divorce proceedings with ex-Beatle, Paul McCartney.

Heather said, “I’m so glad it’s over and it was an incredible result, in the end, to secure my and my daughter’s future, and that of all the charities that I obviously plan on helping.”  Mills has established a career as a campaigner and charity worker in some very important issues.

The original amount proposed by Paul McCartney of $31.6 million wasn’t enough according to Heather.  School tuition for their daughter Beatrice, security and 1st class airfare are expensive.  Also,  “He likes her (Beatrice) to fly five times a year on holiday,” Mills said of McCartney. “It’s 17,000 (pounds) for two people return (round-trip) first class, so that’s obviously not meant to happen for her anymore. It’s very sad.”

Now, everyone can be happy.  Paul’s still rich and Heather can now support herself along with Beatrice while giving to charities, which is a good thing.  Let’s just wait and see if Heather keeps up the good work.

Children Rule

Ever find yourself wanting a nice, quiet dinner at your favorite restaurant? Maybe this is your one chance a week or month to get out and treat yourself and your family to a nice dinner that you don’t have cook or clean up yourself. You know exactly where you want to go and have been looking forward to it all week. You’ve already decided on that pasta dish you had the last time you were there. Or it could just be a juicy chicken sandwich with all of the fixings with a side of fries and a beer to ease yourself into the weekend. It’s a time to unwind and let someone else do all of the work.

You show up and the hostess is going to seat you at your favorite table booth in the back that you requested upon arrival. The lights are dim. All you hear is the low hum of people in deep conversation and the occasional glass tapping the corner of a plate. Then, all of the sudden, a child screams from the direction you are walking. You attention goes directly to the sound to see a family of four having their dinner right beside your favorite table. You procede to your table with uneasiness and anxiety. You stop your hostess and quickly ask for another table. Unfortunately, there are no more tables left, leaving your favorite the only option. You go ahead and sit down hoping the four top next to you is almost done eating and will be gone shortly. You look over and see two beers and two red colored drinks in small cups. Nothing else on the table. No empty plates, no mess, no check… Looks like they are here for a while.

You do notice that the noise has stopped the low hum of the restaurant is back. Back to my relaxing dinner with my family. You begin a conversation about whatever when all of the sudden the younger child begins whining. The whining grows into a sobbing and then comes another loud scream. You look up and see that the parents aren’t doing a thing to have this child shut up. The parents are desensitized to these horrible sounds coming out of this child’s mouth. Finally, after a few minutes of yelling, a parent finally grabs the child and puts it into the floor to run freely and to become obnoxious in a whole new way. Now this child is getting in the way of the servers which are trying to work. Also climbing under tables and going up to complete stranger’s tables to just being plain annoying.

I could go on forever about parents that do not watch their children and the fact that children do not have a lick of discipline these days. These children rule the roost and the parents just let them have their way in order to have the little angels shut up and leave them alone.

I remember one time being at a restaurant in Little Rock and listening to a child kick a wall while laying down in the booth. The bottom’s of his shoes just pounding the wall like a drum. Finally, some other guy stood up from a near-by table and yelled at them to shut the kid up which was very nice to see. But minutes later, the child was kicking the wall with his bare feet. His dad actually took his shoes off so his little angel could continue kicking the wall without being as annoying to those around them. Wow! Great parenting!

The morel of my story is please teach your children how to act in public and especially at restaurants. The rest of us did not go eat out to get a show from your darling. And oh yea, how about when your child or children leave a gigantic mess on the table and the floor, that you leave the server a little more tip for taking the extra out of earing a wage and cleaning up that impossible mess.

Is this just me or do we have a growing problem with obnoxious children in restaurants?

Steve Mendell Can’t Lie Anymore!

Steve Mendell, the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. President of the Southern California slaughterhouse

Steve Mendell (pictured above) denied under oath on Wednesday, but then admitted that his company had introduced downer cows into the food supply after being shown a second video in which a downer cow was shocked and abused by workers trying to move it to the “kill box,” then finally shot with a bolt gun and dragged by a chain to the processing area.

When Mr. Mendell later told the committee he was never aware of the inhumane practices, Mr. Stupak asked him, “What’s your curiosity, as president and C.E.O. of the company you’re responsible for?“Mr. Stupak asked if one could conclude from the video that the cow dragged into the killing area had gone into the food supply.

“That would be logical, sir,” Mr. Mendell replied.

Previous Stories on Largest Beef Recall:

3/12/08 Steve Mendell is Probably Lying

2/29/08 Humane Society Sues U.S. in Cattle Case

2/25/08 Undercover Animal Activist Forces Massive Beef Recall

Steve Mendell is Probably Lying

Steve Mendell, the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. President of the Southern California slaughterhouse said that the cows shown in the video being abused would not have been able to make it up the chute to where the slaughter process begins. Instead they appear to be among the 10 to 15 cows that were euthanized at the slaughterhouse each day because they were non-ambulatory.

Steve Mendell also said appearing under subpoena before the House Energy and Commerce investigative subcommittee: “While these cows should be treated humanely and they were not, these cows were not harvested and they did not enter the food supply……They were not slaughtered, ground or sold. They were euthanized and removed.”

Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., said “And the truth, today, that we want to know is how much money he made from illegally slaughtering so-called downer cows — cows so sick or injured that they could not walk or stand — cows universally viewed as potential carriers of mad cow disease.”

“I am not aware that there has ever before been a meat recall of this magnitude where there is no evidence of contaminated food and no evidence of any illness,” Mendell said.

What Mendell is trying to prove is that one sick cow could ruin their entire inventory and they would never take that chance. I don’t think that way of thinking will hold up court because slaughterhouses used to be able to slaughter downer cows years ago. Then, these downer cows didn’t necessarily contaminate the food supply but only had a higher chance of the food being contaminated. Mendell, knowing this, would probably take his chances using downer cows as food rather than taking a financial hit every time a cow is deemed unfit for slaughter.

Hopefully the courts will be able to tell if Mendell is telling the truth or just covering up lies.

A lot of people are probably going to lose their jobs due to the unfair, inhumane, and unethical practices used by those working at the slaughterhouse. The two employees seen in the video will also see some court time to determine their fate.

I don’t feel so bad for the company though cause if employees are openly using inhumane practices, it’s going to be very hard to convince me that others working there, including the bosses and owner, are unaware of these practices. This facility needs to be shut down to play as an example to other slaughterhouses and companies that deal directly with animals.

If those employees were accountable, this would have never happened.

Into the Wild Reviewed

I just watched the movie directed by Sean Penn called Into The Wild. This is probably one of the best movies I have ever seen. It’s a true story about a kid named Christopher McCandless that left the normal paradigm and became a tramp roaming all over Western USA then thumbing all the way to Alaska under his new name Alexander Supertramp to live the real life away from his parents and society in general. I was touched and also inspired by this movie and would recommend this movie for everyone to see.

More about the movie:

Into the Wild tells the adventures of Christopher McCandless, a top student at Emory University and an athlete. After graduating, McCandless decides to give $24,000 of his savings account to OXFAM and later, to burn all the money in his wallet. He hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wild. During his adventure, he encounters several unique people that change his life before he faces the dangers of wilderness.

ICftU gives Into the Wild (5 Stars)

Cast

• Emile Hirsch – Christopher McCandless
• Marcia Gay Harden – Billie McCandless
• William Hurt – Walt McCandless
• Jena Malone – Carine McCandless
• Catherine Keener – Jan Burres
• Vince Vaughn – Wayne Westerberg
• Zach Galifianakis – Kevin
• Kristen Stewart – Tracy
• Hal Holbrook – Ron Franz
• Steven Wiig – Ranger Steve Koehler

Here’s a look at trailer.

Also, you can enjoy the soundtrack of the same name by Eddie Vedder. Eddie Vedder is the lead singer of Pearl Jam in cause you didn’t know. The soundtrack is very good but it’s best heard with the movie. Here’s a video of Eddie Vedder’s song from the movie which won a Golden Globe for best original song – Motion Picture called Guaranteed

Guaranteed Lyrics:

On bended knee is no way to be free
Lifting up an empty cup i ask silently
That all my destinations will accept the one that’s me
So I can breathCircles the grow and they swallow people whole
Half their lives they say goodnight to wives they’ll never know
Got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul
And so it goes

Don’t come closer or I’ll have to go
Owning me like gravity are places that pull
If ever there was someone to keep me at home
It would be you

Everyone I come across in cages they bought
They think of me and my wandering but I’m never what they thought
Got my indignation but I’m pure in all my thoughts
I’m alive

Wind in my hair I feel part of everywhere
Underneath my being is a road that disappeared
Late at night I hear the trees they’re singing with the dead
Overhead

Leave it to me as I find a way to be
Consider me a satellite forever orbiting
I knew all the rules but the rules did not know me
Guaranteed

Is This Normal? (part II)

Coming soon…

Non-Stick Cookware Continues to Prove Its Toxicity

More evidence has emerged regarding the dangers of Perflurooctanoic Acid (PFOA), which is used in the production of non-stick cookware and stain-resistant snack food packaging. PFOA is currently found in the bloodstream of 95 percent of American men, women, and children.

Now, a study has shown a correlation between PFOA and low birth weight in newborns. One of the head researchers in the independent study, Dr. Lynn Goldman, said that, “It appears that there is a relation between a higher level of exposure and lower birth weight, as well as the circumference of the head.”Another recent study showed that PFOA caused an overreaction to allergens in mice.

PFOA has already been implicated in increased instances of cancer in the pancreas, liver, testicles, and mammary glands, as well as miscarriages, thyroid problems, weakened immune systems, and low organ weights.

A growing community of scientists believe the largest concentration of PFOA comes from the telomers used to make the stain and grease repellent coatings for fast food containers, apparel, and carpeting.

Source:  Organic Consumers Association

Is This Normal? (part I)

A story by ICftU

Here’s a story about a married couple that couldn’t catch a break. It started on a Tuesday evening when the wife went to get two new tires put on the back of the husband’s car while the husband was at work. She chose to buy the tires from Walmart. They had gone to Firestone for years for all of their tire needs but this time they needed away from the Firestone headache.

The wife dropped off the car on a day which Walmart had a light schedule. They said it wouldn’t take too long to get new tires and the wife can soon be on her way. After handing over the key to the Walmart employee, the wife walked across the road to her mother’s house to wait there. What seemed like not to long after arriving at her mother’s house, the wife received a call from Walmart. “I’m sorry but we cannot put on your new tires because one of your lug-nuts will not come off. It looks as though whoever put on the tire last, stripped the threads. You will need to bring it back to whoever has done this and have them fix it.” the Walmart employee said. The Walmart employee also warned the wife of the dangers of driving with only 3 working lug-nuts. He said it could be very dangerous so please drive extra slow and with caution. The wife thought about how the husband has been driving this car for a year with only 3 good lug-nuts. “Oh my God, he could have been killed.” she thought while carefully driving the car home. It was late in the day, so she will have to wait another day to confront Firestone with their mistake in hope they will be accountable.

The next day, the wife and the husband drove in two separate cars over to Firestone to plead their case and to have Firestone fix what they had done. After speaking with the Manager at Firestone, the stripped stud would be repaired. The wife had to be at work that morning, leaving the husband at Firestone to wait for the car. The husband picks up a magazine to tries to relax while eating a nice fast food breakfast. This was way easier than the husband ever expected. It’ll be no time and the husband will be home with his car good as new. This is when the husband hears, “Sir, can you step into the shop, we have something to show you.” Without to much thought, the husband walks into the shop to find a mechanic waiting at the lifted car with some news. He said, “One of your studs are brand new and I think whoever put the new stud in was the one who stripped the lug-nut that we are having to cut off.” The husband’s thoughts went straight to Walmart. “Damn-it”, he thought. Walmart lied to us. The Firestone mechanic said that he would change the broken stud anyway but there was no way Firestone made this mistake. The husband thanked him for his services and he walked back to his magazine.

In the husband’s thought process, he started figuring out why Walmart would have replaced one of the studs but wouldn’t replace the other. If they replaced one stud, that means the tire would have been completely off of the car at one point at Walmart and that would mean that the husband would have new tires on his car. Since the husband didn’t have new tires, the Firestone mechanic’s story was now busted.

(Break Drum pictured)

While mentally investigating this mystery in the waiting room, the husband notices the mechanic walking into the waiting room with the drum on the wheel in hand. “Sir, looks like the hole that the stud sets in has been stripped out and can no longer hold a stud. You will need to buy a new drum and that will be around $200.00. The husband was not pleased and said that it wouldn’t be fair that he would have to fix an error made by Firestone. The mechanic turned the drum over showing that the head of the stud head was clean and couldn’t have been on the car for a year. The husband grabs the drum and tilts it slightly sideways to show the mechanic and the manager that the round edge of the stud head was completely filthy with break dust. The husband exclaimed, “There’s no way this stud accumulated this much dust after only driving 6 miles doing about 30 mph! If Walmart changed this stud yesterday, then how the hell did the part of the stud that you didn’t get to clean off have this much dust stuck to it?” The husband noticed that the head of the stud had been wiped clean by the mechanic in order to prove Firestone’s innocence.

The husband silently agrees that the thread of the newer stud was pretty shiny. It would only be a year old and all they had to compare it to was the old studs on the car that were 8 years old. But also, you have to note that the wheel has a wheel cover and the cover could have kept the bolt shinier longer.

Stay tuned for part II when this story gets much worse for the married couple.