Food safety falls on consumers

The deciding factor on whether the food we purchase is safe falls on us. Wait, wtf? Yes, apparently it's true. An article was recently published in the NY Times on ConAgra Foods, a company known for their frozen food dishes that has placed the safety factor of their products on the consumer. They just can't guarantee that the food they make will be safe for consumption. Well, that's just great.We get to use the "kill step" which involves heating the meal to a certain temperature. Everyone get their food thermometers out!

It also doesn't bode well for them that they couldn't pinpoint the ingredient that sickened 15,000 people in 2007 from salmonella poisoning. And they're not the only ones who can't guarantee safety. Many are guilty: Nestlé, General Mills, and the Blackstone Group (Swanson and Hungry-Man.)

To find out more read the NY Times article. I would ultimately advise anyone to stay away from these foods. To quote Dr. Brule (Tim and Eric hehe), "for your health!" =P

Stay safe

Fierce Light

This is the trailer to a new movie called Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action. I like the look of it so far.

Don't eat advertised food

Michael Pollan, writer of The Omnivore's Dilemma was recently interviewed by Democracy Now! and discusses his take on the food industry.

Here are both videos:

Tomorrow Never Knows

Great, greeeaaat song. I luvs. Thanks to SuperForest, especially Superforester Carla for showing me this song.



=)

Peace.

Random quote of the day

"As long as we are consumed with our everyday problems—distress about the present, regrets about the past, or constant worries about the future—we cannot be free people; we are not able to live in the here and now."

From The Seven Miracles of Mindfulness

Follow your heart

This video comes with a good message. (Via offgrid's blog, @offgrid is his twitter name)



This video is a part of a the Globaloneness project and is only one of many vids listed on their site. Their message is moving and powerful. Their aim is to show the world that we are all connected; we are one. And together we can bring peace and end suffering. From their site:

We hope that by showing the diverse ways oneness is expressed—in the fields of sustainability, conflict resolution, spirituality, art, economics, indigenous culture, and social justice—others will be inspired to create solutions to personal and community challenges from their own lived understanding of oneness.

I'm absolutely in love with their message. I've felt for a long time that we're all connected, in everything, in every way. No matter what we look like or speak there is something that brings us all together. So, what would that look like?

Gardening rambling

Well, we've laid out an area that is about 12x15 feet for our garden. We've had tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, potato, and jalapeno's growing for a while (with some casualties) but we decided a bigger area was needed. So we have our new area with some new tomatoes and eggplant as well as some potato, carrots, onion, cantaloupe and cilantro seeds. Eek. Sometimes it feels crappy being so new to this because I can't troubleshoot very quickly or easily($) so I'm left to my books and online resources which is probably cheaper than buying book after book. I mean,I feel like I need 20 different books/people to say the same thing before I try it. I guess I'm going to have to let that go. This is a learning experience for me but sometimes I find that I'm way too impatient to figure out what works and what doesn't.

So I guess honing my gardening skills would teach me some life lessons as well. That's cool.

Poo bricks

Is it May already?! Why yes, it is. It's also #ecomonday on Twitter so I bring you this lovely and slightly crappy story(pun intended).

From Inhabitat.com comes a story about a group of students from Indonesia that created bricks from cow poop. Yep, you read right. They won the grand prize from the Global Social Venture Competition for creating building bricks, "EcoFaeBrick", from cow poop. The brick is 20% lighter than traditional clay bricks but is 20% stronger and safer for the environment!

I love what they're doing. Using a very plentiful source to provide lots of people with a cheaper option that doesn't destroy the environment. Yea, sounds good to me.

Update: No smell guys, no smell =)