What is Happening to Our Wheat?

Wheat has been a staple for millenniums. But, something has happened. Our wheat is not the same wheat our forefather's ate.

There is an interesting movie on Netflix. If you have Netflix, I encourage you to take the time to watch the documentary, What's with Wheat? It's most interesting. And, the wheat by-products are used in skin care products and cosmetics, among other things on the store shelves.

Have a great day, and live naturally!
Stephen

Bees: A Barometer to the Earth's Environmental Stability

Bees: These amazing little creatures are so interconnected to our very existence, and yet, they are in such danger.

Thirty-five percent of hives are dying annually due to our environmental pollutants. We need to do something now, and each and everyone with a bit of property can make a difference in a bee's world.

I have two sites I came across that deserve some attention. They are the following: BeeAction.org  and Bee-Friendlier.com.

Albert Einstein said,  “Mankind will not survive the honeybees disappearance for more than five years.” 

This was quite prophetic for one of the biggest, foreboding dangers of all facing humans is the loss of the global honeybee population. Why is that? 

The consequence of a dying bee population impacts man at the highest levels on our food chain, posing an enormously grave threat to human survival. It is amazing how a creature so small can have such a huge impact on our lives.

Did you know that 70 out of the top 100 crops for our human food, which supplies around 90% of the world's nutrition, are pollinated by bees. A single bee colony can pollinate 300 million flowers each day. This consists of fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Honey bees, both wild and domestic, perform 80% of the pollination... Unbelievable!

Since 2006 beekeepers have been noticing their honeybee populations have been dying off at increasingly rapid rates. In Iowa, alone, there has been a decrease of over 70%! California's bee production has dropped nearly half in the last 6 years, and so many other states have seen a reduction, as well, such as Florida.

Chemicals, herbicides, and insecticides being used are having a horrifying effect on the bee population.  Hives are being devastated by what is known  Honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). This problem has caused such a loss that the bee phenomenon has been recognized as an urgent crisis. There are so many other maladies that bees suffer from, even through electro-magnetic cell tower emissions.  What is happening to bees is a barometer to the earth's environmental stability.

Visit the websites, plant some wild flowers even if it is in containers, do your best to avoid pesticides, herbicides, and chemicals around your home and property for the sake of bees and all of nature, and plant heirloom or GMO free seeds in your garden if at all possible. If we each cooperate with nature, we can collectively change our world and preserve the natural habitats of God's creations, as well as, our food supply. 

Be kind to nature and nature will be able to do what God intended for it to do for you.

God bless,
Stephen 



SEDRO-WOOLLEY, Wash.—Oct. 15, 2014 / PR Newswire / —  Bees are responsible for one in every three bites of food we eat,
but their populations are in decline,
threatening the food supply as we know it today.

EWG's Annual Produce Pesticide Rating

Learn to shop smart. Our food is not grown as it was a 100 years ago. Monsanto and other agri-chemical companies have made sure of that.

Watch the following video and visit the link below to get EWG's annual produce pesticide rating list sent to you. Take the list with you when you shop.

Have a great day,
Stephen
Click the link... Pesticide List Sign Up form

Bees and Our World

It is reported that Albert Einstein once said: 

“If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination … no more men!”

These are words to take to heart. 

There is a new film that has been released and that can be ordered  entitled: More Than Honey. It shows the importance bees play in our lives and our food supply and how they are now disappearing and dying. These special little creatures are not just the providers of a special sweetener you use. They pollinate; they, essentially, are responsible for a great portion of our food supply. Watch the trailer below.


More than Honey - Markus Imhoof (Official Trailer) from CIBER Science on Vimeo.
This is another little video I posted  HERE sometime ago.

Bees pollinate a significant majority of the world's food. In North America alone, honey bees pollinate nearly 95 kinds of fruits, including almonds, avocados, cranberries and apples. In fact, we can thank honey bees for one in three bites of food we eat. We all rely on bees – and the pollination services they provide – every day.

What’s happening to bees?

In recent years, bees have been dying off in droves. First in France in the mid-1990s, then in the U.S. and elsewhere, colonies have been mysteriously collapsing with adult bees disappearing, seemingly abandoning their hives. 

In 2006, about two years after this phenomenon hit the U.S., it was named “Colony Collapse Disorder,” or CCD. Each year since, commercial beekeepers have reported annual losses of 29% - 36%. Such losses are unprecedented, and more than double what is considered normal. Much has been made over the "mystery" surrounding CCD, but two points of consensus have emerged: Multiple, interacting causes are in play – key suspects include pathogens, habitat loss and pesticides; and Immune system damage is a critical factor that may be at the root of the disorder. Read more... 

There is a PDF that is quite interesting. It is a Bee Tool-Kit. You can access it HERE. Share it with your children and grand-children, and make the young ones aware of the importance that bees play in their life and life of this beautiful planet we all share and call home: It is the only one we have.

Check out the little widget in the side-bar and observe the bee-harming pesticides/chemicals being used in our agriculture that remains on your food supply. It is alarming. 

Visit with your local farmer's markets, and ask whether their produce is grown with bee safety in mind. If so, I urge you to patronize and support them.

Have a safe, Natural Living day,
Stephen

The Movie FRESH... Our Food and You

Here's a movie trailer from the documentary Fresh that we wanted to share with you.

FRESH Synopsis

FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. Each has witnessed the rapid transformation of our agriculture into an industrial model, and confronted the consequences: food contamination, environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources, and morbid obesity. Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision for a future of our food and our planet.

Among several main characters, FRESH features urban farmer and activist, Will Allen, the recipient of MacArthur’s 2008 Genius Award; sustainable farmer and entrepreneur, Joel Salatin, made famous by Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma; and supermarket owner, David Ball, challenging our Wal-Mart dominated economy.

Here are three more clips. The first clip is about a farmer in Missouri.

Russ Kremer, the President of the Missouri Farmers' Union and of Ozark Mountain Pork Coop discusses the danger of concentrating animals in feedlots . . .

Will Allen, 6ft 7" former professional basketball player, is now one of the most influential leaders of the food security and urban farming movement. His farm and not-for-profit, Growing Power, have trained and inspired people in every corner of the US to start growing food sustainably. This man and his organization go beyond growing food. They provide a platform for people to share knowledge and form relationships in order to develop alternatives to the industrial food system.Growing Power

"If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito." -- the Dalai Lama

Joel Salatin writes in his website that he is "in the redemption business: healing the land,land, healing the food, healing the economy, and healing the culture." And if you visited his farm, you'd know he means it & lives it! He produces beef, chicken, eggs, turkey, rabbits, and forestry product. Yet, Joel calls himself a grass-farmer, for it is the grass that transform the sun into energy that his animals can then feed on. By closely observing nature, Joel created a rotational grazing system that not only allows the land to heal but also allows the animals to behave the way the were meant to -- as in expressing their "chicken-ness" or "pig-ness", as Joel would say. Polyface Farms

Our food supply is a subject that affects all of us. This is a great movie. You can view more of the trailers from it HERE. Enjoy!

Hope you are enjoying your 4th of July weekend.

Have fun and be safe,

Stephen

“We are indeed much more than what we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us to be much more than what we are.” Author, and one of the first natural health promoters, Adelle Davis

Could GMO's Be Entering Your Health Food Store?

Check out what may be at your health food store...Interesting article.

"No one would guess that there are genetically engineered foods right here in Whole Foods," said Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director of the Organic Consumers Association, which organized the protest. The activists dramatically trashed a battery of well-known health food brands outside the store, including Tofutti, Kashi and Boca Burgers.

Though people have been modifying foodstuffs through selective breeding and other methods for centuries, genetically modified crops differ in that the plants grow from seeds in which DNA splicing has been used to place genesfrom another source into a plant. In this way, the crop can be made to withstand a weed-killing pesticide, for example, or incorporate a bacterial toxin that can repel pests.

Some consumers are concerned that such changes may pose health risks and say manufacturers should be required to prove GMOs are safe for human consumption before putting them on the market. They also say products containing genetically modified ingredients should be identified for the consumer; the U.S. is one of the few industrialized nations that does not require such labeling or testing.

Industry representatives say that GMOs are safe and that labeling them is unnecessary, citing a 1992 statement from theFDA saying the agency had no reason to believe GMOs "differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way." No mainstream regulatory organization in the U.S. has opposed the introduction of GMOs.

"FDA has the scientific and nutrition expertise to establish food labeling and to assess food safety," said Ab Basu, the Biotechnology Industry Organization's acting executive vice president for food and agriculture. "You can look at the FDA website and see that if the corn is substantially equivalent to corn produced conventionally, there is no reason to label it as being any different."

Critics of the technology say they are concerned not only about possible health risks but also about soil and plant nutrient losses, contamination of non-GMO crops and increased pesticide use..." Cont'd HERE--By Monica Eng, Tribune reporter

California Agribusiness Interests Targeted EWG

I received the following email from the Environmental Working Group. This is the group where we got the great little hand-out that we have shared with people on the pesticides that are on our fresh fruits and vegetables. Please read with interest and concern. These issues affect all of us, our food supply, and our life:

Dear Friend,

We knew we must be doing something right when California agribusiness interests targeted EWG's Shopper's Guide to Pesticides with an expensive, misleading public relations campaign this summer. The Alliance for Food and Farming (AFF), a public relations group of big, pro-pesticide agricultural producers, made the nonsensical claim that the EWG Guide is influencing people to eat fewer vegetables. We knew most people wouldn't be fooled, but we were shocked when California and federal officials started handing out taxpayer dollars to support the industry's tactics and phony accusations.

That's right. The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have handed $180,000 of your money to an industry front group -- a boondoggle intended to counter "claims by activist groups about unsafe levels of pesticides."

If you agree that it's outrageous to use taxpayer dollars to finance attacks on independent food safety watchdog groups like EWG that educate the public about pesticides in food, the USDA needs to hear from you today.

Click here to sign our petition telling USDA officials they shouldn't fund disinformation campaigns and should investigate whoever approved this grant!

This money comes out of the USDA Specialty Crops Block Grant program -- which is intended to promote sales of fruits and vegetables. Its purpose is being distorted to help chemical-dependent agribusiness fight back against consumers' increasing demand for organic and sustainably produced fruits and vegetables. The grant to the Alliance for Food and Farming was one of 63 grants, totaling $17.3 million, issued to California food and agricultural organizations.

The AFF has a long history of putting pesticide-dependent profits ahead of healthy food choices. When the EPA phased out methyl bromide -- a powerful pesticide that damages Earth's protective ozone layer -- representatives of the AFF called the phase-out "a big concern." They then embraced a replacement, methyl iodide, that EPA officials call "highly toxic."

This is not the type of group that should be getting taxpayer money. Help us convince USDA officials that the Specialty Crops Block Grant program should be used to promote locally grown, organic and sustainably produced fruits and vegetables -- not to bulk up the public relations budget of pesticide-dependent corporate farming interests. The agency should investigate how an industry front group received a $180,000 grant.

Click here to sign our petition today. It's unpalatable that your tax dollars fund disinformation about pesticides in food.

Thank you for supporting organic farming.

Sincerely,
Ken Cook
President, Environmental Working Group

4d9d9038-b75d-4e79-8004-18709723975f

1.03.01

Health Freedoms for You: Act Now!

Hello,

Things change so rapidly in Washington. Bill 3002 may have been set aside; however, Bill 510 has taken its place. Take it seriously as to what is happening to our food supply. The GMO's are deadly to our future health according to renown experts. Share this with people you know.

Have a great day,
Stephen

P.S. I will try to get the video that went this post. Till then, stay awake, stay aware!