A Temporary Arrivederci and Your Top 5 Favorite Vegetables

Sweet readers!It’s me, Kris. Hi!This Sunday, I’m marrying this guy I like, hurricane permitting. And for a few weeks after that, we’re gonna drive around Italy, searching for duomos and large plates of spaghetti. (And wine. Always wine.)During that time, and Leigh (of Veggie Might fame) will be running CHG. The schedule will stay the same. There’ll just be a slightly different voice behind it – namely, a vegetarian one with cute hair and much better cooking skills. I really enjoy keeping this blog, and will miss our discussions while I'm away. In the meantime, hope y’all have wonderful Septembers, and I'll speak to you soon! P.S. Oh, yeah! The results of last week’s Ask the Internet are as follows:36 votes: Tomatoes26 votes: Onions19 votes: Leafy greens (Kale, lettuce, collards, etc.)17 votes:...

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Posted in: Ask the Internet

Animals give GM the thumbs down

Animals give GM the thumbs downfrom GreenHealthWatch.com The UK Government decision to grant Aventis’s application to grow GM maize commercially in the UK was not based on the studies reported, but on two different animal-feeding trials both funded and submitted by Aventis.The first trial fed Chardon LL maize grain to 280 young broiler chickens over 42 days, supposedly to compare the nutrient quality of GM and natural maize samples. All the chickens were allowed to eat at will. The official report claimed that no differences were found in body weight, feed intake or mortality, as compared to similar chickens fed on natural maize. Closer examination of the data gives cause for concern:During days 0-18, the GM maize grain-fed chickens consumed nine grams more than the natural maize-fed group,...

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Posted in: GM Food

Green Kitchen: Fresh Garbanzo Beans and the Excitement of New Vegetables

Green Kitchen is a bi-weekly column about nutritious, inexpensive, and ethical food and cooking. It's penned by the lovely Jaime Green.Don't get me wrong – a good chunk of my love for the greenmarket is love of, and belief in the goodness of, local eating. I like meeting my farmers, I like minimizing my food's road trips, I like the dirt on my kale that comes from nearby. (Okay, I did not love the cocooned caterpillar that came along with that local kale and its local dirt this weekend, but that's my own problems with squeamishness. In theory, I loved that caterpillar.)But I also fell in love with the farmers market because, during our early...

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Posted in: Desserts and Snacks,Vegan,Vegetarian

Ask the Internet: Top 5 Fruits?

Sweet readers! The results of last week’s Top 5 Vegetables inquiry are coming a little later today. (Hint: Celery does much worse than expected.) In the meantime, we had a few requests for this follow-up question, which could be even tougher to answer.Q: What are your top five favorite fruits, and why?A: Mine, in order:Cherries. I fear death as a concept in general, but mostly because I wouldn’t get to eat cherries anymore.Pluots. I don’t particularly like apricots, but this plum/apricot hybrid is a genetic anomaly I can get behind.Plums. There's nothing more satisfying than digging into a cold, juicy plum on a hot summer’s day. William Carlos Williams was right on.Bananas. Portable, cheap, and packed with potassium, they're the reliable utility outfielders of the fruit world.Lemons: You can’t...

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Posted in: Ask the Internet

Peanut Butter and Jelly Oatmeal: Quick and Tasty Nostalgia

Today on Serious Eats: Pork Roast en Cocotte with Apples and Shallots – an infallible America’s Test Kitchen recipe that tastes as good as it sounds. I apologize for being horrifically negligent with posting lately. But, woof. Thangz iz crazy here at CHG central. Husband-Elect’s bachelor party was this weekend. Friends and family are already starting to trickle into Brooklyn. And oh, the wedding is Sunday. Mommy?Anyway, I’ve been keeping Peanut Butter and Jelly Oatmeal in my back pocket (um, the recipe, not the food itself) for just such an occasion. It’s the world’s easiest breakfast, and will fill you up clear through the next morning. Not...

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Posted in: 15 Minutes or Less,Breakfast,Vegetarian

FDA Looking into Triclosan?

UPDATE: 8/29/10  Triclosan and antibacterial warnings -Updates at Natural Healing through Natural Health - New article here from Jill Richardson, compiling much of what we have been teaching about the risk of triclosan since the late 80s.from Natural Health News...Natural Health News: FDA Looking into Triclosan?Apr 09, 2010In a claim filed Tuesday, the National Resources Defense Council says the FDA didn't regulate the levels of triclosan and triclocarban in the soap, two toxic chemicals that can cause problems with reproductive organs, sperm quality and ...Chloroform Danger With Antimicrobial SoapApr 16, 2005The main reason for my advice has been that these chemicals, such as triclosan, disturb the balance of naturally occurring staph bacteria on the skin's surface (epidermis). Now...

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Posted in: antibacterial hand sanitizers,antibacterial soap,FDA,triclosan

AG Money: Gates and Monsanto

Gates Foundation underwrites vaccine insanity and now GMO Food, Weed overgrowth -Well, well, well. It's about time. Kind of like when Fox News gave $1 million in campaign contributions to Republicans. It wasn't exactly a secret before, but now it's official. The Gates Foundation just bought a whopping 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock.Now, there's nothing wrong with buying stock. My parents hold lots of BP stock, and they are hardly guilty of dumping the 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf. But this is one more step in a long line of actions by the Gates Foundation in which it is advocating policies and agricultural technologies that will directly benefit and profit Monsanto while screwing over the most vulnerable people on earth: hungry subsistence farmers in developing countries.I...

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Posted in: AGRA,Bill Gates,Gates Foundation,Jill Richarson,LaVida Locavore,Melinda Gates,Monsanto

CDC Fudges FLU Data

Hoping that more people now see the misreported death rates are a scare tactic.  And interestingly, the CDC has so far lumped ALL respiratory illnesses in a single category so FLU data is not specifically reported based ONLY on FLU deaths.Figures on flu deaths are misleading, usually too high, CDC says In a typical season, about 36,000 deaths are reported, but that number is too high and grossly misleading, analysts say. Depending on the influenza strain, actual rates vary widely from year to year.By Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles TimesAugust 27, 2010Most reports about seasonal influenza cite an average of about 36,000 deaths in a typical season, but that number is too high and grossly misleading, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.The actual average...

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Posted in: CDC,flu,flu data,misreporting by CDC

Removing Your Right of Access to Health Care of Choice

herbalYODA Says! - It is important to note that there are thousands of scientific articles rgarding the safe and effective use of herbs.  And not to forget that the National Formualry was built on the original herbal medicines and homeopathic remedies taught for years in medical schools, until the advent of Big PhRMA. EFSA set to mass reject 100s of herbal health claimsBy Shane Starling, 27-Aug-2010Hundreds of proposed botanical-health relationships ranging from antioxidant activity to skin health to immunity to gut health will almost certainly be rejected if the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) holds to its current methodologies,...

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Posted in: EFSA,health care access,limits on herbs

Big Food, Big AG, Fake Food Pyramids and Your Health

Marion Nestle - We need new food policy FOOD, Inc. see it hereInsight into were our food comes from and how it is produced ....and the big companies that control everything. http://geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com/2010/08/food-inc-corporate-controlled-food.htmlFood is Medicine, GM Food is PoisonAmong all developed countries, Americans are the fattest people in the world. The World Health Organization found over 60% of the American population is obese or overweight. Even more disturbing, the U.S. is the only country in the developed world to label obesity a national security health risk. Top Pentagon officials have warned Americans are becoming so fat, most of those volunteering for the Army are disqualified because of their size. Child obesity is also on the rise in the U.S. The Centers for...

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Posted in: Big Food,Celente,food politics,GM Food,health,Marion Nestle,nutrition

Teach Teens and (Yourself!) how to W.A.I.T

By Tristan Gorrindo, M.D.By now, over 80 percent of teens have an account with Facebook, Twitter, or some other social networking site. A common feature on almost all of these sites is the ability to share with your friends whatever is on your mind. Commonly these posts appear on a “wall” or other profile page for everyone to see. Postings come in several versions: short bits of text, pictures, movies, and links to other websites. And the content of these posts can range from mundane observations about the weather, to the exuberant joy of being accepted to a highly desirable college, and everything in between. With the average teen having hundreds...

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Posted in: internet safety,teens,Tristan Gorrindo MD

Problems with New Sweetener

UPDATE: August 2010Here's a toxic sweetener you most likely had never heard of, but I would caution you to make sure you do not ingest it: HealthEdge's NaturallySweet  This is manufactured by these folks.Truvia, Purevia, Zevia, Zerose, Zsweet are marketing names for this artificially blended  erythritol and rebiana mix.  Rebiana is a chemically modified form of  stevia, it is NOT pure stevia.UPDATE 4, Consumer complaints regarding TruviaUPDATE 3, 23 December 08: A reader comments on Erythritol as not causing her any problems as noted in our researcher's report. Just like all substances, the ingestion of a substance needs to be in the right form, the right amount, et al, and the effect and outcomes are individual. Please realize that our researcher is a former FDA investigator...

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Posted in: aspartame,green living expert,health news,natural health expert,natural health news,natural news,organic living expert,rebiana,splenda,stevia,Truvia,Zevia