GMO Misconceptions...

I was told recently that I had misconceptions regarding my knowledge about GMOs. (Genetically Modified Organisms)

Ouch. That one hurt.

I have been reading any and all information regarding whole foods, organic foods, and overall getting back to eating foods that are as minimally processed as possible. I am concerned about the health of my family and of families in the U.S. in general. If you are concerned about you and your family, please read and share. Also, make sure you click on the links, this is SO important!

Actually, my concern began over nine years ago when I was trying to get pregnant and couldn't. Was it my diet? That was almost a silly notion a decade ago. I didn't go organic back then, I didn't have enough access and really didn't have all the information I have now.

But the more I have learned, the more I fear for the health of our nation. I am speaking both literally and figuratively. I may step on a few people's toes here, but I believe that the huge food companies who control what makes it to the grocery store's shelves are corrupt in their desire to make a profit and are not looking out for the health of the consumers. The government isn't going to help us either. There are many examples of Monsanto and FDA/government ties. There is a list of fifteen such individuals on this website. Click on Monsanto's Government Ties.

While browsing Monsanto's website I came across this quote, "There is no need for, or value in testing the safety of GM foods in humans." To me, that is simply scary. Browse yourself and see if you feel like I am taking things out of context, but as I was reading I felt that everything was written by an ex lawyer who was disbarred because of embezzlement and now worked as a used car salesman. I didn't buy it. I don't think you should either.

When I was told that I had misconceptions about GMO, I was told that genetic modifications to plants have been made for millennia. Look, NO they haven't. I feel this is what a majority of people think, but this is not what a GMO is. I am all for the NATURAL hybridization of plants and animals to make bigger and better products. But, alas, that is not what we are talking about here. 

If you want to know what exactly a GMO is, the Non-GMO Project website puts it best: "GMOs, or “genetically modified organisms,” are plants or animals created through the gene splicing techniques of biotechnology (also called genetic engineering, or GE). This experimental technology merges DNA from different species, creating unstable combinations of plant, animal, bacterial and viral genes that cannot occur in nature or in traditional crossbreeding.

Some of the concerns with this technology are as follows:

Environmental Hazards:

• Unintended harm to other organisms
• Uncontrolled biological pollution
• Gene transfer to non-target species

Human Health Risks:

• Emerging health risks in human studies
• Documented health risks in animal studies
• Documented proof of modified genes surviving the digestion process
• Increase in food allergies
• Parallel increase in Type 2 Diabetes
• Parallel increase in autism

Economic Concerns:

• Agriculture subsidies for food that makes us sick
• Corporate profits outweigh public health
• Corporate patents control farming
• Corporate patents control nations
• Lawsuits force non-GMO farmers out of business

Please see GMO Awareness' website for explanation of each of these bullets along with graphs and all the research to back it.

Warning: This is really going to scare you. Check out what exactly is in the genes of 95% of corn grown in the USA. Think of how much food you (or America in general) consume that uses high fructose corn syrup or another form of corn syrup. You might not be able to sleep at night. 

I have this sickening feeling that all of this GMO stuff is going to blow up like the big tobacco did. With health warning reports coming out TOO late for WAY too many people. I have thought this for quite sometime about diet soda and the main ingredient, aspartame, which is a (you guessed it) genetically modified food.

People are starting to get it. Groups are out there are organizing. I care about this country and its people. I want my children to live out their lives not worrying about their health. Our family is not perfect about staying away from GMOs, but I strive to get better every day. I am consciously choosing organic foods and foods that are voluntarily labeling themselves Non-GMO. 

After California's Proposition 37 failed to pass, I think it's time to do more. (Take a look at how it was worded on the ballot and form your own opinion about why they voted no.) That is why I am trying to educate others. That's what this is all about. Knowledge. I'm not into conspiracy theories, I am not into coverups. I am into Truth.


I hope you will join me. Be careful about what you eat. Share this with the ones you love. Share this with people you may only like a little. Know it might make a difference in the choices they make and ultimately improve their health. Heck, share this with your enemies, you don't want to mess with Karma.

PiBoIdMo WHAT?

Man! How'd it get to be November???

I've got to pull it together, face the reality that my Christmas decorations are expected to be up soon and all my shopping done too. Nah! I'll probably just procrastinate that like I always do.

BUT one thing I will not procrastinate is registering for Tara Lazar's annual PiBoIdMo (Picture Book Idea Month) She started the idea, the picture book equivalent to the novelists' challenge to write a novel start to finish in one month's time, in 2008 for herself. The year after that, she challenged others on her blog to participate with her. Now, with over 600 participants last year and cool picture-book-author-nerdy prizes, she hopes to inspire children's authors to get their creative juices flowing and jot down an idea per day to use when you just can't think of the next topic to write about.

If you'd like to take the challenge with us, click on her link above and register by commenting on her PiBoIdMo post.

Let the brainstorming begin!

Prepare to Eat Your Veggies!

I have a lot I could say on this topic. I have cut and edited this post several times and it still sounded too wordy. SO, I am going to try a different approach. LINKS AND A LIST!!! If you are a Link-Clicker and a List-Freak like me, you will love this blog! So here I go with my opinion on veggies:

The Problem:
Most people aren't eating enough vegetables in their diets these days.

The Causes:

• Produce (especially organic) prices are skyrocketing.
• Unless you buy the pre-cut/individual packs (again, expensive) vegetables are not a very convenient food to eat.
• Some people have aversions to "green stuff."
• Usually, people crave other foods and they are more easily accessible.

The Solutions: (That have worked for me and my family) 

• HAVE A PLAN! You do need to plan this out, folks! It takes a bit more time to make sure your family is consuming good foods, but the return on your time spent planning is SO worth it! There are plenty of menu planning services out there. I use eMeals because there was a Groupon for it and so far I love it! They have clean eating meal options as well as whole food, organic choices and more. Put your menu up on your wall!
• Accept no excuses. After you plan your healthy meals/snacks STICK TO IT! Don't alter your menu for picky kids and don't allow them not to try it. (This goes for picky adults as well!)
• Arrange your refrigerator so that you have easy access to "the good stuff" I have blogged about how to do that here.
• After you shop, cut and store all veggies (and melons) as well as vinegar wash your berries so you have easy access to them all week. Yes, this also takes extra time. I have to be honest. When I do my grocery shopping for the week, it usually takes me three to four hours to go shopping, unload the groceries and clean, chop and store everything. (And clean up my mess afterward) BUT, whipping up a healthy week is pretty speedy with all the prep work done!
• Juicing! (Or smoothie making!) I just got a new juicer for my birthday and I am hooked on drinking my veggies! Here is a link to some good "starter" juice recipes and this blog is definitely my favorite for whole food info as well as genius smoothie recipes. (Play around on that blog, it's seriously great!)

Here are some photos from after a typical trip to the grocery store:

Fruit basket and onions ready for the week! (Fruit is a whole lot
easier to grab and go!) I also have some onions sliced and chopped
in the fridge, too!

Refrigerator with veggies for juicing (That don't need chopped)
and other produce items.

Veggies that need prepped, out and ready!

Looking at your recipes, or snack needs, figure out how you
need to prepare the veggies. Chopped, sliced, cubed, etc.
I really like these Rubbermaid Produce Saver containers. Veggies
and berries last a LONG time in these!

Fully-stocked, organized refrigerator. Snacks and items needed first in front,
items for later in the week in the back! 

Compost material from the scraps! YAY for turning this into food
for my veggies in the garden! :)

Best Food Tip EVER!!!

Who out there, besides me, goes to the store only once a week, but can't keep berries longer than a few days? Problem: I want berries ALL week, everyday! But I don't want to go to the store more than once a week.

I found this tip on-line a while back. (Although, I don't remember now my original source, it was somewhere on Pinterest, I think. I googled 'washing berries in vinegar' to see if it was legit, and trust me, it is!) It has seriously rocked my world! I haven't had a single berry go bad since I started doing this. Hold on to your hats, this is going to be life changing!

Okay, so berries generally go bad because of mold spores. Eww. Vinegar apparently destroys the bacteria and mold spores, so...here's what you do:

1. Make sure you have a salad/berry spinner. If you don't have one, go get one: I use mine ALL the time!

2. Go to the store and buy all the berries you want! Really!!!

These are not really all the berries I want. :)

 3. When you get home, set all of your berries out. Get a large bowl and put in 40 oz of water (I use the filtered water from my fridge) and 4 oz of white vinegar. (You can actually use any 10:1 ratio)

4. Dunk the berries in the vinegar/water mixture. Make sure you dunk them all under the water. Oh, and I PROMISE you aren't going to taste the vinegar on the berries!

5. While the berries are taking their bath. I like to quickly wash and dry the container and line it with a paper towel. To me, it seems there may be bacteria and spores there too I want to get rid of. And the paper towel is to absorb any extra moisture, which is also bad for berries.

6. Transfer them to your spinner with your hands or a slotted spoon. (If you have more berries, you can use the same water. I suggest rinsing the strawberries last, they tend to leave behind little "hairs", if you will)

7. Spin the excess water out.

8. Return berries to the container (or another container of your choice) and stick in the fridge. Forever. That is until you eat them. :)

Seriously, NO berries have gone bad in my house since I've started doing this. And SOMEHOW these blueberries (pictured below) got pushed way under the deli meat drawer and I found them THREE weeks later...we still ate them! (I gotta admit, I was going to throw them out, but my dad tested them and said they were good, so we all finished them off!)

Really, we ate these three-plus-week-old berries. Yes. Yes we did.
Hey, there was no mold and they were good! :)
(Not sure how many nutrients were retained after that long, but ya know...)

Rearrange Your Refrigerator - NOW!

Okay, so I have a good tip for everyone! STOP putting your fruits and veggies in the bottom drawers! I know that's what they are designed for, but stop!

About four months ago I read this article about refrigerator makeovers and heeded their advice. Because of this rearrangement we have really upped our fruit and veggie intake at our house, as well as almost eliminated any spoilage! Seriously, ask my husband!

Basically, Here's the gist:

On the top of my fridge, I keep juice and some dairy products

middle shelves: Veggies, fruits, and some dairy overflow.
 (I usually keep eggs here as well)

Top Drawer is for leftovers and *treats*
I use the Jellos for my homemade frappucinos once in a while

Lowest drawer for thawing meats. Genius! I put a towel down
so if any juice spills, no yucky clean up!

Yay! An awesomely organized refrigerator that we
have easy access to the healthy stuff. I have to admit,
I usually have more fruits/veggies in my fridge
but I have another blog with ideas about that coming up soon!

Spray Paint is AWESOME!!!

We are currently in the middle of renovating our kitchen. It has been a LONG and DRAWN OUT process, because we are doing much of the work ourselves. That's okay, though. I like doing things to see what I am capable of and then smiling with pride when I show it off.

A couple of things that I am especially pleased with myself about is my baker's rack transformation and my clorox wipes container. I guess it's Lysol, well, whatever's on sale...

Here are the pics:

TERRIBLE picture, sorry John, but you can see the baker's rack
slightly here in the background. (why, oh, why didn't I take a before picture?)
It was green with blonde wood. Okay for a red kitchen, but we were going to have
to get rid of it because it would have looked hideous with the new decor.

Here it is now! Oil rubbed bronze spray paint and the blonde wood got the same
paint as the cabinets are getting. I think it was a good save!
(Still working on a paint color for the wall, I think we've got it figured out now.)

So, I pretty much use these wipes ALL the time so they just sit on my counter.
Fine for the white formica, terrible with the new granite!

Add a little oil rubbed bronze spray paint and VOILA! Counter wipes designer series! :)
Seriously, how cool and simple is that? When you run out (Which I have already)
You just open up the new canister and refill it in the spray-painted one!

The Georges in Tokyo: Mt. Fuji and a Day of Rest

Well, let me just say, this series is going to get finished TODAY! :) I have SO much other things to blog about, but I wanted to get this trip memorialized blog-style before I post anything else. SO, here goes my attempt at brevity...

What's a trip to Tokyo without going to see Mt. Fuji? Yeah, we had to do it. Christina found a travel agency that would get us train tickets to and from Hakone and a pass to go on the cable car and pirate boat to see the sights around the area of Mt. Fuji. Cool, the boys will love that! We ended up passing on the guided tour which included a trip on the bullet train and it's a good thing we did. The bullet train would have been super cool, but it was a looong day, so I don't know if we could have dealt with the whole staying together with a group thing.

Here are the highlights:

Even though Christina and I made a "trial run" there to buy the tickets the previous day, it was still difficult to make it to the proper train station on time. We barely squeaked in on time to our "romance" train out to Hakone to see Mt. Fuji.

Elliott has his own seat on this "Romance Car" Train!

On our way to Mt. Fuji!

Once on the train, we found our seats. We hadn't realized that we were scattered all over the place, in different cars and everything so that was interesting figuring that out. That train ride was pretty uneventful, except for the fact Elliott made new Japanese girlfriends in their early twenties and I thought I might get motion sick. Once at the Hakone Station we had to switch trains to go up the mountain.

Christina and the boys on the train up the mountain.

Adam, Jennifer, Deb and Elliott

We got to ride a cable car up to a mountain that had natural sulfur hot springs. The delicacy up at the top were boiled eggs that were boiled in the sulfuric springs at the top of the mountain. We tried some! Supposedly, each one extends your life seven years. Adam's life will be nice and long now!

Hakone Ropeway Cable Car!

Sweet Ride!

Okay, the George boys are SUPER excited, the Kruse boys, eh...

Looking out

Beautiful scene of the town below

In front of the hot springs

Trying a sulfur cooked hard boiled egg

Black egg!

They make the black eggs right behind the boys
on the mountain

Yep, Hello Kitty and a black egg. A photo op NOT to be missed!

We rode the ropeway back down to Lake Ashi and rode a pirate ship around the lake to different parts of a small touristy town. Oh, and I might add, on our trip to Mt. Fuji, WE DIDN'T EVEN SEE MT. FUJI!!! Yep, it was too cloudy. Hmmm. So I'll add a stock photo for you instead.

The boys playing dress up!

Jack and Spencer in front of the pirate boat

Ooh, fake pirates aboard, too!

Cool architecture by Lake Ashi

Ice cream break!

Stock Photo of Mt. Fuji. Beautiful, huh? Too bad we didn't see it. :(


From there, we headed back to the Hakone Train Station and back to the Kruse's house where we ordered in some FANTASTIC Indian food, yum! We were really wiped out after that trip...even though it doesn't sound all that much more strenuous that our other days. Maybe it was all just catching up to us.

Waiting for the train by this beautiful river

Spencer

I thought these flowers growing out of the rock were cool.
Pink and white flowers on the same plant...

The very next day, Adam was heading home. He had to get back for work. We were all supposed to be going home that day, but because of full flights, we were forced to extend our vacation. Bummer! :)

We decided to do nothing aside from walking down to a neighborhood park. It was just what we needed!

Whee! This slide was awesome!

Elliott and Will digging in the sand

This climbing thing was awesome!

More playing!

Spencer doing some science experiments with ball rolling