Local food sourcing may be desirable, but as a practical matter it is hard for it to feed the whole country in a nation that enjoys diversity of food. By DAMON DARLIN
Published: February 13, 2010
INDUSTRIAL food production is not very fashionable right now.
Joshua Lott for The New York Times

Pavle Milic decided to serve only Arizona wines at FnB, his Scottsdale restaurant. He says that in blind teste tests, people think that the wines come from famous wine regions.

Three books by Michael Pollan criticizing the system of giant corporate farms and food factories have topped the best-seller lists. A graphic documentary, “Food, Inc.,” based in part on his books, has been nominated for an Academy Award.

In Washington, Michelle Obama grew vegetables on the White House lawn as an example of self-sufficiency. And across America, more farmers’ markets and restaurants have popped up that sell vegetables and meat produced on small farms.

Diners now scan the menus at their local restaurants for provenances like “Cattail Creek Ranch lamb” or “Hudson Valley rabbit.” And home cooks now await boxes of fresh produce delivered weekly from local growers.

Some of these so-called locavores may think they are part of a national movement that will replace corporate food factories with small family farms. But as much of the East Coast lies blanketed beneath a foot or more of snow, it’s as good a time as any to raise a few questions about the trend’s viability…continue

Yiska and Sarah

Hi everyone, Ana Nieto here, our friend Yiska from RedefiningDiet.com wants to share with you a few enlightening ideas for 2010. Enjoy this message.

Here we are in a new year and there’s a certain sense of rebirthing that goes with that newness. The image that keeps appearing in my life is of an egg being hatched. All around me and within me there seems to be a desire for a new self-expression to be birthed. The thing about being born is that it either takes us through a place of extreme constriction and contraction or it feels like a shell around us is cracking and life as we know it seems broken. This is the experience of new life emerging, and it hurts!

Years ago when my weight was at an all time high, my father said to me, why are you burying yourself? Hearing that was both incredibly painful and also one of the biggest gifts of my life, because it was true. My excess fat was a shell I had been using to cover and protect myself. Inside and underneath was a voice wanting, though terrified, to be born. The overeating was like a plug stopping up my desire for self-expression. The fear of wanting and being rejected felt too great. I was so afraid of showing a part of myself that would not be wanted, so sure I was too much! The weight felt protective, but I realized if I tried to stay in the womb forever I would die there. Greeted with the fear of being too much again this week I recognized an even fuller authentic self-expression longing to be birthed.

Also this week, a friend shared her strongly emerging desire to be expressed more fully as a woman, to feel and be more feminine and strong. In that space though, she was experiencing the pain of her imagined limitations, instead seeing herself as fragile and weak. Add to it that she had not been eating or sleeping, her self image of fragility and weakness were slowly being met in reality. Her mind was the contracted place, the place where the certainty she isn’t strong lived. Set up with the intention to protect her and keep her safe in the womb, this belief was both starving the growing chick inside of her and not allowing that possibility emerging within to be born. The cracking egg felt frustrating, stuck, vulnerable, scared, and hopeless.

I think the reason our new year’s resolutions so often fail is because we try to live out a new reality from within the womb, instead of feeding and connecting with the new life that wants to be born and letting it push past our fears and old, limited, constricted self-images. When a resolution stems from an alignment with our emerging self, however bold, our follow through is inevitable. But even when the chick has hatched, it can take some time to stand steady. There is a lot of new learning and practicing involved, so as a loving parent does with any newborn, we need to hold this emerging self both gently and firmly as it learns the ways of its new reality.

So let this be an invitation to connect with your own emerging self. Ask yourself the question, what wants to be born within me? Take a look at where you hold back, where you “starve” yourself or “weigh” yourself down. Allow all that wants to be born in you, your passion, your love, your creativity, your power, your desire, your gift, to be expressed. Seek out your midwife, be it a coach, supportive community, or a good friend, to help you move through the contractions, the thoughts and fears that tell you, it’s too scary, you can’t possibly…, don’t risk it, and dare to truly let yourself give birth to something new this year and watch the “baby weight” melt off! – Yiska

The Turtle Shell Health Seasonal Menu is made exclusively for TSH members.

We have placed lots of time and effort in choosing local and seasonal produce for fresher and more tasteful dishes. Our recipes are easy to follow, fast and simple to make. We have done the homework of researching the healthiest food choices so you don’t have to worry about what to cook or eat everyday.

Most of these dishes are great for children too, so busy mothers and fathers can whip up healthy and delicious meals for the entire family.

By simply following our menu at least 80% of the time, even during the holidays, you are guaranteed to keep off the excessive weight, plus look and feel terrific!

Start enjoying fast food done right! We have tasty, mouth watering recipes that use salmon, pomegranate, lamb chops, shrimp, tuna, wild rice, yogurt and much more!

Goodness in…goodness out!

Menu and recipes provided for TSH members by Laurence Martinaud.

FREE recipes from our summer menu: Linguini with Lemon & Cod with Cilantro and Mint

The Turtle Shell Health Seasonal Menu is made exclusively for TSH members. We have placed lots of time and effort in choosing local and seasonal produce for fresher and flavorful dishes. Our recipes are easy to follow, fast and simple to make. We have done the homework of researching the healthiest food choices so you don’t have to worry about what to cook or eat everyday.

Most of these dishes are great for children too, so busy mothers and fathers can whip up healthy and delicious meals for the entire family.

By simply following our menu at least 80% of the time, even during the holidays, you are guaranteed to keep off the excessive weight, plus look and feel terrific!

Start enjoying fast food done the right way! We have tasty, mouth watering recipes that use salmon, pomegranate, lamb chops, shrimp, tuna, wild rice, yogurt and much more! Goodness in…goodness out!

Try to follow this menu at least 80% of the time, even during the holidays, and you will feel your best!

Sign-Up To Become a Member

How much do we really know about the food we buy at our local supermarkets and serve to our families?

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that’s been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but we also have new strains of e coli–the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield Farm’s Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms’ Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising — and often shocking truths — about what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

Official Website

Health experts warn not to take Tamiflu pills
Anna Davis, Health Reporter
21.08.09
The Government is refusing to change its swine flu policy after experts said healthy people should not be given Tamiflu. The World Health Organisation advice directly contradicts British policy on the issue.

The WHO said most patients were experiencing typical flu symptoms and would get better within a week, and Tamiflu should not be given to healthy people. A spokesman for the Department of Health said: “We believe a safety-first approach of offering antivirals, when required, to everyone remains a sensible and responsible way forward.

“However, we will keep this policy under review as we learn more about the virus and its effects.”

He added that the WHO recommendations are “in line” with UK policy on antivirals.

The NHS has given out hundreds of thousands of doses of the antiviral since the start of the pandemic, and the national swine flu hotline was set up to make it easier for people to bypass their GP and get the drug.

But Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson admitted that less than 10 per cent of those who have been prescribed Tamiflu actually have swine flu. Figures show that staff on the hotline authorised 45,986 courses of antivirals in the past week. Many more people have collected antivirals after seeing their doctor.

During the early stages of the pandemic Tamiflu was given to people who had been in contact with swine flu victims, even if they were not showing symptoms. Today’s WHO advice comes after a government watchdog raised fears that Tamiflu can put some people at greater risk of suffering a stroke.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency alerted GPs to the potential problem…continue

After 7000 miles, and 25 hours of footage, “Sweet Misery” will reveal one of the most pervasive, insidious forms of corporate negligence in the history of the industrial revolution.

The toxic long-term effects of aspartame are often dismissed as a “hoax” by the sweetener industry and at least five other internet websites. The real footwork, however, unravels something less comforting than a mere “Hoax.”

Sweet Misery Official Website

“Sweet Misery” is the title of a documentary released by Sound and Fury in June of 2004. Our primary investigation includes interviews with doctors, lawyers, people who have had health probems which they associate with aspartame usage, advocates, and many others.

“Aspartame is inherently, markedly and uniquely unstable in aqueous media”

is a quote from the congressional record in 1985, and yet it was approved for use in soft drinks and other beverages.

So what happened?

Is there credible evidence if you look beyond the smokescreen of corporate medicine? The primary research and interviews have been quite disturbing.

Dr. Woodrow C. Monte wrote: “Methanol [one of the breakdown products of aspartame] has no therapeutic properties and is considered only as a toxicant. The ingestion of two teaspoons is considered lethal in humans” (Monte, Woodrow, “Aspartame: Methanol and the Public Health”, Journal of Applied Nutrition, Vol. 36, Number 1, 1984, p. 44).

Though it can hardly be considered good fortune to have an immediate reaction to aspartame, at least you are spared the potential long-term ticking time-bomb of a large array of neurological illnesses. These include, but are not limited to Brain Cancer, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, Graves Disease, Chronic Fatigue, MS and Epilepsy.

This feature-length documentary is now available.

By Gina Keating

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Dole Food Company Inc filed a defamation lawsuit on Wednesday against Swedish film makers it accuses of knowingly including “patent falsehoods” in a documentary about Nicaraguan banana workers who sued Dole for allegedly exposing them to pesticides on its plantations.

Dole said it repeatedly “implored” director Fredrik Gertten and producer Margarete Jangard to revise the film “Bananas!*” to show that the bananeros’ lawsuits against Dole were thrown out in April by a Los Angeles judge who found a “pervasive conspiracy” to defraud U.S. courts by plaintiffs attorneys and Nicaraguan judges.

Gertten “refused to make any meaningful changes to the film, and persisted in publicly screening it and touting its accuracy in the face of court rulings that the story was false …,” said the suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. Full Article