Sugarcoated: White Chocolate Lemon Truffles.
Just saw this on my facebook page (its suddenly working tonight). It comes from the sugarcoated blog. It looked so good. The recipe looks so easy. I’ll definitely be trying these when I get off.
Video: A Drone Mates With a Queen Bee in Glorious Slow-Motion | Surprising Science.
This is a pretty cool video, I kept wondering how in the hell they managed to film it. A drone filming drones?
It’s part of a documentary, More Than Honey, which investigates the world of honeybees and Colony Collapse Disease which has been devastating the bees all over the US. I would like to know what’s causing it. Bees are so important, besides making honey, they pollinate a LOT of our food crops. Think about that. 🙁
Functional Medicine for Autoimmune Diseases – Mind & Body – Utne Reader.
This is a book review from Utne Reader on the new book The Immune System Recovery Plan. Dr Susan Blum MD MPH recounts her own experience with immune disease (Hashimoto’s thyroiditis) and how she has been able to cure herself and even repair her body using functional medicine rather than the usual type we get now a days. They sound like totally different fields of endeavor.
I like how she describes the ‘new’ field of functional medicine as an approach that looks at the person as a whole, not as a collection of symptoms. I would really like to find a Dr that treated me like that. I’ve always had a hard time with that, most Drs I’ve had take one look at me and blame everything on my weight. My arm could be half chopped off, I’m spraying blood all over the place, and they would tell me I needed to go on a diet and that would fix it. 😉
Yes, it would be ideal to live in such a way that you stay healthy all the time, never get sick or come down with a disease. I just wonder how HARD will it be in reality to be able to do that? I do have to admit, I’m lazy. I don’t want to go on a strict diet. I don’t want to have to exercise for hours every day. I don’t want to take pills every day for the rest of my life either. So, is there any hope for people like me?
From reading just this article, it looks like there actually is. I have a couple of friends who swear their lives have been totally changed by ‘simple’ changes in their diets (and have lost a lot of weight). A couple of friends who’ve had their hormones adjusted and say they’ve been feeling SO much better. I remember my dad had such bad arthritis, but then he started using apple cider vinegar and it just went away. I guess I’ll have to try to find a copy of the book when I get off.
Homeless? No Food For You! : Personal Liberty™.
This is just outrageous! If I lived in one of these cities, I would be down there at city hall hounding those people mercilessly (and probably get arrested- again). Just who the HELL do they think they are??!!
These good people, these charitable organizations are on PUBLIC property (which being public belongs to THEM as well as those homeless people they are trying to serve!). They even went to the trouble of approaching private property owners and getting permission to help people out there. The cops STILL chased them away and threatened them with arrest!
WTF is wrong with these people. Both the city officials who would make such idiotic “laws” and the cops that will try to enforce them? Don’t they have any brains left? How about a bit of humanity????
They make the point quite clearly at the end and I couldn’t agree more. These people could care less about anything but CONTROL!
CDC Reveals Scary Truth About Factory Farms and Superbugs | Mother Jones.
Here’s a little update from the CDC on all those antibiotics they’ve been pumping into your food supply for years now. Turns out, they were wrong about how safe all that is. There actually IS a link between overdosing your factory farmed meat animals (cows, pigs, chickens, etc) to the escalation of antibiotic resistant bacteria (and resulting deaths) in humans.
OK, so now we know (for sure). What are they going to do about it??? Turns out, not much. Remember, here in the USA we rely on government to keep us ‘safe’. We could probably do much better if we would get rid of our government protection and create a system that really could and would do a proper job. Read the article, you’ll see what I mean. 🙁
Peanut Butter-Banana Monkey Bread Recipe – Kraft Recipes.
This one just looks yummy. And really easy to make. Monkey bread is so simple and so good. 😉
The peanut butter-banana is a good combination (especially when they say -add bacon), but they also have one that uses apples instead of bananas which sounds pretty good too.
Another delicious looking recipe I have to wait to get home to try. 🙂
Hugs & CookiesXOXO: TRIPLE LAYER CHOCOLATE DIPPED STRAWBERRY CHEESECAKE.
This just looks SO good. Oooey- gooey good. I’m just going to have to try this when I get home. It’s even gluten free! Not that I really care, but I have a friend who recently went on a gluten free diet and she’s already lost a TON of weight! 🙂
If you can have stuff like this on a gluten free diet, I just might get around to trying it myself. 😉
Are Weeds Healthier Than Farmed Veggies? | Mother Jones.
My guess would be yes. 🙂
We’ve had an expert on edible plants come out to lead our Campaign for Liberty meetup group on an expedition to hunt down local ‘weeds’. I’ve managed to miss it both times so far. I’d really like to know more about this and hoping I’ll be home the next time he can come to see us. We’re trying to get more involved with natural, organic, non-GMO foods.
I can’t manage a garden very well when I’m offshore most of the time. I’m pretty sure I could manage to grow weeds. In fact, I have a yard full of them already. I just need to know if any of them are good for eating. 😉
Animal Food Checkoff Programs and the Economics of Meat Production – Politics – Utne Reader.
Here is an interesting article from Utne Reader on the new book by David Robinson Simon: “Meatonomics”.
This exert from the book is mainly about the food “checkoff” programs. Those are programs where the federal government takes a certain percentage of every product sold, say every pound of beef or pork, or a dozen eggs, or a gallon of milk. They then use that money to “promote” those products. In other words, to manipulate the public through advertising to buy more of those products.
Milk- it does a body good.
Pork, the other white meat.
What’s for dinner? Beef.
The incredible, edible egg.
I’m sure you’ve seen these ads, they’ve been around for years. According to the article, they’ve been VERY effective. For instance, the dairy producers report they’ve increased per capita milk consumption 12% to 620 pounds since their program started in 1983. More than 7 billion extra pounds of milk sold!
I don’t really have a problem with food producers trying to promote the sale of their products. If they all just got together voluntarily and threw their money in a pool to spend on advertising that they all agreed on, then fine.
Where I have an issue is that this program is mandatory. The federal government does not allow anyone to opt out and it forces ALL producers to pay for whatever it is that the government decides to say. We’re talking $557 million yearly, that’s a lot of advertising.
Why in the world do we even need the federal government to promote ANY product? Is this in ANY way consistent with the LIMITED government we are supposed to have according to our Constitution? It IS still the supreme law of the land, no matter how many ‘laws’ have been written into the books to subvert it.
Looks like nobody really cares. There’s already been a case where some beef producers disagreed with an ad campaign (Johannes v. Livestock Marketing Association) that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Basically, the court ruled that the statements (ads) were being produced by the government, NOT the beef producers and so they had no standing to object (I’m not a lawyer but that’s my take on it).
Tough titties in other words 🙁
It looks like a book worth reading if you’re at all interested in our increasingly corporate food system. The more I learn, the more I DON’T like what I’m finding out. There has to be a better way.
Looking For Food Freedom In New York : Personal Liberty™.
First it’s cigarettes, then it’s sodas, now its food 🙁 Mayor Bloomberg is a creepy wanna-be dictator! I can’t believe the New Yorkers are still putting up with this idiot!
Why in the world would anyone allow someone else to tell them what they can eat or drink??? Have they all somehow mutated into some kind of zombie? They only LOOK like adults, but on the inside they’re still just whiny little babies that only want to be told what to do. They actually pay attention and follow orders just because someone else tells them its for their own good?
I used to spend some time around NYC when I was growing up. I graduated from the Oceanics School which was based in NYC. I used to help out there and would walk from the school down to the train station every day. I would stop and talk to people along the way. No, they were not all rude or dangerous. Most of them were friendly and really interesting to talk to. Very independent minded to say the least 😉 I can’t imagine how those people would react to this crap.
Have they all been somehow brainwashed? Maybe they all moved away due to the increasing infringements of their rights? I don’t know, but I would like see someone do a study on it. NY and CA seem to be the leaders of the rest of the country. I would HATE to see the rest of the states follow this leadership but I can already see it coming. Maybe if the study shows some kind of virus is eating up NYC residents brains, the rest of the country will quarantine that kind of ‘thinking’. I can only hope 🙁
Chinese cockroach farmers are making a bundle selling pulverized bugs for $89 per lb. – Quartz.
OK, I have to admit, I REALLY don’t like cockroaches. Especially these big ones. Or the ones we get down South near the water where I live. We call ’em Palmetto bugs. I’ll never forget the night I was just falling asleep. It was a hot muggy night (so no covers) and one of those huge suckers flew across the room and started crawling up my leg. I must have woken up half the block with my screams!
So, the idea of people actually FARMING these things just gives me the creeps. Maybe its just me? The Chinese people seem to think there’s some real good medicine in these things. I just remembered this exhibit I saw at the Chinatown Heritage Center in Singapore last year.
Sign at the Chinatown Heritage Center, Singapore
I guess if you grind it up and add enough other stuff to it, you might not even notice it going down? I do try and taste different foods when I’m off traveling, but so far, the only bugs I’ve managed to try were some ants -chocolate covered- that helps 😉 – and some kind of grub they had at the ‘tasting kitchen’ at the New Orleans Insectarium (http://www.auduboninstitute.org/visit/insectarium). Those tasted almost exactly like that Honey Nut Crunch cereal. They did have other flavors, but I was OK with just trying that one 🙂
Tasting room at the Insectarium in New Orleans
Trying out some of the taste ‘treats’ at the New Orleans Insectarium
I do see plenty of people in Thailand and Indonesia snacking on grasshoppers, water beetles, grubs, etc at the bars I go to. I always figured they must just be drunk. I never managed to work up the nerve to try any of those larger samples. Maybe next time…
Learn how to prepare your pests for tasty treats!
Or maybe not. I did read something recently where the scientists were recommending that we should ALL start eating insects. It would go a long way towards helping to feed all the starving people around the planet. Yeah, they are a great source of protein. Yeah, they cost a lot less to produce, they don’t cause as much damage as cattle, they’re easy to raise… yada, yada, yada. Personally, I would prefer people start using birth control before we’re all reduced to eating bugs for breakfast 😉
One Weird Trick to Fix Farms Forever | Mother Jones.
One weird trick? Seems like this ‘trick’ has been around forever, it’s just our modern factory farming techniques that tend to overlook it.
I don’t really know enough about farming to say with a definite yes or no to any of this stuff. I have been learning more about it lately and I’m coming to find out that contrary to what our government schools are telling us, that no, factory farming is NOT necessary to feed all the people on this planet now.
I always thought that because of the humongous amount of people running around and needing to be fed, that factory farming was the ONLY solution. Now, I’ve been learning, it isn’t. In fact, it is causing a lot of harm. Not only to the animals, but to the water, to the soil, to the plants, to the people involved in the farming, AND to all the rest of us.
Check out the article, read it all the way through and even the comments at the end. If you want some more info, check out this book I read called “Genetic Roulette” on GMOs (they even made a movie out of it). We’re working on showing that one at our local (Campaign for Liberty) meetup groups movie night sometime soon. Or another movie called “Farmaggedon”. There are lots more but those are a couple of good ones that’ll open your eyes and get you started asking questions. I’ve been a fast food junkie my whole life and they did open my eyes to a lot of things. Even tho I’m still eating all the crap food, at least I’m learning 😉
Mounds Brownies Recipe – In Katrina’s Kitchen.
Alright! I finally got it to work 🙂 Here’s that mounds brownie recipe. It looks a LOT better than that potato soup now doesn’t it? Oh well, you can make the soup for dinner and since its ‘lite’ you can have the brownie for dessert guilt-free 🙂
Ziplist Sous Chef Recipe Clipper – Baked Potato Soup.
I was actually trying to find a postable (?) recipe for those delicious looking mounds brownies that showed up on my facebook page from www.inkatrinaskitchen.com .
I couldn’t find a way to get the recipe on here and got sidetracked with this one instead. It looked pretty good too so… here it is! I know its not any kind of substitute for BROWNIES, but its the best I could do for tonight. Maybe I can figure out the brownie one later, or you can look it up yourself, they’re called Mounds Brownies. In the meantime, the soup looks worth a try on a cold night. Not sure if it’ll measure up since its a ‘lite’ version but sometimes they come out alright despite having less of the bad stuff 😉
Jeezum Crow That’s a Weird Lookin’ Lobstah | gCaptain
Yeah, this IS pretty damn weird! I’ve never seen anything like this in nature. It makes me think somebody’s playing tricks. Anybody ever seen anything like this in nature?
Hugs & CookiesXOXO: MILKYWAY BROWNIES….4 LAYERS OF YUM!.
Someone posted this on my facebook page tonight. I haven’t had time to try them but the pictures make them look fantastic. Someone make them and let me know if they taste as good as they look 😉
Freestyle Fruit Tart Recipe – Kraft Recipes.
This looks easy to make and probably pretty yummy 🙂
They even have a ‘diet’ version (yeah)
Fast-Food Strike Means Time to Buy Gold – Sovereign Investor
Another good article showed up in my email today. I really have a hard time keeping up with all the interesting newsletters I get. Some are free, some I pay for, I enjoy reading all of them (when I have the time). This one today is on the fast food workers strike. Funny, cause I was at a hotel in Galveston this morning after visiting a friend up there last night. I had to get up early for a job interview and get home by 0800 when it was supposed to start. So anyway, I don’t usually watch TV and especially not the news since it either gets me pissed off or depressed. This morning, they were interviewing one of the leaders of the fast food workers strike. He said they were actually ALREADY OFFERED $14/hour! They turned it down???!! This is for flipping burgers! Basically a low skilled, entry level job. The TV interviewer also mentioned that they wanted to interview more people for the show but they could only find 2 (!) that spoke English and so they had a major issue with communication. The strikers reasoning was that “they can afford it”. Well, yeah, they probably can afford it (especially if they are not going to pay their CEO and other bigwigs multi-million dollar salaries), but what else goes into the cost of labor at these places other than just salary? Do they get ANY benefits?? Training? Uniforms? Discounts? I don’t know, I’ve never worked in a fast food place. I did work in a small family owned restaurant as a dishwasher when I was a kid, I worked at a place in the mall that sold hot dogs when I first moved to Texas, I worked occasionally as a bartender when I couldn’t get offshore for whatever reason. That is my entire experience with that kind of work. I also worked as a head housekeeper at a big resort which didn’t pay much either even tho it was a supervisory position. I was able to survive on those low wages. I accepted the fact that my skills were not worth much to my employer and that when I learned to be more useful, I would be able to work my way up and earn more money (which I did). So, can somebody please explain to me why the people who work that kind of job should be able to demand that kind of money? Why don’t they just go find another job that pays better, has more benefits, whatever? Remember, this was HOUSTON where they were doing the TV interview I saw. Houston is in another of its periodic booms at the moment. There are all kinds of places crying for workers, especially offshore, where they DO pay good money, even for relatively unskilled labor. I just don’t get it, what do they think they’re going to accomplish? They get more pay and everybody else will too, and EVERYTHING will go up in price as well, its called inflation! The laws of unintended consequences are bound to strike here and the strikers will be worse off than they are now (along with the rest of us).
The Science Behind Honey’s Eternal Shelf Life | Surprising Science.
I knew honey lasted a long time, I have some around the house that’s probably a couple of years old 😉 I didn’t know they found it in tombs in Egypt, thousands of years old and still edible. WOW! That’s some shelf life.
I knew honey was good for helping heal wounds. I didn’t know it made hydrogen peroxide!?! Amazing stuff. We need to make sure the bees can keep making it. Bees are enormously important to the entire ecologic system. The loss of the bee colonies is going to be a huge problem if it’s not already. Colony Collapse Disorder is becoming more and more common. Very scary 🙁 Other than making honey, they pollinate most of our food crops.What are we going to do? Pollinate everything ourselves???
Invasive Asian Carp Hooked in Lake Erie.
Just 2 questions…
1. How do you sterilize a fish?
2. Aren’t any of these things edible? If so, why are they considered such a problem??
Your Steak Is Addicted to Drugs | Mother Jones.
I’ve never liked these factory farms, just for the way they treat the animals. I always thought they were necessary in order to feed the increasing amounts of people on the planet. I saw a movie a few months ago. I think it was called “Farmaggedon”. It was talking about how organic farming is actually MORE productive than these factory type farms. I don’t know if I believe that or not yet (I haven’t had time to research it yet). If it IS true, then I don’t see any way these factory operations can be justified.
Tom’s Kitchen: Ratatouille, the Classic Summer Veggie Stew | Mother Jones.
This sounds like it might actually be good. Sounds simple enough to make it.
Healthy Avocado-Lime Pie | Shine Food – Yahoo! Shine.
I don’t especially like avocados but this sounds like it might be good anyway and easy to make. I know I have some friends who would love it 🙂
Eating Rich, Living Poor – Mind & Body – Utne Reader
I can really relate to this writer. I have had food issues almost my entire life. I can hardly imagine what it would be like if I had to go through the same thing. I do really appreciate the whole idea of becoming more attentive to GOOD food. Growing your own if possible, learning how to preserve and prepare it. I’d like to be able to grow a garden again, but it doesn’t work while I’m still sailing and gone for so long.