Farm Dreams

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Your Top 10 Farming/Food/Prepping Stories for Sunday, April 29, 2012

Farm Fresh News- April 29, 2012

Got a heart warming or wrenching story and want to share it? Watch what you say! A North Carolina blogger is threatened with jail time by the state for sharing how he has fought diabetes with his Paleo diet and encouraging others to learn from his lifestyle. Does this mean he's practicing medicine without a license as the state says? You tell me.
Is the fox guarding the hen house? After being blamed for contributing to colony collapse disorder and the disappearance of countless bees what does Monsanto do? It buys one of the most established bee research groups in America. I sure hope this group doesn't ultimately conclude that Monsanto's GMO corn or Round Up had anything to do with it.
Speaking of the Silence of the Bees, it's listed as #2 in the list of 14 Signs that the Collapse of our Modern World has Already Begun.
Hey, how could we slow down the Farm Bill even further? Simple, according to the Pesticide Lobby. Just attach a toxic pesticide bill to it to delay, obfuscate and distort it and allow "unregulated pesticide applications directly into U.S. waterways". Great.
True, no one seems to know what's actually in a Chicken McNugget, but we do know this. It includes petroleum-based TBHQ and Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent. According to Wikipedia, Dimethylpolysiloxane, a type of silicone, is used in caulks and sealants, as a filler for breast implants, and as key ingredient in Silly Putty. Nice.
First pink slime and this week mad cow disease discovered in California. Is this really just the tip of the iceberg? Was finding it simply a stroke of luck and if so, how many have been missed?
This attorney says the "wheels have come off the crazy bus known as the raw milk movement". Is he right?
What should industrial farmers do when pigweed proves resistant do round-up ready crops? Dow Chemical stands ready to brin g in what's left of Agent Orange, the Vietnam defoliant. The fact that is easily drifts up to several miles and may kill organic fruit and vegetable crops, well...let's just worry about that later shall we?
Sorry, but now it is confirmed by the FDA that supermarket and industrial chicken does contain (and has for decades) arsenic. But it's OK, cause they say the form that is used isn't "immediately toxic".
If reading any of this is giving you stress, here are 7 herbs and spices that lower blood pressure. Relax! Breath!

1 member likes this

Comment by Nick Duncan on April 29, 2012 at 11:07am: In response to your question on number 7, NOOOOO, he is not right! It astounds me the ignorance that these people have, when the majority of them have never even been on a farm at all! Raw milk from a large CAFO would be potentially dangerous. The problem is, that the majority of raw milk comes from small dairies. In Idaho, it is legal to produce raw milk, but the operation can milk no more than 7 cows. 7 cows sharing lots of acreage and pasture rarely get sick, rarely need antibiotics, and actually has less of a somatic cell count than milk from large dairies. These people are ignorant of the issues, and this lawyer is just looking for a way to get clients so he can sue more people.

Comment by Nadya on April 29, 2012 at 10:13pm: Did you read comments on that #7? Crazy :((

Comment by Nick Duncan on April 30, 2012 at 7:55am: I know Nadya, I went to the My Suburban Homestead website and commented on a post he had written about raw milk. He asked me for research to back it up, so I went and posted about 30 cites for peer reviewed journals on the the health of animals on small pasture based farms versus the confined factories. I also asked if he would have an open mind and approach the debate from the view that maybe raw milk isn't evil. Now I can't even get back on his blog to see what his response is. Everytime I try to get on the page, I get an error message. Supposedly he doesn't want to have a real discussion when he can't argue the facts.

Comment by Nadya on April 30, 2012 at 11:02am: Is it this discussion: http://www.mysuburbanhomestead.com/raw-milk-debate-rages-raw-milk-s... ? I don't see any comments with your name there. Maybe I just did not find the correct article you meant. Have you saved your reply with 30 cites? If so, would you mind sharing it on this website somewhere? I am sure it would not be deleted or banned here.

Also, who do you mean when you say "he"? Is it "Vegetable gardener cook" that wrote "The raw milk debate rages on… but is raw milk really safe?" on mysuburbanhomestead.com? If so, that actually might be "she", since they write "dangerous bacteria still managed to colonize my milk ducts". I first thought that you meant Bill Marler who wrote the article linked in #7, but I guess now that you mean someone from My Suburban Homestead.

Comment by Nick Duncan on April 30, 2012 at 11:20am: No, it was his/her other post on raw milk. I was talking about Vegetable gardener cook. If you go to the tag list on the right hand side of her page, there is a tag labeled raw milk, and the first one is the post I commented on. But I have been able to post comments again, so maybe it was just a connectivity issue.