Day: July 8, 2011

Turkey Tracks: Camden Inner Harbor, Summer

Turkey Tracks:  July 8, 2011

Camden Inner Harbor, Summer

Sometime last winter, I posted a picture of the Camden Inner Harbor with schooners all wrapped up for winter–taken from this same place.

Here is that same shot in the summer.

 I’m pretty sure the windjammer/schooner in the foreground is the Mary Day.   She would be provisioning to go out again for probably a week.  The equipment next to the water is getting a stage ready for our July 3rd (Sunday night) fireworks and music.  Sunday turned out to be overcast, so the splendid fireworks took place on Tuesday night.  I suspect the music went on as planned, though we wound up doing different things on Sunday.

It’s mid-afternoon, so many of the boats that “sleep” in our harbor are out for the day.  At night, the harbor is jam-packed with boats of all kinds.

The river comes into the harbor on the far right, and there is a lot of activity on that side of the harbor, which is out of this picture’s frame.

On this side, the harbor is surrounded by beautiful green lawns, with the library sitting above them.

Interesting Information: EWG’s Dirty Dozen

Interesting Information:  July 8, 2010

The Environmental Working Group’s

Dirty Dozen List

The EWG’s guide to Pesticides in Produce now lists the following produce, in order of toxicity:  apples, celery, strawberries, peaches, spinach, nectarines (imported), grapes (imported), sweet bell peppers, potatoes, blueberries (domestic), lettuce, and kale/collard greens.  See www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.

The EWG also warns that the commodity corn crop used for animal feed and biofuels is “almost all produced with genetically modified (GMO) seeds, as is some sweet corn sold for human consumption.”  The sweet corn IS NOT LABELED as GMO in U.S. stores, thanks to our lax and corrupt government oversight agencies.

Both the EWG and NUTRITION ACTION newsletter make the case–as the EWG puts it–that “the health benefits of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables outweigh the risks of pesticide exposure.”

I DISAGREE strongly.

First, the 2009 President’s Cancer Panel report–easily available for you to read online–is very clear that the use of toxic chemicals on our food and in our environment is the cause of much of the cancer epidemic we are experiencing.  I, for one, am really tired of losing so many beloveds to cancer.  When I was a young woman, cancers and heart disease were rare.

Second, more and more data is coming out now that our heavy use of carbs is causing hormonal disorders that are, in turn, causing obesity, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.  So, a diet rich in produce is likely not be a good thing at all.

Third, our digestive tract does not handle lots of cellulose well.  We do not have the multiple stomachs, digestive chemicals, and so forth to handle so many fruits and vegetables–especially many of the raw ones.  Our digestive tract is set up to eat the animals that do process cellulose well.

(I’ve written about these issues in my Tipping Points essays here on this blog–and will continue to do so.)

I really wish EWG and organizations like it would step up to the plate and start taking a stand that incorporates good science–which would include the information that shows how seriously toxic the chemicals we use on our FOODs are.   Their unscientific repetition of the low-fat, high-carb, calorie in/out belief system is doing a lot of harm, which I suspect is not what they want to accomplish.

Finally, what you can do is to try to find local sources of organic foods.  It’s going to be a bit like “build it and they will come.”  Ask your local farmers to raise this food for you.  Go to farmers’ markets to find them.  Go out into the country and find them.  Plant a garden and raise some of your own food–even it’s only one tomato plant in a bucket.  And, try to eat foods in their seasons and to put them up in some way (canning, freezing) if you want to continue to enjoy them.  You can’t possibly know what’s been done to food raised outside of this country–even if it’s labeled “organic.”  (Take a look at the documentary OUR DAILY BREAD, for instance.)

What you can do is to stop giving your beloveds food that has poison on it and in it.  What you can do is to stop telling yourself that someone else is going to protect you and your beloveds–someone like the government.  It hasn’t.  It won’t.  What you can do is to face squarely the fact that these chemicals are killers and that they will kill you and your beloveds.  The cancer statistics are ample proof of that truth.  These chemicals are especially destructive to your babies, to your children, to teenagers–because they are still growing so fast.  No amount of these chemicals is safe.

Nothing is going to change until we all band together and say “No, we’re not doing it any more.  Give us good food, raised locally and organically, so that it has all the nutrients it should.”

Believe me, whatever money you think you’re saving by buying cheap food can get eaten up in a heartbeat with a cancer patient.  Few people understand the massive resources it takes to manage a cancer patient…

Assess what you can give up in your life to be able to find and pay for good food.  In the end, the time and money will be worth it.