Raising Duckweed for Livestock

Raising duckweed is a smart move if you raise ducks, geese or fish; even chickens seem to enjoy it!  Because it is a "weed" it can be fairly easy to grow.  If you set up the right conditions, duckweed can be harvested every other day for your livestock.

There are several places online to purchase it, but if you want the "free" duckweed option just go "fishing" for it at a nearby pond.  If you pick up some string algae with it, don't throw it back because it can be used too.  Geese and fish LOVE string algae and I would imagine that ducks will tear into it as well.  Raise the duckweed in clean water; all of the necessary cultures will develop with the duckweed.  As I've mentioned, if you raise duckweed under the best conditions, the yield can be pretty high giving enough food for all of your animals.

Hungry For Change - Part 1

Please see this movie if and when you get a chance!  It's a GREAT movie and filled with GREAT information about what Americans call food and what it does to us.

I am convinced beyond doubt, that if I ate that stuff to this very day that I would be dead.  If a little of that stuff made me SO sick years ago, I'm scared to think of what it would do to me today.  I've been eating "health foods" for many years, but learned what REAL food is just about two to three years ago (thanks to the daily research that I do for this blog).

What this movie did for me is confirm that I am currently making all the right choices.  This doesn't mean that my journey is done because I can go further.  I'm at the beginning phases of growing my own food which will be even better than what I'm doing right now.  I look forward to learning and utilizing that skill.





To watch the movie, click the link below:
http://viooz.co/movies/4394-hungry-for-change-2012.html

Food vs Phude

I read several articles today that talked about "foods" that we shouldn't eat.  "Foods" like white flour, white sugar, butter substitutes and cheese foods are NOT foods at all.  They are food-like products made to look and taste like food.  I liked that Dr. Rima Laibow came up with the concept of phude.  Phude is the dangerous food-like products that actually are toxic substances.

I notice how so many are afraid to give up their favorite phudes.  To ALL of them, I can relate.  I made all of the excuses and created the "good philosophies" that permitted me to eat all of the nonsense junk garbage phudes; but there came a time when I had to realize that I was sick.  Once I realized that I was sick, I had to make a choice about eating the stuff that was making my illnesses worse or to start a new life that was bound to bring me a wealth of health.  Most health activists that I know of either got over poisoning or, like me, is getting over poisoning from years and years of eating phude.

There are many people like me who choose life.  Life is AWESOME!  Life is a beautiful mystery that I will gleefully spend the rest of my existence solving.  Because I choose life, I choose food because food brings life.  I'm sad for those who choose phude because those are individuals who love death.  Well, I choose to wait for death to come to me when it is my time rather than summon it long before my time.  Meanwhile, I advise everyone to choose LIFE!

Candida Diet: Stevia

My nutritionist is okay with stevia as a sweetener for my GAPS diet, however, she prefers her clients to use honey.  In her experience, honey doesn't feed the candida overgrowth.  She does stress that the amount of honey her clients have per day should be monitored.

I still use stevia sometimes.  My doctor gave me a green supplement to take everyday, and I gag on that stuff unless I add a pinch of stevia to it.  It's best to use stevia for that because it dissolves quickly and it is sugarless.  So I have as much as two to four pinches per day and no more.  I usually add a little honey to a bowl of buckwheat or to some candies that I make out of sesame seeds.  If I want it to be even sweeter, then I add a little stevia too.

I've tried stevia many, many times before I actually developed a liking for it.  The first couple of times that I tried it, it didn't occur to me that less of it is needed to sweeten something.  When too much stevia is added, it has a taste that I could only describe as yucky; it's almost bitter even.  A tiny pinch of stevia goes a long, long way.  In fact, three pinches was all I needed to sweeten two cups of turmeric milk.

I must say that I am happy that I've finally made stevia a part of my diet.  Now that I know HOW to use the stuff, I have an opportunity to avoid sugars more often.  As I've said many, many times on previous posts, refined white sugar has not been a part of my diet for a long time.  The natural sugars that I eat are actually very healthy, but keeping even those sugars to a minimum can bring advantages; so I do it when I can.

Candida Diet: Stevia

Lawn Pros and Cons

Growing one's own food is an idea that is catching on VERY quickly in America (understandably).  I'm also hearing more and more people turning up their noses at the idea of having a lawn.  I want to encourage all to think about this further.

Don't misunderstand me, I completely understand the downside to having a lawn.  Most people have gas operated lawn mowers as opposed to just using a push mower or some sort of green mower; you need to water the lawn which can be seen as a waste of resources since the lawn is just to give the property a green "look" to it; and the thing that I will admit irks me is the "chemical lawn" fiasco just to make a lawn look greener.  This is what America is all about today, creating beings that look beautiful and healthy when they are actually dying of toxicity, disease or starvation.  For these reasons, I've thought twice about having lawns.  Believe me, I get it.

There is a flip side to growing a lawn, however.  First of all, I want to address the fact that IF you are going to grow a lawn, organically grown lawns are the way to go always.  (Chemically treated lawns aren't healthy for anyone.)  If you grow food or raise livestock, those are two GREAT reasons to actually have a lawn.  Every time you cut your lawn (hopefully with a push mower), you have piles of GREAT mulch for your vegetable garden that will also act as compost eventually.  There are many cud chewing animals that also pass dung that are GREAT nutrients for plants.  Rabbits, for example, LOVE grass and rabbit pellets are heaven for most botanicals.  Many have used cow dung for their gardens and reaped the amazing benefits of it.  If you have goats, your lawn clippings can also serve as a treat for them.

I'm not trying to persuade or dissuade anyone.  I'm just saying those who grow food instead of lawns have a wonderful idea that we all need to consider; but if you grow food AND have a lawn, you could put that lawn to some really good use.

Food Raising Beginners

I'm happy that I am successful so far with the blackberry, pickles and sunflower that I'm growing.  I'm learning so, so much but I know that I still have much more to learn still.  I confess that all the gardening experts made gardening look much easier that it seems to be when you're just starting; so I'm glad I knew that there was more to it than what I was reading and watching.

Organic gardening can seem difficult, for example, when you can't use name brand fertilizers that are available everywhere or special applications that can fight diseases like the one that killed my blueberry.  I try to keep in mind that like everything else, gardening is a skill that can be acquired through constant research and practice.  This summer, most of the stuff that I'm growing, is experimental.  I want to start building skills and learning helpful tricks that can eventually give me the tools that I need to grow my own food.

Raising Chickens

Gardening has been an interesting experience for me, as I am a newbie gardener.  I almost can't imagine raising livestock, but I'm still excited about the idea.

There are many things that need to be considered when raising chickens; predator protection, climate protection, feed, drink, housing, etc...   The following video is good for people like me who are considering raising chickens.  I have much. much more research to do before I even attempt to make something like this work, but this video gave me some things to think about. and some ideas to keep in mind.

7 Ways To Kill Poison Ivy Without Using Roundup | REALfarmacy.com | Healthy News and Information

The less we use R**nd*p herbicide the better.  I understand that poison ivy is NOT something that you would want to mess around with; for I certainly don't want this nasty stuff in MY backyard.  So when I came across the article below I knew I had to post it.  This will give you seven different strategies to kill poison ivy none of which suggests the use of R**nd*p.

Happy gardening!

7 Ways To Kill Poison Ivy Without Using Roundup | REALfarmacy.com | Healthy News and Information

Branding Obesity as a Disease: Who Benefits from It?

According to all that I have read and learned, obesity is as much of an illness as smoking or substance abuse.  Once one is addicted to drugs or food (and I need to make it clear that most addictions to food are addictions specifically to sugar), there are often necessary skills required to quit.  Most Americans don't know what food is because they are accustomed to eating "food-like" products; this is part of the reason for our 60% obesity rate.

Let it be known, however that there ARE problems with mainstream health care declaring obesity to be a disease/illness.  First, that's more taxpayer money that's going to health care.  Second, there is too much room for more propaganda about nutrition; and third, (and most disturbing of all) am I to understand that there is a vaccine being made for obesity???  Obesity is not caused by a virus, so what in the world could Big Pharma be up to?

Dr. Mercola has more to say about this in his article below.  (Please click on link to see article)

Branding Obesity as a Disease: Who Benefits from It?

How They Get'cha

I wanted to talk about how fast food companies get'cha.  It's almost like fishing.  They have bait and a hook but the difference is that the catch will reel itself in... happily!

Americans by now know that if something is going to be on television, it has to be "adorned" and then tweaked to look absolutely perfect.  This is the bait that the food industry uses.  This is what will attract the prey (aka YOU) to the fast food restaurant.  Then when you actually buy the food it looks nothing like what it does on TV, but you eat it because you're hungry and you've already spent your money on it.  The genius of the hook is that it is hidden.  Many fast foods are plastered with sugar (the addictive deadly substance that I've written about many, many times).  The moment that you take a bite, you're hooked.  A part of the brain that experiences pleasure is triggered so you keep going back again and again to repeat the experience.

I wanted to show this video just to show how the seduction starts because when you REALLY think about what you're looking at, it's kind of gross.  Truth can be quite liberating, huh?



 

Mealworms

I can perfectly understand why some would find mealworms gross.  Five years ago, I wouldn't even be watching this video.  I just knew that if I want to learn more about raising livestock, it's necessary to learn about mealworms; especially since I'm considering raising geese and chickens and these birds LOVE mealworms.

If I do raise these birds, I would want to raise pastured birds as opposed to this crazy grain feeding nonsense that we do today.  There is a way to dry mealworms to preserve them for the winter when pastured birds don't have many bugs to eat.  This is one important reason why mealworms are so important to a farmer who raises pastured birds.

I hope you learn from this video, but if you are a farmer who raises pastured birds and you have more information, your comments would be most valued!

The Danger of Food Supplements is VASTLY Overstated

When the government tries to become responsible for things like health, it makes me SO nervous.  Thank God for the power of the internet so that we could share real information with one another.  We can also alert one another to threats; like politicians like Senator Dick Durbin who try so desperately hard to take our rights away.


The Danger of Food Supplements is VASTLY Overstated

The Truth About Soy Foods

Soy could actually be a good food.  The problem is, there are SO many problems with it especially in the US, that it is almost best to just avoid it.  Dr. Tori Hudson gives the good, bad and ugly on soy in her article "Soy Meets Girl" and Dr. Joseph Mercola gave some specifics in his article (see the link below) on soy products that we can benefit from and soy products that is best to stay far away from.

The way that we process soy in the US is what makes most soy products unnatural and unhealthy.  It is, in fact, so bad that even our tofu tastes funny (or so said a friend of mine from Japan who ate tofu very often in her country but had to cook it in the US to avoid the bad taste).  Now with the further insult of GMOs, soy became something that many of us choose to just avoid all together.  Occasionally, I would enjoy a bowl of organic miso, but now even that is something that I would almost never eat.

It is so sad what we have done to food in the last hundred years but even more so in the last twenty to thirty years.  Please read Dr. Mercola's article to get some info on soy foods that would benefit health.

The Truth About Soy Foods

Free Speech Win in Federal Court

I don't know about you, but to me this sounds like GOOD news.  When our constitutional rights triumph in court it tells me that the people of America have a good chance of winning their liberty back.  Free speech rocks and rules!

Free Speech Win in Federal Court

Backyard Livestock (July's Book)

I felt inspired to learn more about backyard farming.  I just planted more seeds and a cat (or something) capsized the whole tray of them (meaning it's time to stop putting off building a greenhouse).  I'm definitely not ready to raise livestock just yet, but I'm gathering as much information as I can about it.

Questions, comments and furthermores are always welcome, but this month I will go as far as requesting information because gardening and raising livestock are very new to me.  Please don't hesitate to offer advice or ask questions because I can learn from any kind of participation.

Dr. Oz on GMOs

There are many reason's why I can't call myself a "fan" of Dr. Oz; but even I need to admit that once in a while the man puts on a show that I wouldn't want to miss.  I really admire the fact that he presents both sides of the story.  In this case, I appreciate it because the proponents of GMOs made so little sense.  As Jeffery Smith put it, they have bad science down to a science.

One scientist said that GMOs have been around for thousands of years.  This is a very deceptive statement because it's not true, but not entirely untrue.  Yes, there are types of genetic engineering that have possibly been around for thousands of years (like grafting and budding).  The older types of genetic engineering is known to be safe, it has been used in many cultures for generations but GMOs are a FAR different kind of genetic engineering.  The old type of genetic engineering combines the genes of fruits and vegetables from the same species or genus (for example the cross pollination of yellow corn and white corn).  Gene splicing is a whole other kind of genetic engineering that involves combining the genes of different animal kingdoms (like forcing the genes of an arctic fish into the DNA of a tomato so that the tomato can survive frost).  THIS genetic engineering has NOT been around for very long nor has it been tested as much as this scientist claims.  On top of the challenges to the validity of her claim, we are talking about a company who has downright LIED about the safety of their products for decades (to name a few, they lied about PCBs, DDT, Agent Orange, Dioxine, the so-called "biodegradeable" R0und*p Ready...etc) and inevitably took the lives of many (Vietnam soldiers and residents, residents of Anniston Alabama...etc)

Unfortunately, there are scientists who are paid to give the public misinformation about GMOs and there are others who are blackmailed into giving the public misinformation about GMOs (as I have demonstrated in many other posts).  There are some scientists who took a stand for their ethical principals before they were made to suffer for what they stood for.  In conclusion, I wouldn't believe one word that this company has to say about the "safety" of their products.

May 25th March Against Monsanto

I know, I know, this march was well over a month ago, but it took me that long to figure out how to make this short video.  I'm not a film maker, at least not a professional one, and I had MUCH to learn.  With some time, however, I did figure it out (Hallelujah!) and I published it in Youtube.

This is a video of just some of the people that I spoke to.  Please keep in mind that I'm a beginner when it comes to this editing stuff and it would be best to place more focus on what these individuals had to say.  I felt that their message was VERY important, in fact, that is why I decided posted this in the first place (with the permission of all of the people who were recorded).

I want to thank these individuals again for talking about their issues and experiences.  I truly hope things become better for all of us.

Happy Independence Day!

Fluoride in Kombucha: Should You Be Concerned?

When I saw this article, I admit that I was alarmed at first because I so LOVE kombucha.  If you read the whole article, however, you will find some encouraging news.  For one thing, organic teas tend to have far less fluoride than the conventional tea; I've been buying ONLY organic tea.  If you ferment your tea for longer, it will also reduce the fluoride; I tend to ferment mine for double the suggested time.  It's also suggested not to steep the tea for longer than ten minutes; I tend to steep mine for about eight minutes.  Of course, if you use filtered water (as in water that does not contain fluoride), then that too should decrease the amount of fluoride in your kombucha.

There are other suggestions and other information in the article so I would encourage you to read it.  The above is mostly what I've taken away from it.

Fluoride in Kombucha: Should You Be Concerned?

Mold Alert

I've recently been more desperate than EVER to get rid of my carpet.  I keep getting these mold infections and it's not from what I'm eating.  I was really sick from mold about two weeks ago and that was a time when I wasn't eating ANY sugar at all; I mean not even honey or fruit or ANY sugar at all.  My doctor keeps telling me that it's in the air.  I just have this funky feeling about the carpet.  I remember posting about a friend who keeps her carpet IMMACULATE and when she got rid of her carpet there was mold on the bottom.  If she had mold, I don't know if I care to look at what is on the bottom of my carpet.

If you can get rid of your carpet, I would encourage you to do so.  My husband and I have discussed cork floors when we first moved here, but now we are discussing it more seriously.  Hopefully, we could do it next summer if not this summer.

Symptoms of mold infection:
http://blackmold.awardspace.com/mold-symptoms-allergies.html#symptoms

How to kill mold:
http://blackmold.awardspace.com/kill-remove-mold.html