Heirloom Seeds: Why Are They Important?

When it comes to planting gardens, not all seeds are created equal. Deep within the bellies of agribusiness bunkers, far from the prying eyes of curious consumers, some seeds- known as “genetically modified organisms (GMOs)”- are sliced and diced by Dr. Frankensteins with troll-doll hair and maddening laughs … But perhaps I paint a slanted picture…

GMOs do get a bad rap. While I believe more GMO testing should be done to make sure they’re safe to eat over the long-run, I also recognize the fact that our current industrial food system relies on GMOs to produce the kind of crop yields we need to survive with the low ratio of farmers-to-eaters we have in this nation (and in many parts of the world). On the macro scale, our industrial agricultural system could use a major overhaul.

Today, though, I want to focus on the micro scale. Why should individual gardeners choose to plant, save and stock heirloom (non genetically modified) seeds?

*Re-plant next year. After harvest-time in your garden, heirloom seeds can be collected, dried and saved for re-planting in future years. Sometimes, hybrids (which store-bought seeds often are) or genetically modified seeds will not grow in the second generation, like mules and ligers in the animal kingdom. Over generations, heirloom seeds have been carefully protected to ensure purity in pollination.

Napoleon Dynamite's Liger

*It’s all about diversity. The plant kingdom is losing genetic diversity big-time. As more and more farmers and gardeners select seeds from relatively small & homogenized lists in mail-order catalogues, we’re giving up regionally-developed differences in plant DNA. Why should we care about reinforcing diversity of our crops and produce? Genetic diversity protects our food supply. Some plants are more resistant to drought than others. Some are more resistant to diseases, and some are more resistant to pests. If the majority of bean fields and gardens across the nation are planted with yellow striped dragon beans and an aphid that happens to love such beans runs wild one summer, then we all lose out. If, on the other hand, we plant a large variety of beans, we’ve minimized the impact of that loss.

*Save some cash. Why not? Sure, seeds aren’t all that expensive. But why not buy once and save seeds for re-planting next year? Spend that money on shoes or a butter churn instead.

*Purely delicious. Next year and the year after, plant the seeds from the tastiest, biggest, best fruits and veggies in your garden. Save seeds from the rockstars in your garden,- your favorites, the ones with the most resistance to disease, the best of the bunch. Saving seeds from the healthiest of the lot ups the odds of growing healthy produce when you re-plant in years to come.

*Food insurance. We buy insurance for our cars, our homes, our boats and our lives, yet most of us only have enough food to last a few days in our pantries and freezers. Local supermarkets do not stock enough food to feed populations for long, either. Stock seeds in your freezer so that you will have the resources to grow your own food if we ever run into food shortages in future days,- it’s the cheapest form of insurance you’ll ever buy!

Once you’ve planted an heirloom garden and you’re ready to learn how to save seeds for next year, check out these tips: Seed Saving 101

In addition to planting and saving heirloom seeds this year, I also recommend buying these “food insurance” heirloom seeds which are packaged to last for twenty years (100 years if you store them in your freezer):

Toxins found in whales bode ill for humans

AP file- from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer Arthur Max, Associated Press Writer – June 24, 2010

AGADIR, Morocco – Sperm whales feeding even in the most remote reaches of Earth’s oceans have built up stunningly high levels of toxic and heavy metals, according to American scientists who say the findings spell danger not only for marine life but for the millions of humans who depend on seafood.

A report released Thursday noted high levels of cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, silver, mercury and titanium in tissue samples taken by dart gun from nearly 1,000 whales over five years. From polar areas to equatorial waters, the whales ingested pollutants that may have been produced by humans thousands of miles away, the researchers said.

“These contaminants, I think, are threatening the human food supply. They certainly are threatening the whales and the other animals that live in the ocean,” said biologist Roger Payne, founder and president of Ocean Alliance, the research and conservation group that produced the report.

The researchers found mercury as high as 16 parts per million in the whales. Fish high in mercury such as shark and swordfish — the types health experts warn children and pregnant women to avoid — typically have levels of about 1 part per million.

The whales studied averaged 2.4 parts of mercury per million, but the report’s authors said their internal organs probably had much higher levels than the skin samples contained.

“The entire ocean life is just loaded with a series of contaminants, most of which have been released by human beings,” Payne said in an interview on the sidelines of the International Whaling Commission’s annual meeting.

Payne said sperm whales, which occupy the top of the food chain, absorb the contaminants and pass them on to the next generation when a female nurses her calf. “What she’s actually doing is dumping her lifetime accumulation of that fat-soluble stuff into her baby,” he said, and each generation passes on more to the next.

Ultimately, he said, the contaminants could jeopardize seafood, a primary source of animal protein for 1 billion people.

“You could make a fairly tight argument to say that it is the single greatest health threat that has ever faced the human species. I suspect this will shorten lives, if it turns out that this is what’s going on,” he said.

Payne called his group’s $5 million project the most comprehensive report ever done on ocean pollutants.

U.S. Whaling Commissioner Monica Medina informed the 88 member nations of the whaling commission of the report and urged the commission to conduct further research.

The report “is right on target” for raising issues critical to humans as well as whales, Medina told The Associated Press. “We need to know much more about these problems.”

Payne, 75, is best known for his 1968 discovery and recordings of songs by humpback whales, and for finding that some whale species can communicate with each other over thousands of miles.

The 93-foot Odyssey, a sail-and-motor ketch, set out in March 2000 from San Diego to document the oceans’ health, collecting pencil-eraser-sized samples using a dart gun that barely made the whales flinch.

After more than five years and 87,000 miles, samples had been taken from 955 whales. The samples were sent for analysis to marine toxicologist John Wise at the University of Southern Maine. DNA was compared to ensure the animals were not tested more than once.

Payne said the original objective of the voyage was to measure chemicals known as persistent organic pollutants, and the study of metals was an afterthought.

The researchers were stunned with the results. “That’s where the shocking, sort of jaw-dropping concentrations exist,” Payne said.

Though it was impossible to know where the whales had been, Payne said the contamination was embedded in the blubber of males formed in the frigid polar regions, indicating that the animals had ingested the metals far from where they were emitted.

“When you’re working with a synthetic chemical which never existed in nature before and you find it in a whale which came from the Arctic or Antarctic, it tells you that was made by people and it got into the whale,” he said.

How that happened is unclear, but the contaminants likely were carried by wind or ocean currents, or were eaten by the sperm whales’ prey.

Sperm whales are toothed whales that eat all kinds of fish, even sharks. Dozens have been taken by whaling ships in the past decade. Most of the whales hunted by the whaling countries of Japan, Norway and Iceland are minke whales, which are baleen whales that feed largely on tiny krill.

Chromium, an industrial pollutant that causes cancer in humans, was found in all but two of the 361 sperm whale samples that were tested for it. Those findings were published last year in the scientific journal Chemosphere.

“The biggest surprise was chromium,” Payne said. “That’s an absolute shocker. Nobody was even looking for it.”

The corrosion-resistant metal is used in stainless steel, paints, dyes and the tanning of leather. It can cause lung cancer in people who work in industries where it is commonly used, and was the focus of the California environmental lawsuit that gained fame in the movie “Erin Brockovich.”

It was impossible to say from the samples whether any of the whales suffered diseases, but Wise found that the concentration of chromium found in whales was several times higher than the level required to kill healthy cells in a Petri dish, Payne said.

He said another surprise was the high concentrations of aluminum, which is used in packaging, cooking pots and water treatment. Its effects are unknown.

The consequences of the metals could be horrific for both whale and man, he said.

“I don’t see any future for whale species except extinction,” Payne said. “This is not on anybody’s radar, no government’s radar anywhere, and I think it should be.”

Study Links ADHD With Pesticide Exposure

CNN photo

see CNN story

Children exposed to higher levels of a type of pesticide found in trace amounts on commercially grown fruit and vegetables are more likely to have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder than children with less exposure, a nationwide study suggests.

Researchers measured the levels of pesticide byproducts in the urine of 1,139 children from across the United States. Children with above-average levels of one common byproduct had roughly twice the odds of getting a diagnosis of ADHD, according to the study, which appears in the journal Pediatrics.

Exposure to the pesticides, known as organophosphates, has been linked to behavioral and cognitive problems in children in the past, but previous studies have focused on communities of farm workers and other high-risk populations. This study is the first to examine the effects of exposure in the population at large.

Organophosphates are “designed” to have toxic effects on the nervous system, says the lead author of the study, Maryse Bouchard, Ph.D., a researcher in the department of environmental and occupational health at the University of Montreal. “That’s how they kill pests.”

The pesticides act on a set of brain chemicals closely related to those involved in ADHD, Bouchard explains, “so it seems plausible that exposure to organophosphates could be associated with ADHD-like symptoms.”

Environmental Protection Agency regulations have eliminated most residential uses for the pesticides (including lawn care and termite extermination), so the largest source of exposure for children is believed to be food, especially commercially grown produce. Adults are exposed to the pesticides as well, but young children appear to be especially sensitive to them, the researchers say.

Detectable levels of pesticides are present in a large number of fruits and vegetables sold in the U.S., according to a 2008 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited in the study. In a representative sample of produce tested by the agency, 28 percent of frozen blueberries, 20 percent of celery, and 25 percent of strawberries contained traces of one type of organophosphate. Other types of organophosphates were found in 27 percent of green beans, 17 percent of peaches, and 8 percent of broccoli.

Although kids should not stop eating fruits and vegetables, buying organic or local produce whenever possible is a good idea, says Bouchard.

“Organic fruits and vegetables contain much less pesticides, so I would certainly advise getting those for children,” she says. “National surveys have also shown that fruits and vegetables from farmers’ markets contain less pesticides even if they’re not organic. If you can buy local and from farmers’ markets, that’s a good way to go.”

A direct cause-and-effect link between pesticides and ADHD “is really hard to establish,” says Dana Boyd Barr, Ph.D., a professor of environmental and occupational health at Emory University. However, she says, “There appears to be some relation between organophosphate pesticide exposure and the development of ADHD.”

This is the largest study of its kind to date, according to Barr, who researched pesticides for more than 20 years in her previous job with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention but was not involved in the study.

Bouchard and her colleagues analyzed urine samples from children ages 8 to 15. The samples were collected during an annual, nationwide survey conducted by the CDC, known as the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

The researchers tested the samples for six chemical byproducts (known as metabolites) that result when the body breaks down more than 28 different pesticides. Nearly 95 percent of the children had at least one byproduct detected in their urine.

Just over 10 percent of the children in the study were diagnosed with ADHD. The kids were judged to have ADHD if their symptoms (as reported by parents) met established criteria for the disorder, or if they had taken ADHD medication regularly in the previous year.

One group of pesticide byproducts was associated with a substantially increased risk of ADHD. Compared with kids who had the lowest levels, the kids whose levels were 10 times higher were 55 percent more likely to have ADHD. (Another group of byproducts did not appear to be linked to the disorder.)

In addition, children with higher-than-average levels of the most commonly detected byproduct — found in roughly 6 in 10 kids — were nearly twice as likely to have ADHD.

“It’s not a small effect,” says Bouchard. “This is 100 percent more risk.”

To isolate the effect of the pesticide exposure on ADHD symptoms, the researchers controlled for a variety of health and demographic factors that could have skewed the results.

Still, the study had some limitations and is not definitive, Bouchard says. Most notably, she and her colleagues measured only one urine sample for each child, and therefore weren’t able to track whether the levels of pesticide byproducts were constant, or whether the association between exposure and ADHD changed over time.

Long-term studies including multiple urine samples from the same children are needed, Bouchard says. She suspects such studies would show an even stronger link between pesticide byproducts and ADHD.

EPA spokesman Dale Kemery said in a statement that the agency routinely reviews the safety of all pesticides, including organophosphates. “We are currently developing a framework to incorporate data from studies similar to this one into our risk assessment,” Kemery said. “We will look at this study and use the framework to decide how it fits into our overall risk assessment.”

Kemery recommended that parents try other pest-control tactics before resorting to pesticide use in the home or garden. Washing and peeling fruits and vegetables and eating “a varied diet” will also help reduce potential exposure to pesticides, he said.

“I would hope that this study raises awareness as to the risk associated with pesticide exposure,” Bouchard says. “There’s really only a handful of studies on this subject out there, so there’s room for more awareness.”

Malsapo, Inc.: “It’s Trendy to be a Human Party Popper”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Malsapo, Inc. on Morgellon’s Disease: “It’s Trendy to be a Human Party Popper”

Austin, Texas, May 14, 2010- In the face of criticism for a potential connection between genetically-modified (GM) foods and Morgellon’s disease Malsapo, Inc. asks, “Why is everyone so hard on Morgellon’s?”

Malsapo, Inc.’s Communications Director, Carina Parnapoulos, goes on to explain she believes everyone looks better with color. Morgellon’s disease, characterized by colored fibers which can poke out or explode from the skin, “adds art to the human body. I predict it will soon be trendy to be a human party popper.”

In addition to its colored fibers beneath the skin Morgellon’s disease is signified by pain and intense itching or sensations like insects crawling beneath the skin. While scientists and doctors do not agree on the causes, some researchers point the finger at GM foods. One study shows agro bacterium common in soils of GM crops to be present in all of its Morgellon’s-stricken research subjects, while none of the non-Morgellon’s subjects tested for this bacterium.

“We do not believe GM crops are to blame for this disease. We, at Malsapo, Inc., do not recognize the shoddy research which connects GM crops to any disease. True, some recent studies show GM corn causes organ damage in rats and fertility problems in mice, but we’re not buying those results. We’re not mice. We’re people, people! Just because they’re mammals, too, doesn’t mean GM corn is anything but healthy for us. We are bigger, after all.”

The twelfth largest corporation in the world, Malsapo, Incorporated is the agribusiness giant responsible for such past blunders as Agent Brown, which killed and injured hundreds of thousands; self-destructing “kamikaze seeds;” Asterzine, the pesticide which creates hermaphroditic frogs; dead zones in oceans and lakes; and illegal pesticide dumping in drinking water world-wide, leading to countless deaths and health problems.

“There is no reason to think our GM crops are anything but safe. Our mission statement says we’re trying to save whole countries from hunger, after all,” concludes Ms. Parnapoulos.

For more information about Morgellon’s disease or to make a donation, contact: www.morgellons.org/

Contact:
Kimbriel Dean, Writer
ApothecarysSong@yahoo.com

###

Kimbriel Dean is a writer for Adbongo, Inc. and recently released her novel, “The Apothecary’s Song,” available on barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com

Book Review: “The Apothecary’s Song” by Eric Jones

Thank you to bookreview.com‘s Eric Jones for the following review!

“The Apothecary’s Song,” by Kimbriel Dean
Reviewed by Eric Jones
Rating: Must Read

cover

I’ve read about all of the 2012 fiction that I can stand, so my first impression of books that centralize the theme of our appending apocalypse is not so much dread of the coming end, but dread of reading more about it. I’ve almost convinced myself that the Mayans invented the whole thing as a marketing campaign for conspiracy novels, Hollywood production kits, and nerds who live in basements. I try to remove this bias from my scope when considering new fiction, but I won’t lie. It’s difficult. This is why I wasn’t immediately roped in to Kimbriel Dean’s contribution to the popular genre, “The Apothecary’s Song”. Sorry, Kim. You didn’t rope me in until page 52, when Carina lazily begins eating rice crackers, and naively wonders if survival food will taste better. It was here that I realized that “The Apothecary’s Song” isn’t about 2012, but about our response to it. How incomprehensible it is for us to imagine a world without iPhones and 24-hour news channels, or even simple things like prescription glasses or supermarket milk.

Prior to page 52 (and although that was the page when my catharsis finally solidified, it had been slowly building since page 1. It always takes about fifty pages to really understand what the subject of a novel is. Normally by then, Aztec aliens have already sucked the brains of half our world leaders and are turning their attentions to the main character, and you think “oh, this is what I’m reading!”) it was Dean’s humorous approach that fixed me on her words. Her dialogue chimes the kind of truth you hear in diners and coffee shops rather than in literature, and her effervescent wit keeps the impending gut-wrenching global precipice at bay. You feel almost relaxed, even while being constantly reminded that the floor will soon drop out from under you and into a reigning pit of hellfire. Nice, huh?

You follow Carina’s journey into motherhood as it is mirrored by her similar journey into the new mega-corporation, Malsapo, creating a dichotomy that surrounds Carina and her husband, Pato. The angelic face of new life sits on one side of Carina’s heart, while the demon giant pulls her from the other. In this way, Dean approaches 2012 from a profoundly human perspective, approaching its myths with a practical regard for the present. Carina, faced with the possibility of the approaching end-of-days if forced to reconsider her typical American life in a new light. In this way, her story is much like Noah’s as he is promised of the coming flood. Does she take heed, and build her ark? Or does she join in with the others and laugh it off.

“The Apothecary’s Song” is poignant and smart. Her prose doesn’t limit itself to considering the way 2012 will come about, but widens its scope to the why. Her story is full of oddities in league with the everyday and mundane, the commonalities that we forget to consider, oh, and lots and lots of frogs. Her final question posits the reader in a position opposite of that of any other 2012 fiction I’ve read, leaving us to consider life rather than death. Did it really take the end of civilization for us to realize what it was worth in the first place? Kimbriel Dean suggest that this the question we should have been asking all along, not whether or not 2012 is a real phenomenon or not, but instead whether we will make the time we have left worth having. It’s a question that looks past the myth and sees the truth instead, a sign of true literary value and relevance, and worthy of anybody’s time to read.

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or barnesandnoble.com

Oil Spill Clean-up: How to Help

Now that the oil spill in the gulf coast has reached land, the effects are being felt in towns and cities across the area — this is in addition the local wildlife in both the land and sea that are dying by the thousands.

OIL SPILL BIRDS- AP photo

HuffPost Impact has compiled a list of ways you can help contribute to the cleanup and save local wildlife. Thanks to CrisisWiki for compiling this information.

• Oxfam America is working to help affected communities with financial assistance, as well as protect local wetlands and marshes. Make a tax-deductible donation to Oxfam America.
•You can register through oilspillvolunteers.com to volunteer or join a cleanup organization.
•The BP Volunteer Hotline has set up numbers if you need to report injured wildlife or damage related to the spill. You can also request volunteer information at 866-448-5816.
•The Oiled Wildlife Care Network is providing volunteer information, though help from private citizens is not being requested at this time.
•Global Green plans to spend the coming months working to protect injured wildlife and to lobby Congress to enforce tougher regulations on the oil and coal industries. Volunteer with Global Green or donate to support these efforts.
•The National Audubon Society is asking concerned citizens to donate or volunteer. Sign up to get trained and volunteer to help local birds.
•CrisisCamp set up a conference call for Friday afternoon — follow the notes of this meeting, containing volunteer information with nonprofits and information from government organizations. You can also follow the CrisisCamp oil spill Twitter list for updates.
•The National Wildlife Federation has a message you can send to President Obama to urge restoration of Louisiana’s Coastal Wetlands. They’re also asking for residents to upload photos to flickr and tag them SPILL_NW10.
•Matter of Trust is organizing a collection of human hair and other materials used to soak up oil spills. You can mail in your donation of hair, furs and nylons to aid clean-up missions in the Gulf Coast.

from: huffingtonpost.com

The Oceans Are Trashed…

Here’s a wonderful reason to buy biodegradable, whether or not you believe in human-caused climate change: the oceans are trashed.

It doesn’t matter if climate change is a conspiracy. It doesn’t matter if environmental protection has traditionally fallen within left-wing territory.

The mountains of swirling trash accumulating in the oceans is one of many concrete reasons (or plastic reason, to be more precise) to buy biodegradable products. It’s not about beliefs or philosophies or politics. It’s simply trash.

Plastic Soup in The Atlantic- April 15 news

Buy The Apothecarys Song

Malsapo, Inc. Claims Wrinkle-Fighting Blueberries Are “Fountain of Youth”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Facelift in a Spoon: Malsapo’s “Wrinkle-Fighting Blueberries” Let Retirees Pass as College Students

Austin, Texas, March 18, 2010- Let the party begin. Today the FPA approved Malsapo, Incorporated’s “wrinkle-fighting blueberries.” Malsapo, Inc. claims their research subjects- women over the age of 55 with no cosmetic surgeries- were able to pass as college co-eds at frat parties all over California.

“Essentially we have transformed your breakfast table into the fountain of youth. Put our little blue army of wrinkle-fighters on your cereal in the morning and wade backwards through time,” says Malsapo Inc.’s Communications Director, Carina Parnapoulos. “We know you dream of Ashton. Now you can be Demi.”

The twelfth largest corporation in the world, Malsapo, Incorporated is the agribusiness giant responsible for such past blunders as Agent Brown, which killed and injured hundreds of thousands; self-destructing “kamikaze seeds;” Asterzine, the pesticide which creates hermaphroditic frogs; dead zones in oceans and lakes; and illegal pesticide dumping in drinking water world-wide, leading to countless deaths and health problems.

However, Malsapo, Inc. promises this age-smashing berry is safe and “so there is absolutely no reason to think they’ll do anything to you except what we claim they’ll do,” says Ms. Parnapoulos.

Ms. Parnapoulos explains the berries are all natural. “Scientists simply spliced and combined genes from antioxidant-rich blueberries, acai, wheatgrass, and pomegranates, added essential fatty acids from salmon, and added a few additional power-boosting ingredients.” Asked if all natural is the same as organic, she replied, “I didn’t mean all natural in that way. I meant the list of ingredients for these blueberries only contains foods or food-related items.”

Contact:
Kimbriel Dean, Writer
Adbongo, Inc.
kimbrield@yahoo.com
www.adbongo.com

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New York City’s First Rooftop Hydroponic Farm To Yield 30 Tons Of Produce Annually

It seems city farming in New York is all the rage these days. Just a few steps from the Long Island Rail Road’s Jamaica Station, a church’s rooftop will soon transform into New York’s first hydroponic rooftop farm. At least, that is the hopes of a startup called Gotham Greens.

Winners of the grand prize at New York’s Green Business Competition, they plan to start construction of the 12,000 square-foot greenhouse this fall and yield their first harvest early next year. The project, with an estimated cost of $1.4 million, will be powered by 2,000 square-feet of solar panels and will capture rainwater for irrigation.

In fact, the project’s energy-savings potential even garnished them a $400,000 grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

“We are trying to demonstrate that sustainable, urban agriculture can be economically viable in the city,” said the company’s greenhouse director, Jennifer Nelkin, 30.

The water-based, soil-free farm is expected to yield roughly 30 tons of fruits and vegetables each year. To remain competitive, the company will deliver their own produce via biodiesel-based vans. Delivery services usually cost farmers a markup of 10% to 15%.

Photo by NY Daily News

Nelkin and company’s managing director, Viraj Puri, met at the New York Sun Works nonprofit. There they helped develop the Science Barge, a hydroponic greenhouse built atop…well, a barge.

Photo by NYBTA

Benefits of hydroponics include the elimination of fertilizer and pesticide runoff, a leading cause of global water pollution according to Puri.

“The biggest challenge that we are facing right now is not the technology – we know the technology,” Nelkin said. “It’s moving this technology into the city.”

Their first customer is Whole Foods–70% of the produce will go to its New York stores–but Gotham Greens also hopes to deliver produce to farmer’s markets around the city.

by Jerry James Stone

Alfalfa… Ayurveda

 

ALFALFA HERB

In Ayurveda, alfalfa is mostly used for curing kidneys, anemia, peptic ulcers, fatigue, pituitary problems, bowel & urinary problems, and building general health. It can also used for treating alcohol and narcotic addiction & for retaining water in the body.

Doshas: Pitta-, Kapha-, Vatta+

Good for: plasma and blood tissues, circulatory and urinary systems

Indications: ulcers, edema, arthritis, vitamin or mineral deficiency

Preparation: infusion, powder (250 mg to 1 gram)

Precautions: high Vata

Alfalfa contains calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and potassium plus almost all vitamins. High in chlorophyll. Combines well with dandelion, horsetail, nettles and parsley. Its action is cleansing and detoxifying. Drying effect may aggravate Vata. Mild blood purifier and good general beverage for Pitta and, to a lesser degree, Kapha.

From “The Yoga of Herbs,” by Dr. David Frawley and Dr. Vasant Lad

Disclaimer: All of the information contained within this blog is for entertainment or informational purposes only. Do not attempt to prescribe treatments for medical conditions based on the information gathered here.

For more information about my book, visit: The Apothecarys Song