Recently Seen in Supermarkets Across Europe

Change the World Wednesday – 27th Feb

I got the hint from SF in her CTWW round-up that my beer had less than the required six ingredients…

So assuaging all vestiges of guilt.

Panic attack over, I have no fear of purgatory.

Last night’s dinner was a left over. The previous day I had cooked some chicken pieces in a cream sauce. A simple as recipe:

• ½kg (1lb) diced chicken
• Olive oil for frying
• Chopped Parsley
• Chicken stock cube
• Fry that lot off until golden.
• Add fresh cream (in that it comes in a box)
• Healthy splash of soya sauce

Done, eat and enjoy.

It makes enough for two, so when cool put the rest in the fridge for a quick reheat like last night when I arrived home at 9pm.

Click image for full post

This week’s CTWW, hmmm, soap?

This week review the body soap you are currently using. Please include such information as how the product performs, how it was packaged and the ingredients. Perhaps do a little research on the ingredients to determine if they are all environmentally and personally safe. You may include the name of the soap or not … your choice. You may also post your review on any platform, including a comment here. The idea is for us to take an honest look at the soap we’re using and share information so that we all learn.

I categorically refuse to buy anything packaged like this

My criteria for buying soap is simple: cheap!

I usually buy what is on special and I have given scant regard as to what’s in it. It’s an area that I have never considered.

The brands are usually Lux or Plamolive; I’m not fussy about brands. Currently they run around R$.89 cents a cake (USD.45c+/-). Anything over R$1 is off limits, I have said that I live frugally, and I refuse to spend a fortune on such things as soap.

My soap comes in a wrapper and I won’t consider these hand dispensers and anything like plastic tubes. They are expensive and a total waste of natural resources. My opinion is that they should be banned.

But what is in my soap?

Good question… next! (My answer to everything my students ask that I don’t have an immediate answer for).

What are the ingredients for Palmolive Original?

Sodium Tallowate, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Aqua, Sodium Palmate, Parfum, Sodium Chloride, Glycerin, Titanium Dioxide, Elaeis Guineensis, Olea Europaea, Pentasodium Pentetate, Cellulose Gum, Tetradibutyl Pentaerithrityl Hydroxyhydrocinnamate. – Answers.com

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OMG, just look at that list!

Sodium Tallowate – is the saponified beef tallow. Saponification: To convert (a fat or oil) into soap. Free Dictionary

Sodium Palm Kernelate – This is a natural salt derived from palm kernel oil, which is in turn derived from the kernels (seeds) of the oil palm.

Aqua – I can’t find anything but a band called Aqua. (Music is crap, songs like I’m a Barbie Girl)

Sodium palmitate – Is commonly obtained by saponification of palm oil. To this end, palm oil, rendered from the coconut palm nut.

Parfum – Perfume (non-specific)

Sodium Chloride – Salt

Glycerin – Glycerol

Titanium Dioxide – whitening agent (There are some health concerns)

Elaeis guineensis – is a species of palm commonly called African oil palm or macaw-fat. It is the principal source of palm oil.

Olea Europaea – Olive oil

Pentasodium Pentetate – a chelating agent used in cosmetics and beauty products “prevent various mineral components from binding together and negatively affecting the formulation” (Source).

Cellulose Gum – a stabilising agent (Safe)

Tetradibutyl Pentaerithrityl Hydroxyhydrocinnamate – an anti-oxidant, considered low risk, used in many cosmetics.

So there doesn’t seem to be anything sinister in the soap base that I use; despite some evil sounding names, get a load of that last one, the name is almost a complete sentence.

The most evil aspect is the proliferation of ‘palm oils’ used. The extraction of palm oils is one of the major causes of deforestation in places like Africa and Indonesia.

What is the problem with palm oil?

Palm oil only grows in the tropics, where, if cultivated in an unsustainable way, it can have negative impacts on people and the environment. These include indiscriminate forest clearing, habitat loss for threatened and endangered species, poor air quality from burning forests and peatlands, and threats to the rights and interests of local communities. – WWF

I imagine that it would be difficult to find a soap, unless homemade, that doesn’t have palm oil or palm kernel oil.

But the exercise has been enlightening, I am now more aware of what I am washing with.

Herbs Grow Up!

Stumbled on to this vertical herb garden. What a great idea. Saves space too.

Check out more on Design Squish blog.

Monday Moaning

We’ve screwed up big time!

Drugs, chemicals, additives to food, cosmetics and medicines are all fine when they go ‘in’, but what happens when they go ‘out’?

Anxiety drug found in rivers changes fish behaviour

Normally shy perch became bolder and more independent when exposed to a drug called oxazepam for treating anxiety

The effect of the drug on European perch (above) was similar to its effect on people, with potential evolutionary and ecological impacts. Photograph: Alamy

Drugs to treat anxiety in people may alter the behaviour of fish when the chemicals are flushed into rivers, according to scientists. Swedish researchers found that European perch exposed to tiny concentrations of a drug became less sociable, ate more and became more adventurous – all changes in behaviour that could have unexpected ecological impacts on fish populations.

When scientists at Umeå University in Sweden screened rivers for pharmaceuticals they found that a drug for treating anxiety, called oxazepam, was accumulating in fish. Many drugs and other synthetic chemicals used by humans in everything from pesticides to cosmetics can pass through waste water treatment and end up in wildlife, potentially accumulating to toxic levels.

But until now scientists had never studied the behavioural impacts of small quantities of contaminants. Tomas Brodin led a team that mimicked in the lab the concentrations of oxazepam found in the wild – around a microgram per kilogram of fish body weight – and watched for changes in how bold, sociable and active the fish were.

“Normally, perch are shy and hunt in schools,” said Brodin. “This is a known strategy for survival and growth. But those who swim in oxazepam became considerably bolder.”

The results are published this week in Science and were announced at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston.

Jonatan Klaminder, an ecologist at Umeå University and an author of the paper, said the effect of the drug on fish was similar to its effect on people. “What the drug does is remove some of the fear that the very small fish experience,” he said. “[They] become less interested in staying close with others – staying close to others is a well-known defence system to avoid predators. They become less afraid of exploring new areas, so they just go out to search for food and become more effective in finding and consuming food.”

This change in behaviour could have evolutionary consequences. Adventurous or antisocial fish are more likely to be eaten by larger fishes but are also the ones that will explore new areas and, over time, alter the genetic diversity of future populations.

The solution, according to the researchers, is not to stop medicating people who need drugs such as oxazepam but to improve sewage treatment plants to capture the drugs and reduce their contamination of water systems in the wild.

The research also has implications for the way ecologists monitor pollutants in the environment, said Klaminder. “We’re still deeply rooted in what a pollutant is and it goes back to the 1970s and 1980s where we had heavy rain, acid rain, organic pollutants that definitely cause harm and physiological effects. When it comes to drugs, there is a new area of contamination research that doesn’t really fit with this old conceptual view.” Focusing on the potential negative physiological impacts of an environmental contaminant could miss the subtle behavioural changes that may also occur.

He added: “Hopefully it will make researchers rethink what they are looking for.”

Check the links here

Opinion:

How much of this drug is being passed on to humans? Will we too become emboldened, will our behaviours change? Have our behaviours already changed?

What goes in, must comes out… and not all of it is treated; as a result we are polluting the waterways of the world worse than we thought.

Every time you pee or crap, the chemicals that you have used/consumed are passing directly into the planetary water system.

So you may think you are buying or eating organic, but the reality is that your precious organic products are tainted and poisoned by the very water that you think makes them organic.

What other chemicals are we passing on to people through the food chain?

Just think, every time you clean your face after you’ve used makeup, the gunk goes down the drain… and into the sewerage system… Is it treated, or does it just pass right on into the rivers and estuaries? We already know that many cosmetic products have harmful chemicals.

We’ve screwed up big time!

 

Nature Ramble

This week we are going for a look at cats…

Yes, but look at the size of the cats, they’re not your average moggy.

“Kevin Richardson, animal behaviorist, works with some of the most dangerous animals known to man. He sleeps with lions, cuddles newborn hyenas and swims with lionesses.” The Lion Whisperer

Source: Glenn Folkes, thanks for the heads up

Visit Kevin Richardson – The Lion Whisperer site

Even though I am a dedicated cat person, I am not even close to this guy’s league. Oh, to have this dom (gift).

Amazing.

I saw this during the week and was fascinated by the playfulness of the big cats, just thought I would share it with you.

Satireday on Eco-Crap

Make you Fink on Friday

Grant Cornett for The New York Times

On the evening of April 8, 1999, a long line of Town Cars and taxis pulled up to the Minneapolis headquarters of Pillsbury and discharged 11 men who controlled America’s largest food companies. Nestlé was in attendance, as were Kraft and Nabisco, General Mills and Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and Mars. Rivals any other day, the C.E.O.’s and company presidents had come together for a rare, private meeting. On the agenda was one item: the emerging obesity epidemic and how to deal with it. While the atmosphere was cordial, the men assembled were hardly friends. Their stature was defined by their skill in fighting one another for what they called “stomach share” — the amount of digestive space that any one company’s brand can grab from the competition.

More in the Magazine »

James Behnke, a 55-year-old executive at Pillsbury, greeted the men as they arrived. He was anxious but also hopeful about the plan that he and a few other food-company executives had devised to engage the C.E.O.’s on America’s growing weight problem. “We were very concerned, and rightfully so, that obesity was becoming a major issue,” Behnke recalled. “People were starting to talk about sugar taxes, and there was a lot of pressure on food companies.” Getting the company chiefs in the same room to talk about anything, much less a sensitive issue like this, was a tricky business, so Behnke and his fellow organizers had scripted the meeting carefully, honing the message to its barest essentials. “C.E.O.’s in the food industry are typically not technical guys, and they’re uncomfortable going to meetings where technical people talk in technical terms about technical things,” Behnke said. “They don’t want to be embarrassed. They don’t want to make commitments. They want to maintain their aloofness and autonomy.”

Grant Cornett for The New York Times; Prop Stylist: Janine Iversen

A chemist by training with a doctoral degree in food science, Behnke became Pillsbury’s chief technical officer in 1979 and was instrumental in creating a long line of hit products, including microwaveable popcorn. He deeply admired Pillsbury but in recent years had grown troubled by pictures of obese children suffering from diabetes and the earliest signs of hypertension and heart disease. In the months leading up to the C.E.O. meeting, he was engaged in conversation with a group of food-science experts who were painting an increasingly grim picture of the public’s ability to cope with the industry’s formulations — from the body’s fragile controls on overeating to the hidden power of some processed foods to make people feel hungrier still. It was time, he and a handful of others felt, to warn the C.E.O.’s that their companies may have gone too far in creating and marketing products that posed the greatest health concerns.

The discussion took place in Pillsbury’s auditorium. The first speaker was a vice president of Kraft named Michael Mudd. “I very much appreciate this opportunity to talk to you about childhood obesity and the growing challenge it presents for us all,” Mudd began. “Let me say right at the start, this is not an easy subject. There are no easy answers — for what the public health community must do to bring this problem under control or for what the industry should do as others seek to hold it accountable for what has happened. But this much is clear: For those of us who’ve looked hard at this issue, whether they’re public health professionals or staff specialists in your own companies, we feel sure that the one thing we shouldn’t do is nothing.”

As he spoke, Mudd clicked through a deck of slides — 114 in all — projected on a large screen behind him. The figures were staggering. More than half of American adults were now considered overweight, with nearly one-quarter of the adult population — 40 million people — clinically defined as obese. Among children, the rates had more than doubled since 1980, and the number of kids considered obese had shot past 12 million. (This was still only 1999; the nation’s obesity rates would climb much higher.) Food manufacturers were now being blamed for the problem from all sides — academia, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society. The secretary of agriculture, over whom the industry had long held sway, had recently called obesity a “national epidemic.”

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Mudd then did the unthinkable. He drew a connection to the last thing in the world the C.E.O.’s wanted linked to their products: cigarettes. First came a quote from a Yale University professor of psychology and public health, Kelly Brownell, who was an especially vocal proponent of the view that the processed-food industry should be seen as a public health menace: “As a culture, we’ve become upset by the tobacco companies advertising to children, but we sit idly by while the food companies do the very same thing. And we could make a claim that the toll taken on the public health by a poor diet rivals that taken by tobacco.”

  Source: The New York Times Magazine Read more

We used to have food

Change the World Wednesday – 20th Feb

Passionfruit juice, although I usually skip the decanter and serve straight from the blender, the advantage of living alone – image: Green Kitchen Stories

The year is marching on. It does so relentlessly.

The house has returned to normal, the dishes done after three attempts to clear the bench. BBQs do seem to make more than their share of dishes.

My passionfruit vines have produced more fruit. Tons of flowers, but so many failed to be pollinated. But there will be enough for a couple of big juices (2x ingredients- juice & sugar; does ice count as an ingredient?).

So, I had a good fridge clean out.

I must thank Small Footprints for the Monday Moaning post that got selected for mention-in-despatches last week, very much appreciated.

Click for the full post

On with this week’s challenge.

This week, buy only foods with 6 or fewer ingredients. Here’s a tip … shop the perimeter of the store rather than the center isles … you’ll find more options. Want to kick this challenge up even further? Be sure that high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils aren’t in the food you choose … they are really “bad for you” substances. And if you have access to the information, choose non-GMO foods.

I rarely buy prepared foods, sometimes a bottle of ketchup or my beloved Lea & Perrin’s Worcestershire Sauce, which certainly have more than six ingredients. I have been known to slip the odd frozen lasagne in for the freezer. I like to have one on hand to heat in the oven if I arrive home late from work; who wants to begin cooking at 9pm?

I mainly buy meat, fish, etc and veges and cook them at home in preference to ready made stuff.

I don’t use cooking oil, rather I use banha (lard) and I prefer butter to margarine, although I have both in the house; the latter for convenience is used rarely.

HFCS and GMOs are on mylist of pet hates. It goes without saying that I have no ‘diet’, ‘light’, or ‘low cholesterol’ things in my house, therefore there is no aspartame either. I have in the past bought syrups to make cordial, but I have stopped that, because they have HFCS. The only drink that I buy now is agua com gas (sparkling mineral water). I refuse to buy water without gas, because that is ‘free’ from the tap in the kitchen via the freezer. So drinks like Pepsi, Coca-Cola, etc are also a no-no for me.

I am sure beer has more than six ingredients, but asking to give that up for an entire week would be like purgatory, and I’ve been a good boy, mostly.

Besides the weather here has been so hot and we’ve had no rain for more than a month.

So this challenge is not so much a challenge to me, more like my regular shopping.

Blogging right along, I’ll see you next week.

Horsemeat and Codswallop

One amongst many tainted brands

The current horsemeat scandal does not surprise me.

It was inevitable.

A number of factors caused it, principally the need for cheaper meat and those willing to subvert the law to provide it. The EU (European Union) and it’s method of supplying products freely over borders. Governments cutting costs with less health inspectors and monitoring. The decline in local butcher’s shops in favour of the corporate level supermarket.

We need to buy frozen meals at the supermarket

Lastly, and probably the biggest factor, our need to have meals prepared and frozen…

…because we are to damned lazy to cook at home!

Largely, we ourselves are to blame.

I have touted, for a long time, the need to return to the old ways. This is a prime example of why.

The governments have regulated that you can only buy meat from corporate slaughter houses and abattoirs. Another case of the ‘milk’ story, it’s because of your health.

Codswallop!

It’s because of corporate wealth!

For centuries we have grown our own animals for consumption and survived; and now the government comes along and says you can’t.

I know that because most of live in cities, it’s impractical to raise big beasts for the household, but we can seriously look at supporting our local butcher. Most are pretty reputable types, those that aren’t soon lose their custom.

We have been eating horsemeat for years. There is nothing wrong with horsemeat. The problem is that horses can/may have been treated with phenylbutazone. Therein lies the problem.

“In the United States and United Kingdom, it is no longer approved for human use, as it can cause severe adverse effects such as suppression of white blood cell production and aplastic anemia.” – Wikipedia

If horses were raised for human consumption, then they would not be treated and the meat itself perfectly okay, apart from peoples’ aversion to eating such a ‘noble’ animal.

We eat almost anything else, but suddenly the world starts gagging collectively over horsemeat.

We call meat from cattle beef, sheep meat is called mutton, pig is pork, deer is venison; if only we had a fancy name for horse, would it be more acceptable? Perhaps if we used the French, viande de chevaline, there’s a nice name, it would lessen the stigma.