Someday, people will stare in amazement at a photo like the following. “How could they live like that? What are those things?” In the meantime, for someone’s profit, we accept a needle thrust in our eyes time and time again.
Now, isn’t that better? Why do we have to work our way around the ugliness? Beauty makes life better. What does ugly do?
For Walking Raven.
Goodreads | Quote of the Day for February 26, 2013
“He never went out without a book under his arm, and he often came back with two.”
? Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Which does the Food Industry value more: your health or its profits?
Beyond BVO (Brominated Vegetable Oil) In Food Products | Fooducate
[Brominated Vegetable Oil] was an ingredient that raised red flags back in the 70s and was only allowed to stay on the market pending further studies, which weren’t done. Those original studies from the 70s showed that bromine builds up in fatty tissues and that rats ingesting large quantities of BVO developed heart lesions. So a compelling case could be made for why BVO should have, at some point, been unceremonious yanked from the food supply.
It’s not the only suspicious ingredient. There are other additives with dodgy safety records and that are still being used in popular foods. The preservative BHA (short for butylated hydroxyanisole) is the best (or worst) example. It is considered a “probable carcinogen” by the Health and Human Services Department and yet found in DiGiorno pizza, McDonald’s breakfast sausages and steak, and some varieties of Tang and Kool-Aid.
A “probable carcinogen” in Tang and Kool-Aid. Good thing those aren’t kids’ drinks.
There’s also the related BHT, which is more widely used and thought to be safer but was flagged for further study in the last systematic review the FDA did of food additives, which ended in 1980. Azodicarbonamide, a manufacturing aide in Subway’s and Sara Lee’s bread, among others, was found in recent tests to break down into the carcinogen semicarbazide when heated. The fat preservative TBHQ has been linked to convulsions, liver enlargement and precursors to stomach tumors in animals.
I mention all this not to scare anyone, but to point out how murky and broken the system of food additive regulation has become. There are no less than 5,000 substances that can be added directly to food (another 3,750 chemicals are used in manufacturing and they may or may not migrate into your lunch), yet there is no database or central place where you can find a list of them.
Beyond BVO (Brominated Vegetable Oil) In Food Products | Fooducate
E.J. Dionne Jr.: The miracle on guns – The Washington Post
Suddenly, Americans in large numbers (and the media, too) started noticing how extreme, even wacky, the rhetoric of the gun manufacturers’ lobby has become. Its talk about representing the “real America” was exposed as a fraud: “Real” Americans don’t resist pragmatic solutions to the problems of mass violence.
Oh, yes, and it was also finally noticed that a majority of Americans doesn’t own guns, that gun ownership has dropped over time and that this real majority does not want to be forced to live in a world in which everyone is terrorized into buying a weapon.
» Conscience gets the best of some conservatives on Medicaid | ABQ Journal By Dana Milbank / Syndicated Columnist on Sun, Feb 24, 2013
In Florida, the dwindling band of tea-partyers was furious with Scott, calling him a “Benedict Arnold.” But the cause he supposedly betrayed has already lost. After following the tea-party agenda over the last two years, Scott has the support of just one in three Floridians.
Now he’s acting like a competent executive. He said he would evaluate the expansion over time and decide whether changes should be made. That’s a great idea. It’s too bad the law’s opponents wasted three years hollering about socialism and tyranny.
Scott argued that the Supreme Court and the 2012 election made Obamacare inescapable, but he also made a personal appeal for the expansion. The recent death of his mother gave him “a new perspective,” he said. “I thought about my mom’s struggles raising five children with very little money. I remember my mom’s heartbreak when she struggled to find health care for my brother … I don’t want any parent to worry like my mom did.”
“My top priority continues to be to make Florida the global leader for job creation,” the tea-party traitor said. “But we also have to be sensitive to the needs of the poorest and the weakest among us who struggle to access affordable, high-quality health care.”
Barack Obama couldn’t have said it better himself.
» Conscience gets the best of some conservatives on Medicaid | ABQ Journal
mjhinton posted a photo:
Plus mute swans and more:
» Birding near Alameda, New Mexico by mark justice hinton (a photoblog)
bit.ly/13zf8mW
mjhinton posted a photo:
Plus mute swans and more:
» Birding near Alameda, New Mexico by mark justice hinton (a photoblog)
bit.ly/13zf8mW